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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/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..dd18bca --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60339 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60339) diff --git a/old/60339-0.txt b/old/60339-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e601fad..0000000 --- a/old/60339-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7867 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Visible and Invisible, by E. F. (Edward -Frederic) Benson - - -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: Visible and Invisible - - -Author: E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson - - - -Release Date: September 22, 2019 [eBook #60339] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE*** - - -E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images digitized by the -Google Books Library Project (http://books.google.com) and generously made -available by HathiTrust Digital Library (https://www.hathitrust.org/) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - HathiTrust Digital Library. See - https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008921437 - - -Transcriber’s note: - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - - - - -VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE - -by - -E. F. BENSON . . Author of - -“Dodo Wonders,” “Miss Mapp,” “Colin,” etc. :: :: - - - - - - -London: Hutchinson and Co. -Paternoster Row, E.C. - -Printed in Great Britain -at the Pitman Press, Bath - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - “AND THE DEAD SPAKE----” 7 - - THE OUTCAST 37 - - THE HORROR-HORN 63 - - MACHAON 83 - - NEGOTIUM PERAMBULANS 107 - - AT THE FARMHOUSE 131 - - INSCRUTABLE DECREES 155 - - THE GARDENER 177 - - MR. TILLY’S SÉANCE 199 - - MRS. AMWORTH 223 - - IN THE TUBE 247 - - RODERICK’S STORY 269 - - - - -“And the Dead Spake----” - - - - -“And the Dead Spake----” - - -There is not in all London a quieter spot, or one, apparently, more -withdrawn from the heat and bustle of life than Newsome Terrace. It is -a cul-de-sac, for at the upper end the roadway between its two lines -of square, compact little residences is brought to an end by a high -brick wall, while at the lower end, the only access to it is through -Newsome Square, that small discreet oblong of Georgian houses, a relic -of the time when Kensington was a suburban village sundered from the -metropolis by a stretch of pastures stretching to the river. Both -square and terrace are most inconveniently situated for those whose -ideal environment includes a rank of taxicabs immediately opposite -their door, a spate of ’buses roaring down the street, and a procession -of underground trains, accessible by a station a few yards away, -shaking and rattling the cutlery and silver on their dining tables. In -consequence Newsome Terrace had come, two years ago, to be inhabited -by leisurely and retired folk or by those who wished to pursue their -work in quiet and tranquillity. Children with hoops and scooters are -phenomena rarely encountered in the Terrace and dogs are equally -uncommon. - -In front of each of the couple of dozen houses of which the Terrace -is composed lies a little square of railinged garden, in which you -may often see the middle-aged or elderly mistress of the residence -horticulturally employed. By five o’clock of a winter’s evening -the pavements will generally be empty of all passengers except the -policeman, who with felted step, at intervals throughout the night, -peers with his bull’s-eye into these small front gardens, and never -finds anything more suspicious there than an early crocus or an -aconite. For by the time it is dark the inhabitants of the Terrace have -got themselves home, where behind drawn curtains and bolted shutters -they will pass a domestic and uninterrupted evening. No funeral (up to -the time I speak of) had I ever seen leave the Terrace, no marriage -party had strewed its pavements with confetti, and perambulators were -unknown. It and its inhabitants seemed to be quietly mellowing like -bottles of sound wine. No doubt there was stored within them the -sunshine and summer of youth long past, and now, dozing in a cool -place, they waited for the turn of the key in the cellar door, and the -entry of one who would draw them forth and see what they were worth. - -Yet, after the time of which I shall now speak, I have never -passed down its pavement without wondering whether each house, so -seemingly-tranquil, is not, like some dynamo, softly and smoothly -bringing into being vast and terrible forces, such as those I once -saw at work in the last house at the upper end of the Terrace, the -quietest, you would have said, of all the row. Had you observed it with -continuous scrutiny, for all the length of a summer day, it is quite -possible that you might have only seen issue from it in the morning -an elderly woman whom you would have rightly conjectured to be the -housekeeper, with her basket for marketing on her arm, who returned -an hour later. Except for her the entire day might often pass without -there being either ingress or egress from the door. Occasionally a -middle-aged man, lean and wiry, came swiftly down the pavement, but -his exit was by no means a daily occurrence, and indeed when he did -emerge, he broke the almost universal usage of the Terrace, for his -appearances took place, when such there were, between nine and ten in -the evening. At that hour sometimes he would come round to my house -in Newsome Square to see if I was at home and inclined for a talk a -little later on. For the sake of air and exercise he would then have an -hour’s tramp through the lit and noisy streets, and return about ten, -still pale and unflushed, for one of those talks which grew to have -an absorbing fascination for me. More rarely through the telephone I -proposed that I should drop in on him: this I did not often do, since I -found that if he did not come out himself, it implied that he was busy -with some investigation, and though he made me welcome, I could easily -see that he burned for my departure, so that he might get busy with his -batteries and pieces of tissue, hot on the track of discoveries that -never yet had presented themselves to the mind of man as coming within -the horizon of possibility. - -My last sentence may have led the reader to guess that I am indeed -speaking of none other than that recluse and mysterious physicist Sir -James Horton, with whose death a hundred half-hewn avenues into the -dark forest from which life comes must wait completion till another -pioneer as bold as he takes up the axe which hitherto none but -himself has been able to wield. Probably there was never a man to whom -humanity owed more, and of whom humanity knew less. He seemed utterly -independent of the race to whom (though indeed with no service of love) -he devoted himself: for years he lived aloof and apart in his house -at the end of the Terrace. Men and women were to him like fossils to -the geologist, things to be tapped and hammered and dissected and -studied with a view not only to the reconstruction of past ages, but -to construction in the future. It is known, for instance, that he made -an artificial being formed of the tissue, still living, of animals -lately killed, with the brain of an ape and the heart of a bullock, -and a sheep’s thyroid, and so forth. Of that I can give no first-hand -account; Horton, it is true, told me something about it, and in his -will directed that certain memoranda on the subject should on his death -be sent to me. But on the bulky envelope there is the direction, “Not -to be opened till January, 1925.” He spoke with some reserve and, so I -think, with slight horror at the strange things which had happened on -the completion of this creature. It evidently made him uncomfortable -to talk about it, and for that reason I fancy he put what was then a -rather remote date to the day when his record should reach my eye. -Finally, in these preliminaries, for the last five years before the -war, he had scarcely entered, for the sake of companionship, any -house other than his own and mine. Ours was a friendship dating from -school-days, which he had never suffered to drop entirely, but I doubt -if in those years he spoke except on matters of business to half a -dozen other people. He had already retired from surgical practice in -which his skill was unapproached, and most completely now did he avoid -the slightest intercourse with his colleagues, whom he regarded as -ignorant pedants without courage or the rudiments of knowledge. Now -and then he would write an epoch-making little monograph, which he -flung to them like a bone to a starving dog, but for the most part, -utterly absorbed in his own investigations, he left them to grope along -unaided. He frankly told me that he enjoyed talking to me about such -subjects, since I was utterly unacquainted with them. It clarified his -mind to be obliged to put his theories and guesses and confirmations -with such simplicity that anyone could understand them. - -I well remember his coming in to see me on the evening of the 4th of -August, 1914. - -“So the war has broken out,” he said, “and the streets are impassable -with excited crowds. Odd, isn’t it? Just as if each of us already was -not a far more murderous battlefield than any which can be conceived -between warring nations.” - -“How’s that?” said I. - -“Let me try to put it plainly, though it isn’t that I want to talk -about. Your blood is one eternal battlefield. It is full of armies -eternally marching and counter-marching. As long as the armies friendly -to you are in a superior position, you remain in good health; if a -detachment of microbes that, if suffered to establish themselves, -would give you a cold in the head, entrench themselves in your mucous -membrane, the commander-in-chief sends a regiment down and drives them -out. He doesn’t give his orders from your brain, mind you--those aren’t -his headquarters, for your brain knows nothing about the landing of the -enemy till they have made good their position and given you a cold.” - -He paused a moment. - -“There isn’t one headquarters inside you,” he said, “there are many. -For instance, I killed a frog this morning; at least most people would -say I killed it. But had I killed it, though its head lay in one place -and its severed body in another? Not a bit: I had only killed a piece -of it. For I opened the body afterwards and took out the heart, which -I put in a sterilised chamber of suitable temperature, so that it -wouldn’t get cold or be infected by any microbe. That was about twelve -o’clock to-day. And when I came out just now, the heart was beating -still. It was alive, in fact. That’s full of suggestions, you know. -Come and see it.” - -The Terrace had been stirred into volcanic activity by the news of war: -the vendor of some late edition had penetrated into its quietude, and -there were half a dozen parlour-maids fluttering about like black and -white moths. But once inside Horton’s door isolation as of an Arctic -night seemed to close round me. He had forgotten his latch-key, but -his housekeeper, then newly come to him, who became so regular and -familiar a figure in the Terrace, must have heard his step, for before -he rang the bell she had opened the door, and stood with his forgotten -latch-key in her hand. - -“Thanks, Mrs. Gabriel,” said he, and without a sound the door shut -behind us. Both her name and face, as reproduced in some illustrated -daily paper, seemed familiar, rather terribly familiar, but before I -had time to grope for the association, Horton supplied it. - -“Tried for the murder of her husband six months ago,” he said. “Odd -case. The point is that she is the one and perfect housekeeper. I once -had four servants, and everything was all mucky, as we used to say -at school. Now I live in amazing comfort and propriety with one. She -does everything. She is cook, valet, housemaid, butler, and won’t have -anyone to help her. No doubt she killed her husband, but she planned it -so well that she could not be convicted. She told me quite frankly who -she was when I engaged her.” - -Of course I remembered the whole trial vividly now. Her husband, a -morose, quarrelsome fellow, tipsy as often as sober, had, according -to the defence cut his own throat while shaving; according to the -prosecution, she had done that for him. There was the usual discrepancy -of evidence as to whether the wound could have been self-inflicted, -and the prosecution tried to prove that the face had been lathered -after his throat had been cut. So singular an exhibition of forethought -and nerve had hurt rather than helped their case, and after prolonged -deliberation on the part of the jury, she had been acquitted. Yet not -less singular was Horton’s selection of a probable murderess, however -efficient, as housekeeper. - -He anticipated this reflection. - -“Apart from the wonderful comfort of having a perfectly appointed and -absolutely silent house,” he said, “I regard Mrs. Gabriel as a sort -of insurance against my being murdered. If you had been tried for -your life, you would take very especial care not to find yourself in -suspicious proximity to a murdered body again: no more deaths in your -house, if you could help it. Come through to my laboratory, and look at -my little instance of life after death.” - -Certainly it was amazing to see that little piece of tissue still -pulsating with what must be called life; it contracted and expanded -faintly indeed but perceptibly, though for nine hours now it had been -severed from the rest of the organisation. All by itself it went on -living, and if the heart could go on living with nothing, you would -say, to feed and stimulate its energy, there must also, so reasoned -Horton, reside in all the other vital organs of the body other -independent focuses of life. - -“Of course a severed organ like that,” he said, “will run down quicker -than if it had the co-operation of the others, and presently I shall -apply a gentle electric stimulus to it. If I can keep that glass bowl -under which it beats at the temperature of a frog’s body, in sterilised -air, I don’t see why it should not go on living. Food--of course -there’s the question of feeding it. Do you see what that opens up in -the way of surgery? Imagine a shop with glass cases containing healthy -organs taken from the dead. Say a man dies of pneumonia. He should, as -soon as ever the breath is out of his body, be dissected, and though -they would, of course, destroy his lungs, as they will be full of -pneumococci, his liver and digestive organs are probably healthy. Take -them out, keep them in a sterilised atmosphere with the temperature -at 98·4, and sell the liver, let us say, to another poor devil who has -cancer there. Fit him with a new healthy liver, eh?” - -“And insert the brain of someone who has died of heart disease into the -skull of a congenital idiot?” I asked. - -“Yes, perhaps; but the brain’s tiresomely complicated in its -connections and the joining up of the nerves, you know. Surgery will -have to learn a lot before it fits new brains in. And the brain has got -such a lot of functions. All thinking, all inventing seem to belong to -it, though, as you have seen, the heart can get on quite well without -it. But there are other functions of the brain I want to study first. -I’ve been trying some experiments already.” - -He made some little readjustment to the flame of the spirit lamp which -kept at the right temperature the water that surrounded the sterilised -receptacle in which the frog’s heart was beating. - -“Start with the more simple and mechanical uses of the brain,” he said. -“Primarily it is a sort of record office, a diary. Say that I rap your -knuckles with that ruler. What happens? The nerves there send a message -to the brain, of course, saying--how can I put it most simply--saying, -‘Somebody is hurting me.’ And the eye sends another, saying ‘I perceive -a ruler hitting my knuckles,’ and the ear sends another, saying ‘I hear -the rap of it.’ But leaving all that alone, what else happens? Why, the -brain records it. It makes a note of your knuckles having been hit.” - -He had been moving about the room as he spoke, taking off his coat and -waistcoat and putting on in their place a thin black dressing-gown, -and by now he was seated in his favourite attitude cross-legged on the -hearthrug, looking like some magician or perhaps the afrit which a -magician of black arts had caused to appear. He was thinking intently -now, passing through his fingers his string of amber beads, and talking -more to himself than to me. - -“And how does it make that note?” he went on. “Why, in the manner in -which phonograph records are made. There are millions of minute dots, -depressions, pockmarks on your brain which certainly record what you -remember, what you have enjoyed or disliked, or done or said. The -surface of the brain anyhow is large enough to furnish writing-paper -for the record of all these things, of all your memories. If the -impression of an experience has not been acute, the dot is not sharply -impressed, and the record fades: in other words, you come to forget it. -But if it has been vividly impressed, the record is never obliterated. -Mrs. Gabriel, for instance, won’t lose the impression of how she -lathered her husband’s face after she had cut his throat. That’s to -say, if she did it.” - -“Now do you see what I’m driving at? Of course you do. There is stored -within a man’s head the complete record of all the memorable things -he has done and said: there are all his thoughts there, and all his -speeches, and, most well-marked of all, his habitual thoughts and the -things he has often said; for habit, there is reason to believe, wears -a sort of rut in the brain, so that the life-principle, whatever it is, -as it gropes and steals about the brain, is continually stumbling into -it. There’s your record, your gramophone plate all ready. What we want, -and what I’m trying to arrive at, is a needle which, as it traces its -minute way over these dots, will come across words or sentences which -the dead have uttered, and will reproduce them. My word, what Judgment -Books! What a resurrection!” - -Here in this withdrawn situation no remotest echo of the excitement -which was seething through the streets penetrated; through the open -window there came in only the tide of the midnight silence. But from -somewhere closer at hand, through the wall surely of the laboratory, -there came a low, somewhat persistent murmur. - -“Perhaps our needle--unhappily not yet invented--as it passed over the -record of speech in the brain, might induce even facial expression,” he -said. “Enjoyment or horror might even pass over dead features. There -might be gestures and movements even, as the words were reproduced -in our gramophone of the dead. Some people when they want to think -intensely walk about: some, there’s an instance of it audible now, talk -to themselves aloud.” - -He held up his finger for silence. - -“Yes, that’s Mrs. Gabriel,” he said. “She talks to herself by the hour -together. She’s always done that, she tells me. I shouldn’t wonder if -she has plenty to talk about.” - -It was that night when, first of all, the notion of intense activity -going on below the placid house-fronts of the Terrace occurred to me. -None looked more quiet than this, and yet there was seething here -a volcanic activity and intensity of living, both in the man who -sat cross-legged on the floor and behind that voice just audible -through the partition wall. But I thought of that no more, for Horton -began speaking of the brain-gramophone again.... Were it possible to -trace those infinitesimal dots and pockmarks in the brain by some -needle exquisitely fine, it might follow that by the aid of some such -contrivance as translated the pockmarks on a gramophone record into -sound, some audible rendering of speech might be recovered from the -brain of a dead man. It was necessary, so he pointed out to me, that -this strange gramophone record should be new; it must be that of one -lately dead, for corruption and decay would soon obliterate these -infinitesimal markings. He was not of opinion that unspoken thought -could be thus recovered: the utmost he hoped for from his pioneering -work was to be able to recapture actual speech, especially when such -speech had habitually dwelt on one subject, and thus had worn a rut on -that part of the brain known as the speech-centre. - -“Let me get, for instance,” he said, “the brain of a railway porter, -newly dead, who has been accustomed for years to call out the name -of a station, and I do not despair of hearing his voice through my -gramophone trumpet. Or again, given that Mrs. Gabriel, in all her -interminable conversations with herself, talks about one subject, I -might, in similar circumstances, recapture what she had been constantly -saying. Of course my instrument must be of a power and delicacy still -unknown, one of which the needle can trace the minutest irregularities -of surface, and of which the trumpet must be of immense magnifying -power, able to translate the smallest whisper into a shout. But just as -a microscope will show you the details of an object invisible to the -eye, so there are instruments which act in the same way on sound. Here, -for instance, is one of remarkable magnifying power. Try it if you -like.” - -He took me over to a table on which was standing an electric battery -connected with a round steel globe, out of the side of which sprang a -gramophone trumpet of curious construction. He adjusted the battery, -and directed me to click my fingers quite gently opposite an aperture -in the globe, and the noise, ordinarily scarcely audible, resounded -through the room like a thunderclap. - -“Something of that sort might permit us to hear the record on a brain,” -he said. - - * * * * * - -After this night my visits to Horton became far more common than they -had hitherto been. Having once admitted me into the region of his -strange explorations, he seemed to welcome me there. Partly, as he had -said, it clarified his own thought to put it into simple language, -partly, as he subsequently admitted, he was beginning to penetrate -into such lonely fields of knowledge by paths so utterly untrodden, -that even he, the most aloof and independent of mankind, wanted some -human presence near him. Despite his utter indifference to the issues -of the war--for, in his regard, issues far more crucial demanded his -energies--he offered himself as surgeon to a London hospital for -operations on the brain, and his services, naturally, were welcomed, -for none brought knowledge or skill like his to such work. Occupied -all day, he performed miracles of healing, with bold and dexterous -excisions which none but he would have dared to attempt. He would -operate, often successfully, for lesions that seemed certainly fatal, -and all the time he was learning. He refused to accept any salary; -he only asked, in cases where he had removed pieces of brain matter, -to take these away, in order by further examination and dissection, -to add to the knowledge and manipulative skill which he devoted to -the wounded. He wrapped these morsels in sterilised lint, and took -them back to the Terrace in a box, electrically heated to maintain -the normal temperature of a man’s blood. His fragment might then, so -he reasoned, keep some sort of independent life of its own, even as -the severed heart of a frog had continued to beat for hours without -connection with the rest of the body. Then for half the night he would -continue to work on these sundered pieces of tissue scarcely dead, -which his operations during the day had given him. Simultaneously, he -was busy over the needle that must be of such infinite delicacy. - -One evening, fatigued with a long day’s work, I had just heard with a -certain tremor of uneasy anticipation the whistles of warning which -heralded an air-raid, when my telephone bell rang. My servants, -according to custom, had already betaken themselves to the cellar, -and I went to see what the summons was, determined in any case not to -go out into the streets. I recognised Horton’s voice. “I want you at -once,” he said. - -“But the warning whistles have gone,” said I, “And I don’t like -showers of shrapnel.” - -“Oh, never mind that,” said he. “You must come. I’m so excited that I -distrust the evidence of my own ears. I want a witness. Just come.” - -He did not pause for my reply, for I heard the click of his receiver -going back into its place. Clearly he assumed that I was coming, and -that I suppose had the effect of suggestion on my mind. I told myself -that I would not go, but in a couple of minutes his certainty that I -was coming, coupled with the prospect of being interested in something -else than air-raids, made me fidget in my chair and eventually go to -the street door and look out. The moon was brilliantly bright, the -square quite empty, and far away the coughings of very distant guns. -Next moment, almost against my will, I was running down the deserted -pavements of Newsome Terrace. My ring at his bell was answered by -Horton, before Mrs. Gabriel could come to the door, and he positively -dragged me in. - -“I shan’t tell you a word of what I am doing,” he said. “I want you to -tell me what you hear. Come into the laboratory.” - -The remote guns were silent again as I sat myself, as directed, in a -chair close to the gramophone trumpet, but suddenly through the wall I -heard the familiar mutter of Mrs. Gabriel’s voice. Horton, already busy -with his battery, sprang to his feet. - -“That won’t do,” he said. “I want absolute silence.” - -He went out of the room, and I heard him calling to her. While he was -gone I observed more closely what was on the table. Battery, round -steel globe, and gramophone trumpet were there, and some sort of a -needle on a spiral steel spring linked up with the battery and the -glass vessel, in which I had seen the frog’s heart beat. In it now -there lay a fragment of grey matter. - -Horton came back in a minute or two, and stood in the middle of the -room listening. - -“That’s better,” he said. “Now I want you to listen at the mouth of the -trumpet. I’ll answer any questions afterwards.” - -With my ear turned to the trumpet, I could see nothing of what he was -doing, and I listened till the silence became a rustling in my ears. -Then suddenly that rustling ceased, for it was overscored by a whisper -which undoubtedly came from the aperture on which my aural attention -was fixed. It was no more than the faintest murmur, and though no words -were audible, it had the timbre of a human voice. - -“Well, do you hear anything?” asked Horton. - -“Yes, something very faint, scarcely audible.” - -“Describe it,” said he. - -“Somebody whispering.” - -“I’ll try a fresh place,” said he. - -The silence descended again; the mutter of the distant guns was still -mute, and some slight creaking from my shirt front, as I breathed, -alone broke it. And then the whispering from the gramophone trumpet -began again, this time much louder than it had been before--it was -as if the speaker (still whispering) had advanced a dozen yards--but -still blurred and indistinct. More unmistakable, too, was it that the -whisper was that of a human voice, and every now and then, whether -fancifully or not, I thought I caught a word or two. For a moment it -was silent altogether, and then with a sudden inkling of what I was -listening to I heard something begin to sing. Though the words were -still inaudible there was melody, and the tune was “Tipperary.” From -that convolvulus-shaped trumpet there came two bars of it. - -“And what do you hear now?” cried Horton with a crack of exultation in -his voice. “Singing, singing! That’s the tune they all sang. Fine music -that from a dead man. Encore! you say? Yes, wait a second, and he’ll -sing it again for you. Confound it, I can’t get on to the place. Ah! -I’ve got it: listen again.” - -Surely that was the strangest manner of song ever yet heard on the -earth, this melody from the brain of the dead. Horror and fascination -strove within me, and I suppose the first for the moment prevailed, for -with a shudder I jumped up. - -“Stop it!” I said. “It’s terrible.” - -His face, thin and eager, gleamed in the strong ray of the lamp which -he had placed close to him. His hand was on the metal rod from which -depended the spiral spring and the needle, which just rested on that -fragment of grey stuff which I had seen in the glass vessel. - -“Yes, I’m going to stop it now,” he said, “or the germs will be getting -at my gramophone record, or the record will get cold. See, I spray it -with carbolic vapour, I put it back into its nice warm bed. It will -sing to us again. But terrible? What do you mean by terrible?” - -Indeed, when he asked that I scarcely knew myself what I meant. I had -been witness to a new marvel of science as wonderful perhaps as any -that had ever astounded the beholder, and my nerves--these childish -whimperers--had cried out at the darkness and the profundity. But -the horror diminished, the fascination increased as he quite shortly -told me the history of this phenomenon. He had attended that day and -operated upon a young soldier in whose brain was embedded a piece of -shrapnel. The boy was _in extremis_, but Horton had hoped for the -possibility of saving him. To extract the shrapnel was the only chance, -and this involved the cutting away of a piece of brain known as the -speech-centre, and taking from it what was embedded there. But the hope -was not realised, and two hours later the boy died. It was to this -fragment of brain that, when Horton returned home, he had applied the -needle of his gramophone, and had obtained the faint whisperings which -had caused him to ring me up, so that he might have a witness of this -wonder. Witness I had been, not to these whisperings alone, but to the -fragment of singing. - -“And this is but the first step on the new road,” said he. “Who knows -where it may lead, or to what new temple of knowledge it may not be the -avenue? Well, it is late: I shall do no more to-night. What about the -raid, by the way?” - -To my amazement I saw that the time was verging on midnight. Two hours -had elapsed since he let me in at his door; they had passed like a -couple of minutes. Next morning some neighbours spoke of the prolonged -firing that had gone on, of which I had been wholly unconscious. - -Week after week Horton worked on this new road of research, perfecting -the sensitiveness and subtlety of the needle, and, by vastly increasing -the power of his batteries, enlarging the magnifying power of his -trumpet. Many and many an evening during the next year did I listen to -voices that were dumb in death, and the sounds which had been blurred -and unintelligible mutterings in the earlier experiments, developed, -as the delicacy of his mechanical devices increased, into coherence -and clear articulation. It was no longer necessary to impose silence -on Mrs. Gabriel when the gramophone was at work, for now the voice we -listened to had risen to the pitch of ordinary human utterance, while -as for the faithfulness and individuality of these records, striking -testimony was given more than once by some living friend of the dead, -who, without knowing what he was about to hear, recognised the tones -of the speaker. More than once also, Mrs. Gabriel, bringing in syphons -and whisky, provided us with three glasses, for she had heard, so she -told us, three different voices in talk. But for the present no fresh -phenomenon occurred: Horton was but perfecting the mechanism of his -previous discovery and, rather grudging the time, was scribbling at a -monograph, which presently he would toss to his colleagues, concerning -the results he had already obtained. And then, even while Horton was on -the threshold of new wonders, which he had already foreseen and spoken -of as theoretically possible, there came an evening of marvel and of -swift catastrophe. - -I had dined with him that day, Mrs. Gabriel deftly serving the meal -that she had so daintily prepared, and towards the end, as she was -clearing the table for our dessert, she stumbled, I supposed, on a -loose edge of carpet, quickly recovering herself. But instantly Horton -checked some half-finished sentence, and turned to her. - -“You’re all right, Mrs. Gabriel?” he asked quickly. - -“Yes, sir, thank you,” said she, and went on with her serving. - -“As I was saying,” began Horton again, but his attention clearly -wandered, and without concluding his narrative, he relapsed into -silence, till Mrs. Gabriel had given us our coffee and left the room. - -“I’m sadly afraid my domestic felicity may be disturbed,” he said. -“Mrs. Gabriel had an epileptic fit yesterday, and she confessed when -she recovered that she had been subject to them when a child, and since -then had occasionally experienced them.” - -“Dangerous, then?” I asked. - -“In themselves not in the least,” said he. “If she was sitting in -her chair or lying in bed when one occurred, there would be nothing -to trouble about. But if one occurred while she was cooking my dinner -or beginning to come downstairs, she might fall into the fire or -tumble down the whole flight. We’ll hope no such deplorable calamity -will happen. Now, if you’ve finished your coffee, let us go into the -laboratory. Not that I’ve got anything very interesting in the way of -new records. But I’ve introduced a second battery with a very strong -induction coil into my apparatus. I find that if I link it up with my -record, given that the record is a--a fresh one, it stimulates certain -nerve centres. It’s odd, isn’t it, that the same forces which so -encourage the dead to live would certainly encourage the living to die, -if a man received the full current. One has to be careful in handling -it. Yes, and what then? you ask.” - -The night was very hot, and he threw the windows wide before he settled -himself cross-legged on the floor. - -“I’ll answer your question for you,” he said, “though I believe we’ve -talked of it before. Supposing I had not a fragment of brain-tissue -only, but a whole head, let us say, or best of all, a complete corpse, -I think I could expect to produce more than mere speech through the -gramophone. The dead lips themselves perhaps might utter--God! what’s -that?” - -From close outside, at the bottom of the stairs leading from the dining -room which we had just quitted to the laboratory where we now sat, -there came a crash of glass followed by the fall as of something heavy -which bumped from step to step, and was finally flung on the threshold -against the door with the sound as of knuckles rapping at it, and -demanding admittance. Horton sprang up and threw the door open, and -there lay, half inside the room and half on the landing outside, the -body of Mrs. Gabriel. Round her were splinters of broken bottles and -glasses, and from a cut in her forehead, as she lay ghastly with face -upturned, the blood trickled into her thick grey hair. - -Horton was on his knees beside her, dabbing his handkerchief on her -forehead. - -“Ah! that’s not serious,” he said; “there’s neither vein nor artery -cut. I’ll just bind that up first.” - -He tore his handkerchief into strips which he tied together, and made a -dexterous bandage covering the lower part of her forehead, but leaving -her eyes unobscured. They stared with a fixed meaningless steadiness, -and he scrutinised them closely. - -“But there’s worse yet,” he said. “There’s been some severe blow on the -head. Help me to carry her into the laboratory. Get round to her feet -and lift underneath the knees when I am ready. There! Now put your arm -right under her and carry her.” - -Her head swung limply back as he lifted her shoulders, and he propped -it up against his knee, where it mutely nodded and bowed, as his leg -moved, as if in silent assent to what we were doing, and the mouth, at -the extremity of which there had gathered a little lather, lolled open. -He still supported her shoulders as I fetched a cushion on which to -place her head, and presently she was lying close to the low table on -which stood the gramophone of the dead. Then with light deft fingers he -passed his hands over her skull, pausing as he came to the spot just -above and behind her right ear. Twice and again his fingers groped and -lightly pressed, while with shut eyes and concentrated attention he -interpreted what his trained touch revealed. - -“Her skull is broken to fragments just here,” he said. “In the middle -there is a piece completely severed from the rest, and the edges of the -cracked pieces must be pressing on her brain.” - -Her right arm was lying palm upwards on the floor, and with one hand he -felt her wrist with finger-tips. - -“Not a sign of pulse,” he said. “She’s dead in the ordinary sense -of the word. But life persists in an extraordinary manner, you may -remember. She can’t be wholly dead: no one is wholly dead in a moment, -unless every organ is blown to bits. But she soon will be dead, if we -don’t relieve the pressure on the brain. That’s the first thing to -be done. While I’m busy at that, shut the window, will you, and make -up the fire. In this sort of case the vital heat, whatever that is, -leaves the body very quickly. Make the room as hot as you can--fetch an -oil-stove, and turn on the electric radiator, and stoke up a roaring -fire. The hotter the room is the more slowly will the heat of life -leave her.” - -Already he had opened his cabinet of surgical instruments, and taken -out of it two drawers full of bright steel which he laid on the floor -beside her. I heard the grating chink of scissors severing her long -grey hair, and as I busied myself with laying and lighting the fire -in the hearth, and kindling the oil-stove, which I found, by Horton’s -directions, in the pantry, I saw that his lancet was busy on the -exposed skin. He had placed some vaporising spray, heated by a spirit -lamp close to her head, and as he worked its fizzing nozzle filled the -air with some clean and aromatic odour. Now and then he threw out an -order. - -“Bring me that electric lamp on the long cord,” he said. “I haven’t -got enough light. Don’t look at what I’m doing if you’re squeamish, for -if it makes you feel faint, I shan’t be able to attend to you.” - -I suppose that violent interest in what he was doing overcame any qualm -that I might have had, for I looked quite unflinching over his shoulder -as I moved the lamp about till it was in such a place that it threw its -beam directly into a dark hole at the edge of which depended a flap -of skin. Into this he put his forceps, and as he withdrew them they -grasped a piece of blood-stained bone. - -“That’s better,” he said, “and the room’s warming up well. But there’s -no sign of pulse yet. Go on stoking, will you, till the thermometer on -the wall there registers a hundred degrees.” - -When next, on my journey from the coal-cellar, I looked, two more -pieces of bone lay beside the one I had seen extracted, and presently -referring to the thermometer, I saw that between the oil-stove and -the roaring fire and the electric radiator, I had raised the room to -the temperature he wanted. Soon, peering fixedly at the seat of his -operation, he felt for her pulse again. - -“Not a sign of returning vitality,” he said, “and I’ve done all I can. -There’s nothing more possible that can be devised to restore her.” - -As he spoke the zeal of the unrivalled surgeon relaxed, and with a sigh -and a shrug he rose to his feet and mopped his face. Then suddenly the -fire and eagerness blazed there again. “The gramophone!” he said. “The -speech centre is close to where I’ve been working, and it is quite -uninjured. Good heavens, what a wonderful opportunity. She served me -well living, and she shall serve me dead. And I can stimulate the motor -nerve-centre, too, with the second battery. We may see a new wonder -to-night.” - -Some qualm of horror shook me. - -“No, don’t!” I said. “It’s terrible: she’s just dead. I shall go if you -do.” - -“But I’ve got exactly all the conditions I have long been wanting,” -said he. “And I simply can’t spare you. You must be witness: I must -have a witness. Why, man, there’s not a surgeon or a physiologist in -the kingdom who would not give an eye or an ear to be in your place -now. She’s dead. I pledge you my honour on that, and it’s grand to be -dead if you can help the living.” - -Once again, in a far fiercer struggle, horror and the intensest -curiosity strove together in me. - -“Be quick, then,” said I. - -“Ha! That’s right,” exclaimed Horton. “Help me to lift her on to the -table by the gramophone. The cushion too; I can get at the place more -easily with her head a little raised.” - -He turned on the battery and with the movable light close beside him, -brilliantly illuminating what he sought, he inserted the needle of the -gramophone into the jagged aperture in her skull. For a few minutes, -as he groped and explored there, there was silence, and then quite -suddenly Mrs. Gabriel’s voice, clear and unmistakable and of the normal -loudness of human speech, issued from the trumpet. - -“Yes, I always said that I’d be even with him,” came the articulated -syllables. “He used to knock me about, he did, when he came home -drunk, and often I was black and blue with bruises. But I’ll give him a -redness for the black and blue.” - -The record grew blurred; instead of articulate words there came from -it a gobbling noise. By degrees that cleared, and we were listening to -some dreadful suppressed sort of laughter, hideous to hear. On and on -it went. - -“I’ve got into some sort of rut,” said Horton. “She must have laughed a -lot to herself.” - -For a long time we got nothing more except the repetition of the words -we had already heard and the sound of that suppressed laughter. Then -Horton drew towards him the second battery. - -“I’ll try a stimulation of the motor nerve-centres,” he said. “Watch -her face.” - -He propped the gramophone needle in position, and inserted into the -fractured skull the two poles of the second battery, moving them about -there very carefully. And as I watched her face, I saw with a freezing -horror that her lips were beginning to move. - -“Her mouth’s moving,” I cried. “She can’t be dead.” - -He peered into her face. - -“Nonsense,” he said. “That’s only the stimulus from the current. She’s -been dead half an hour. Ah! what’s coming now?” - -The lips lengthened into a smile, the lower jaw dropped, and from her -mouth came the laughter we had heard just now through the gramophone. -And then the dead mouth spoke, with a mumble of unintelligible words, a -bubbling torrent of incoherent syllables. - -“I’ll turn the full current on,” he said. - -The head jerked and raised itself, the lips struggled for utterance, -and suddenly she spoke swiftly and distinctly. - -“Just when he’d got his razor out,” she said, “I came up behind him, -and put my hand over his face, and bent his neck back over his chair -with all my strength. And I picked up his razor and with one slit--ha, -ha, that was the way to pay him out. And I didn’t lose my head, but I -lathered his chin well, and put the razor in his hand, and left him -there, and went downstairs and cooked his dinner for him, and then an -hour afterwards, as he didn’t come down, up I went to see what kept -him. It was a nasty cut in his neck that had kept him----” - -Horton suddenly withdrew the two poles of the battery from her head, -and even in the middle of her word the mouth ceased working, and lay -rigid and open. - -“By God!” he said. “There’s a tale for dead lips to tell. But we’ll get -more yet.” - -Exactly what happened then I never knew. It appeared to me that as he -still leaned over the table with the two poles of the battery in his -hand, his foot slipped, and he fell forward across it. There came a -sharp crack, and a flash of blue dazzling light, and there he lay face -downwards, with arms that just stirred and quivered. With his fall the -two poles that must momentarily have come into contact with his hand -were jerked away again, and I lifted him and laid him on the floor. But -his lips as well as those of the dead woman had spoken for the last -time. - - - - -The Outcast - - - - -The Outcast - - -When Mrs. Acres bought the Gate-house at Tarleton, which had stood so -long without a tenant, and appeared in that very agreeable and lively -little town as a resident, sufficient was already known about her past -history to entitle her to friendliness and sympathy. Hers had been a -tragic story, and the account of the inquest held on her husband’s -body, when, within a month of their marriage, he had shot himself -before her eyes, was recent enough, and of as full a report in the -papers as to enable our little community of Tarleton to remember and -run over the salient grimness of the case without the need of inventing -any further details--which, otherwise, it would have been quite capable -of doing. - -Briefly, then, the facts had been as follows. Horace Acres appeared to -have been a heartless fortune-hunter--a handsome, plausible wretch, -ten years younger than his wife. He had made no secret to his friends -of not being in love with her but of having a considerable regard for -her more than considerable fortune. But hardly had he married her than -his indifference developed into violent dislike, accompanied by some -mysterious, inexplicable dread of her. He hated and feared her, and on -the morning of the very day when he had put an end to himself he had -begged her to divorce him; the case he promised would be undefended, -and he would make it indefensible. She, poor soul, had refused to grant -this; for, as corroborated by the evidence of friends and servants, -she was utterly devoted to him, and stated with that quiet dignity -which distinguished her throughout this ordeal, that she hoped that he -was the victim of some miserable but temporary derangement, and would -come to his right mind again. He had dined that night at his club, -leaving his month-old bride to pass the evening alone, and had returned -between eleven and twelve that night in a state of vile intoxication. -He had gone up to her bedroom, pistol in hand, had locked the door, -and his voice was heard screaming and yelling at her. Then followed -the sound of one shot. On the table in his dressing-room was found a -half-sheet of paper, dated that day, and this was read out in court. -“The horror of my position,” he had written, “is beyond description -and endurance. I can bear it no longer: my soul sickens....” The -jury, without leaving the court, returned the verdict that he had -committed suicide while temporarily insane, and the coroner, at their -request, expressed their sympathy and his own with the poor lady, who, -as testified on all hands, had treated her husband with the utmost -tenderness and affection. - -For six months Bertha Acres had travelled abroad, and then in the -autumn she had bought Gate-house at Tarleton, and settled down to the -absorbing trifles which make life in a small country town so busy and -strenuous. - - * * * * * - -Our modest little dwelling is within a stone’s throw of the Gate-house; -and when, on the return of my wife and myself from two months in -Scotland, we found that Mrs. Acres was installed as a neighbour, Madge -lost no time in going to call on her. She returned with a series of -pleasant impressions. Mrs. Acres, still on the sunny slope that leads -up to the table-land of life which begins at forty years, was extremely -handsome, cordial, and charming in manner, witty and agreeable, and -wonderfully well dressed. Before the conclusion of her call Madge, -in country fashion, had begged her to dispose with formalities, and, -instead of a frigid return of the call, to dine with us quietly next -day. Did she play bridge? That being so, we would just be a party of -four; for her brother, Charles Alington, had proposed himself for a -visit.... - -I listened to this with sufficient attention to grasp what Madge was -saying, but what I was really thinking about was a chess-problem which -I was attempting to solve. But at this point I became acutely aware -that her stream of pleasant impressions dried up suddenly, and she -became stonily silent. She shut speech off as by the turn of a tap, and -glowered at the fire, rubbing the back of one hand with the fingers of -another, as is her habit in perplexity. - -“Go on,” I said. - -She got up, suddenly restless. - -“All I have been telling you is literally and soberly true,” she said. -“I thought Mrs. Acres charming and witty and good-looking and friendly. -What more could you ask from a new acquaintance? And then, after I had -asked her to dinner, I suddenly found for no earthly reason that I very -much disliked her; I couldn’t bear her.” - -“You said she was wonderfully well dressed,” I permitted myself to -remark.... If the Queen took the Knight---- - -“Don’t be silly!” said Madge. “I am wonderfully well dressed too. -But behind all her agreeableness and charm and good looks I suddenly -felt there was something else which I detested and dreaded. It’s no -use asking me what it was, because I haven’t the slightest idea. If -I knew what it was, the thing would explain itself. But I felt a -horror--nothing vivid, nothing close, you understand, but somewhere in -the background. Can the mind have a ‘turn,’ do you think, just as the -body can, when for a second or two you suddenly feel giddy? I think it -must have been that--oh! I’m sure it was that. But I’m glad I asked her -to dine. I mean to like her. I shan’t have a ‘turn’ again, shall I?” - -“No, certainly not,” I said.... If the Queen refrained from taking the -tempting Knight---- - -“Oh, do stop your silly chess-problem!” said Madge. “Bite him, Fungus!” - -Fungus, so called because he is the son of Humour and Gustavus -Adolphus, rose from his place on the hearthrug, and with a horse laugh -nuzzled against my leg, which is his way of biting those he loves. Then -the most amiable of bull-dogs, who has a passion for the human race, -lay down on my foot and sighed heavily. But Madge evidently wanted to -talk, and I pushed the chessboard away. - -“Tell me more about the horror,” I said. - -“It was just horror,” she said--“a sort of sickness of the soul.”... - -I found my brain puzzling over some vague reminiscence, surely -connected with Mrs. Acres, which those words mistily evoked. But next -moment that train of thought was cut short, for the old and sinister -legend about the Gate-house came into my mind as accounting for the -horror of which Madge spoke. In the days of Elizabethan religious -persecutions it had, then newly built, been inhabited by two brothers, -of whom the elder, to whom it belonged, had Mass said there every -Sunday. Betrayed by the younger, he was arrested and racked to death. -Subsequently the younger, in a fit of remorse, hanged himself in the -panelled parlour. Certainly there was a story that the house was -haunted by his strangled apparition dangling from the beams, and the -late tenants of the house (which now had stood vacant for over three -years) had quitted it after a month’s occupation, in consequence, so it -was commonly said, of unaccountable and horrible sights. What was more -likely, then, than that Madge, who from childhood has been intensely -sensitive to occult and psychic phenomena, should have caught, on that -strange wireless receiver which is characteristic of “sensitives,” some -whispered message? - -“But you know the story of the house,” I said. “Isn’t it quite possible -that something of that may have reached you? Where did you sit, for -instance? In the panelled parlour?” - -She brightened at that. - -“Ah, you wise man!” she said. “I never thought of that. That may -account for it all. I hope it does. You shall be left in peace with -your chess for being so brilliant.” - - * * * * * - -I had occasion half an hour later to go to the post-office, a hundred -yards up the High Street, on the matter of a registered letter which -I wanted to despatch that evening. Dusk was gathering, but the red -glow of sunset still smouldered in the west, sufficient to enable me -to recognise familiar forms and features of passers-by. Just as I came -opposite the post-office there approached from the other direction a -tall, finely built woman, whom, I felt sure, I had never seen before. -Her destination was the same as mine, and I hung on my step a moment -to let her pass in first. Simultaneously I felt that I knew, in some -vague, faint manner, what Madge had meant when she talked about a -“sickness of the soul.” It was no nearer realisation to me than is the -running of a tune in the head to the audible external hearing of it, -and I attributed my sudden recognition of her feeling to the fact that -in all probability my mind had subconsciously been dwelling on what -she had said, and not for a moment did I connect it with any external -cause. And then it occurred to me who, possibly, this woman was.... - -She finished the transaction of her errand a few seconds before me, and -when I got out into the street again she was a dozen yards down the -pavement, walking in the direction of my house and of the Gate-house. -Opposite my own door I deliberately lingered, and saw her pass down the -steps that led from the road to the entrance of the Gate-house. Even as -I turned into my own door the unbidden reminiscence which had eluded -me before came out into the open, and I cast my net over it. It was -her husband, who, in the inexplicable communication he had left on his -dressing-room table, just before he shot himself, had written “my soul -sickens.” It was odd, though scarcely more than that, for Madge to have -used those identical words. - - * * * * * - -Charles Alington, my wife’s brother, who arrived next afternoon, is -quite the happiest man whom I have ever come across. The material -world, that perennial spring of thwarted ambition, physical desire, -and perpetual disappointment, is practically unknown to him. Envy, -malice, and all uncharitableness are equally alien, because he does -not want to obtain what anybody else has got, and has no sense of -possession, which is queer, since he is enormously rich. He fears -nothing, he hopes for nothing, he has no abhorrences or affections, -for all physical and nervous functions are in him in the service of an -intense inquisitiveness. He never passed a moral judgment in his life, -he only wants to explore and to know. Knowledge, in fact, is his entire -preoccupation, and since chemists and medical scientists probe and mine -in the world of tinctures and microbes far more efficiently than he -could do, as he has so little care for anything that can be weighed or -propagated, he devotes himself, absorbedly and ecstatically, to that -world that lies about the confines of conscious existence. Anything not -yet certainly determined appeals to him with the call of a trumpet: he -ceases to take an interest in a subject as soon as it shows signs of -assuming a practical and definite status. He was intensely concerned, -for instance, in wireless transmission, until Signor Marconi proved -that it came within the scope of practical science, and then Charles -abandoned it as dull. I had seen him last two months before, when he -was in a great perturbation, since he was speaking at a meeting of -Anglo-Israelites in the morning, to show that the Scone Stone, which -is now in the Coronation Chair at Westminster, was for certain the -pillow on which Jacob’s head had rested when he saw the vision at -Bethel; was addressing the Psychical Research Society in the afternoon -on the subject of messages received from the dead through automatic -script, and in the evening was, by way of a holiday, only listening -to a lecture on reincarnation. None of these things could, as yet, be -definitely proved, and that was why he loved them. During the intervals -when the occult and the fantastic do not occupy him, he is, in spite of -his fifty years and wizened mien, exactly like a schoolboy of eighteen -back on his holidays and brimming with superfluous energy. - -I found Charles already arrived when I got home next afternoon, after a -round of golf. He was betwixt and between the serious and the holiday -mood, for he had evidently been reading to Madge from a journal -concerning reincarnation, and was rather severe to me.... - -“Golf!” he said, with insulting scorn. “What is there to know about -golf? You hit a ball into the air----” - -I was a little sore over the events of the afternoon. - -“That’s just what I don’t do,” I said. “I hit it along the ground!” - -“Well, it doesn’t matter where you hit it,” said he. “It’s all subject -to known laws. But the guess, the conjecture: there’s the thrill and -the excitement of life. The charlatan with his new cure for cancer, the -automatic writer with his messages from the dead, the reincarnationist -with his positive assertions that he was Napoleon or a Christian -slave--they are the people who advance knowledge. You have to guess -before you know. Even Darwin saw that when he said you could not -investigate without a hypothesis!” - -“So what’s your hypothesis this minute?” I asked. - -“Why, that we’ve all lived before, and that we’re going to live again -here on this same old earth. Any other conception of a future life -is impossible. Are all the people who have been born and have died -since the world emerged from chaos going to become inhabitants of some -future world? What a squash, you know, my dear Madge! Now, I know -what you’re going to ask me. If we’ve all lived before, why can’t we -remember it? But that’s so simple! If you remembered being Cleopatra, -you would go on behaving like Cleopatra; and what would Tarleton say? -Judas Iscariot, too! Fancy knowing you had been Judas Iscariot! You -couldn’t get over it! you would commit suicide, or cause everybody who -was connected with you to commit suicide from their horror of you. Or -imagine being a grocer’s boy who knew he had been Julius Cæsar.... -Of course, sex doesn’t matter: souls, as far as I understand, are -sexless--just sparks of life, which are put into physical envelopes, -some male, some female. You might have been King David, Madge and poor -Tony here one of his wives.” - -“That would be wonderfully neat,” said I. - -Charles broke out into a shout of laughter. - -“It would indeed,” he said. “But I won’t talk sense any more to you -scoffers. I’m absolutely tired out, I will confess, with thinking. -I want to have a pretty lady to come to dinner, and talk to her as -if she was just herself and I myself, and nobody else. I want to win -two-and-sixpence at bridge with the expenditure of enormous thought. -I want to have a large breakfast to-morrow and read _The Times_ -afterwards, and go to Tony’s club and talk about crops and golf and -Irish affairs and Peace Conferences, and all the things that don’t -matter one straw!” - -“You’re going to begin your programme to-night, dear,” said Madge. “A -very pretty lady is coming to dinner, and we’re going to play bridge -afterwards.” - -Madge and I were ready for Mrs. Acres when she arrived, but Charles -was not yet down. Fungus, who has a wild adoration for Charles, quite -unaccountable, since Charles has no feelings for dogs, was helping him -to dress, and Madge, Mrs. Acres, and I waited for his appearance. It -was certainly Mrs. Acres whom I had met last night at the door of the -post-office, but the dim light of sunset had not enabled me to see -how wonderfully handsome she was. There was something slightly Jewish -about her profile: the high forehead, the very full-lipped mouth, the -bridged nose, the prominent chin, all suggested rather than exemplified -an Eastern origin. And when she spoke she had that rich softness -of utterance, not quite hoarseness, but not quite of the clear-cut -distinctness of tone which characterises northern nations. Something -southern, something Eastern.... - -“I am bound to ask one thing,” she said, when, after the usual -greetings, we stood round the fireplace, waiting for Charles--“but have -you got a dog?” - -Madge moved towards the bell. - -“Yes, but he shan’t come down if you dislike dogs,” she said. “He’s -wonderfully kind, but I know----” - -“Ah, it’s not that,” said Mrs. Acres. “I adore dogs. But I only wished -to spare your dog’s feelings. Though I adore them, they hate me, and -they’re terribly frightened of me. There’s something anti-canine about -me.” - -It was too late to say more. Charles’s steps clattered in the little -hall outside, and Fungus was hoarse and amused. Next moment the door -opened, and the two came in. - -Fungus came in first. He lolloped in a festive manner into the middle -of the room, sniffed and snored in greeting, and then turned tail. He -slipped and skidded on the parquet outside, and we heard him bundling -down the kitchen stairs. - -“Rude dog,” said Madge. “Charles, let me introduce you to Mrs. Acres. -My brother, Mrs. Acres: Sir Charles Alington.” - - * * * * * - -Our little dinner-table of four would not permit of separate -conversations, and general topics, springing up like mushrooms, wilted -and died at their very inception. What mood possessed the others I -did not at that time know, but for myself I was only conscious of -some fundamental distaste of the handsome, clever woman who sat on -my right, and seemed quite unaffected by the withering atmosphere. -She was charming to the eye, she was witty to the ear, she had grace -and gracefulness, and all the time she was something terrible. But -by degrees, as I found my own distaste increasing, I saw that my -brother-in-law’s interest was growing correspondingly keen. The -“pretty lady” whose presence at dinner he had desired and obtained -was enchaining him--not, so I began to guess, for her charm and her -prettiness, but for some purpose of study, and I wondered whether it -was her beautiful Jewish profile that was confirming to his mind some -Anglo-Israelitish theory, whether he saw in her fine brown eyes the -glance of the seer and the clairvoyante, or whether he divined in her -some reincarnation of one of the famous or the infamous dead. Certainly -she had for him some fascination beyond that of the legitimate charm of -a very handsome woman; he was studying her with intense curiosity. - -“And you are comfortable in the Gate-house?” he suddenly rapped out at -her, as if asking some question of which the answer was crucial. - -“Ah! but so comfortable,” she said--“such a delightful atmosphere. -I have never known a house that ‘felt’ so peaceful and homelike. Or -is it merely fanciful to imagine that some houses have a sense of -tranquillity about them and others are uneasy and even terrible?” - -Charles stared at her a moment in silence before he recollected his -manners. - -“No, there may easily be something in it, I should say,” he answered. -“One can imagine long centuries of tranquillity actually investing a -home with some sort of psychical aura perceptible to those who are -sensitive.” - -She turned to Madge. - -“And yet I have heard a ridiculous story that the house is supposed to -be haunted,” she said. “If it is, it is surely haunted by delightful, -contented spirits.” - -Dinner was over. Madge rose. - -“Come in very soon, Tony,” she said to me, “and let’s get to our -bridge.” - -But her eyes said, “Don’t leave me long alone with her.” - -Charles turned briskly round when the door had shut. - -“An extremely interesting woman,” he said. - -“Very handsome,” said I. - -“Is she? I didn’t notice. Her mind, her spirit--that’s what intrigued -me. What is she? What’s behind? Why did Fungus turn tail like that? -Queer, too, about her finding the atmosphere of the Gate-house so -tranquil. The late tenants, I remember, didn’t find that soothing touch -about it!” - -“How do you account for that?” I asked. - -“There might be several explanations. You might say that the late -tenants were fanciful, imaginative people, and that the present tenant -is a sensible, matter-of-fact woman. Certainly she seemed to be.” - -“Or----” I suggested. - -He laughed. - -“Well, you might say--mind, I don’t say so--but you might say that -the--the spiritual tenants of the house find Mrs. Acres a congenial -companion, and want to retain her. So they keep quiet, and don’t upset -the cook’s nerves!” - -Somehow this answer exasperated and jarred on me. - -“What do you mean?” I said. “The spiritual tenant of the house, I -suppose, is the man who betrayed his brother and hanged himself. Why -should he find a charming woman like Mrs. Acres a congenial companion?” - -Charles got up briskly. Usually he is more than ready to discuss such -topics, but to-night it seemed that he had no such inclination. - -“Didn’t Madge tell us not to be long?” he asked. “You know how I run on -if I once get on that subject, Tony, so don’t give me the opportunity.” - -“But why did you say that?” I persisted. - -“Because I was talking nonsense. You know me well enough to be aware -that I am an habitual criminal in that respect.” - - * * * * * - -It was indeed strange to find how completely both the first impression -that Madge had formed of Mrs. Acres and the feeling that followed so -quickly on its heels were endorsed by those who, during the next week -or two, did a neighbour’s duty to the newcomer. All were loud in praise -of her charm, her pleasant, kindly wit, her good looks, her beautiful -clothes, but even while this _Lob-gesang_ was in full chorus it would -suddenly die away, and an uneasy silence descended, which somehow was -more eloquent than all the appreciative speech. Odd, unaccountable -little incidents had occurred, which were whispered from mouth to -mouth till they became common property. The same fear that Fungus had -shown of her was exhibited by another dog. A parallel case occurred -when she returned the call of our parson’s wife. Mrs. Dowlett had a -cage of canaries in the window of her drawing-room. These birds had -manifested symptoms of extreme terror when Mrs. Acres entered the room, -beating themselves against the wires of their cage, and uttering the -alarm-note.... She inspired some sort of inexplicable fear, over which -we, as trained and civilised human beings, had control, so that we -behaved ourselves. But animals, without that check, gave way altogether -to it, even as Fungus had done. - -Mrs. Acres entertained; she gave charming little dinner-parties of -eight, with a couple of tables at bridge to follow, but over these -evenings there hung a blight and a blackness. No doubt the sinister -story of the panelled parlour contributed to this. - -This curious secret dread of her, of which as on that first evening -at my house, she appeared to be completely unconscious differed very -widely in degree. Most people, like myself, were conscious of it, -but only very remotely so, and we found ourselves at the Gate-house -behaving quite as usual, though with this unease in the background. -But with a few, and most of all with Madge, it grew into a sort of -obsession. She made every effort to combat it; her will was entirely -set against it, but her struggle seemed only to establish its power -over her. The pathetic and pitiful part was that Mrs. Acres from -the first had taken a tremendous liking to her, and used to drop in -continually, calling first to Madge at the window, in that pleasant, -serene voice of hers, to tell Fungus that the hated one was imminent. - -Then came a day when Madge and I were bidden to a party at the -Gate-house on Christmas evening. This was to be the last of Mrs. -Acres’s hospitalities for the present, since she was leaving -immediately afterwards for a couple of months in Egypt. So, with this -remission ahead, Madge almost gleefully accepted the bidding. But when -the evening came she was seized with so violent an attack of sickness -and shivering that she was utterly unable to fulfil her engagement. Her -doctor could find no physical trouble to account for this: it seemed -that the anticipation of her evening alone caused it, and here was the -culmination of her shrinking from our kindly and pleasant neighbour. -She could only tell me that her sensations, as she began to dress for -the party, were like those of that moment in sleep when somewhere in -the drowsy brain nightmare is ripening. Something independent of her -will revolted at what lay before her.... - - * * * * * - -Spring had begun to stretch herself in the lap of winter when next the -curtain rose on this veiled drama of forces but dimly comprehended and -shudderingly conjectured; but then, indeed, nightmare ripened swiftly -in broad noon. And this was the way of it. - -Charles Alington had again come to stay with us five days before -Easter, and expressed himself as humorously disappointed to find that -the subject of his curiosity was still absent from the Gate-house. On -the Saturday morning before Easter he appeared very late for breakfast, -and Madge had already gone her ways. I rang for a fresh teapot, and -while this was on its way he took up _The Times_. - -“I only read the outside page of it,” he said. “The rest is too full of -mere materialistic dullnesses--politics, sports, money-market----” - -He stopped, and passed the paper over to me. - -“There, where I’m pointing,” he said--“among the deaths. The first one.” - -What I read was this: - - “ACRES, BERTHA. Died at sea, Thursday night, 30th March, and by her - own request buried at sea. (Received by wireless from P. & O. steamer - _Peshawar_.)” - -He held out his hand for the paper again, and turned over the leaves. - -“Lloyd’s,” he said. “The _Peshawar_ arrived at Tilbury yesterday -afternoon. The burial must have taken place somewhere in the English -Channel.” - - * * * * * - -On the afternoon of Easter Sunday Madge and I motored out to the golf -links three miles away. She proposed to walk along the beach just -outside the dunes while I had my round, and return to the club-house -for tea in two hours’ time. The day was one of most lucid spring: a -warm south-west wind bowled white clouds along the sky, and their -shadows jovially scudded over the sandhills. We had told her of Mrs. -Acres’s death, and from that moment something dark and vague which had -been lying over her mind since the autumn seemed to join this fleet of -the shadows of clouds and leave her in sunlight. We parted at the door -of the club-house, and she set out on her walk. - -Half an hour later, as my opponent and I were waiting on the fifth tee, -where the road crosses the links, for the couple in front of us to move -on, a servant from the club-house, scudding along the road, caught -sight of us, and, jumping from his bicycle, came to where we stood. - -“You’re wanted at the club-house, sir,” he said to me. “Mrs. Carford -was walking along the shore, and she found something left by the tide. -A body, sir. ’Twas in a sack, but the sack was torn, and she saw---- -It’s upset her very much, sir. We thought it best to come for you.” - -I took the boy’s bicycle and went back to the club-house as fast as I -could turn the wheel. I felt sure I knew what Madge had found, and, -knowing that, realised the shock.... Five minutes later she was telling -me her story in gasps and whispers. - -“The tide was going down,” she said, “and I walked along the high-water -mark.... There were pretty shells; I was picking them up.... And then I -saw it in front of me--just shapeless, just a sack ... and then, as I -came nearer, it took shape; there were knees and elbows. It moved, it -rolled over, and where the head was the sack was torn, and I saw her -face. Her eyes were open, Tony, and I fled.... All the time I felt it -was rolling along after me. Oh, Tony! she’s dead, isn’t she? She won’t -come back to the Gate-house? Do you promise me?... There’s something -awful! I wonder if I guess. The sea gives her up. The sea won’t suffer -her to rest in it.”... - -The news of the finding had already been telephoned to Tarleton, and -soon a party of four men with a stretcher arrived. There was no doubt -as to the identity of the body, for though it had been in the water -for three days no corruption had come to it. The weights with which at -burial it had been laden must by some strange chance have been detached -from it, and by a chance stranger yet it had drifted to the shore -closest to her home. That night it lay in the mortuary, and the inquest -was held on it next day, though that was a bank-holiday. From there it -was taken to the Gate-house and coffined, and it lay in the panelled -parlour for the funeral on the morrow. - -Madge, after that one hysterical outburst, had completely recovered -herself, and on the Monday evening she made a little wreath of the -spring-flowers which the early warmth had called into blossom in the -garden, and I went across with it to the Gate-house. Though the news -of Mrs. Acres’s death and the subsequent finding of the body had -been widely advertised, there had been no response from relations or -friends, and as I laid the solitary wreath on the coffin a sense of the -utter loneliness of what lay within seized and encompassed me. And then -a portent, no less, took place before my eyes. Hardly had the freshly -gathered flowers been laid on the coffin than they drooped and wilted. -The stalks of the daffodils bent, and their bright chalices closed; the -odour of the wallflowers died, and they withered as I watched.... What -did it mean, that even the petals of spring shrank and were moribund? - - * * * * * - -I told Madge nothing of this; and she, as if through some pang of -remorse, was determined to be present next day at the funeral. -No arrival of friends or relations had taken place, and from the -Gate-house there came none of the servants. They stood in the porch as -the coffin was brought out of the house, and even before it was put -into the hearse had gone back again and closed the door. So, at the -cemetery on the hill above Tarleton, Madge and her brother and I were -the only mourners. - -The afternoon was densely overcast, though we got no rainfall, and -it was with thick clouds above and a sea-mist drifting between the -grave-stones that we came, after the service in the cemetery-chapel, to -the place of interment. And then--I can hardly write of it now--when it -came for the coffin to be lowered into the grave, it was found that by -some faulty measurement it could not descend, for the excavation was -not long enough to hold it. - -Madge was standing close to us, and at this moment I heard her sob. - -“And the kindly earth will not receive her,” she whispered. - -There was awful delay: the diggers must be sent for again, and meantime -the rain had begun to fall thick and tepid. For some reason--perhaps -some outlying feeler of Madge’s obsession had wound a tentacle round -me--I felt that I must know that earth had gone to earth, but I could -not suffer Madge to wait. So, in this miserable pause, I got Charles to -take her home, and then returned. - -Pick and shovel were busy, and soon the resting-place was ready. The -interrupted service continued, the handful of wet earth splashed on the -coffin-lid, and when all was over I left the cemetery, still feeling, -I knew not why, that all was _not_ over. Some restlessness and want of -certainty possessed me, and instead of going home I fared forth into -the rolling wooded country inland, with the intention of walking off -these bat-like terrors that flapped around me. The rain had ceased, and -a blurred sunlight penetrated the sea-mist which still blanketed the -fields and woods, and for half an hour, moving briskly, I endeavoured -to fight down some fantastic conviction that had gripped my mind in its -claws. I refused to look straight at that conviction, telling myself -how fantastic, how unreasonable it was; but as often as I put out a -hand to throttle it there came the echo of Madge’s words: “The sea will -not suffer her; the kindly earth will not receive her.” And if I could -shut my eyes to that there came some remembrance of the day she died, -and of half-forgotten fragments of Charles’s superstitious belief in -reincarnation. The whole thing, incredible though its component parts -were, hung together with a terrible tenacity. - - * * * * * - -Before long the rain began again, and I turned, meaning to go by the -main-road into Tarleton, which passes in a wide-flung curve some -half-mile outside the cemetery. But as I approached the path through -the fields, which, leaving the less direct route, passes close to the -cemetery and brings you by a steeper and shorter descent into the -town, I felt myself irresistibly impelled to take it. I told myself, -of course, that I wished to make my wet walk as short as possible; -but at the back of my mind was the half-conscious, but none the less -imperative need to know by ocular evidence that the grave by which I -had stood that afternoon had been filled in, and that the body of Mrs. -Acres now lay tranquil beneath the soil. My path would be even shorter -if I passed through the graveyard, and so presently I was fumbling in -the gloom for the latch of the gate, and closed it again behind me. -Rain was falling now thick and sullenly, and in the bleared twilight I -picked my way among the mounds and slipped on the dripping grass, and -there in front of me was the newly turned earth. All was finished: the -grave-diggers had done their work and departed, and earth had gone back -again into the keeping of the earth. - -It brought me some great lightening of the spirit to know that, and I -was on the point of turning away when a sound of stir from the heaped -soil caught my ear, and I saw a little stream of pebbles mixed with -clay trickle down the side of the mound above the grave: the heavy -rain, no doubt, had loosened the earth. And then came another and yet -another, and with terror gripping at my heart I perceived that this was -no loosening from without, but from within, for to right and left the -piled soil was falling away with the press of something from below. -Faster and faster it poured off the grave, and ever higher at the head -of it rose a mound of earth pushed upwards from beneath. Somewhere out -of sight there came the sound as of creaking and breaking wood, and -then through that mound of earth there protruded the end of the coffin. -The lid was shattered: loose pieces of the boards fell off it, and from -within the cavity there faced me white features and wide eyes. All this -I saw, while sheer terror held me motionless; then, I suppose, came the -breaking-point, and with such panic as surely man never felt before I -was stumbling away among the graves and racing towards the kindly human -lights of the town below. - -I went to the parson who had conducted the service that afternoon with -my incredible tale, and an hour later he, Charles Alington, and two -or three men from the undertaker’s were on the spot. They found the -coffin, completely disinterred, lying on the ground by the grave, which -was now three-quarters full of the earth which had fallen back into it. -After what had happened it was decided to make no further attempt to -bury it; and next day the body was cremated. - - * * * * * - -Now, it is open to anyone who may read this tale to reject the incident -of this emergence of the coffin altogether, and account for the other -strange happenings by the comfortable theory of coincidence. He can -certainly satisfy himself that one Bertha Acres did die at sea on this -particular Thursday before Easter, and was buried at sea: there is -nothing extraordinary about that. Nor is it the least impossible that -the weights should have slipped from the canvas shroud, and that the -body should have been washed ashore on the coast by Tarleton (why not -Tarleton, as well as any other little town near the coast?); nor is -there anything inherently significant in the fact that the grave, as -originally dug, was not of sufficient dimensions to receive the coffin. -That all these incidents should have happened to the body of a single -individual is odd, but then the nature of coincidence is to be odd. -They form a startling series, but unless coincidences are startling -they escape observation altogether. So, if you reject the last incident -here recorded, or account for it by some local disturbance, an -earthquake, or the breaking of a spring just below the grave, you can -comfortably recline on the cushion of coincidence.... - - * * * * * - -For myself, I give no explanation of these events, though my -brother-in-law brought forward one with which he himself is perfectly -satisfied. Only the other day he sent me, with considerable jubilation, -a copy of some extracts from a mediæval treatise on the subject of -reincarnation which sufficiently indicates his theory. The original -work was in Latin, which, mistrusting my scholarship, he kindly -translated for me. I transcribe his quotations exactly as he sent them -to me. - -“We have these certain instances of his reincarnation. In one his -spirit was incarnated in the body of a man; in the other, in that of -a woman, fair of outward aspect, and of a pleasant conversation, but -held in dread and in horror by those who came into more than casual -intercourse with her.... She, it is said, died on the anniversary of -the day on which he hanged himself, after the betrayal, but of this I -have no certain information. What is sure is that, when the time came -for her burial, the kindly earth would receive her not, but though the -grave was dug deep and well it spewed her forth again.... Of the man -in whom his cursed spirit was reincarnated it is said that, being on a -voyage when he died, he was cast overboard with weights to sink him; -but the sea would not suffer him to rest in her bosom, but slipped the -weights from him, and cast him forth again on to the coast.... Howbeit, -when the full time of his expiation shall have come and his deadly -sin forgiven, the corporal body which is the cursed receptacle of his -spirit shall at length be purged with fire, and so he shall, in the -infinite mercy of the Almighty, have rest, and shall wander no more.” - - - - -The Horror-Horn - - - - -The Horror-Horn - - -For the past ten days Alhubel had basked in the radiant midwinter -weather proper to its eminence of over 6,000 feet. From rising to -setting the sun (so surprising to those who have hitherto associated -it with a pale, tepid plate indistinctly shining through the murky air -of England) had blazed its way across the sparkling blue, and every -night the serene and windless frost had made the stars sparkle like -illuminated diamond dust. Sufficient snow had fallen before Christmas -to content the skiers, and the big rink, sprinkled every evening, had -given the skaters each morning a fresh surface on which to perform -their slippery antics. Bridge and dancing served to while away the -greater part of the night, and to me, now for the first time tasting -the joys of a winter in the Engadine, it seemed that a new heaven and -a new earth had been lighted, warmed, and refrigerated for the special -benefit of those who like myself had been wise enough to save up their -days of holiday for the winter. - -But a break came in these ideal conditions: one afternoon the sun grew -vapour-veiled and up the valley from the north-west a wind frozen with -miles of travel over ice-bound hill-sides began scouting through the -calm halls of the heavens. Soon it grew dusted with snow, first in -small flakes driven almost horizontally before its congealing breath -and then in larger tufts as of swansdown. And though all day for a -fortnight before the fate of nations and life and death had seemed -to me of far less importance than to get certain tracings of the -skate-blades on the ice of proper shape and size, it now seemed that -the one paramount consideration was to hurry back to the hotel for -shelter: it was wiser to leave rocking-turns alone than to be frozen in -their quest. - -I had come out here with my cousin, Professor Ingram, the celebrated -physiologist and Alpine climber. During the serenity of the last -fortnight he had made a couple of notable winter ascents, but this -morning his weather-wisdom had mistrusted the signs of the heavens, and -instead of attempting the ascent of the Piz Passug he had waited to see -whether his misgivings justified themselves. So there he sat now in the -hall of the admirable hotel with his feet on the hot-water pipes and -the latest delivery of the English post in his hands. This contained -a pamphlet concerning the result of the Mount Everest expedition, of -which he had just finished the perusal when I entered. - -“A very interesting report,” he said, passing it to me, “and they -certainly deserve to succeed next year. But who can tell, what that -final six thousand feet may entail? Six thousand feet more when you -have already accomplished twenty-three thousand does not seem much, -but at present no one knows whether the human frame can stand exertion -at such a height. It may affect not the lungs and heart only, but -possibly the brain. Delirious hallucinations may occur. In fact, if I -did not know better, I should have said that one such hallucination had -occurred to the climbers already.” - -“And what was that?” I asked. - -“You will find that they thought they came across the tracks of some -naked human foot at a great altitude. That looks at first sight like -an hallucination. What more natural than that a brain excited and -exhilarated by the extreme height should have interpreted certain marks -in the snow as the footprints of a human being? Every bodily organ -at these altitudes is exerting itself to the utmost to do its work, -and the brain seizes on those marks in the snow and says ‘Yes, I’m -all right, I’m doing my job, and I perceive marks in the snow which -I affirm are human footprints.’ You know, even at this altitude, how -restless and eager the brain is, how vividly, as you told me, you dream -at night. Multiply that stimulus and that consequent eagerness and -restlessness by three, and how natural that the brain should harbour -illusions! What after all is the delirium which often accompanies high -fever but the effort of the brain to do its work under the pressure -of feverish conditions? It is so eager to continue perceiving that it -perceives things which have no existence!” - -“And yet you don’t think that these naked human footprints were -illusions,” said I. “You told me you would have thought so, if you had -not known better.” - -He shifted in his chair and looked out of the window a moment. The air -was thick now with the density of the big snow-flakes that were driven -along by the squealing north-west gale. - -“Quite so,” he said. “In all probability the human footprints were -real human footprints. I expect that they were the footprints, anyhow, -of a being more nearly a man than anything else. My reason for saying -so is that I know such beings exist. I have even seen quite near at -hand--and I assure you I did not wish to be nearer in spite of my -intense curiosity--the creature, shall we say, which would make such -footprints. And if the snow was not so dense, I could show you the -place where I saw him.” - -He pointed straight out of the window, where across the valley lies -the huge tower of the Ungeheuerhorn with the carved pinnacle of rock -at the top like some gigantic rhinoceros-horn. On one side only, as I -knew, was the mountain practicable, and that for none but the finest -climbers; on the other three a succession of ledges and precipices -rendered it unscalable. Two thousand feet of sheer rock form the tower; -below are five hundred feet of fallen boulders, up to the edge of which -grow dense woods of larch and pine. - -“Upon the Ungeheuerhorn?” I asked. - -“Yes. Up till twenty years ago it had never been ascended, and I, like -several others, spent a lot of time in trying to find a route up it. -My guide and I sometimes spent three nights together at the hut beside -the Blumen glacier, prowling round it, and it was by luck really that -we found the route, for the mountain looks even more impracticable -from the far side than it does from this. But one day we found a long, -transverse fissure in the side which led to a negotiable ledge; then -there came a slanting ice couloir which you could not see till you got -to the foot of it. However, I need not go into that.” - -The big room where we sat was filling up with cheerful groups driven -indoors by this sudden gale and snowfall, and the cackle of merry -tongues grew loud. The band, too, that invariable appanage of tea-time -at Swiss resorts, had begun to tune up for the usual potpourri from the -works of Puccini. Next moment the sugary, sentimental melodies began. - -“Strange contrast!” said Ingram. “Here are we sitting warm and cosy, -our ears pleasantly tickled with these little baby tunes and outside is -the great storm growing more violent every moment, and swirling round -the austere cliffs of the Ungeheuerhorn: the Horror-Horn, as indeed it -was to me.” - -“I want to hear all about it,” I said. “Every detail: make a short -story long, if it’s short. I want to know why it’s _your_ Horror-horn?” - -“Well, Chanton and I (he was my guide) used to spend days prowling -about the cliffs, making a little progress on one side and then being -stopped, and gaining perhaps five hundred feet on another side and then -being confronted by some insuperable obstacle, till the day when by -luck we found the route. Chanton never liked the job, for some reason -that I could not fathom. It was not because of the difficulty or danger -of the climbing, for he was the most fearless man I have ever met -when dealing with rocks and ice, but he was always insistent that we -should get off the mountain and back to the Blumen hut before sunset. -He was scarcely easy even when we had got back to shelter and locked -and barred the door, and I well remember one night when, as we ate our -supper, we heard some animal, a wolf probably, howling somewhere out in -the night. A positive panic seized him, and I don’t think he closed his -eyes till morning. It struck me then that there might be some grisly -legend about the mountain, connected possibly with its name, and next -day I asked him why the peak was called the Horror-horn. He put the -question off at first, and said that, like the Schreckhorn, its name -was due to its precipices and falling stones; but when I pressed him -further he acknowledged that there was a legend about it, which his -father had told him. There were creatures, so it was supposed, that -lived in its caves, things human in shape, and covered, except for -the face and hands, with long black hair. They were dwarfs in size, -four feet high or thereabouts, but of prodigious strength and agility, -remnants of some wild primeval race. It seemed that they were still -in an upward stage of evolution, or so I guessed, for the story ran -that sometimes girls had been carried off by them, not as prey, and -not for any such fate as for those captured by cannibals, but to be -bred from. Young men also had been raped by them, to be mated with -the females of their tribe. All this looked as if the creatures, as I -said, were tending towards humanity. But naturally I did not believe a -word of it, as applied to the conditions of the present day. Centuries -ago, conceivably, there may have been such beings, and, with the -extraordinary tenacity of tradition, the news of this had been handed -down and was still current round the hearths of the peasants. As for -their numbers, Chanton told me that three had been once seen together -by a man who owing to his swiftness on skis had escaped to tell the -tale. This man, he averred, was no other than his grandfather, who -had been benighted one winter evening as he passed through the dense -woods below the Ungeheuerhorn, and Chanton supposed that they had -been driven down to these lower altitudes in search of food during -severe winter weather, for otherwise the recorded sights of them -had always taken place among the rocks of the peak itself. They had -pursued his grandfather, then a young man, at an extraordinarily swift -canter, running sometimes upright as men run, sometimes on all-fours -in the manner of beasts, and their howls were just such as that we had -heard that night in the Blumen hut. Such at any rate was the story -Chanton told me, and, like you, I regarded it as the very moonshine -of superstition. But the very next day I had reason to reconsider my -judgment about it. - -“It was on that day that after a week of exploration we hit on the -only route at present known to the top of our peak. We started as soon -as there was light enough to climb by, for, as you may guess, on very -difficult rocks it is impossible to climb by lantern or moonlight. -We hit on the long fissure I have spoken of, we explored the ledge -which from below seemed to end in nothingness, and with an hour’s -step-cutting ascended the couloir which led upwards from it. From there -onwards it was a rock-climb, certainly of considerable difficulty, but -with no heart-breaking discoveries ahead, and it was about nine in the -morning that we stood on the top. We did not wait there long, for that -side of the mountain is raked by falling stones loosened, when the sun -grows hot, from the ice that holds them, and we made haste to pass the -ledge where the falls are most frequent. After that there was the long -fissure to descend, a matter of no great difficulty, and we were at -the end of our work by midday, both of us, as you may imagine, in the -state of the highest elation. - -“A long and tiresome scramble among the huge boulders at the foot of -the cliff then lay before us. Here the hill-side is very porous and -great caves extend far into the mountain. We had unroped at the base of -the fissure, and were picking our way as seemed good to either of us -among these fallen rocks, many of them bigger than an ordinary house, -when, on coming round the corner of one of these, I saw that which -made it clear that the stories Chanton had told me were no figment of -traditional superstition. - -“Not twenty yards in front of me lay one of the beings of which he -had spoken. There it sprawled naked and basking on its back with face -turned up to the sun, which its narrow eyes regarded unwinking. In form -it was completely human, but the growth of hair that covered limbs and -trunk alike almost completely hid the sun-tanned skin beneath. But its -face, save for the down on its cheeks and chin, was hairless, and I -looked on a countenance the sensual and malevolent bestiality of which -froze me with horror. Had the creature been an animal, one would have -felt scarcely a shudder at the gross animalism of it; the horror lay in -the fact that it was a man. There lay by it a couple of gnawed bones, -and, its meal finished, it was lazily licking its protuberant lips, -from which came a purring murmur of content. With one hand it scratched -the thick hair on its belly, in the other it held one of these bones, -which presently split in half beneath the pressure of its finger and -thumb. But my horror was not based on the information of what happened -to those men whom these creatures caught, it was due only to my -proximity to a thing so human and so infernal. The peak, of which the -ascent had a moment ago filled us with such elated satisfaction, became -to me an Ungeheuerhorn indeed, for it was the home of beings more awful -than the delirium of nightmare could ever have conceived. - -“Chanton was a dozen paces behind me, and with a backward wave of -my hand I caused him to halt. Then withdrawing myself with infinite -precaution, so as not to attract the gaze of that basking creature, -I slipped back round the rock, whispered to him what I had seen, and -with blanched faces we made a long detour, peering round every corner, -and crouching low, not knowing that at any step we might not come upon -another of these beings, or that from the mouth of one of these caves -in the mountain-side there might not appear another of those hairless -and dreadful faces, with perhaps this time the breasts and insignia of -womanhood. That would have been the worst of all. - -“Luck favoured us, for we made our way among the boulders and shifting -stones, the rattle of which might at any moment have betrayed us, -without a repetition of my experience, and once among the trees we ran -as if the Furies themselves were in pursuit. Well now did I understand, -though I dare say I cannot convey, the qualms of Chanton’s mind when he -spoke to me of these creatures. Their very humanity was what made them -so terrible, the fact that they were of the same race as ourselves, but -of a type so abysmally degraded that the most brutal and inhuman of men -would have seemed angelic in comparison.” - -The music of the small band was over before he had finished the -narrative, and the chattering groups round the tea-table had dispersed. -He paused a moment. - -“There was a horror of the spirit,” he said, “which I experienced -then, from which, I verily believe, I have never entirely recovered. -I saw then how terrible a living thing could be, and how terrible, in -consequence, was life itself. In us all I suppose lurks some inherited -germ of that ineffable bestiality, and who knows whether, sterile as it -has apparently become in the course of centuries, it might not fructify -again. When I saw that creature sun itself, I looked into the abyss -out of which we have crawled. And these creatures are trying to crawl -out of it now, if they exist any longer. Certainly for the last twenty -years there has been no record of their being seen, until we come to -this story of the footprint seen by the climbers on Everest. If that -is authentic, if the party did not mistake the footprint of some bear, -or what not, for a human tread, it seems as if still this bestranded -remnant of mankind is in existence.” - -Now, Ingram, had told his story well; but sitting in this warm -and civilised room, the horror which he had clearly felt had not -communicated itself to me in any very vivid manner. Intellectually, I -agreed, I could appreciate his horror, but certainly my spirit felt no -shudder of interior comprehension. - -“But it is odd,” I said, “that your keen interest in physiology did -not disperse your qualms. You were looking, so I take it, at some form -of man more remote probably than the earliest human remains. Did not -something inside you say ‘This is of absorbing significance’?” - -He shook his head. - -“No: I only wanted to get away,” said he. “It was not, as I have told -you, the terror of what according to Chanton’s story, might await us if -we were captured; it was sheer horror at the creature itself. I quaked -at it.” - - * * * * * - -The snowstorm and the gale increased in violence that night, and I -slept uneasily, plucked again and again from slumber by the fierce -battling of the wind that shook my windows as if with an imperious -demand for admittance. It came in billowy gusts, with strange noises -intermingled with it as for a moment it abated, with flutings and -moanings that rose to shrieks as the fury of it returned. These noises, -no doubt, mingled themselves with my drowsed and sleepy consciousness, -and once I tore myself out of nightmare, imagining that the creatures -of the Horror-horn had gained footing on my balcony and were rattling -at the window-bolts. But before morning the gale had died away, and I -awoke to see the snow falling dense and fast in a windless air. For -three days it continued, without intermission, and with its cessation -there came a frost such as I have never felt before. Fifty degrees were -registered one night, and more the next, and what the cold must have -been on the cliffs of the Ungeheuerhorn I cannot imagine. Sufficient, -so I thought, to have made an end altogether of its secret inhabitants: -my cousin, on that day twenty years ago, had missed an opportunity for -study which would probably never fall again either to him or another. - -I received one morning a letter from a friend saying that he had -arrived at the neighbouring winter resort of St. Luigi, and proposing -that I should come over for a morning’s skating and lunch afterwards. -The place was not more than a couple of miles off, if one took the path -over the low, pine-clad foot-hills above which lay the steep woods -below the first rocky slopes of the Ungeheuerhorn; and accordingly, -with a knapsack containing skates on my back, I went on skis over the -wooded slopes and down by an easy descent again on to St. Luigi. The -day was overcast, clouds entirely obscured the higher peaks though the -sun was visible, pale and unluminous, through the mists. But as the -morning went on, it gained the upper hand, and I slid down into St. -Luigi beneath a sparkling firmament. We skated and lunched, and then, -since it looked as if thick weather was coming up again, I set out -early about three o’clock for my return journey. - -Hardly had I got into the woods when the clouds gathered thick above, -and streamers and skeins of them began to descend among the pines -through which my path threaded its way. In ten minutes more their -opacity had so increased that I could hardly see a couple of yards in -front of me. Very soon I became aware that I must have got off the -path, for snow-cowled shrubs lay directly in my way, and, casting -back to find it again, I got altogether confused as to direction. -But, though progress was difficult, I knew I had only to keep on -the ascent, and presently I should come to the brow of these low -foot-hills, and descend into the open valley where Alhubel stood. So -on I went, stumbling and sliding over obstacles, and unable, owing to -the thickness of the snow, to take off my skis, for I should have sunk -over the knees at each step. Still the ascent continued, and looking at -my watch I saw that I had already been near an hour on my way from St. -Luigi, a period more than sufficient to complete my whole journey. But -still I stuck to my idea that though I had certainly strayed far from -my proper route a few minutes more must surely see me over the top of -the upward way, and I should find the ground declining into the next -valley. About now, too, I noticed that the mists were growing suffused -with rose-colour, and, though the inference was that it must be close -on sunset, there was consolation in the fact that they were there and -might lift at any moment and disclose to me my whereabouts. But the -fact that night would soon be on me made it needful to bar my mind -against that despair of loneliness which so eats out the heart of a man -who is lost in woods or on mountain-side, that, though still there is -plenty of vigour in his limbs, his nervous force is sapped, and he can -do no more than lie down and abandon himself to whatever fate may await -him.... And then I heard that which made the thought of loneliness seem -bliss indeed, for there was a worse fate than loneliness. What I heard -resembled the howl of a wolf, and it came from not far in front of me -where the ridge--was it a ridge?--still rose higher in vestment of -pines. - -From behind me came a sudden puff of wind, which shook the frozen snow -from the drooping pine-branches, and swept away the mists as a broom -sweeps the dust from the floor. Radiant above me were the unclouded -skies, already charged with the red of the sunset, and in front I -saw that I had come to the very edge of the wood through which I had -wandered so long. But it was no valley into which I had penetrated, -for there right ahead of me rose the steep slope of boulders and rocks -soaring upwards to the foot of the Ungeheuerhorn. What, then, was that -cry of a wolf which had made my heart stand still? I saw. - -Not twenty yards from me was a fallen tree, and leaning against the -trunk of it was one of the denizens of the Horror-Horn, and it was a -woman. She was enveloped in a thick growth of hair grey and tufted, -and from her head it streamed down over her shoulders and her bosom, -from which hung withered and pendulous breasts. And looking on her -face I comprehended not with my mind alone, but with a shudder of my -spirit, what Ingram had felt. Never had nightmare fashioned so terrible -a countenance; the beauty of sun and stars and of the beasts of the -field and the kindly race of men could not atone for so hellish an -incarnation of the spirit of life. A fathomless bestiality modelled the -slavering mouth and the narrow eyes; I looked into the abyss itself -and knew that out of that abyss on the edge of which I leaned the -generations of men had climbed. What if that ledge crumbled in front of -me and pitched me headlong into its nethermost depths?... - -In one hand she held by the horns a chamois that kicked and struggled. -A blow from its hindleg caught her withered thigh, and with a grunt -of anger she seized the leg in her other hand, and, as a man may pull -from its sheath a stem of meadow-grass, she plucked it off the body, -leaving the torn skin hanging round the gaping wound. Then putting the -red, bleeding member to her mouth she sucked at it as a child sucks a -stick of sweetmeat. Through flesh and gristle her short, brown teeth -penetrated, and she licked her lips with a sound of purring. Then -dropping the leg by her side, she looked again at the body of the prey -now quivering in its death-convulsion, and with finger and thumb gouged -out one of its eyes. She snapped her teeth on it, and it cracked like a -soft-shelled nut. - -It must have been but a few seconds that I stood watching her, in -some indescribable catalepsy of terror, while through my brain there -pealed the panic-command of my mind to my stricken limbs “Begone, -begone, while there is time.” Then, recovering the power of my joints -and muscles, I tried to slip behind a tree and hide myself from this -apparition. But the woman--shall I say?--must have caught my stir of -movement, for she raised her eyes from her living feast and saw me. She -craned forward her neck, she dropped her prey, and half rising began to -move towards me. As she did this, she opened her mouth, and gave forth -a howl such as I had heard a moment before. It was answered by another, -but faintly and distantly. - -Sliding and slipping, with the toes of my skis tripping in the -obstacles below the snow, I plunged forward down the hill between -the pine-trunks. The low sun already sinking behind some rampart of -mountain in the west reddened the snow and the pines with its ultimate -rays. My knapsack with the skates in it swung to and fro on my back, -one ski-stick had already been twitched out of my hand by a fallen -branch of pine, but not a second’s pause could I allow myself to -recover it. I gave no glance behind, and I knew not at what pace my -pursuer was on my track, or indeed whether any pursued at all, for my -whole mind and energy, now working at full power again under the stress -of my panic, was devoted to getting away down the hill and out of the -wood as swiftly as my limbs could bear me. For a little while I heard -nothing but the hissing snow of my headlong passage, and the rustle of -the covered undergrowth beneath my feet, and then, from close at hand -behind me, once more the wolf-howl sounded and I heard the plunging of -footsteps other than my own. - -The strap of my knapsack had shifted, and as my skates swung to and fro -on my back it chafed and pressed on my throat, hindering free passage -of air, of which, God knew, my labouring lungs were in dire need, and -without pausing I slipped it free from my neck, and held it in the hand -from which my ski-stick had been jerked. I seemed to go a little more -easily for this adjustment, and now, not so far distant, I could see -below me the path from which I had strayed. If only I could reach that, -the smoother going would surely enable me to out-distance my pursuer, -who even on the rougher ground was but slowly overhauling me, and at -the sight of that riband stretching unimpeded downhill, a ray of hope -pierced the black panic of my soul. With that came the desire, keen -and insistent, to see who or what it was that was on my tracks, and -I spared a backward glance. It was she, the hag whom I had seen at -her gruesome meal; her long grey hair flew out behind her, her mouth -chattered and gibbered, her fingers made grabbing movements, as if -already they closed on me. - -But the path was now at hand, and the nearness of it I suppose made me -incautious. A hump of snow-covered bush lay in my path, and, thinking -I could jump over it, I tripped and fell, smothering myself in snow. I -heard a maniac noise, half scream, half laugh, from close behind, and -before I could recover myself the grabbing fingers were at my neck, as -if a steel vice had closed there. But my right hand in which I held my -knapsack of skates was free, and with a blind back-handed movement I -whirled it behind me at the full length of its strap, and knew that my -desperate blow had found its billet somewhere. Even before I could look -round I felt the grip on my neck relax, and something subsided into the -very bush which had entangled me. I recovered my feet and turned. - -There she lay, twitching and quivering. The heel of one of my skates -piercing the thin alpaca of the knapsack had hit her full on the -temple, from which the blood was pouring, but a hundred yards away I -could see another such figure coming downwards on my tracks, leaping -and bounding. At that panic rose again within me, and I sped off down -the white smooth path that led to the lights of the village already -beckoning. Never once did I pause in my headlong going: there was no -safety until I was back among the haunts of men. I flung myself against -the door of the hotel, and screamed for admittance, though I had but to -turn the handle and enter; and once more as when Ingram had told his -tale, there was the sound of the band, and the chatter of voices, and -there, too, was he himself, who looked up and then rose swiftly to his -feet as I made my clattering entrance. - -“I have seen them too,” I cried. “Look at my knapsack. Is there not -blood on it? It is the blood of one of them, a woman, a hag, who tore -off the leg of a chamois as I looked, and pursued me through the -accursed wood. I----” - -Whether it was I who spun round, or the room which seemed to spin -round me, I knew not, but I heard myself falling, collapsed on the -floor, and the next time that I was conscious at all I was in bed. -There was Ingram there, who told me that I was quite safe, and another -man, a stranger, who pricked my arm with the nozzle of a syringe, and -reassured me.... - -A day or two later I gave a coherent account of my adventure, and three -or four men, armed with guns, went over my traces. They found the bush -in which I had stumbled, with a pool of blood which had soaked into -the snow, and, still following my ski-tracks, they came on the body -of a chamois, from which had been torn one of its hindlegs and one -eye-socket was empty. That is all the corroboration of my story that I -can give the reader, and for myself I imagine that the creature which -pursued me was either not killed by my blow or that her fellows removed -her body.... Anyhow, it is open to the incredulous to prowl about -the caves of the Ungeheuerhorn, and see if anything occurs that may -convince them. - - - - -Machaon - - - - -Machaon - - -I was returning at the close of the short winter day from my visit to -St. James’s Hospital, where my old servant Parkes, who had been in my -service for twenty years, was lying. I had sent him there three days -before, not for treatment, but for observation, and this afternoon I -had gone up to London, to hear the doctor’s report on the case. He told -me that Parkes was suffering from an internal tumour, the nature of -which could not be diagnosed for certain, but all the symptoms pointed -directly to its being cancerous. That, however, must not be regarded -as proved; it could only be proved by an exploratory operation to -reveal the nature and the extent of the growth, which must then, if -possible, be excised. It might involve, so my old friend Godfrey Symes -told me, certain tissues and would be found to be inoperable, but he -hoped this would not be the case, and that it would be possible to -remove it: removal gave the only chance of recovery. It was fortunate -that the patient had been sent for examination in an early stage, for -thus the chances of success were much greater than if the growth had -been one of long standing. Parkes was not, however, in a fit state to -stand the operation at once; a recuperative week or ten days in bed was -advisable. In these circumstances Symes recommended that he should not -be told at once what lay in front of him. - -“I can see that he is a nervous fellow,” he said, “and to lie in bed -thinking of what he has got to face will probably undo all the good -that lying in bed will bring to him. You don’t get used to the idea of -being cut open; the more you think about it, the more intolerable it -becomes. If that sort of adventure faced me, I should infinitely prefer -not to be told about it until they came to give me the anæsthetic. -Naturally, he will have to consent to the operation, but I shouldn’t -tell him anything about it till the day before. He’s not married, I -think, is he?” - -“No: he’s alone in the world,” said I. “He’s been with me twenty years.” - -“Yes, I remember Parkes almost as long as I remember you. But that’s -all I can recommend. Of course, if the pain became severe, it might be -better to operate sooner, but at present he suffers hardly at all, and -he sleeps well, so the nurse tells me.” - -“And there’s nothing else that you can try for it?” I asked. - -“I’ll try anything you like, but it will be perfectly useless. I’ll -let him have any quack nostrum you and he wish, as long as it doesn’t -injure his health, or make you put off the operation. There are X-rays -and ultra-violet rays, and violet leaves and radium; there are fresh -cures for cancer discovered every day, and what’s the result? They -only make people put off the operation till it’s no longer possible to -operate. Naturally, I will welcome any further opinion you want.” - -Now Godfrey Symes is easily the first authority on this subject, and -has a far higher percentage of cures to his credit than anyone else. - -“No, I don’t want any fresh opinion,” said I. - -“Very well, I’ll have him carefully watched. By the way, can’t you stop -in town and dine with me? There are one or two people coming, and among -them a perfectly mad spiritualist who has more messages from the other -world than I ever get on my telephone. Trunk-calls, eh? I wonder where -the exchange is. Do come! You like cranks, I know!” - -“I can’t, I’m afraid,” said I. “I’ve a couple of guests coming to stay -with me to-day down in the country. They are both cranks: one’s a -medium.” - -He laughed. - -“Well, I can only offer you one crank, and you’ve got two,” he said. “I -must get back to the wards. I’ll write to you in about a week’s time -or so, unless there’s any urgency which I don’t foresee, and I should -suggest your coming up to tell Parkes. Good-bye.” - -I caught my train at Charing Cross with about three seconds to spare, -and we slid clanking out over the bridge through the cold, dense air. -Snow had been falling intermittently since morning, and when we got -out of the grime and fog of London, it was lying thickly on field -and hedgerow, retarding by its reflection of such light as lingered -the oncoming of darkness, and giving to the landscape an aloof and -lonely austerity. All day I had felt that drowsiness which accompanies -snowfall, and sometimes, half losing myself in a doze, my mind crept, -like a thing crawling about in the dark, over what Godfrey Symes had -told me. For all these years Parkes, as much friend as servant, had -given me his faithfulness and devotion, and now, in return for that, -all that apparently I could do was to tell him of his plight. It was -clear, from what the surgeon had said, that he expected a serious -disclosure, and I knew from the experience of two friends of mine who -had been in his condition what might be expected of this “exploratory -operation.” Exactly similar had been these cases; there was clear -evidence of an internal growth possibly not malignant, and in each case -the same dismal sequence had followed. The growth had been removed, and -within a couple of months there had been a recrudescence of it. Indeed, -surgery had proved no more than a pruning-knife, which had stimulated -that which the surgeon had hoped to extirpate into swifter activity. -And that apparently was the best chance that Symes held out: the rest -of the treatments were but rubbish or quackery.... - -My mind crawled away towards another subject: probably the two visitors -whom I expected, Charles Hope and the medium whom he was bringing with -him, were in the same train as I, and I ran over in my mind all that -he had told me of Mrs. Forrest. It was certainly an odd story he had -brought me two days before. Mrs. Forrest was a medium of considerable -reputation in psychical circles, and had produced some very -extraordinary book-tests which, by all accounts, seemed inexplicable, -except on a spiritualistic hypothesis, and no imputation of trickery -had, at any rate as yet, come near her. When in trance, she spoke and -wrote, as is invariably the case with mediums, under the direction -of a certain “control”--that is to say, a spiritual and discarnate -intelligence which for the time was in possession of her. But lately -there had been signs that a fresh control had inspired her, the nature -of whom, his name, and his identity was at present unknown. And then -came the following queer incident. - -Last week only when in trance, and apparently under the direction -of this new control, she began describing in considerable detail a -certain house where the control said that he had work to do. At first -the description aroused no association in Charles Hope’s mind, but as -it went on, it suddenly struck him that Mrs. Forrest was speaking of -my house in Tilling. She gave its general features, its position in a -small town on a hill, its walled-in garden, and then went on to speak -with great minuteness of a rather peculiar feature in the house. She -described a big room built out in the garden a few yards away from -the house itself at right-angles to its front, and approached by half -a dozen stone steps. There was a railing, so she said, on each side -of them, and into the railing were twisted, like snake coils, the -stems of a tree which bore pale mauve flowers. This was all a correct -description of my garden room and the wistaria which writhes in and out -of the railings which line the steps. She then went on to speak of the -interior of the room. At one end was a fireplace, at the other a big -bow-window looking out on to the street and the front of the house, and -there were two other windows opposite each other, in one of which was a -table, while the other, looking out on to the garden, was shadowed by -the tree that twisted itself about the railings. Book-cases lined the -walls, and there was a big sofa at right-angles to the fire.... - -Now all this, though it was a perfectly accurate description of a place -that, as far as could be ascertained, Mrs. Forrest had never seen, -might conceivably have been derived from Charles Hope’s mind, since he -knew the room well, having often stayed with me. But the medium added a -detail which could not conceivably have been thus derived, for Charles -believed it to be incorrect. She said that there was a big piano near -the bow-window, while he was sure that there was not. But oddly enough -I had hired a piano only a week or so ago, and it stood in the place -that she mentioned. The “control” then repeated that there was work -for him to do in that house. There was some situation or complication -there in which he could help, and he could “get through” better (that -is, make a clearer communication) if the medium could hold a séance -there. Charles Hope then told the control that he believed he knew -the house that he had been speaking of, and promised to do his best. -Shortly afterwards Mrs. Forrest came out of trance, and, as usual, had -no recollection of what had passed. - -So Charles came to me with the story exactly as I have given it here, -and though I could not think of any situation or complication in which -an unknown control of a medium I had never seen could be of assistance, -the whole thing (and in especial that detail about the piano) was so -odd that I asked him to bring the medium down for a sitting or a series -of sittings. The day of their arrival was arranged, but when three days -ago Parkes had to go into hospital, I was inclined to put them off. But -a neighbour away for a week obligingly lent me a parlour-maid, and I -let the engagement stand. With regard to the situation in which the -control would be of assistance, I can but assure the reader that as far -as I thought about it at all, I only wondered whether it was concerned -with a book on which I was engaged, which dealt (if I could ever -succeed in writing it) with psychical affairs. But at present I could -not get on with it at all. I had made half a dozen beginnings which had -all gone into the waste-paper basket. - -My guests proved not to have come by the same train as I, but arrived -shortly before dinner-time, and after Mrs. Forrest had gone to her -room, I had a few words with Charles, who told me exactly how the -situation now stood. - -“I know your caution and your captiousness in these affairs,” he said, -“so I have told Mrs. Forrest nothing about the description she gave -of this house, or of the reason why I asked her to come here. I said -only, as we settled, that you were a great friend of mine and immensely -interested in psychical affairs, but a country-mouse whom it was -difficult to get up to town. But you would be delighted if she would -come down for a few days and give some sittings here.” - -“And does she recognise the house, do you think?” I asked. - -“No sign of it. As I told you, when she comes out of trance she never -seems to have the faintest recollection of what she has said or -written. We shall have a séance, I hope, to-night after dinner.” - -“Certainly, if she will,” said I. “I thought we had better hold it in -the garden-room, for that was the place that was so minutely described. -It’s quite warm there, central-heating and a fire, and it’s only half a -dozen yards from the house. I’ve had the snow swept from the steps.” - -Mrs. Forrest turned out to be a very intelligent woman, well spiced -with humour, gifted with a sane appreciation of the comforts of life, -and most agreeably furnished with the small change of talk. She -was inclined to be stout, but carried herself with briskness, and -neither in body nor mind did she suggest that she was one who held -communication with the unseen: there was nothing wan or occult about -her. Her general outlook on life appeared to be rather materialistic -than otherwise, and she was very interesting on the topic when, about -half-way through dinner, the subject of her mediumship came on the -conversational board. - -“My gifts, such as they are,” she said, “have nothing to do with this -person who sits eating and drinking and talking to you. She, as Mr. -Hope may have told you, is quite expunged before the subconscious part -of me--that is the latest notion, is it not?--gets into touch with -discarnate intelligences. Until that happens, the door is shut, and -when it is over, the door is shut again, and I have no recollection of -what I have said or written. The control uses my hand and my voice, but -that is all. I know no more about it than a piano on which a tune has -been played.” - -“And there is a new control who has lately been using you?” I asked. - -She laughed. - -“You must ask Mr. Hope about that,” she said. “I know nothing -whatever of it. He tells me it is so, and he tells me--don’t you, Mr. -Hope?--that he hasn’t any idea who or what the new control is. I look -forward to its development; my idea is that the control has to get used -to me, as in learning a new instrument. I assure you I am as eager as -anyone that he should gain facility in communication through me. I -hope, indeed, that we are to have a séance to-night.” - -The talk veered again, and I learned that Mrs. Forrest had never been -in Tilling before, and was enchanted with the snowy moonlit glance she -had had of its narrow streets and ancient residences. She liked, too, -the atmosphere of the house: it seemed tranquil and kindly; especially -so was the little drawing-room where we had assembled before dinner. - -I glanced at Charles. - -“I had thought of proposing that we should sit in the garden-room,” I -said, “if you don’t mind half a dozen steps in the open. It adjoins the -house.” - -“Just as you wish,” she said, “though I think we have excellent -conditions in here without going there.” - -This confirmed her statement that she had no idea after she had come -out of trance what she had said, for otherwise she must have recognised -at the mention of the garden-room her own description of it, and when -soon after dinner we adjourned there, it was clear that, unless she -was acting an inexplicable part, the sight of it twanged no chord of -memory. There we made the very simple arrangements to which she was -accustomed. - -As the procedure in such sittings is possibly unfamiliar to the reader, -I will describe quite shortly what our arrangements were. We had no -idea what form these manifestations--if there were any--might take, -and therefore we, Charles and I, were prepared to record them on the -spot. We three sat round a small table about a couple of yards from -the fire, which was burning brightly; Mrs. Forrest seated herself in -a big armchair. Exactly in front of her on the table were a pencil -and a block of paper in case, as often happened, the manifestation -took the form of automatic script--writing, that is, while in a state -of trance. Charles and I sat on each side of her, also provided with -pencil and paper in order to take down what she said if and when (as -lawyers say) the control took possession of her. In case materialised -spirits appeared, a phenomenon not as yet seen at her séances, our idea -was to jot down as quickly as possible whatever we saw or thought we -saw. Should there be rappings or movements of furniture, we were to -make similar notes of our impressions. The lamp was then turned down, -so that just a ring of flame encircled the wick, but the firelight was -of sufficient brightness, as we tested before the séance began, to -enable us to write and to see what we had written. The red glow of it -illuminated the room, and it was settled that Charles should note by -his watch the time at which anything occurred. Occasionally, throughout -the séance a bubble of coal-gas caught fire, and then the whole room -started into strong light. I had given orders that my servants should -not interrupt the sitting at all, unless somebody rang the bell from -the garden-room. In that case it was to be answered. Finally, before -the séance began, we bolted all the windows on the inside and locked -the door. We took no other precautions against trickery, though, as a -matter of fact, Mrs. Forrest suggested that she should be tied into her -chair. But in the firelight any movement of hers would be so visible -that we did not adopt this precaution. Charles and I had settled to -read to each other the notes we made during the sitting, and cut out -anything that both of us had not recorded. The accounts, therefore, of -this sitting and of that which followed next day are founded on our -joint evidence. The sitting began. - -Mrs. Forrest was leaning back at ease with her eyes open and her hands -on the arms of her chair. Then her eyes closed and a violent trembling -seized her. That passed, and shortly afterwards her head fell forward -and her breathing became very rapid. Presently that quieted to normal -pace again, and she began to speak at first in a scarcely audible -whisper and then in a high shrill voice, quite unlike her usual tones. - -I do not think that in all England there was a more disappointed man -than I during the next half-hour. “Starlight,” it appeared, was in -control, and Starlight was a personage of platitudes. She had been a -nun in the time of Henry VII, and her work was to help those who had -lately passed over. She was very busy and very happy, and was in the -third sphere where they had a great deal of beautiful music. We must -all be good, said Starlight, and it didn’t matter much whether we were -clever or not. Love was the great thing; we had to love each other -and help each other, and death was no more than the gate of life, and -everything would be tremendously jolly.... Starlight, in fact, might be -better described as clap-trap, and I began thinking about Parkes.... - -And then I ceased to think about Parkes, for the shrill moralities -of Starlight ceased, and Mrs. Forrest’s voice changed again. The -stale facility of her utterance stopped and she began to speak, quite -unintelligibly, in a voice of low baritone range. Charles leaned across -the table and whispered to me. - -“That’s the new control,” he said. - -The voice that was speaking stumbled and hesitated: it was like that -of a man trying to express himself in some language which he knew very -imperfectly. Sometimes it stopped altogether, and in one of these -pauses I asked: - -“Can you tell us your name?” - -There was no reply, but presently I saw Mrs. Forrest’s hand reach -out for the pencil. Charles put it into her fingers and placed the -writing-pad more handily for her. I watched the letters, in capitals, -being traced. They were made hesitatingly, but were perfectly legible. -“Swallow,” she wrote, and again “Swallow,” and stopped. - -“The bird?” I asked. - -The voice spoke in answer; now I could hear the words, uttered in that -low baritone voice. - -“No, not a bird,” it said. “Not a bird, but it flies.” - -I was utterly at sea; my mind could form no conjecture whatever -as to what was meant. And then the pencil began writing again. -“Swallow, swallow,” and then with a sudden briskness of movement, as -if the guiding intelligence had got over some difficulty, it wrote -“Swallow-tail.” - -This seemed more abstrusely senseless than ever. The only connection -with swallow-tail in my mind was a swallow-tailed coat, but whoever -heard of a swallow-tailed coat flying? - -“I’ve got it,” said Charles. “Swallow-tail butterfly. Is it that?” - -There came three sudden raps on the table, loud and startling. These -raps, I may explain, in the usual code mean “Yes.” As if to confirm -it the pencil began to write again, and spelled out “Swallow-tail -butterfly.” - -“Is that your name?” I asked. - -There was one rap, which signifies “No,” followed by three, which -means “Yes.” I had not the slightest idea of what it all signified -(indeed it seemed to signify nothing at all), but the sitting had -become extraordinarily interesting if only for its very unexpectedness. -The control was trying to establish himself by three methods -simultaneously--by the voice, by the automatic writing, and by rapping. -But how a swallow-tail butterfly could assist in some situation which -was now existing in my house was utterly beyond me.... Then an idea -struck me: the swallow-tail butterfly no doubt had a scientific name, -and that we could easily ascertain, for I knew that there was on my -shelves a copy of Newman’s _Butterflies and Moths of Great Britain_, a -sumptuous volume bound in morocco, which I had won as an entomological -prize at school. A moment’s search gave me the book, and by the -firelight I turned up the description of this butterfly in the index. -Its scientific name was _Papilio Machaon_. - -“Is Machaon your name?” I asked. - -The voice came clear now. - -“Yes, I am Machaon,” it said. - -With that came the end of the séance, which had lasted not more than -an hour. Whatever the power was that had made Mrs. Forrest speak -in that male voice and struggle, through that roundabout method of -“swallow, swallow-tail, Machaon,” to establish its identity, it now -began to fail. Mrs. Forrest’s pencil made a few illegible scribbles, -she whispered a few inaudible words, and presently with a stretch and a -sigh she came out of trance. We told her that the name of the control -was established, but apparently Machaon meant nothing to her. She was -much exhausted, and very soon I took her across to the house to go to -bed, and presently rejoined Charles. - -“Who was Machaon, anyhow?” he asked. “He sounds classical: more in your -line than mine.” - -I remembered enough Greek mythology to supply elementary facts, while I -hunted for a particular book about Athens. - -“Machaon was the son of Asclepios,” I said, “and Asclepios was the -Greek god of healing. He had precincts, hydropathic establishments, -where people went to be cured. The Romans called him Aesculapius.” - -“What can he do for you then?” asked Charles. “You’re fairly fit, -aren’t you?” - -Not till he spoke did a light dawn on me. Though I had been thinking so -much of Parkes that day, I had not consciously made the connection. - -“But Parkes isn’t,” said I. “Is that possible?” - -“By Jove!” said he. - -I found my book, and turned to the accounts of the precinct of -Asclepios in Athens. - -“Yes, Asclepios had two sons,” I said--“Machaon and Podaleirios. In -Homeric times he wasn’t a god, but only a physician, and his sons were -physicians too. The myth of his godhead is rather a late one----” - -I shut the book. - -“Best not to read any more,” I said. “If we know all about Asclepios, -we shall possibly be suggesting things to the medium’s mind. Let’s -see what Machaon can tell us about himself, and we can verify it -afterwards.” - -It was therefore with no further knowledge than this on the subject -of Machaon that we proposed to hold another séance the next day. All -morning the bitter air had been laden with snow, and now the street -in front of my house, a by-way at the best in the slender traffic of -the town, lay white and untrodden, save on the pavement where a few -passengers had gone by. Mrs. Forrest had not appeared at breakfast, and -from then till lunch-time I sat in the bow-window of the garden-room, -for the warmth of the central heating, of which a stack of pipes was -there installed, and for securing the utmost benefit of light that -penetrated this cowl of snow-laden sky, busy with belated letters. The -drowsiness that accompanies snowfall weighed heavily on my faculties, -but as far as I can assert anything, I can assert that I did not -sleep. From one letter I went on to another, and then for the sixth -or seventh time I tried to open my story. It promised better now -than before, and searching for a word that would not come to my pen, -I happened to look up along the street which lay in front of me. I -expected nothing: I was thinking of nothing but my work; probably I -had looked up like that a dozen times before, and had seen the empty -street, with snow lying thickly on the roadway. - -But now the roadway was not untenanted. Someone was walking down the -middle of it, and his aspect, incredible though it seemed, was not -startling. Why I was not startled I have no idea: I can only say that -the vision appeared perfectly natural. The figure was that of a young -man, whose hair, black and curly, lay crisply over his forehead. A -large white cloak reaching down to his knees enveloped him, and he -had thrown the end of it over his shoulder. Below his knees his legs -and feet were bare, so too was the arm up to the elbow, with which he -pressed his cloak to him, and there he was walking briskly down the -snowy street. As he came directly below the window where I sat, he -raised his head and looked at me directly, and smiled. And now I saw -his face: there was the low brow, the straight nose, the curved and -sunny mouth, the short chin, and I thought to myself that this was none -other than the Hermes of Praxiteles, he whose statue at Olympia makes -all those who look on it grow young again. There, anyhow, was a boyish -Greek god, stepping blithely and with gay, incomparable grace along -the street, and raising his face to smile at this stolid, middle-aged -man who blankly regarded him. Then with the certainty of one returning -home, he mounted the steps outside the front door, and seemed to pass -into and through it. Certainly he was no longer in the street, and, so -real and solid-seeming had he been to my vision, that I jumped up, ran -across the few steps of garden, and went into the house, and I should -not have been amazed if I had found him standing in the hall. But there -was no one there, and I opened the front door: the snow lay smooth -and untrodden down the centre of the road where he had walked and on -my doorstep. And at that moment the memory of the séance the evening -before, about which up till now I had somehow felt distrustful and -suspicious, passed into the realm of sober fact, for had not Machaon -just now entered my house, with a smile as of recognition on some -friendly mission? - -We sat again that afternoon by daylight, and now, I must suppose, the -control was more actively and powerfully present, for hardly had Mrs. -Forrest passed into trance than the voice began, louder than it had -been the night before, and far more distinct. He--Machaon I must call -him--seemed to be anxious to establish his identity beyond all doubt, -like some newcomer presenting his credentials, and he began to speak of -the precinct of Asclepios in Athens. Often he hesitated for a word in -English, often he put in a word in Greek, and as he spoke, fragments of -things I had learned when an archæological student in Athens came back -into my mind, and I knew that he was accurately describing the portico -and the temple and the well. All this I toss to the sceptic to growl -and worry over and tear to bits; for certainly it seems possible that -my mind, holding these facts in its subconsciousness, was suggesting -them to the medium’s mind, who thereupon spoke of them and, conveying -them back to me, made me aware that I had known them.... My forgotten -knowledge of these things and of the Greek language came flooding back -on me, as he told us, now half in Greek, and half in English, of the -patients who came to consult the god, how they washed in the sacred -well for purification, and lay down to sleep in the portico. They often -dreamed, and in the interpretation of their dreams, which they told to -the priest next day, lay the indication of the cure. Or sometimes the -god healed more directly, and accompanied by the sacred snake walked -among the sleepers and by his touch made them whole. His temple was -hung with _ex-votos_, the gifts of those whom he had cured. And at -Epidaurus, where was another shrine of his, there were great mural -tablets recording the same.... - -Then the voice stopped, and as if to prove identity by another means, -the medium drew the pencil and paper to her, and in Greek characters, -unknown apparently to her, she traced the words “Machaon, son of -Asclepios....” - -There was a pause, and I asked a direct question, which now had been -long simmering in my mind. - -“Have you come to help me about Parkes?” I asked. “Can you tell me what -will cure him?” - -The pencil began to move again, tracing out characters in Greek. It -wrote [Greek: phengos x], and repeated it. I did not at once guess -what it meant, and asked for an explanation. There was no answer, and -presently the medium stirred, stretched herself and sighed, and came -out of trance. She took up the paper on which she had written. - -“Did that come through?” she asked. “And what does it mean? I don’t -even know the characters....” - -Then suddenly the possible significance of [Greek: phengos x] flashed -on me, and I marvelled at my slowness. [Greek: phengos], a beam of -light, a ray, and the letter [Greek: x], the equivalent of the English -_x_. That had come in direct answer to my question as to what would -cure Parkes, and it was without hesitation or delay that I wrote to -Symes. I reminded him that he had said that he had no objection to -any possible remedy, provided it was not harmful, being tried on his -patient, and I asked him to treat him with X-rays. The whole sequence -of events had been so frankly amazing, that I believe the veriest -sceptic would not have done otherwise than I did. - -Our sittings continued, but after this day we had no further evidence -of this second control. It looked as if the intelligence (even the -most incredulous will allow me, for the sake of convenience, to call -that intelligence Machaon) that had described this room, and told Mrs. -Forrest that he had work to do here, had finished his task. Machaon had -said, or so my interpretation was, that X-rays would cure Parkes. In -justification of this view it is proper to quote from a letter which I -got from Symes a week later. - - “There is no need for you to come up to break to Parkes that an - operation lies in front of him. In answer to your request, and - without a grain of faith in its success, I treated him with X-rays, - which I assured you were useless. To-day, to speak quite frankly, - I don’t know what to think, for the growth has been steadily - diminishing in size and hardness, and it is perfectly evident that it - is being absorbed and is disappearing. - - “The treatment through which I put Parkes is that of ----. Here in - this hospital we have had patients to whom it brought no shadow of - benefit. Often it had been continued on these deluded wretches till - any operation which might possibly have been successful was out of - the question owing to the encroachment of the growth. But from the - first dose of the X-rays, Parkes began to get better, the growth was - first arrested, and then diminished. - - “I am trying to put the whole thing before you with as much - impartiality as I can command. So, on the other side, you must - remember that Parkes’s was never a proved case of cancer. I told - you that it could not be proved till the exploratory operation took - place. All the symptoms pointed to cancer--you see, I am trying to - save my own face--but my diagnosis, though confirmed by ----, may - have been wrong. If he only had what we call a benign tumour, the - case is not so extraordinary; there have been plenty of cases when - a benign tumour has disappeared by absorption or what not. It is - unusual, but by no means unknown. For instance.... - - “But Parkes’s case was quite different. I certainly believe he had - a cancerous growth, and thought that an operation was inevitable if - his life was to be saved. Even then, the most I hoped for was an - alleviation of pain, as the disease progressed, and a year or two - more, at the most, of life. Instead, I apply another remedy, at - your suggestion, and if he goes on as he has been doing, the growth - will be a nodule in another week or two, and I should expect it to - disappear altogether. Taking everything into consideration, if you - asked me the question whether this X-ray treatment was the cause of - the cure, I should be obliged to say ‘Yes.’ I don’t believe in such - a treatment, but I believe it is curing him. I suppose that it was - suggested to you by a fraudulent, spiritualistic medium in a feigned - trance, who was inspired by Aesculapius or some exploded heathen - deity, for I remember you said you were going down into the country - for some spiritual business.... - - “Well, Parkes is getting better, and I am so old-fashioned a fellow - that I would sooner a patient of mine got better by incredible - methods, than died under my skilful knife.... Of course, we trained - people know nothing, but we have to act according to the best chances - of our ignorance. I entirely believed that the knife was the only - means of saving the man, and now, when I stand confuted, the only - thing that I can save is my honesty, which I hereby have done. Let me - know, at your leisure, whether you just thought you would, on your - own idea, like me to try X-rays, or whether some faked voice from the - grave suggested it. - “Ever yours, - “Godfrey Symes. - - “P.S.--If it was some beastly voice from the grave, you might tell me - in confidence who the medium was. I want to be fair....” - -That is the story; the reader will explain it according to his -temperament. And as I have told Parkes, who is now back with me again, -to look into the garden-room before post-time and take a registered -packet to the office, it is time that I got it ready for him. So here -is the completed packet in manuscript, to be sent to the printer’s. -From my window I shall see him go briskly along the street down which -Machaon walked on a snowy morning. - - - - -Negotium Perambulans.... - - - - -Negotium Perambulans.... - - -The casual tourist in West Cornwall may just possibly have noticed, -as he bowled along over the bare high plateau between Penzance and -the Land’s End, a dilapidated signpost pointing down a steep lane -and bearing on its battered finger the faded inscription “Polearn -2 miles,” but probably very few have had the curiosity to traverse -those two miles in order to see a place to which their guide-books -award so cursory a notice. It is described there, in a couple of -unattractive lines, as a small fishing village with a church of no -particular interest except for certain carved and painted wooden panels -(originally belonging to an earlier edifice) which form an altar-rail. -But the church at St. Creed (the tourist is reminded) has a similar -decoration far superior in point of preservation and interest, and thus -even the ecclesiastically disposed are not lured to Polearn. So meagre -a bait is scarce worth swallowing, and a glance at the very steep lane -which in dry weather presents a carpet of sharp-pointed stones, and -after rain a muddy watercourse, will almost certainly decide him not -to expose his motor or his bicycle to risks like these in so sparsely -populated a district. Hardly a house has met his eye since he left -Penzance, and the possible trundling of a punctured bicycle for half -a dozen weary miles seems a high price to pay for the sight of a few -painted panels. - -Polearn, therefore, even in the high noon of the tourist season, is -little liable to invasion, and for the rest of the year I do not -suppose that a couple of folk a day traverse those two miles (long ones -at that) of steep and stony gradient. I am not forgetting the postman -in this exiguous estimate, for the days are few when, leaving his -pony and cart at the top of the hill, he goes as far as the village, -since but a few hundred yards down the lane there stands a large -white box, like a sea-trunk, by the side of the road, with a slit for -letters and a locked door. Should he have in his wallet a registered -letter or be the bearer of a parcel too large for insertion in the -square lips of the sea-trunk, he must needs trudge down the hill and -deliver the troublesome missive, leaving it in person on the owner, and -receiving some small reward of coin or refreshment for his kindness. -But such occasions are rare, and his general routine is to take out -of the box such letters as may have been deposited there, and insert -in their place such letters as he has brought. These will be called -for, perhaps that day or perhaps the next, by an emissary from the -Polearn post-office. As for the fishermen of the place, who, in their -export trade, constitute the chief link of movement between Polearn and -the outside world, they would not dream of taking their catch up the -steep lane and so, with six miles farther of travel, to the market at -Penzance. The sea route is shorter and easier, and they deliver their -wares to the pier-head. Thus, though the sole industry of Polearn is -sea-fishing, you will get no fish there unless you have bespoken your -requirements to one of the fishermen. Back come the trawlers as empty -as a haunted house, while their spoils are in the fish-train that is -speeding to London. - -Such isolation of a little community, continued, as it has been, for -centuries, produces isolation in the individual as well, and nowhere -will you find greater independence of character than among the people -of Polearn. But they are linked together, so it has always seemed -to me, by some mysterious comprehension: it is as if they had all -been initiated into some ancient rite, inspired and framed by forces -visible and invisible. The winter storms that batter the coast, the -vernal spell of the spring, the hot, still summers, the season of rains -and autumnal decay, have made a spell which, line by line, has been -communicated to them, concerning the powers, evil and good, that rule -the world, and manifest themselves in ways benignant or terrible.... - -I came to Polearn first at the age of ten, a small boy, weak and -sickly, and threatened with pulmonary trouble. My father’s business -kept him in London, while for me abundance of fresh air and a mild -climate were considered essential conditions if I was to grow to -manhood. His sister had married the vicar of Polearn, Richard Bolitho, -himself native to the place, and so it came about that I spent three -years, as a paying guest, with my relations. Richard Bolitho owned -a fine house in the place, which he inhabited in preference to the -vicarage, which he let to a young artist, John Evans, on whom the spell -of Polearn had fallen, for from year’s beginning to year’s end he never -left it. There was a solid roofed shelter, open on one side to the -air, built for me in the garden, and here I lived and slept, passing -scarcely one hour out of the twenty-four behind walls and windows. -I was out on the bay with the fisher-folk, or wandering along the -gorse-clad cliffs that climbed steeply to right and left of the deep -combe where the village lay, or pottering about on the pier-head, or -bird’s-nesting in the bushes with the boys of the village. Except on -Sunday and for the few daily hours of my lessons, I might do what I -pleased so long as I remained in the open air. About the lessons there -was nothing formidable; my uncle conducted me through flowering bypaths -among the thickets of arithmetic, and made pleasant excursions into the -elements of Latin grammar, and above all, he made me daily give him an -account, in clear and grammatical sentences, of what had been occupying -my mind or my movements. Should I select to tell him about a walk along -the cliffs, my speech must be orderly, not vague, slip-shod notes of -what I had observed. In this way, too, he trained my observation, for -he would bid me tell him what flowers were in bloom, and what birds -hovered fishing over the sea or were building in the bushes. For that -I owe him a perennial gratitude, for to observe and to express my -thoughts in the clear spoken word became my life’s profession. - -But far more formidable than my weekday tasks was the prescribed -routine for Sunday. Some dark embers compounded of Calvinism and -mysticism smouldered in my uncle’s soul, and made it a day of terror. -His sermon in the morning scorched us with a foretaste of the eternal -fires reserved for unrepentant sinners, and he was hardly less -terrifying at the children’s service in the afternoon. Well do I -remember his exposition of the doctrine of guardian angels. A child, -he said, might think himself secure in such angelic care, but let him -beware of committing any of those numerous offences which would cause -his guardian to turn his face from him, for as sure as there were -angels to protect us, there were also evil and awful presences which -were ready to pounce; and on them he dwelt with peculiar gusto. Well, -too, do I remember in the morning sermon his commentary on the carved -panels of the altar-rails to which I have already alluded. There was -the angel of the Annunciation there, and the angel of the Resurrection, -but not less was there the witch of Endor, and, on the fourth panel, -a scene that concerned me most of all. This fourth panel (he came -down from his pulpit to trace its time-worn features) represented -the lych-gate of the church-yard at Polearn itself, and indeed the -resemblance when thus pointed out was remarkable. In the entry stood -the figure of a robed priest holding up a Cross, with which he faced -a terrible creature like a gigantic slug, that reared itself up in -front of him. That, so ran my uncle’s interpretation, was some evil -agency, such as he had spoken about to us children, of almost infinite -malignity and power, which could alone be combated by firm faith and a -pure heart. Below ran the legend “_Negotium perambulans in tenebris_” -from the ninety-first Psalm. We should find it translated there, “the -pestilence that walketh in darkness,” which but feebly rendered the -Latin. It was more deadly to the soul than any pestilence that can -only kill the body: it was the Thing, the Creature, the Business that -trafficked in the outer Darkness, a minister of God’s wrath on the -unrighteous.... - -I could see, as he spoke, the looks which the congregation exchanged -with each other, and knew that his words were evoking a surmise, a -remembrance. Nods and whispers passed between them, they understood -to what he alluded, and with the inquisitiveness of boyhood I could -not rest till I had wormed the story out of my friends among the -fisher-boys, as, next morning, we sat basking and naked in the sun -after our bathe. One knew one bit of it, one another, but it pieced -together into a truly alarming legend. In bald outline it was as -follows: - -A church far more ancient than that in which my uncle terrified us -every Sunday had once stood not three hundred yards away, on the shelf -of level ground below the quarry from which its stones were hewn. The -owner of the land had pulled this down, and erected for himself a house -on the same site out of these materials, keeping, in a very ecstasy of -wickedness, the altar, and on this he dined and played dice afterwards. -But as he grew old some black melancholy seized him, and he would have -lights burning there all night, for he had deadly fear of the darkness. -On one winter evening there sprang up such a gale as was never before -known, which broke in the windows of the room where he had supped, and -extinguished the lamps. Yells of terror brought in his servants, who -found him lying on the floor with the blood streaming from his throat. -As they entered some huge black shadow seemed to move away from him, -crawled across the floor and up the wall and out of the broken window. - -“There he lay a-dying,” said the last of my informants, “and him -that had been a great burly man was withered to a bag o’ skin, for -the critter had drained all the blood from him. His last breath was -a scream, and he hollered out the same words as parson read off the -screen.” - -“_Negotium perambulans in tenebris_,” I suggested eagerly. - -“Thereabouts. Latin anyhow.” - -“And after that?” I asked. - -“Nobody would go near the place, and the old house rotted and fell in -ruins till three years ago, when along comes Mr. Dooliss from Penzance, -and built the half of it up again. But he don’t care much about such -critters, nor about Latin neither. He takes his bottle of whisky a -day and gets drunk’s a lord in the evening. Eh, I’m gwine home to my -dinner.” - -Whatever the authenticity of the legend, I had certainly heard the -truth about Mr. Dooliss from Penzance, who from that day became -an object of keen curiosity on my part, the more so because the -quarry-house adjoined my uncle’s garden. The Thing that walked in -the dark failed to stir my imagination, and already I was so used to -sleeping alone in my shelter that the night had no terrors for me. But -it would be intensely exciting to wake at some timeless hour and hear -Mr. Dooliss yelling, and conjecture that the Thing had got him. - -But by degrees the whole story faded from my mind, overscored by -the more vivid interests of the day, and, for the last two years of -my out-door life in the vicarage garden, I seldom thought about Mr. -Dooliss and the possible fate that might await him for his temerity in -living in the place where that Thing of darkness had done business. -Occasionally I saw him over the garden fence, a great yellow lump of -a man, with slow and staggering gait, but never did I set eyes on him -outside his gate, either in the village street or down on the beach. -He interfered with none, and no one interfered with him. If he wanted -to run the risk of being the prey of the legendary nocturnal monster, -or quietly drink himself to death, it was his affair. My uncle, so I -gathered, had made several attempts to see him when first he came to -live at Polearn, but Mr. Dooliss appeared to have no use for parsons, -but said he was not at home and never returned the call. - - * * * * * - -After three years of sun, wind, and rain, I had completely outgrown -my early symptoms and had become a tough, strapping youngster of -thirteen. I was sent to Eton and Cambridge, and in due course ate my -dinners and became a barrister. In twenty years from that time I was -earning a yearly income of five figures, and had already laid by in -sound securities a sum that brought me dividends which would, for -one of my simple tastes and frugal habits, supply me with all the -material comforts I needed on this side of the grave. The great prizes -of my profession were already within my reach, but I had no ambition -beckoning me on, nor did I want a wife and children, being, I must -suppose, a natural celibate. In fact there was only one ambition which -through these busy years had held the lure of blue and far-off hills to -me, and that was to get back to Polearn, and live once more isolated -from the world with the sea and the gorse-clad hills for play-fellows, -and the secrets that lurked there for exploration. The spell of it had -been woven about my heart, and I can truly say that there had hardly -passed a day in all those years in which the thought of it and the -desire for it had been wholly absent from my mind. Though I had been in -frequent communication with my uncle there during his lifetime, and, -after his death, with his widow who still lived there, I had never -been back to it since I embarked on my profession, for I knew that if -I went there, it would be a wrench beyond my power to tear myself away -again. But I had made up my mind that when once I had provided for my -own independence, I would go back there not to leave it again. And yet -I did leave it again, and now nothing in the world would induce me to -turn down the lane from the road that leads from Penzance to the Land’s -End, and see the sides of the combe rise steep above the roofs of the -village and hear the gulls chiding as they fish in the bay. One of the -things invisible, of the dark powers, leaped into light, and I saw it -with my eyes. - -The house where I had spent those three years of boyhood had been left -for life to my aunt, and when I made known to her my intention of -coming back to Polearn, she suggested that, till I found a suitable -house or found her proposal unsuitable, I should come to live with her. - -“The house is too big for a lone old woman,” she wrote, “and I have -often thought of quitting and taking a little cottage sufficient for me -and my requirements. But come and share it, my dear, and if you find -me troublesome, you or I can go. You may want solitude--most people in -Polearn do--and will leave me. Or else I will leave you: one of the -main reasons of my stopping here all these years was a feeling that I -must not let the old house starve. Houses starve, you know, if they -are not lived in. They die a lingering death; the spirit in them grows -weaker and weaker, and at last fades out of them. Isn’t this nonsense -to your London notions?...” - -Naturally I accepted with warmth this tentative arrangement, and on an -evening in June found myself at the head of the lane leading down to -Polearn, and once more I descended into the steep valley between the -hills. Time had stood still apparently for the combe, the dilapidated -signpost (or its successor) pointed a rickety finger down the lane, -and a few hundred yards farther on was the white box for the exchange -of letters. Point after remembered point met my eye, and what I saw -was not shrunk, as is often the case with the revisited scenes of -childhood, into a smaller scale. There stood the post-office, and there -the church and close beside it the vicarage, and beyond, the tall -shrubberies which separated the house for which I was bound from the -road, and beyond that again the grey roofs of the quarry-house damp and -shining with the moist evening wind from the sea. All was exactly as I -remembered it, and, above all, that sense of seclusion and isolation. -Somewhere above the tree-tops climbed the lane which joined the main -road to Penzance, but all that had become immeasurably distant. The -years that had passed since last I turned in at the well-known gate -faded like a frosty breath, and vanished in this warm, soft air. There -were law-courts somewhere in memory’s dull book which, if I cared to -turn the pages, would tell me that I had made a name and a great income -there. But the dull book was closed now, for I was back in Polearn, and -the spell was woven around me again. - -And if Polearn was unchanged, so too was Aunt Hester, who met me at the -door. Dainty and china-white she had always been, and the years had -not aged but only refined her. As we sat and talked after dinner she -spoke of all that had happened in Polearn in that score of years, and -yet somehow the changes of which she spoke seemed but to confirm the -immutability of it all. As the recollection of names came back to me, I -asked her about the quarry-house and Mr. Dooliss, and her face gloomed -a little as with the shadow of a cloud on a spring day. - -“Yes, Mr. Dooliss,” she said, “poor Mr. Dooliss, how well I remember -him, though it must be ten years and more since he died. I never wrote -to you about it, for it was all very dreadful, my dear, and I did not -want to darken your memories of Polearn. Your uncle always thought that -something of the sort might happen if he went on in his wicked, drunken -ways, and worse than that, and though nobody knew exactly what took -place, it was the sort of thing that might have been anticipated.” - -“But what more or less happened, Aunt Hester?” I asked. - -“Well, of course I can’t tell you everything, for no one knew it. But -he was a very sinful man, and the scandal about him at Newlyn was -shocking. And then he lived, too, in the quarry-house.... I wonder -if by any chance you remember a sermon of your uncle’s when he got -out of the pulpit and explained that panel in the altar-rails, the -one, I mean, with the horrible creature rearing itself up outside the -lych-gate?” - -“Yes, I remember perfectly,” said I. - -“Ah. It made an impression on you, I suppose, and so it did on all who -heard him, and that impression got stamped and branded on us all when -the catastrophe occurred. Somehow Mr. Dooliss got to hear about your -uncle’s sermon, and in some drunken fit he broke into the church and -smashed the panel to atoms. He seems to have thought that there was -some magic in it, and that if he destroyed that he would get rid of -the terrible fate that was threatening him. For I must tell you that -before he committed that dreadful sacrilege he had been a haunted man: -he hated and feared darkness, for he thought that the creature on the -panel was on his track, but that as long as he kept lights burning -it could not touch him. But the panel, to his disordered mind, was -the root of his terror, and so, as I said, he broke into the church -and attempted--you will see why I said ‘attempted’--to destroy it. It -certainly was found in splinters next morning, when your uncle went -into church for matins, and knowing Mr. Dooliss’s fear of the panel, -he went across to the quarry-house afterwards and taxed him with its -destruction. The man never denied it; he boasted of what he had done. -There he sat, though it was early morning, drinking his whisky. - -“‘I’ve settled your Thing for you,’ he said, ‘and your sermon too. A -fig for such superstitions.’ - -“Your uncle left him without answering his blasphemy, meaning to go -straight into Penzance and give information to the police about this -outrage to the church, but on his way back from the quarry-house he -went into the church again, in order to be able to give details about -the damage, and there in the screen was the panel, untouched and -uninjured. And yet he had himself seen it smashed, and Mr. Dooliss had -confessed that the destruction of it was his work. But there it was, -and whether the power of God had mended it or some other power, who -knows?” - -This was Polearn indeed, and it was the spirit of Polearn that made me -accept all Aunt Hester was telling me as attested fact. It had happened -like that. She went on in her quiet voice. - -“Your uncle recognised that some power beyond police was at work, and -he did not go to Penzance or give information about the outrage, for -the evidence of it had vanished.” - -A sudden spate of scepticism swept over me. - -“There must have been some mistake,” I said. “It hadn’t been broken....” - -She smiled. - -“Yes, my dear, but you have been in London so long,” she said. “Let -me, anyhow, tell you the rest of my story. That night, for some reason, -I could not sleep. It was very hot and airless; I dare say you will -think that the sultry conditions accounted for my wakefulness. Once and -again, as I went to the window to see if I could not admit more air, I -could see from it the quarry-house, and I noticed the first time that -I left my bed that it was blazing with lights. But the second time I -saw that it was all in darkness, and as I wondered at that, I heard a -terrible scream, and the moment afterwards the steps of someone coming -at full speed down the road outside the gate. He yelled as he ran; -‘Light, light!’ he called out. ‘Give me light, or it will catch me!’ It -was very terrible to hear that, and I went to rouse my husband, who was -sleeping in the dressing-room across the passage. He wasted no time, -but by now the whole village was aroused by the screams, and when he -got down to the pier he found that all was over. The tide was low, and -on the rocks at its foot was lying the body of Mr. Dooliss. He must -have cut some artery when he fell on those sharp edges of stone, for -he had bled to death, they thought, and though he was a big burly man, -his corpse was but skin and bones. Yet there was no pool of blood round -him, such as you would have expected. Just skin and bones as if every -drop of blood in his body had been sucked out of him!” - -She leaned forward. - -“You and I, my dear, know what happened,” she said, “or at least -can guess. God has His instruments of vengeance on those who bring -wickedness into places that have been holy. Dark and mysterious are His -ways.” - -Now what I should have thought of such a story if it had been told me -in London I can easily imagine. There was such an obvious explanation: -the man in question had been a drunkard, what wonder if the demons of -delirium pursued him? But here in Polearn it was different. - -“And who is in the quarry-house now?” I asked. “Years ago the -fisher-boys told me the story of the man who first built it and of his -horrible end. And now again it has happened. Surely no one has ventured -to inhabit it once more?” - -I saw in her face, even before I asked that question, that somebody had -done so. - -“Yes, it is lived in again,” said she, “for there is no end to the -blindness.... I don’t know if you remember him. He was tenant of the -vicarage many years ago.” - -“John Evans,” said I. - -“Yes. Such a nice fellow he was too. Your uncle was pleased to get so -good a tenant. And now----” - -She rose. - -“Aunt Hester, you shouldn’t leave your sentences unfinished,” I said. - -She shook her head. - -“My dear, that sentence will finish itself,” she said. “But what a time -of night! I must go to bed, and you too, or they will think we have to -keep lights burning here through the dark hours.” - - * * * * * - -Before getting into bed I drew my curtains wide and opened all the -windows to the warm tide of the sea air that flowed softly in. Looking -out into the garden I could see in the moonlight the roof of the -shelter, in which for three years I had lived, gleaming with dew. That, -as much as anything, brought back the old days to which I had now -returned, and they seemed of one piece with the present, as if no gap -of more than twenty years sundered them. The two flowed into one like -globules of mercury uniting into a softly shining globe, of mysterious -lights and reflections. Then, raising my eyes a little, I saw against -the black hill-side the windows of the quarry-house still alight. - -Morning, as is so often the case, brought no shattering of my illusion. -As I began to regain consciousness, I fancied that I was a boy again -waking up in the shelter in the garden, and though, as I grew more -widely awake, I smiled at the impression, that on which it was based -I found to be indeed true. It was sufficient now as then to be here, -to wander again on the cliffs, and hear the popping of the ripened -seed-pods on the gorse-bushes; to stray along the shore to the -bathing-cove, to float and drift and swim in the warm tide, and bask -on the sand, and watch the gulls fishing, to lounge on the pier-head -with the fisher-folk, to see in their eyes and hear in their quiet -speech the evidence of secret things not so much known to them as -part of their instincts and their very being. There were powers and -presences about me; the white poplars that stood by the stream that -babbled down the valley knew of them, and showed a glimpse of their -knowledge sometimes, like the gleam of their white underleaves; the -very cobbles that paved the street were soaked in it.... All that I -wanted was to lie there and grow soaked in it too; unconsciously, as -a boy, I had done that, but now the process must be conscious. I must -know what stir of forces, fruitful and mysterious, seethed along the -hill-side at noon, and sparkled at night on the sea. They could be -known, they could even be controlled by those who were masters of the -spell, but never could they be spoken of, for they were dwellers in the -innermost, grafted into the eternal life of the world. There were dark -secrets as well as these clear, kindly powers, and to these no doubt -belonged the _negotium perambulans in tenebris_ which, though of deadly -malignity, might be regarded not only as evil, but as the avenger of -sacrilegious and impious deeds.... All this was part of the spell of -Polearn, of which the seeds had long lain dormant in me. But now they -were sprouting, and who knew what strange flower would unfold on their -stems? - -It was not long before I came across John Evans. One morning, as I lay -on the beach, there came shambling across the sand a man stout and -middle-aged with the face of Silenus. He paused as he drew near and -regarded me from narrow eyes. - -“Why, you’re the little chap that used to live in the parson’s garden,” -he said. “Don’t you recognise me?” - -I saw who it was when he spoke: his voice, I think, instructed me, and -recognising it, I could see the features of the strong, alert young man -in this gross caricature. - -“Yes, you’re John Evans,” I said. “You used to be very kind to me: you -used to draw pictures for me.” - -“So I did, and I’ll draw you some more. Been bathing? That’s a risky -performance. You never know what lives in the sea, nor what lives on -the land for that matter. Not that I heed them. I stick to work and -whisky. God! I’ve learned to paint since I saw you, and drink too for -that matter. I live in the quarry-house, you know, and it’s a powerful -thirsty place. Come and have a look at my things if you’re passing. -Staying with your aunt, are you? I could do a wonderful portrait of -her. Interesting face; she knows a lot. People who live at Polearn get -to know a lot, though I don’t take much stock in that sort of knowledge -myself.” - -I do not know when I have been at once so repelled and interested. -Behind the mere grossness of his face there lurked something which, -while it appalled, yet fascinated me. His thick lisping speech had the -same quality. And his paintings, what would they be like?... - -“I was just going home,” I said. “I’ll gladly come in, if you’ll allow -me.” - -He took me through the untended and overgrown garden into the house -which I had never yet entered. A great grey cat was sunning itself in -the window, and an old woman was laying lunch in a corner of the cool -hall into which the door opened. It was built of stone, and the carved -mouldings let into the walls, the fragments of gargoyles and sculptured -images, bore testimony to the truth of its having been built out of -the demolished church. In one corner was an oblong and carved wooden -table littered with a painter’s apparatus and stacks of canvases leaned -against the walls. - -He jerked his thumb towards a head of an angel that was built into the -mantelpiece and giggled. - -“Quite a sanctified air,” he said, “so we tone it down for the -purposes of ordinary life by a different sort of art. Have a drink? No? -Well, turn over some of my pictures while I put myself to rights.” - -He was justified in his own estimate of his skill: he could paint (and -apparently he could paint anything), but never have I seen pictures -so inexplicably hellish. There were exquisite studies of trees, and -you knew that something lurked in the flickering shadows. There was a -drawing of his cat sunning itself in the window, even as I had just now -seen it, and yet it was no cat but some beast of awful malignity. There -was a boy stretched naked on the sands, not human, but some evil thing -which had come out of the sea. Above all there were pictures of his -garden overgrown and jungle-like, and you knew that in the bushes were -presences ready to spring out on you.... - -“Well, do you like my style?” he said as he came up, glass in hand. -(The tumbler of spirits that he held had not been diluted.) “I try to -paint the essence of what I see, not the mere husk and skin of it, but -its nature, where it comes from and what gave it birth. There’s much -in common between a cat and a fuchsia-bush if you look at them closely -enough. Everything came out of the slime of the pit, and it’s all going -back there. I should like to do a picture of you some day. I’d hold the -mirror up to Nature, as that old lunatic said.” - -After this first meeting I saw him occasionally throughout the months -of that wonderful summer. Often he kept to his house and to his -painting for days together, and then perhaps some evening I would find -him lounging on the pier, always alone, and every time we met thus the -repulsion and interest grew, for every time he seemed to have gone -farther along a path of secret knowledge towards some evil shrine -where complete initiation awaited him.... And then suddenly the end -came. - -I had met him thus one evening on the cliffs while the October sunset -still burned in the sky, but over it with amazing rapidity there spread -from the west a great blackness of cloud such as I have never seen for -denseness. The light was sucked from the sky, the dusk fell in ever -thicker layers. He suddenly became conscious of this. - -“I must get back as quick as I can,” he said. “It will be dark in a few -minutes, and my servant is out. The lamps will not be lit.” - -He stepped out with extraordinary briskness for one who shambled and -could scarcely lift his feet, and soon broke out into a stumbling run. -In the gathering darkness I could see that his face was moist with the -dew of some unspoken terror. - -“You must come with me,” he panted, “for so we shall get the lights -burning the sooner. I cannot do without light.” - -I had to exert myself to the full to keep up with him, for terror -winged him, and even so I fell behind, so that when I came to the -garden gate, he was already half-way up the path to the house. I saw -him enter, leaving the door wide, and found him fumbling with matches. -But his hand so trembled that he could not transfer the light to the -wick of the lamp. - -“But what’s the hurry about?” I asked. - -Suddenly his eyes focused themselves on the open door behind me, and he -jumped from his seat beside the table which had once been the altar of -God, with a gasp and a scream. - -“No, no!” he cried. “Keep it off!...” - -I turned and saw what he had seen. The Thing had entered and now was -swiftly sliding across the floor towards him, like some gigantic -caterpillar. A stale phosphorescent light came from it, for though the -dusk had grown to blackness outside, I could see it quite distinctly in -the awful light of its own presence. From it too there came an odour -of corruption and decay, as from slime that has long lain below water. -It seemed to have no head, but on the front of it was an orifice of -puckered skin which opened and shut and slavered at the edges. It was -hairless, and slug-like in shape and in texture. As it advanced its -fore-part reared itself from the ground, like a snake about to strike, -and it fastened on him.... - -At that sight, and with the yells of his agony in my ears, the panic -which had struck me relaxed into a hopeless courage, and with palsied, -impotent hands I tried to lay hold of the Thing. But I could not: -though something material was there, it was impossible to grasp it; -my hands sunk in it as in thick mud. It was like wrestling with a -nightmare. - -I think that but a few seconds elapsed before all was over. The screams -of the wretched man sank to moans and mutterings as the Thing fell -on him: he panted once or twice and was still. For a moment longer -there came gurglings and sucking noises, and then it slid out even as -it had entered. I lit the lamp which he had fumbled with, and there -on the floor he lay, no more than a rind of skin in loose folds over -projecting bones. - - - - -At the Farmhouse - - - - -At the Farmhouse - - -The dusk of a November day was falling fast when John Aylsford came -out of his lodging in the cobbled street and started to walk briskly -along the road which led eastwards by the shore of the bay. He had been -at work while the daylight served him, and now, when the gathering -darkness weaned him from his easel, he was accustomed to go out for air -and exercise and cover half a dozen miles before he returned to his -solitary supper. - -To-night there were but few folk abroad, and those scudded along before -the strong south-westerly gale which had roared and raged all day, or, -leaning forward, beat their way against it. No fishing-boats had put -forth on that maddened sea, but had lain moored behind the quay-wall, -tossing uneasily with the backwash of the great breakers that swept -by the pier-head. The tide was low now, and they rested on the sandy -beach, black blots against the smooth wet surface which sombrely -reflected the last flames in the west. The sun had gone down in a wrack -of broken and flying clouds, angry and menacing with promise of a wild -night to come. - -For many days past, at this hour John Aylsford had started eastwards -for his tramp along the rough coast road by the bay. The last high -tide had swept shingle and sand over sections of it, and fragments of -seaweed, driven by the wind, bowled along the ruts. The heavy boom of -the breakers sounded sullenly in the dusk, and white towers of foam -appearing and disappearing showed how high they leaped over the reefs -of rock beyond the headland. For half a mile or so, slanting himself -against the gale he pursued this road, then turned up a narrow muddy -lane sunk deep between the banks on either side of it. It ran steeply -uphill, dipped down again, and joined the main road inland. Having -arrived at the junction, John Aylsford went eastwards no more, but -turned his steps to the west, arriving, half an hour after he had set -out, on the top of the hill above the village he had quitted, though -five minutes’ ascent would have taken him from his lodgings to the spot -where he now stood looking down on the scattered lights below him. The -wind had blown all wayfarers indoors, and now in front of him the road -that crossed this high and desolate table-land, sprinkled here and -there with lonely cottages and solitary farms, lay empty and greyly -glimmering in the wind-swept darkness, not more than faintly visible. - -Many times during this past month had John Aylsford made this long -detour, starting eastwards from the village and coming back by a wide -circuit, and now, as on these other occasions, he paused in the black -shelter of the hedge through which the wind hissed and whistled, -crouching there in the shadow as if to make sure that none had followed -him, and that the road in front lay void of passengers, for he had no -mind to be observed by any on these journeyings. And as he paused he -let his hate blaze up, warming him for the work the accomplishment of -which alone could enable him to recapture any peace or profit from -life. To-night he was determined to release himself from the millstone -which for so many years had hung round his neck, drowning him in bitter -waters. From long brooding over the idea of the deed, he had quite -ceased to feel any horror of it. The death of that drunken slut was not -a matter for qualms or uneasiness; the world would be well rid of her, -and he more than well. - -No spark of tenderness for the handsome fisher-girl who once had been -his model and for twenty years had been his wife pierced the blackness -of his purpose. Just here it was that he had seen her first when on a -summer holiday he had lodged with a couple of friends in the farmhouse -towards which his way now lay. She was coming up the hill with the -late sunset gilding her face, and, breathing quickly from the ascent, -had leaned on the wall close by with a smile and a glance for the -young man. She had sat to him, and the autumn brought the sequel to -the summer in his marriage. He had bought from her uncle the little -farmhouse where he had lodged, adding to its modest accommodation a -studio and a bedroom above it, and there he had seen the flicker of -what had never been love, die out, and over the cold ashes of its -embers the poisonous lichen of hatred spread fast. Early in their -married life she had taken to drink, and had sunk into a degradation of -soul and body that seemed bottomless, dragging him with her, down and -down, in the grip of a force that was hardly human in its malignity. - -Often during the wretched years that followed he had tried to leave -her; he had offered to settle the farm on her and make adequate -provision for her, but she had clung to the possession of him, not, -it would seem, from any affection for him, but for a reason exactly -opposite, namely, that her hatred of him fed and glutted itself on the -sight of his ruin. It was as if, in obedience to some hellish power, -she set herself to spoil his life, his powers, his possibilities, by -tying him to herself. And by the aid of that power, so sometimes he had -thought, she enforced her will on him, for, plan as he might to cut the -whole dreadful business and leave the wreck behind him, he had never -been able to consolidate his resolve into action. There, but a few -miles away, was the station from which ran the train that would bear -him out of this ancient western kingdom, where the beliefs in spells -and superstitions grew rank as the herbage in that soft enervating air, -and set him in the dry hard light of cities. The way lay open, but he -could not take it; something unseen and potent, of grim inflexibility, -held him back.... - -He had passed no one on his way here, and satisfied now that in the -darkness he could proceed without fear of being recognised if a chance -wayfarer came from the direction in which he was going, he left the -shelter of the hedge, and struck out into the stormy sea of that -stupendous gale. Even as a man in the grip of imminent death sees his -past life spread itself out in front of him for his final survey before -the book is closed, so now, on the brink of the new life from which the -deed on which he was determined alone separated him, John Aylsford, as -he battled his advance through this great tempest, turned over page -after page of his own wretched chronicles, feeling already strangely -detached from them; it was as if he read the sordid and enslaved annals -of another, wondering at them, half-pitying, half-despising him who had -allowed himself to be bound so long in this ruinous noose. - -Yes; it had been just that, a noose drawn ever tighter round his neck, -while he choked and struggled all unavailingly. But there was another -noose which should very soon now be drawn rapidly and finally tight, -and the drawing of that in his own strong hands would free him. As he -dwelt on that for a moment, his fingers stroked and patted the hank of -whipcord that lay white and tough in his pocket. A noose, a knot drawn -quickly taut, and he would have paid her back with justice and swifter -mercy for the long strangling which he had suffered. - -Voluntarily and eagerly at the beginning had he allowed her to slip the -noose about him, for Ellen Trenair’s beauty in those days, so long past -and so everlastingly regretted, had been enough to ensnare a man. He -had been warned at the time, by hint and half-spoken suggestion, that -it was ill for a man to mate with a girl of that dark and ill-famed -family, or for a woman to wed a boy in whose veins ran the blood of -Jonas Trenair, once Methodist preacher, who learned on one All-Hallows’ -Eve a darker gospel than he had ever preached before. What had happened -to the girls who had married into that dwindling family, now all -but extinct? One, before her marriage was a year old, had gone off -her head, and now, a withered and ancient crone, mowed and gibbered -about the streets of the village, picking garbage from the gutter and -munching it in her toothless jaws. Another, Ellen’s own mother, had -been found hanging from the banister of her stairs, stark and grim. -Then there was young Frank Pencarris, who had wed Ellen’s sister. -He had sunk into an awful melancholy, and sat tracing on sheets of -paper the visions that beset his eyes, headless shapes, and foaming -mouths, and the images of the spawn of hell.... John Aylsford, in those -early days, had laughed to scorn these old-wife tales of spells and -sorceries: they belonged to ages long past, whereas fair Ellen Trenair -was of the lovely present, and had lit desire in his heart which she -alone could assuage. He had no use, in the brightness of her eye, for -such shadows and superstitions; her beams dispelled them. - -Bitter and black as midnight had his enlightenment been, darkening -through dubious dusks till the mirk of the pit itself enveloped him. -His laughter at the notion that in this twentieth century spells and -sorceries could survive, grew silent on his lips. He had seen the -cattle of a neighbour who had offended one whom it was wiser not to -cross, dwindle and pine, though there were rich pastures for their -grazing, till the rib-bones stuck out like the timbers of stranded -wrecks. He had seen the spring on another farm run dry at lambing-time -because the owner, sceptic like himself, had refused that bounty, which -all prudent folk paid to the wizard of Mareuth, who, like Ellen, was of -the blood of Jonas Trenair. From scorn and laughter he had wavered to -an uneasy wonder, and from wonder his mind had passed to the conviction -that there were powers occult and terrible which strove in darkness and -prevailed, secrets and spells that could send disease on man and beast, -dark incantations, known to few, which could maim and cripple, and of -these few his wife was one. His reason revolted, but some conviction, -deeper than reason, held its own. To such a view it seemed that the -deed he contemplated was no crime, but rather an act of obedience to -the ordinance “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” And the sense of -detachment was over that, even as over the memories that oozed up in -his mind. Somebody--not he--who had planned everything very carefully -was in the next hour going to put an end to his bondage. - -So the years had passed, he floundering ever deeper in the slough into -which he was plunged, out of which while she lived he could never -emerge. For the last year, she, wearying of his perpetual presence at -the farm, had allowed him to take a lodging in the village. She did -not loose her hold over him, for the days were few on which she did -not come with demands for a handful of shillings to procure her the -raw spirits which alone could slake her thirst. Sometimes as he sat -at work there in the north room looking on to the small garden-yard, -she would come lurching up the path, with her bloated crimson face set -on the withered neck, and tap at his window with fingers shrivelled -like bird’s claws. Body and limbs were no more than bones over which -the wrinkled skin was stretched, but her face bulged monstrously with -layers of fat. He would give her whatever he had about him, and if -it was not enough, she would plant herself there, grinning at him -and wheedling him, or with screams and curses threatening him with -such fate as he had known to overtake those who crossed her will. But -usually he gave her enough to satisfy her for that day and perhaps the -next, for thus she would the more quickly drink herself to death. Yet -death seemed long in coming.... - -He remembered well how first the notion of killing her came into his -head, just a little seed, small as that of mustard, which lay long -in barrenness. Only the bare idea of it was there, like an abstract -proposition. Then imperceptibly in the fruitful darkness of his mind, -it must have begun to sprout, for presently a tendril, still soft and -white, prodded out into the daylight. He almost pushed it back again, -for fear that she, by some divining art, should probe his purpose. -But when next she came for supplies, he saw no gleam of surmise in -her red-rimmed eyes, and she took her money and went her way, and -his purpose put forth another leaf, and the stem of it grew sappy. -All autumn through it had flourished, and grown tree-like, and fresh -ideas, fresh details, fresh precautions, flocked there like building -birds and made it gay with singing. He sat under the shadow of it and -listened with brightening hopes to their song; never had there been -such peerless melody. They knew their tunes now, there was no need for -any further rehearsal. - -He began to wonder how soon he would be back on the road again, with -face turned from this buffeting wind, and on his way home. His business -would not take him long; the central deed of it would be over in a -couple of minutes, and he did not anticipate delay about the setting -to work on it, for by seven o’clock of the evening, as well he knew, -she was usually snoring in the oblivion of complete drunkenness, -and even if she was not as far gone as that, she would certainly be -incapable of any serious resistance. After that, a quarter of an hour -more would finish the job, and he would leave the house secure already -from any chance of detection. Night after night during these last ten -days he had been up here, peering from the darkness into the lighted -room where she sat, then listening for her step on the stairs as -she stumbled up to bed, or hearing her snorings as she slept in her -chair below. The out-house, he knew, was well stocked with paraffin; -he needed no further apparatus than the whipcord and the matches he -carried with him. Then back he would go along the exact route by which -he had come, re-entering the village again from the eastwards, in which -direction he had set out. - -This walk of his was now a known and established habit; half the -village during the last week or two had seen him every evening set -forth along the coast road, for a tramp in the dusk when the light -failed for his painting, and had seen him come back again as they hung -about and smoked in the warm dusk, a couple of hours later. None knew -of his detour to the main road which took him westwards again above -the village and so to the stretch of bleak upland along which now he -fought his way against the gale. Always round about the hour of eight -he had entered the village again from the other side, and had stopped -and chatted with the loiterers. To-night, no later than was usual, he -would come up the cobbled road again, and give “good night” to any who -lingered there outside the public-house. In this wild wind it was not -likely that there would be such, and if so, no matter; he had been seen -already setting forth on his usual walk by the coast of the bay, and -if none outside saw him return, none could see the true chart of his -walk. By eight he should be back to his supper, there would be a soused -herring for him, and a cut of cheese, and the kettle would be singing -on the hob for his hot whisky-toddy. He would have a keen edge for the -enjoyment of them to-night; he would drink long healths to the damned -and the dead. Not till to-morrow, probably, would the news of what had -happened reach him, for the farmhouse lay lonely and sheltered by the -wood of firs. However high might mount the beacon of its blazing, it -would scarcely, screened by the tall trees, light up the western sky, -and be seen from the village nestling below the steep hill-crest. - -By now John Aylsford had come to the fir wood which bordered the road -on the left, and, as he passed into its shelter, cut off from him the -violence of the gale. All its branches were astir with the sound of -some vexed, overhead sea, and the trunks that upheld them creaked and -groaned in the fury of the tempest. Somewhere behind the thick scud -of flying cloud the moon must have risen, for the road glimmered more -visibly, and the tossing blackness of the branches was clear enough -against the grey tumult overhead. Behind the tempest she rode in serene -skies, and in the murderous clarity of his mind he likened himself to -her. Just for half an hour more he would still grope and scheme and -achieve in this hurly-burly, and then, like a balloon released, soar -through the clouds and find serenity. A couple of hundred yards now -would take him round the corner of the wood; from there the miry lane -led from the high-road to the farm. - -He hastened rather than retarded his going as he drew near, for the -wood, though it roared with the gale, began to whisper to him of -memories. Often in that summer before his marriage had he strayed -out at dusk into it, certain that before he had gone many paces he -would see a shadow flitting towards him through the firs, or hear the -crack of dry twigs in the stillness. Here was their tryst; she would -come up from the village with the excuse of bringing fish to the -farmhouse, after the boats had come in, and deserting the high-road -make a short cut through the wood. Like some distant blink of lightning -the memory of those evenings quivered distantly on his mind, and he -quickened his step. The years that followed had killed and buried -those recollections, but who knew what stirring of corpses and dry -bones might not yet come to them if he lingered there? He fingered the -whipcord in his pocket, and launched out, beyond the trees, into the -full fury of the gale. - -The farmhouse was near now and in full view, a black blot against -the clouds. A beam of light shone from an uncurtained window on the -ground-floor, and the rest was dark. Even thus had he seen it for many -nights past, and well knew what sight would greet him as he stole up -nearer. And even so it was to-night, for there she sat in the studio he -had built, betwixt table and fireplace with the bottle near her, and -her withered hands stretched out to the blaze, and the huge bloated -face swaying on her shoulders. Beside her to-night were the wrecked -remains of a chair, and the first sight that he caught of her was to -show her feeding the fire with the broken pieces of it. It had been too -troublesome to bring fresh logs from the store of wood; to break up a -chair was the easier task. - -She stirred and sat more upright, then reached out for the bottle that -stood beside her, and drank from the mouth of it. She drank and licked -her lips and drank again, and staggered to her feet, tripping on the -edge of the hearthrug. For the moment that seemed to anger her, and -with clenched teeth and pointing finger she mumbled at it; then once -more she drank, and lurching forward, took the lamp from the table. -With it in her hand she shuffled to the door, and the room was left to -the flickering firelight. A moment afterwards, the bedroom window above -sprang into light, an oblong of bright illumination. - -As soon as that appeared he crept round the house to the door. He -gently turned the handle of it, and found it unlocked. Inside was a -small passage entrance, on the left of which ascended the stairs to -the bedroom above the studio. All was silent there, but from where he -stood he could see that the door into the bedroom was open, for a shaft -of light from the lamp she had carried up with her was shed on to the -landing there.... Everything was smoothing itself out to render his -course most easy. Even the gale was his friend, for it would be bellows -for the fire. He slipped off his shoes, leaving them on the mat, and -drew the whipcord from his pocket. He made a noose in it, and began to -ascend the stairs. They were well-built of seasoned oak, and no creak -betrayed his advancing footfall. - -At the top he paused, listening for any stir of movement within, but -there was nothing to be heard but the sound of heavy breathing from -the bed that lay to the left of the door and out of sight. She had -thrown herself down there, he guessed, without undressing, leaving -the lamp to burn itself out. He could see it through the open door -already beginning to flicker; on the wall behind it were a couple of -water-colours, pictures of his own, one of the little walled garden by -the farm, the other of the pinewood of their tryst. Well he remembered -painting them: she would sit by him as he worked with prattle and -singing. He looked at them now quite detachedly; they seemed to him -wonderfully good, and he envied the artist that fresh, clean skill. -Perhaps he would take them down presently and carry them away with him. - -Very softly now he advanced into the room, and looking round the corner -of the door, he saw her, sprawling and fully dressed on the broad -bed. She lay on her back, eyes closed and mouth open, her dull grey -hair spread over the pillow. Evidently she had not made the bed that -day, for she lay stretched on the crumpled back-turned blankets. A -hair-brush was on the floor beside her; it seemed to have fallen from -her hand. He moved quickly towards her. - - * * * * * - -He put on his shoes again when he came to the foot of the stairs, -carrying the lamp with him and the two pictures which he had taken down -from the wall, and went into the studio. He set the lamp on the table -and drew down the blinds, and his eye fell on the half-empty whisky -bottle from which he had seen her drinking. Though his hand was quite -steady and his mind composed and tranquil, there was yet at the back -of it some impression that was slowly developing, and a good dose of -spirits would no doubt expunge that. He drank half a tumbler of it raw -and undiluted, and though it seemed no more than water in his mouth, -he soon felt that it was doing its work and sponging away from his -mind the picture that had been outlining itself there. In a couple -of minutes he was quite himself again, and could afford to wonder -and laugh at the illusion, for it was no less than that, which had -been gaining on him. For though he could distinctly remember drawing -the noose tight, and seeing the face grow black, and struggling with -the convulsive movements of those withered limbs that soon lay quiet -again, there had sprung up in his mind some unaccountable impression -that what he had left there huddled on the bed was not just the bundle -of withered limbs and strangled neck, but the body of a young girl, -smooth of skin and golden of hair, with mouth that smiled drowsily. -She had been asleep when he came in, and now was half-awake, and was -stirring and stretching herself. In what dim region of his mind that -image had formed itself, he had no idea; all he cared about now was -that his drink had shattered it again, and he could proceed with order -and method to make all secure. Just one drop more first: how lucky it -was that this morning he had been liberal with his money when she came -to the village, for he would have been sorry to have gone without that -fillip to his nerves. - -He looked at his watch, and saw to his satisfaction that it was still -only a little after seven o’clock. Half an hour’s walking, with this -gale to speed his steps, would easily carry him from door to door, -round the detour which approached the village from the east, and a -quarter of an hour, so he reckoned, would be sufficient to accomplish -thoroughly what remained to be done here. He must not hurry and thus -overlook some precaution needful for his safety, though, on the other -hand, he would be glad to be gone from the house as soon as might -be, and he proceeded to set about his work without delay. There was -brushwood and fire-kindling to be brought in from the wood-shed in -the yard, and he made three journeys, returning each time with his -arms full, before he had brought in what he judged to be sufficient. -Most of this he piled in a loose heap in the studio; with the rest he -ascended once more to the bedroom above and made a heap of it there in -the middle of the floor. He took the curtains down from the windows, -for they would make a fine wick for the paraffin, and stuffed them into -the pile. Before he left, he looked once more at what lay on the bed, -and marvelled at the illusion which the whisky had dispelled, and as -he looked, the sense that he was free mounted and bubbled in his head. -The thing seemed scarcely human at all; it was a monster from which he -had delivered himself, and now, with the thought of that to warm him, -he was no longer eager to get through with his work and be gone, for -it was all part of that act of riddance which he had accomplished, and -he gloried in it. Soon, when all was ready, he would come back once -more and soak the fuel and set light to it, and purge with fire the -corruption that lay humped on the bed. - -The fury of the gale had increased with nightfall, and as he went -downstairs again he heard the rattle of loosened tiles on the roof, and -the crash as they shattered themselves on the cobbles of the yard. At -that a sudden misgiving made his breath to catch in his throat, as he -pictured to himself some maniac blast falling on the house and crashing -in the walls that now trembled and shuddered. Supposing the whole -house fell, even if he escaped with his life from the toppling ruin, -what would his life be worth? There would be search made in the fallen -débris to find the body of her who lay strangled with the whipcord -round her neck, and he pictured to himself the slow, relentless march -of justice. He had bought whipcord only yesterday at a shop in the -village, insisting on its strength and toughness ... would it be wiser -now, this moment, to untie the noose and take it back with him or add -it to his brushwood?... He paused on the staircase, pondering that; but -his flesh quaked at the thought, and master of himself though he had -been during those few struggling minutes, he distrusted his power of -making himself handle once more that which could struggle no longer. -But even as he tried to screw his courage to the point, the violence -of the squall passed, and the shuddering house braced itself again. -He need not fear that; the gale was his friend that would blow on the -flames, not his enemy. The blasts that trumpeted overhead were the -voices of the allies who had come to aid him. - -All was arranged then upstairs for the pouring of the paraffin and the -lighting of the pyre; it remained but to make similar dispositions in -the studio. He would stay to feed the flames till they raged beyond all -power of extinction; and now he began to plan the line of his retreat. -There were two doors in the studio: one by the fireplace which opened -on to the little garden; the other gave into the passage entrance from -which mounted the stairs and so to the door through which he had come -into the house. He decided to use the garden-door for his exit; but -when he came to open it, he found that the key was stiff in the rusty -lock, and did not yield to his efforts. There was no use in wasting -time over that; it made no difference through which door he finally -emerged, and he began piling up his heap of wood at that end of the -room. The lamp was burning low; but the fire, which only so few minutes -ago she had fed with a broken chair, shone brightly, and a flaming -ember from it would serve to set light to his conflagration. There was -a straw mat in front of it, which would make fine kindling, and with -these two fires, one in the bedroom upstairs and the other here, there -would be no mistake about the incineration of the house and all that -it contained. His own crime, if crime it was, would perish, too, and -all evidence thereof, victim and whipcord, and the very walls of the -house of sin and hate. It was a great deed and a fine adventure, and -as the liquor he had drunk began to circulate more buoyantly through -his veins, he gloried at the thought of the approaching consummation. -He would slip out of the sordid tragedy of his past life, as from a -discarded garment that he threw into the bonfire he would soon kindle. - -All was ready now for the soaking of the fuel he had piled with the -paraffin, and he went out to the shed in the yard where the barrel -stood. A big tin ewer stood beside it, which he filled and carried -indoors. That would be sufficient for the soaking of the pile upstairs, -and fetching the smoky and flickering lamp from the studio, he went -up again, and like a careful gardener watering some bed of choice -blossoms, he sprinkled and poured till his ewer was empty. He gave -but one glance to the bed behind him, where the huddled thing lay -so quietly, and as he turned, lamp in hand, to go down again, the -draught that came in through the window against which the gale blew, -extinguished it. A little blue flame of burning vapour rose in the -chimney and went out; so, having no further use for it, he pitched it -on to the pile of soaked material. As he left the room he thought he -heard some small stir of movement behind him, but he told himself that -it was but something slipping in the heap he had built there. - -Again he went out into the storm. The clouds that scudded overhead were -thinner now, though the gale blew not less fiercely, and the blurred, -watery moonlight was brighter. Once for a moment, as he approached -the shed, he caught sight of the full orb plunging madly among the -streaming vapours; then she was hidden again behind the wrack. Close in -front of him were the fir trees of the wood where those sweet trysts -had been held, and once again the vision of her as she had been broke -into his mind and the queer conviction that it was no withered and -bloated hag, who lay on the bed upstairs but the fair, comely limbs -and the golden head. It was even more vivid now, and he made haste to -get back to the studio, where he would find the trusty medicine that -had dispelled that vision before. He would have to make two journeys -at least with his tin ewer before he transported enough oil to feed -the larger pyre below, and so, to save time, he took the barrel off -its stand, and rolled it along the path and into the house. He paused -at the foot of the stairs, listening to hear if anything stirred, but -all was silent. Whatever had slipped up there was steady again; from -outside only came the squeal and bellow of the wind. - -The studio was brightly but fitfully lit by the flames on the hearth; -at one moment a noonday blazed there, the next but the last smoulder of -some red sunset. It was easier to decant from the barrel into his ewer -than carry the heavy keg and sprinkle from it, and once and once again -he filled and emptied it. One more application would be sufficient, -and after that he could let what remained trickle out on to the floor. -But by some awkward movement he managed to spill a splash of it down -the front of his trousers: he must be sure, therefore (how quickly his -brain responded with counsels of precautions), to have some accident -with his lamp when he came in to his supper, which should account for -this little misadventure. Or, probably, the wind through which he would -presently be walking would dry it before he reached the village. - -So, for the last time with matches ready in his hand, he mounted the -stairs to set light to the fuel piled in the room above. His second -dose of whisky sang in his head, and he said to himself, smiling at -the humour of the notion, “She always liked a fire in her bedroom; she -shall have it now.” That seemed a very comical idea, and it dwelt in -his head as he struck the match which should light it for her. Then, -still grinning, he gave one glance to the bed, and the smile died on -his face, and the wild cymbals of panic crashed in his brain. The bed -was empty; no huddled shape lay there. - -Distraught with terror, he thrust the match into the soaked pile and -the flame flared up. Perhaps the body had rolled off the bed. It must, -in any case, be here somewhere, and when once the room was alight there -would be nothing more to fear. High rose the smoky flame, and banging -the door, he leaped down the stairs to set light to the pile below and -be gone from the house. Yet, whatever monstrous miracle his eye had -assured him of, it could not be that she still lived and had left the -place where she lay, for she had ceased to breathe when the noose was -tight round her neck, and her fight for life and air had long been -stilled. But, if by some hideous witchcraft, she was not dead, it would -soon be over now with her in the stupefaction of the smoke and the -scorching flames. Let be; the door was shut and she within, for him it -remained to be finished with the business, and flee from the house of -terror, lest he leave the sanity of his soul behind him. - -The red glare from the hearth in the studio lit his steps down the -passage from the stairway, and already he could hear from above the -dry crack and snap from the fire that prospered there. As he shuffled -in, he held his hands to his head, as if pressing the brain back into -its cool case, from which it seemed eager to fly out into the welter -of storm and fire and hideous imagination. If he could only control -himself for a few moments more, all would be done and he would escape -from this disordered haunted place into the night and the gale, leaving -behind him the blaze that would burn away all perilous stuff. Again -the flames broke out in the embers on the hearth, bravely burning, -and he took from the heart of the glare a fragment on which the fire -was bursting into yellow flowers. He heeded not the scorching of his -hand, for it was but for a moment that he held it, and then plunged it -into the pile that dripped with the oil he had poured on it. A tower -of flame mounted, licking the rafters of the low ceiling, then died -away as if suffocated by its own smoke, but crept onwards, nosing its -way along till it reached the straw mat, which blazed fiercely. That -blaze kindled the courage in him; whatever trick his imagination had -played on him just now, he had nothing to fear except his own terror, -which now he mastered again, for nothing real could ever escape from -the conflagration, and it was only the real that he feared. Spells and -witchcrafts and superstitions, such as for the last twenty years had -battened on him, were all enclosed in that tight-drawn noose. - -It was time to be gone, for all was safe now, and the room was growing -to oven-heat. But as he picked his way across the floor over which -runnels of flames from the split barrel were beginning to spread this -way and that, he heard from above the sound of a door unlatched, and -footsteps light and firm tapped on the stairs. For one second the sheer -catalepsy of panic seized him, but he recovered his control, and with -hands that groped through the thick smoke he found the door. At that -moment the fire shot up in a blaze of blinding flame, and there in the -doorway stood Ellen. It was no withered body and bloated face that -confronted him, but she with whom he had trysted in the wood, with the -bloom of eternal youth upon her, and the smooth soft hand, on which -was her wedding-ring, pointed at him. - -It was in vain that he called on himself to rush forward out of that -torrid and suffocating air. The front door was open, he had but to pass -her and speed forth safe into the night. But no power from his will -reached his limbs; his will screamed to him, “Go, go! Push by her: it -is but a phantom which you fear!” but muscle and sinew were in mutiny, -and step by step he retreated before that pointing finger and the -radiant shape that advanced on him. The flames that flickered over the -floor had discovered the paraffin he had spilt, and leaped up his leg. - -Just one spot in his brain retained lucidity from the encompassing -terror. Somewhere behind that barrier of fire there was the second -door into the garden. He had but cursorily attempted to unlock its -rusty wards; now, surely, the knowledge that there alone was escape -would give strength to his hand. He leaped backwards through the -flames, still with eyes fixed on her who ever advanced in time with -his retreat, and turning, wrestled and strove with the key. Something -snapped in his hand, and there still in the keyhole was the bare shaft. - -Holding his breath, for the heat scorched his throat, he groped towards -where he knew was the window through which he had first seen her that -night. The flames licked fiercely round it, but there, beneath his -hand, was the hasp, and he threw it open. At that the wind poured in as -through the nozzle of a plied bellows, and Death rose high and bright -around him. Through the flames, as he sank to the floor, a face radiant -with revenge smiled on him. - - - - -Inscrutable Decrees - - - - -Inscrutable Decrees - - -I had found nothing momentous in the more august pages of _The Times_ -that morning, and so, just because I was lazy and unwilling to embark -on a host of businesses that were waiting for me, I turned to the first -page and, beginning with the seventh column, pondered profoundly over -“Situations Vacant,” and hoped that the “Gentlewoman fond of games,” -who desired the position of governess, would find the very thing to -suit her. I glanced at the notices of lectures to be delivered under -the auspices of various learned societies, and was thankful that I had -not got to give or to listen to any of them. I debated over “Business -Opportunities”; I vainly tried to conjecture clues to mysterious -“Personal” paragraphs, and, still pursuing my sideways, crab-fashion -course, came to “Deaths Continued.” - -There, with a shock of arrest, I saw that Sybil Rorke, widow of the -late Sir Ernest Rorke, had died at Torquay, suddenly, at the age of -thirty-two. It seemed strange that there should be only this bare -announcement concerning a woman who at one time had been so well-known -and dazzling a figure; and turning to the obituary notices, I found -that my inattentive skimming had overlooked a paragraph there of -appreciation and regret. She had died during her sleep, and it was -announced that an inquest would be held. My laziness then had been -of some use, for Archie Rorke, distant cousin but successor to Sir -Ernest’s estates and title, was arriving that evening to spend a few -country days with me, and I was glad to have known this before he came. -How it would affect him, or whether, indeed, it would affect him at -all, I had no idea. - -What a mysterious affair it had been! No one, I supposed, knew the -history of it except he, now that Lady Rorke was dead. If anyone knew, -it should have been myself, and yet Archie, my oldest friend, whose -best man I was to have been, had never opened his lips to a syllable of -explanation. I knew, in fact, no whit more than the whole world knew, -namely, that a year after Sir Ernest Rorke’s death the engagement of -his widow to the new baronet, Sir Archibald Rorke, was made public, -and that within a fortnight of the date fixed for the wedding it was -laconically announced that the marriage would not take place. When, -on seeing that, I rang Archie up on the telephone, I was told that -he had already left London, and he wrote to me a few days later from -Lincote--the place in Hampshire, which he had inherited from his -cousin--saying that he had nothing to tell me about the breaking off -of his engagement beyond the fact that it was true. The whole--he had -written a word and carefully erased it--episode was now an excised leaf -from his life. He was proposing to stay down at Lincote alone for a -month or so, and would then turn on to the new page. - -Lady Rorke, so I heard, had also left London immediately and passed -the summer in Italy. Then she took a furnished house in Torquay, where -she lived for the remainder of the year which intervened between -the breaking off of her engagement and her death. She cut herself -completely off from all her friends--and no woman, surely, ever -commanded a larger host of them--saw nobody, seldom went outside her -house and garden, and observed the same unbroken silence as did Archie -about what had happened. And now, with all her youth and charm and -beauty, she had gone down dumb into the Great Silence. - -With the prospect of seeing Archie that evening it was no wonder that -the thought of Lady Rorke ran all day in my head like a tune heard -long ago which now recalled itself to my mind in scattered staves of -melody. Meetings and talks with her, phrase by phrase, reconstructed -themselves, and as these memories grew definite and complete I found -that, even as before, when I was actually experiencing them, there -lurked underneath the gay rhythms and joyousness something _macabre_ -and mysterious. To-day that was accentuated, whereas before when I -listened for it, trying to isolate it from the rest and so perhaps -dispel it, it was always overscored by some triumphant crescendo: her -presence diverted eye and ear alike. Yet such a simile halts; perhaps, -still in simile, I shall more accurately define this underlying -“something” by saying that her presence was like some gorgeous -rose-bush, full of flowers, and sun, and sweetness; then, even as one -admired and applauded and inhaled, one saw that among its buds and -blossoms there emerged the spikes of some other plant, bitter and -poisonous, but growing from the same soil as the rose, and intertwined -with it. But immediately a fresh glory met your eye, a fresh fragrance -enchanted you. - -As I rummaged among my memories of her, certain scenes which -significantly illustrated this curiously vivid impression stirred and -made themselves manifest to me, and now they were not broken in upon -by her presence. One such occurred on the first evening that I ever -met her, which was in the summer before the death of her husband. The -moment that she entered the room where we were waiting before dinner -for her arrival, the stale, sultry air of a June evening grew fresh -and effervescent; never have I come across so radiant and infectious a -vitality. She was tall and big, with the splendour of the Juno-type, -and though she was then close on thirty, the iridescence of girlhood -was still hers. Without effort she Pied-pipered a rather stodgy party -to dance to her flutings, she caused everyone to become silly and -pleased and full of laughter. At her bidding we indulged in ridiculous -games, dumb-crambo, and what not, and after that the carpet was rolled -up and we capered to the strains of a gramophone. And then the incident -occurred. - -I was standing with her, for a breath of air, on the balcony outside -the drawing-room windows which faced the park. She had just made a -great curtsey to a slip of the moon that rose above the trees and had -borrowed a shilling of me in order to turn it. - -“No, I can’t swear that I believe in moon-luck,” she said, “but after -all it does no harm, and, in case it’s true, you can’t afford to make -an enemy of her. Ah, what’s that?” - -A thrush, attracted by the lights inside, had flown between us, dashed -itself against the window, and now lay fluttering on the ground at our -feet. Instantly she was all pity and tenderness. She picked up the -bird, examined it, and found that its wing was broken. - -“Ah, poor thing!” she said. “Look, its wing-bone is snapped; the end -protrudes. And how terrified it is! What are we to do?” - -It was clear that the kindest thing to do would be to put the bird -out of its pain, but when I suggested that, she took a step back from -me, and covered it with her other hand. Her eyes gleamed, her mouth -smiled, and I saw the tip of her tongue swiftly pass over her lips as -if licking them. - -“No, that would be a terrible thing to do,” she said. “I shall take it -home with me ever so carefully, and watch over it. I am afraid it is -badly hurt. But it may live.” - -Suddenly--perhaps it was that swift licking of her lips that suggested -the thought to me--I felt instinctively that she was not so much -pitiful as pleased. She stood there with eyes fixed on it, as it feebly -struggled in her hands. - -And then her face clouded; over its brightness there came a look of -displeasure, of annoyance. - -“I’m afraid it is dying,” she said. “Its poor frightened eyes are -closing.” - -The bird fluttered once more, then its legs stretched themselves -stiffly out, and it lay still. She tossed it out of her hands on to the -paved balcony, with a little shrug of her shoulders. - -“What a fuss over a bird,” she said. “It was silly of it to fly -against the glass. But I have too soft a heart; I cannot bear that the -poor creatures should die. Let us go in and have one more romp. Oh, -here is your shilling; I hope it will have brought me good luck. And -then I must get home. My husband--do you know him?--always sits up till -I get back, and he will scold me for being so late!” - -There, then, was my first meeting with her, and there, too, were the -spikes of the poisonous plant pushing up among the magnificence of her -roses. And yet, so I thought to myself then, and so I think to myself -now, I perhaps was utterly wrong about it all, in thus attributing to -her a secret glee of which she was wholly incapable. So, with a certain -effort I wiped the impression I had received off my mind, determining -to consider myself quite mistaken. But, involuntarily, my mind as if -to justify itself in having delineated such a picture, proceeded to -delineate another. - -Very shortly after that first meeting I received from her a charming -note, asking me to dine with her on a date not far distant. I -telephoned a delighted acceptance, for, indeed, I wanted then, even -as I did this morning, to convince myself that I was wholly in error -concerning my interpretation of that incident concerning the thrush. -Though I hold that no man has the right to accept the hospitality -offered by one he does not like, in all points except one I admired -and liked Lady Rorke immensely and wished to get rid of that one. So -I gratefully accepted, and then hurried out on a dismal and overdue -visit to the dentist’s. In the waiting-room was a girl of about twelve, -with a hand nursing a rueful face, and from time to time she stifled -a sob of pain or apprehension. I was just wondering whether it would -be a breach of waiting-room etiquette to attempt to administer comfort -or supply diversion, when the door opened and in came Lady Rorke. She -laughed delightfully when she saw me. - -“Hurrah! You’re another occupant of the condemned cell,” she said, “and -very soon we shall both be sent for to the scaffold. I can’t describe -to you what a coward I am about it. Why haven’t we got beaks like -birds?----” - -Her glance fell on the forlorn little figure by the window, with the -rueful face and the wet eyes. - -“Why, here’s another of us,” she said. “And have they sent you to the -dentist’s all alone, my dear?” - -“Y--yes.” - -“How horrid of them!” said Lady Rorke. “They’ve sent me alone, too, -and I think it’s most unfeeling. But you shan’t be alone, anyhow, I’ll -come in with you, and sit by you, if you like that, and box the man’s -ears for him if he hurts you. Or shall you and I set on him, as soon -as we’ve got him by himself, and take out all his teeth one after the -other? Just to teach him to be a dentist.” - -A faint smile began the break through the clouds. - -“Oh, will you come in with me?” she asked. “I shan’t mind nearly so -much, then. It’s--it’s got to come out, you know, and I mayn’t have -gas.” - -Just the same gleam of a smile as I had seen on Lady Rorke’s face once -before quivered there now, a light not of pity, surely. - -“Ah, but it won’t ache any more after that,” she said, “and after all, -it is so soon over. You’ll just open your mouth as if you were going to -put the largest of all strawberries into it, and you’ll hold tight on -to my hand, and the dentist takes up something which you needn’t look -at----” - -There was a want of tact in the vividness of this picture, and the -child began to sob again. - -“Oh, don’t, don’t!” she cried. - -Again the door opened, and she clung to Lady Rorke. - -“Oh, I know it’s for me!” she wailed. - -Lady Rorke bent over her, scanning her terrified face. - -“Come along, my dear,” she said, “and it will be over in no time. -You’ll be back here again before this gentleman can count a hundred, -and he’ll have all his troubles in front of him still.” - -Again this morning I tried to expunge from that picture, so trivial and -yet so vivid to me, the sinister something which seemed to connect it -with the incident about the thrush, and, leaving it, my mind strayed -on over other reminiscences of Lady Rorke. Before the season was over -I had got to know her well, and the better I knew her the more I -marvelled at that many-petalled vitality, which never ceased unfolding -itself. She entertained largely, and had that crowning gift of a good -hostess, namely, that she enjoyed her own parties quite enormously. She -was a very fine horsewoman, and after being up till dawn at some dance, -she would be in the Row by half-past eight on a peculiarly vicious mare -to whom she seemed to pay only the most cursory attention. She had a -good knowledge of music, she dressed amazingly, she was charming to her -meagre little husband, playing piquet with him by the hour (which was -the only thing, apart from herself, that he cared about), and if in -this modern democratic London there could be said to be a queen, there -is no doubt who that season would have worn the crown. Less publicly, -she was a great student of the psychical and occult, and I remembered -hearing that she was herself possessed of very remarkable mediumistic -gifts. But to me that was a matter of hearsay, for I never was present -at any séance of hers. - -Yet through the triumphant music of her pageant, there sounded, to -my ears at least, fragments of a very ugly tune. It was not only in -these two instances of its emergence that I heard it, it was chiefly -and most persistently audible in her treatment of Archie Rorke, her -husband’s cousin. Everyone knew, for none could help knowing, that -he was desperately in love with her, and it is impossible to imagine -that she alone was ignorant of it. It is, no doubt, the instinct -of many women to fan a passion which they do not share, and which -they have no intention of indulging, just as the male instinct is to -gratify a passion that he does not really feel, but there are limits -to mercilessness. She was not “cruel to be kind”; she was kind to be -demoniacally cruel. She had him always by her; she gave him those -little touches and comrade-like licences which meant nothing to her, -but crazed him with thirst; she held the glass close to his lips -and then tilted it up and showed it him empty. The more charitable -explanation was that she, perhaps, knew that her husband could not -live long, and that she intended to marry Archie, and such, so it -subsequently appeared, her intentions were. But when I saw her feeding -him with husks and putting an empty glass to his lips, nothing, to -my mind, could account for her treatment of him except a rapture of -cruelty at the sight of his aching. And somehow, awfully and aptly, -that seemed to fit in with the affair of the thrush, and the meeting -with the forlorn child in the dentist’s waiting-room. Yet ever, through -that gruesome twilight, there blazed forth her charm and her beauty and -the beam of her joyous vitality, and I would cudgel myself for my nasty -interpretations. - -It was early in the spring of next year that I was spending a week-end -with her and her husband at Lincote. She had suggested my coming down -on Saturday morning before the party assembled later in the day, and -at lunch I was alone with her husband and her. Sir Ernest was very -silent; he looked ill and haggard, and, in fact, hardly spoke a word -except when suddenly he turned to the butler and said, “Has anything -been heard of the child yet?” He was told that there was no news, and -subsided into silence again. I thought that some queer shadow as of -suspense or anxiety crossed Lady Rorke’s face at the question; but -on the answer, it cleared off again, and, as if to sweep the subject -wholly away, she asked me if I could tolerate a saunter with her -through the woods till her guests arrived. - -Out she came like some splendid Diana of the Forests, and like the -goddess’s was the swift, swinging pace of her saunter. Spring all round -was riotous in blossom and bird-song; it was just that ecstatic moment -of the year when the hounds of spring have run winter to death, and as -we gained the high ridge of down above the woods she stopped and threw -her arms wide. - -“Oh, the sense of spring!” she cried. “The daffodils, and the west -wind, and the shadows of the clouds. How I wish I could take the -whole lot into my arms and hug them. Miracles are flowering every -moment now in the country, while the only miracle in London is the -mud. What sunshine, what air! Drink them in, for they are the one -divine medicine. One wants that medicine sometimes, for there are sad -things and terrible things all round us, pain and anguish, and decay. -Yet I suppose that even those call out the splendour of fortitude -or endurance. Even when one looks on a struggle which one knows is -hopeless, it warms the heart to see it.” - -The gleam that shone from her paled, her arms dropped, and she moved -on. Then, soft of voice and soft of eye, she spoke again. - -“Such a sad thing happened here two days ago,” she said. “A small -girl--now what was her name? Yes--Ellen Davenport--brought a note from -the village up to the house. I was out, so she left it, and started, it -is supposed, to go back home. She has not been seen since. Descriptions -of her were circulated in all the villages for miles round; but, as -you heard at lunch, there has been no news of her, and the copses and -coverts in the park have been searched, but with no result. And yet out -of that comes splendour. I went to see her mother yesterday, bowed down -with grief, but she won’t give up hope. ‘If it is God’s will,’ she said -to me, ‘we shall find my Ellen alive; and if we find her dead, it will -be God’s will, too.’” - -She paused. - -“But I didn’t ask you down here to moan over tragedies,” she said. -“I wanted you after all your weeks in town to come and have a -spring-cleaning. Doesn’t the wind take the dust out of you, like one of -those sucking-machines which you put on to carpets? And the sun! Make a -sponge of yourself and soak it up till you’re dripping with it.” - -For a couple of miles, at the least, we kept along this high ridge of -down, and the larks were springing from the grass, vocal with song -uncongealed, as they aspired and sank again, dropping at last dumb -and spent with rapture. Then we descended steeply, through the woods -and glades of the park, past thickets of catkinned sallows, and of -willows with soft moleskin buttons, and in the hollows the daffodils -were dancing, and the herbs of the springtime were pushing up through -the brittle withered stuff of the winter. Then, passing along the one -street of the red-tiled village, in which my companion pointed me out -the house where the poor vanished girl had lived, we turned homewards -across the grass and joined the road again at the bottom of the great -lake that lies below the terraced gardens of the house. - -This lake was artificial, made a hundred years ago by the erection of a -huge dam across the dip of the valley, so that the stream which flowed -down it was thereby confined and must needs form this sheet of water -before it found outlet again through the sluices. At the centre the dam -is some twenty-five feet in height, and by the side of the road which -crosses it clumps of rhododendrons lean out over the deep water. The -margin on the side towards the lake is reinforced with concrete, now -mossy and overgrown with herbage, and the face of it, burrows down -to the level of the bottom of the dam through four fathoms of dusky -water. The lake was high and the overflow poured sonorously through the -sluices, and the sun in the west made broken rainbows in the foam of -its outpouring. - -As we paused there a moment, my companion seemed the incarnation of the -sights and sounds that went to the spell of the spring; singing larks -and dancing daffodils, west wind and rain-bowed foam and, no less, the -dark, deep water, were all distilled into her radiant vitality. - -“And now for the house again,” she said, going briskly up the steep -slope. “Is it inhospitable of me to wish that no one was coming except, -of course, our delightful Archie? A houseful brings London into the -country, and we shall talk scandal and stir up mud instead of watching -miracles.” - -Another faint memory of her lingered somewhere in the dusk, and I -groped for it, as one gropes in slime for the roots of a water-plant, -and pulled it out. A notorious murderer had been guillotined that -morning in France, and in some Sunday paper next day there was a -brutal, brilliant, inexcusable little sketch of his being led out -between guards for the final scene at dawn outside the prison at -Versailles. And, as I wrote my name in Lady Rorke’s visitors’ book -on Monday morning, I spilt a blot of ink on the page and hastily -had recourse to the blotting-pad on her writing-table in order to -minimize the disfigurement. Inside it was this unpardonable picture, -cut out and put away, and I thought of the thrush and the dentist’s -waiting-room---- - -A month afterwards her husband died, after three weeks of intolerable -torment. The doctor insisted on his having two trained nurses, but -Lady Rorke never left him. She was present at the painful dressings -of the wound from the operation that only prolonged the misery of his -existence, and even slept on the sofa of the room where he lay. - - * * * * * - -Archie Rorke arrived that evening. He let me know at once that he had -seen the announcement of Lady Rorke’s death, and said no more about -it till later, when he and I were left alone over the fire in the -smoking-room. He looked round to see that the door was shut behind the -last bedgoer of my little party, and then turned to me. - -“I’ve got to tell you something,” he said. “It’ll take half an hour, so -to-morrow will do if you want to be off.” - -“But I don’t,” said I. - -He pulled himself together from his sprawling sunkenness in his chair. - -“Very well,” he said. “What I want to tell you is the story of the -breaking-off of my engagement with Sybil. I have often wanted to do so -before, but while she was alive, as you will presently see, I could -tell nobody. I shall ask you, when you know everything, whether you -think I could have done otherwise. And please do not interrupt me till -I have finished, unless there is something you don’t understand, for it -won’t be very easy to get through with it. But I think I can make it -intelligible.” - -He was silent a moment, and I saw his face working and twitching. - -“I must tell somebody,” he said, “and I choose you, unless you mind it -awfully. But I simply can’t bear it alone any more.” - -“Go on, then, old boy,” I said. “I’m glad you chose me, do you know. -And I won’t interrupt.” - -Archie spoke. - -“A week or two only before our marriage was to have taken place,” he -said, “I went down to Lincote for a couple of days. I had had the house -done up and re-decorated, and now the work was finished and I wanted to -see that all was in order. Nothing could be worthy of Sybil, but--well, -you can guess, more or less, what my feelings were. - -“For a week before there had been very heavy rains, and the lake--you -know it--below the garden was very high, higher than I had ever seen -it: the water poured over the road across the dam which leads to the -village. Under the weight and press of it a great crack had appeared -in the concrete with which it is faced, and there was danger of the -dam being carried away. If that happened the whole lake would have -been suddenly released and no end of damage might have been done. It -was therefore necessary to draw off the water as fast as possible to -relieve the pressure and repair the crack. This was done by means of -big siphons. For two days we had them working, but the crack seemed -to extend right to the foundations of the dam, and before it could be -repaired all the water in the lake would have to be drawn off. I was -just leaving for town, when the foreman came up to the house to tell me -that they had found something there. In the ooze and mud at the base -of the dam, twenty-five feet below water-level, they had come upon the -body of a young girl.” - -He gripped the arms of his chair tight. Little did he know that I was -horribly aware of what he was going to tell me next. - -“About a month before my cousin Ernest’s death,” he said, “a mysterious -affair happened in the village. A girl named Ellen Davenport had -disappeared. She came up one afternoon to the house with a note, -and was never seen again, dead or alive. Her disappearance was now -explained. A chain of beads round the neck and various fragments of -clothing established, beyond any doubt, the identity of what they had -found at the bottom of the lake. I waited for the inquest, telegraphing -to Sybil that business had detained me, and then returned to town, not -intending to tell her what that business was, for our marriage was -close at hand and it was not a topic one would choose. She was very -superstitious, you know, and I thought that it would shock her. That -she would feel it to be unlucky and ill-omened. So I said nothing to -her. - -“Sybil had extraordinary mediumistic powers. She did not often exercise -them and she never would give a séance to any one she did not know -extremely well, for she believed that people brought with them the -spiritual influences with which they were surrounded, and that there -was the possibility of very evil intelligences being set free. But she -had sat several times with me, and I had witnessed some very remarkable -manifestations. Her procedure was to put herself, by abstraction of -her mind, into a state of trance, and spirits of the dead who were -connected with the sitters could then communicate through her. On -one occasion my mother, whom she had never seen, and who died many -years ago, spoke through her and told me certain facts which Sybil -could not have known, and which I did not know. But an old friend of -my mother’s, still alive, told me that they were correct. They were -of an exceedingly private nature. Sybil also, so she told me, could -produce materialisations, but up till now I had never seen any. A -remarkable thing about her mediumship was that she would sometimes -regain consciousness from her trance while still these communications -were being made, and she knew what was going on. She could hear herself -speak and be mentally aware of what she was saying. On the occasion, -for instance, of which I have told you, when my mother spoke to me she -was in this state. The same thing occurred at the sitting of which I -shall now speak. - -“That night, on my return to London, she and I dined alone. I felt a -very strong desire, for which I could not account, that she should -hold a sitting--just herself and me--and she consented. We sat in her -room, with a shaded lamp, but there was sufficient illumination for me -to see her quite distinctly, for her face was towards the light. There -was a small table in front of us covered with a dark cloth. She sat -close to it, in a high chair, composed herself, and almost immediately -went into trance. Her head fell forward and by her slow breathing and -her absolute immobility I knew she was unconscious. For a long time -we sat there in silence, and I began to think that we should get no -manifestations at all, and that the sitting, as sometimes was the case, -would be a failure; but then I saw that something was happening.” - -His hands, with which he gripped the arms of his chair, were trembling. -Twice he tried to speak, but it was not till the third attempt that he -mastered himself. - -“There was forming a mist above the table,” he said. “It was slightly -luminous and it spread upwards, pillar-shaped, in height between -two and three feet. Then I saw that below the outlying skeins of it -something was materialising. It moulded itself into human shape, rising -waist-high from the table, and presently shoulders and arms and neck -and head were visible, and features began to outline themselves. For -some time it remained vague and fluid, swaying backwards and forwards a -little; then very quickly it solidified, and there, close in front of -me, was the half-figure of a young girl. The eyes were still closed, -but now they opened. Round her neck was a chain of beads just such as I -had seen laid by the body that had been found in the lake. And then I -spoke to her, asking her who she was, though I already knew. - -“Her answer was no more than a whisper, but quite distinct. - -“‘Ellen Davenport,’ she said. - -“A disordered terror seized me. Yet perhaps this little white figure, -with its wide-gazing eyes, was some hallucination, something that had -no objective existence at all. All day the thought of the poor kiddie -whose remains I had seen taken out of the ooze at the bottom of the -lake had been vivid in my mind, and I tried to think that what I saw -was no more than some strange projection of my thought. And yet I -felt it was not so; it was independent of myself. And why was it made -manifest, and on what errand had it come? I had pressed Sybil to give -me this séance, and God knows what I would have given not to have done -so! For one thing I was thankful, namely, that she was in unconscious -trance. Perhaps the phantom would fade again before she came out of it. - -“And then I heard a stir of movement from the chair where she sat, and, -turning, I saw that she had raised her head. Her eyes were open and on -her face such a mask of terror as I have never known human being could -wear. Recognition was there, too; I saw that Sybil knew who the phantom -was. - -“The figure that palely gleamed above the table turned its head towards -her, and once more the white lips opened. - -“‘Yes, I am Ellen Davenport,’ she said. - -“The whisper grew louder. - -“‘You might have saved me,’ she said, ‘or you might have tried to save -me; but you watched me struggling till I sank.’ - -“And then the apparition vanished. It did not die away; it was there -clear and distinct one moment, at the next it was gone. Sybil and I -were sitting alone in her room with the low-burning lamp, and the -silence sang in my ears. - -“I got up and turned on the switch that kindled the electric lights, -and knew that something within me had grown cold and that something -had snapped. She still sat where she was, not looking at me at all, -but blankly in front of her. She said no word of denial in answer to -the terrible accusation that had been uttered. And I think I was glad -of that, for there are times when it is not only futility to deny, but -blasphemy. For my part, I could neither look at her nor speak to her. I -remember holding out my hands to the empty grate, as if there had been -a fire burning there. And standing there I heard her rise, and drearily -wondered what she would say and knew how useless it would be. And then -I heard the whisper of her dress on the carpet and the noise of the -door opening and shutting, and when I turned I found that I was alone -in the room. Presently I let myself out of the house.” - -There was a long pause, but I did not break it, for I felt he had not -quite finished. - -“I had loved her with my whole heart,” he said, “and she knew it. -Perhaps that was why I never attempted to see her again and why she did -not attempt to see me. That little white figure would always have been -with us, for she could not deny the reality of it and the truth of that -which it had spoken. That’s my story, then. You needn’t even tell me if -you think I could have done differently, for I knew I couldn’t. And she -couldn’t.” - -He rose. - -“I see there is to be an inquest,” he said. “I hope they will find -that she killed herself. It will mean, won’t it, that her remorse was -unbearable. And that’s atonement.” - -He moved towards the door. - -“Inscrutable decrees,” he said. - - - - -The Gardener - - - - -The Gardener - - -Two friends of mine, Hugh Grainger and his wife, had taken for a -month of Christmas holiday the house in which we were to witness such -strange manifestations, and when I received an invitation from them to -spend a fortnight there I returned them an enthusiastic affirmative. -Well already did I know that pleasant heathery country-side, and most -intimate was my acquaintance with the subtle hazards of its most -charming golf-links. Golf, I was given to understand, was to occupy the -solid day for Hugh and me, so that Margaret should never be obliged to -set her hand to the implements with which the game, so detestable to -her, was conducted.... - -I arrived there while yet the daylight lingered, and as my hosts were -out, I took a ramble round the place. The house and garden stood on a -plateau facing south; below it were a couple of acres of pasture that -sloped down to a vagrant stream crossed by a foot-bridge, by the side -of which stood a thatched cottage with a vegetable patch surrounding -it. A path ran close past this across the pasture from a wicket-gate in -the garden, conducted you over the foot-bridge, and, so my remembered -sense of geography told me, must constitute a short cut to the links -that lay not half a mile beyond. The cottage itself was clearly on -the land of the little estate, and I at once supposed it to be the -gardener’s house. What went against so obvious and simple a theory was -that it appeared to be untenanted. No wreath of smoke, though the -evening was chilly, curled from its chimneys, and, coming closer, I -fancied it had that air of “waiting” about it which we so often conjure -into unused habitations. There it stood, with no sign of life whatever -about it, though ready, as its apparently perfect state of repair -seemed to warrant, for fresh tenants to put the breath of life into it -again. Its little garden, too, though the palings were neat and newly -painted, told the same tale; the beds were untended and unweeded, and -in the flower-border by the front door was a row of chrysanthemums, -which had withered on their stems. But all this was but the impression -of a moment, and I did not pause as I passed it, but crossed the -foot-bridge and went on up the heathery slope that lay beyond. My -geography was not at fault, for presently I saw the club-house just -in front of me. Hugh no doubt would be just about coming in from his -afternoon round, and so we would walk back together. On reaching the -club-house, however, the steward told me that not five minutes before -Mrs. Grainger had called in her car for her husband, and I therefore -retraced my steps by the path along which I had already come. But -I made a detour, as a golfer will, to walk up the fairway of the -seventeenth and eighteenth holes just for the pleasure of recognition, -and looked respectfully at the yawning sandpit which so inexorably -guards the eighteenth green, wondering in what circumstances I should -visit it next, whether with a step complacent and superior, knowing -that my ball reposed safely on the green beyond, or with the heavy -footfall of one who knows that laborious delving lies before him. - -The light of the winter evening had faded fast, and when I crossed -the foot-bridge on my return the dusk had gathered. To my right, just -beside the path, lay the cottage, the whitewashed walls of which -gleamed whitely in the gloaming; and as I turned my glance back from -it to the rather narrow plank which bridged the stream I thought I -caught out of the tail of my eye some light from one of its windows, -which thus disproved my theory that it was untenanted. But when I -looked directly at it again I saw that I was mistaken: some reflection -in the glass of the red lines of sunset in the west must have deceived -me, for in the inclement twilight it looked more desolate than ever. -Yet I lingered by the wicket gate in its low palings, for though all -exterior evidence bore witness to its emptiness, some inexplicable -feeling assured me, quite irrationally, that this was not so, and that -there was somebody there. Certainly there was nobody visible, but, so -this absurd idea informed me, he might be at the back of the cottage -concealed from me by the intervening structure, and, still oddly, still -unreasonably, it became a matter of importance to my mind to ascertain -whether this was so or not, so clearly had my perceptions told me that -the place was empty, and so firmly had some conviction assured me -that it was tenanted. To cover my inquisitiveness, in case there was -someone there, I could inquire whether this path was a short cut to -the house at which I was staying, and, rather rebelling at what I was -doing, I went through the small garden, and rapped at the door. There -was no answer, and, after waiting for a response to a second summons, -and having tried the door and found it locked, I made the circuit of -the house. Of course there was no one there, and I told myself that I -was just like a man who looks under his bed for a burglar and would be -beyond measure astonished if he found one. - -My hosts were at the house when I arrived, and we spent a cheerful two -hours before dinner in such desultory and eager conversation as is -proper between friends who have not met for some time. Between Hugh -Grainger and his wife it is always impossible to light on a subject -which does not vividly interest one or other of them, and golf, -politics, the needs of Russia, cooking, ghosts, the possible victory -over Mount Everest, and the income tax were among the topics which we -passionately discussed. With all these plates spinning, it was easy -to whip up any one of them, and the subject of spooks generally was -lighted upon again and again. - -“Margaret is on the high road to madness,” remarked Hugh on one of -these occasions, “for she has begun using planchette. If you use -planchette for six months, I am told, most careful doctors will -conscientiously certify you as insane. She’s got five months more -before she goes to Bedlam.” - -“Does it work?” I asked. - -“Yes, it says most interesting things,” said Margaret. “It says things -that never entered my head. We’ll try it to-night.” - -“Oh, not to-night,” said Hugh. “Let’s have an evening off.” - -Margaret disregarded this. - -“It’s no use asking planchette questions,” she went on, “because there -is in your mind some sort of answer to them. If I ask whether it will -be fine to-morrow, for instance, it is probably I--though indeed I -don’t mean to push--who makes the pencil say ‘yes.’” - -“And then it usually rains,” remarked Hugh. - -“Not always: don’t interrupt. The interesting thing is to let the -pencil write what it chooses. Very often it only makes loops and -curves--though they may mean something--and every now and then a word -comes, of the significance of which I have no idea whatever, so I -clearly couldn’t have suggested it. Yesterday evening, for instance, -it wrote ‘gardener’ over and over again. Now what did that mean? The -gardener here is a Methodist with a chin-beard. Could it have meant -him? Oh, it’s time to dress. Please don’t be late, my cook is so -sensitive about soup.” - -We rose, and some connection of ideas about “gardener” linked itself up -in my mind. - -“By the way, what’s that cottage in the field by the foot-bridge?” I -asked. “Is that the gardener’s cottage?” - -“It used to be,” said Hugh. “But the chin-beard doesn’t live there: in -fact nobody lives there. It’s empty. If I was owner here, I should put -the chin-beard into it, and take the rent off his wages. Some people -have no idea of economy. Why did you ask?” - -I saw Margaret was looking at me rather attentively. - -“Curiosity,” I said. “Idle curiosity.” - -“I don’t believe it was,” said she. - -“But it was,” I said. “It was idle curiosity to know whether the -house was inhabited. As I passed it, going down to the club-house, I -felt sure it was empty, but coming back I felt so sure that there was -someone there that I rapped at the door, and indeed walked round it.” - -Hugh had preceded us upstairs, as she lingered a little. - -“And there was no one there?” she asked. “It’s odd: I had just the same -feeling as you about it.” - -“That explains planchette writing ‘gardener’ over and over again,” said -I. “You had the gardener’s cottage on your mind.” - -“How ingenious!” said Margaret. “Hurry up and dress.” - -A gleam of strong moonlight between my drawn curtains when I went up -to bed that night led me to look out. My room faced the garden and -the fields which I had traversed that afternoon, and all was vividly -illuminated by the full moon. The thatched cottage with its white walls -close by the stream was very distinct, and once more, I suppose, the -reflection of the light on the glass of one of its windows made it -appear that the room was lit within. It struck me as odd that twice -that day this illusion should have been presented to me, but now a yet -odder thing happened. Even as I looked the light was extinguished. - -The morning did not at all bear out the fine promise of the clear -night, for when I woke the wind was squealing, and sheets of rain from -the south-west were dashed against my panes. Golf was wholly out of the -question, and, though the violence of the storm abated a little in the -afternoon, the rain dripped with a steady sullenness. But I wearied -of indoors, and, since the two others entirely refused to set foot -outside, I went forth mackintoshed to get a breath of air. By way of -an object in my tramp, I took the road to the links in preference to -the muddy short cut through the fields, with the intention of engaging -a couple of caddies for Hugh and myself next morning, and lingered -awhile over illustrated papers in the smoking-room. I must have read -for longer than I knew, for a sudden beam of sunset light suddenly -illuminated my page, and looking up, I saw that the rain had ceased, -and that evening was fast coming on. So instead of taking the long -detour by the road again, I set forth homewards by the path across -the fields. That gleam of sunset was the last of the day, and once -again, just as twenty-four hours ago, I crossed the foot-bridge in the -gloaming. Till that moment, as far as I was aware, I had not thought -at all about the cottage there, but now in a flash the light I had -seen there last night, suddenly extinguished, recalled itself to my -mind, and at the same moment I felt that invincible conviction that -the cottage was tenanted. Simultaneously in these swift processes of -thought I looked towards it, and saw standing by the door the figure of -a man. In the dusk I could distinguish nothing of his face, if indeed -it was turned to me, and only got the impression of a tallish fellow, -thickly built. He opened the door, from which there came a dim light as -of a lamp, entered, and shut it after him. - -So then my conviction was right. Yet I had been distinctly told that -the cottage was empty: who, then, was he that entered as if returning -home? Once more, this time with a certain qualm of fear, I rapped on -the door, intending to put some trivial question; and rapped again, -this time more drastically, so that there could be no question that my -summons was unheard. But still I got no reply, and finally I tried the -handle of the door. It was locked. Then, with difficulty mastering an -increasing terror, I made the circuit of the cottage, peering into each -unshuttered window. All was dark within, though but two minutes ago I -had seen the gleam of light escape from the opened door. - -Just because some chain of conjecture was beginning to form itself in -my mind, I made no allusion to this odd adventure, and after dinner -Margaret, amid protests from Hugh, got out the planchette which had -persisted in writing “gardener.” My surmise was, of course, utterly -fantastic, but I wanted to convey no suggestion of any sort to -Margaret.... For a long time the pencil skated over her paper making -loops and curves and peaks like a temperature chart, and she had begun -to yawn and weary over her experiment before any coherent word emerged. -And then, in the oddest way, her head nodded forward and she seemed to -have fallen asleep. - -Hugh looked up from his book and spoke in a whisper to me. - -“She fell asleep the other night over it,” he said. - -Margaret’s eyes were closed, and she breathed the long, quiet breaths -of slumber, and then her hand began to move with a curious firmness. -Right across the big sheet of paper went a level line of writing, and -at the end her hand stopped with a jerk, and she woke. - -She looked at the paper. - -“Hullo,” she said. “Ah, one of you has been playing a trick on me!” - -We assured her that this was not so, and she read what she had written. - -“Gardener, gardener,” it ran. “I am the gardener. I want to come in. I -can’t find her here.” - -“O Lord, that gardener again!” said Hugh. - -Looking up from the paper, I saw Margaret’s eyes fixed on mine, and -even before she spoke I knew what her thought was. - -“Did you come home by the empty cottage?” she asked. - -“Yes: why?” - -“Still empty?” she said in a low voice. “Or--or anything else?” - -I did not want to tell her just what I had seen--or what, at any rate, -I thought I had seen. If there was going to be anything odd, anything -worth observation, it was far better that our respective impressions -should not fortify each other. - -“I tapped again, and there was no answer,” I said. - -Presently there was a move to bed: Margaret initiated it, and after she -had gone upstairs Hugh and I went to the front door to interrogate the -weather. Once more the moon shone in a clear sky, and we strolled out -along the flagged path that fronted the house. Suddenly Hugh turned -quickly and pointed to the angle of the house. - -“Who on earth is that?” he said. “Look! There! He has gone round the -corner.” - -I had but the glimpse of a tallish man of heavy build. - -“Didn’t you see him?” asked Hugh. “I’ll just go round the house, and -find him; I don’t want anyone prowling round us at night. Wait here, -will you, and if he comes round the other corner ask him what his -business is.” - -Hugh had left me, in our stroll, close by the front door which was -open, and there I waited until he should have made his circuit. He had -hardly disappeared when I heard, quite distinctly, a rather quick but -heavy footfall coming along the paved walk towards me from the opposite -direction. But there was absolutely no one to be seen who made this -sound of rapid walking. Closer and closer to me came the steps of the -invisible one, and then with a shudder of horror I felt somebody unseen -push by me as I stood on the threshold. That shudder was not merely of -the spirit, for the touch of him was that of ice on my hand. I tried to -seize this impalpable intruder, but he slipped from me, and next moment -I heard his steps on the parquet of the floor inside. Some door within -opened and shut, and I heard no more of him. Next moment Hugh came -running round the corner of the house from which the sound of steps had -approached. - -“But where is he?” he asked. “He was not twenty yards in front of me--a -big, tall fellow.” - -“I saw nobody,” I said. “I heard his step along the walk, but there was -nothing to be seen.” - -“And then?” asked Hugh. - -“Whatever it was seemed to brush by me, and go into the house,” said I. - -There had certainly been no sound of steps on the bare oak stairs, and -we searched room after room through the ground floor of the house. The -dining-room door and that of the smoking-room were locked, that into -the drawing-room was open, and the only other door which could have -furnished the impression of an opening and a shutting was that into the -kitchen and servants’ quarters. Here again our quest was fruitless; -through pantry and scullery and boot-room and servants’ hall we -searched, but all was empty and quiet. Finally we came to the kitchen, -which too was empty. But by the fire there was set a rocking-chair, and -this was oscillating to and fro as if someone, lately sitting there, -had just quitted it. There it stood gently rocking, and this seemed to -convey the sense of a presence, invisible now, more than even the sight -of him who surely had been sitting there could have done. I remember -wanting to steady it and stop it, and yet my hand refused to go forth -to it. - -What we had seen, and in especial what we had not seen, would have been -sufficient to furnish most people with a broken night, and assuredly I -was not among the strong-minded exceptions. Long I lay wide-eyed and -open-eared, and when at last I dozed I was plucked from the borderland -of sleep by the sound, muffled but unmistakable, of someone moving -about the house. It occurred to me that the steps might be those of -Hugh conducting a lonely exploration, but even while I wondered a tap -came at the door of communication between our rooms, and, in answer to -my response, it appeared that he had come to see whether it was I thus -uneasily wandering. Even as we spoke the step passed my door, and the -stairs leading to the floor above creaked to its ascent. Next moment -it sounded directly above our heads in some attics in the roof. - -“Those are not the servants’ bedrooms,” said Hugh. “No one sleeps -there. Let us look once more: it must be somebody.” - -With lit candles we made our stealthy way upstairs, and just when we -were at the top of the flight, Hugh, a step ahead of me, uttered a -sharp exclamation. - -“But something is passing by me!” he said, and he clutched at the empty -air. Even as he spoke, I experienced the same sensation, and the moment -afterwards the stairs below us creaked again, as the unseen passed down. - -All night long that sound of steps moved about the passages, as if -someone was searching the house, and as I lay and listened that message -which had come through the pencil of the planchette to Margaret’s -fingers occurred to me. “I want to come in. I cannot find her here.”... -Indeed someone had come in, and was sedulous in his search. He was the -gardener, it would seem. But what gardener was this invisible seeker, -and for whom did he seek? - -Even as when some bodily pain ceases it is difficult to recall with -any vividness what the pain was like, so next morning, as I dressed, I -found myself vainly trying to recapture the horror of the spirit which -had accompanied these nocturnal adventures. I remembered that something -within me had sickened as I watched the movements of the rocking-chair -the night before and as I heard the steps along the paved way outside, -and by that invisible pressure against me knew that someone had entered -the house. But now in the sane and tranquil morning, and all day -under the serene winter sun, I could not realise what it had been. The -presence, like the bodily pain, had to be there for the realisation of -it, and all day it was absent. Hugh felt the same; he was even disposed -to be humorous on the subject. - -“Well, he’s had a good look,” he said, “whoever he is, and whomever -he was looking for. By the way, not a word to Margaret, please. She -heard nothing of these perambulations, nor of the entry of--of whatever -it was. Not gardener, anyhow: who ever heard of a gardener spending -his time walking about the house? If there were steps all over the -potato-patch, I might have been with you.” - -Margaret had arranged to drive over to have tea with some friends of -hers that afternoon, and in consequence Hugh and I refreshed ourselves -at the club-house after our game, and it was already dusk when for the -third day in succession I passed homewards by the whitewashed cottage. -But to-night I had no sense of it being subtly occupied; it stood -mournfully desolate, as is the way of untenanted houses, and no light -nor semblance of such gleamed from its windows. Hugh, to whom I had -told the odd impressions I had received there, gave them a reception as -flippant as that which he had accorded to the memories of the night, -and he was still being humorous about them when we came to the door of -the house. - -“A psychic disturbance, old boy,” he said. “Like a cold in the head. -Hullo, the door’s locked.” - -He rang and rapped, and from inside came the noise of a turned key and -withdrawn bolts. - -“What’s the door locked for?” he asked his servant who opened it. - -The man shifted from one foot to the other. - -“The bell rang half an hour ago, sir,” he said, “and when I came to -answer it there was a man standing outside, and----” - -“Well?” asked Hugh. - -“I didn’t like the looks of him, sir,” he said, “and I asked him his -business. He didn’t say anything, and then he must have gone pretty -smartly away, for I never saw him go.” - -“Where did he seem to go?” asked Hugh, glancing at me. - -“I can’t rightly say, sir. He didn’t seem to go at all. Something -seemed to brush by me.” - -“That’ll do,” said Hugh rather sharply. - - * * * * * - -Margaret had not come in from her visit, but when soon after the crunch -of the motor wheels was heard Hugh reiterated his wish that nothing -should be said to her about the impression which now, apparently, a -third person shared with us. She came in with a flush of excitement on -her face. - -“Never laugh at my planchette again,” she said. “I’ve heard the most -extraordinary story from Maud Ashfield--horrible, but so frightfully -interesting.” - -“Out with it,” said Hugh. - -“Well, there was a gardener here,” she said. “He used to live at that -little cottage by the foot-bridge, and when the family were up in -London he and his wife used to be caretakers and live here.” - -Hugh’s glance and mine met: then he turned away. I knew, as certainly -as if I was in his mind, that his thoughts were identical with my own. - -“He married a wife much younger than himself,” continued Margaret, “and -gradually he became frightfully jealous of her. And one day in a fit -of passion he strangled her with his own hands. A little while after -someone came to the cottage, and found him sobbing over her, trying to -restore her. They went for the police, but before they came he had cut -his own throat. Isn’t it all horrible? But surely it’s rather curious -that the planchette said Gardener. ‘I am the gardener. I want to come -in. I can’t find her here.’ You see I knew nothing about it. I shall do -planchette again to-night. Oh dear me, the post goes in half an hour, -and I have a whole budget to send. But respect my planchette for the -future, Hughie.” - -We talked the situation out when she had gone, but Hugh, unwillingly -convinced and yet unwilling to admit that something more than -coincidence lay behind that “planchette nonsense,” still insisted that -Margaret should be told nothing of what we had heard and seen in the -house last night, and of the strange visitor who again this evening, so -we must conclude, had made his entry. - -“She’ll be frightened,” he said, “and she’ll begin imagining things. As -for the planchette, as likely as not it will do nothing but scribble -and make loops. What’s that? Yes: come in!” - -There had come from somewhere in the room one sharp, peremptory rap. I -did not think it came from the door, but Hugh, when no response replied -to his words of admittance, jumped up and opened it. He took a few -steps into the hall outside, and returned. - -“Didn’t you hear it?” he asked. - -“Certainly. No one there?” - -“Not a soul.” - -Hugh came back to the fireplace and rather irritably threw a cigarette -which he had just lit into the fender. - -“That was rather a nasty jar,” he observed; “and if you ask me whether -I feel comfortable, I can tell you I never felt less comfortable in my -life. I’m frightened, if you want to know, and I believe you are too.” - -I hadn’t the smallest intention of denying this, and he went on. - -“We’ve got to keep a hand on ourselves,” he said. “There’s nothing so -infectious as fear, and Margaret mustn’t catch it from us. But there’s -something more than our fear, you know. Something has got into the -house and we’re up against it. I never believed in such things before. -Let’s face it for a minute. _What_ is it anyhow?” - -“If you want to know what I think it is,” said I, “I believe it to be -the spirit of the man who strangled his wife and then cut his throat. -But I don’t see how it can hurt us. We’re afraid of our own fear -really.” - -“But we’re up against it,” said Hugh. “And what will it do? Good -Lord, if I only knew what it would do I shouldn’t mind. It’s the not -knowing.... Well, it’s time to dress.” - - * * * * * - -Margaret was in her highest spirits at dinner. Knowing nothing of -the manifestations of that presence which had taken place in the -last twenty-four hours, she thought it absorbingly interesting that -her planchette should have “guessed” (so ran her phrase) about the -gardener, and from that topic she flitted to an equally interesting -form of patience for three which her friend had showed her, promising -to initiate us into it after dinner. This she did, and, not knowing -that we both above all things wanted to keep planchette at a distance, -she was delighted with the success of her game. But suddenly she -observed that the evening was burning rapidly away, and swept the cards -together at the conclusion of a hand. - -“Now just half an hour of planchette,” she said. - -“Oh, mayn’t we play one more hand?” asked Hugh. “It’s the best game -I’ve seen for years. Planchette will be dismally slow after this.” - -“Darling, if the gardener will only communicate again, it won’t be -slow,” said she. - -“But it is such drivel,” said Hugh. - -“How rude you are! Read your book, then.” - -Margaret had already got out her machine and a sheet of paper, when -Hugh rose. - -“Please don’t do it to-night, Margaret,” he said. - -“But why? You needn’t attend.” - -“Well, I ask you not to, anyhow,” said he. - -Margaret looked at him closely. - -“Hughie, you’ve got something on your mind,” she said. “Out with it. I -believe you’re nervous. You think there is something queer about. What -is it?” - -I could see Hugh hesitating as to whether to tell her or not, and I -gathered that he chose the chance of her planchette inanely scribbling. - -“Go on, then,” he said. - -Margaret hesitated: she clearly did not want to vex Hugh, but his -insistence must have seemed to her most unreasonable. - -“Well, just ten minutes,” she said, “and I promise not to think of -gardeners.” - -She had hardly laid her hand on the board when her head fell forward, -and the machine began moving. I was sitting close to her, and as it -rolled steadily along the paper the writing became visible. - -“I have come in,” it ran, “but still I can’t find her. Are you hiding -her? I will search the room where you are.” - -What else was written but still concealed underneath the planchette I -did not know, for at that moment a current of icy air swept round the -room, and at the door, this time unmistakably, came a loud, peremptory -knock. Hugh sprang to his feet. - -“Margaret, wake up,” he said, “something is coming!” - -The door opened, and there moved in the figure of a man. He stood just -within the door, his head bent forward, and he turned it from side to -side, peering, it would seem, with eyes staring and infinitely sad, -into every corner of the room. - -“Margaret, Margaret,” cried Hugh again. - -But Margaret’s eyes were open too; they were fixed on this dreadful -visitor. - -“Be quiet, Hughie,” she said below her breath, rising as she spoke. The -ghost was now looking directly at her. Once the lips above the thick, -rust-coloured beard moved, but no sound came forth, the mouth only -moved and slavered. He raised his head, and, horror upon horror, I saw -that one side of his neck was laid open in a red, glistening gash.... - -For how long that pause continued, when we all three stood stiff and -frozen in some deadly inhibition to move or speak, I have no idea: I -suppose that at the utmost it was a dozen seconds. Then the spectre -turned, and went out as it had come. We heard his steps pass along the -parqueted floor; there was the sound of bolts withdrawn from the front -door, and with a crash that shook the house it slammed to. - -“It’s all over,” said Margaret. “God have mercy on him!” - - * * * * * - -Now the reader may put precisely what construction he pleases on -this visitation from the dead. He need not, indeed, consider it to -have been a visitation from the dead at all, but say that there had -been impressed on the scene, where this murder and suicide happened, -some sort of emotional record, which in certain circumstances could -translate itself into images visible and invisible. Waves of ether, -or what not, may conceivably retain the impress of such scenes; they -may be held, so to speak, in solution, ready to be precipitated. -Or he may hold that the spirit of the dead man indeed made itself -manifest, revisiting in some sort of spiritual penance and remorse -the place where his crime was committed. Naturally, no materialist -will entertain such an explanation for an instant, but then there is -no one so obstinately unreasonable as the materialist. Beyond doubt -a dreadful deed was done there, and Margaret’s last utterance is not -inapplicable. - - - - -Mr. Tilly’s Séance - - - - -Mr. Tilly’s Séance - - -Mr. Tilly had only the briefest moment for reflection, when, as he -slipped and fell on the greasy wood pavement at Hyde Park Corner, which -he was crossing at a smart trot, he saw the huge traction-engine with -its grooved ponderous wheels towering high above him. - -“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” he said petulantly, “it will certainly crush me -quite flat, and I shan’t be able to be at Mrs. Cumberbatch’s séance! -Most provoking! A-ow!” - -The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the first half of his -horrid anticipations was thoroughly fulfilled. The heavy wheels passed -over him from head to foot and flattened him completely out. Then the -driver (too late) reversed his engine and passed over him again, and -finally lost his head, whistled loudly and stopped. The policeman on -duty at the corner turned quite faint at the sight of the catastrophe, -but presently recovered sufficiently to hold up the traffic, and ran to -see what on earth could be done. It was all so much “up” with Mr. Tilly -that the only thing possible was to get the hysterical engine-driver -to move clear. Then the ambulance from the hospital was sent for, and -Mr. Tilly’s remains, detached with great difficulty from the road (so -firmly had they been pressed into it), were reverently carried away -into the mortuary.... - -Mr. Tilly during this had experienced one moment’s excruciating pain, -resembling the severest neuralgia as his head was ground beneath the -wheel, but almost before he realised it, the pain was past, and he -found himself, still rather dazed, floating or standing (he did not -know which) in the middle of the road. There had been no break in -his consciousness; he perfectly recollected slipping, and wondered -how he had managed to save himself. He saw the arrested traffic, the -policeman with white wan face making suggestions to the gibbering -engine-driver, and he received the very puzzling impression that the -traction engine was all mixed up with him. He had a sensation of -red-hot coals and boiling water and rivets all around him, but yet no -feeling of scalding or burning or confinement. He was, on the contrary, -extremely comfortable, and had the most pleasant consciousness of -buoyancy and freedom. Then the engine puffed and the wheels went round, -and immediately, to his immense surprise, he perceived his own crushed -remains, flat as a biscuit, lying on the roadway. He identified them -for certain by his clothes, which he had put on for the first time that -morning, and one patent leather boot which had escaped demolition. - -“But what on earth has happened?” he said. “Here am I, and yet that -poor pressed flower of arms and legs is me--or rather I--also. And how -terribly upset the driver looks. Why, I do believe that I’ve been run -over! It did hurt for a moment, now I come to think of it.... My good -man, where are you shoving to? Don’t you see me?” - -He addressed these two questions to the policeman, who appeared to walk -right through him. But the man took no notice, and calmly came out -on the other side: it was quite evident that he did not see him, or -apprehend him in any way. - -Mr. Tilly was still feeling rather at sea amid these unusual -occurrences, and there began to steal into his mind a glimpse of the -fact which was so obvious to the crowd which formed an interested but -respectful ring round his body. Men stood with bared heads; women -screamed and looked away and looked back again. - -“I really believe I’m dead,” said he. “That’s the only hypothesis which -will cover the facts. But I must feel more certain of it before I do -anything. Ah! Here they come with the ambulance to look at me. I must -be terribly hurt, and yet I don’t feel hurt. I should feel hurt surely -if I was hurt. I must be dead.” - -Certainly it seemed the only thing for him to be, but he was far from -realising it yet. A lane had been made through the crowd for the -stretcher-bearers, and he found himself wincing when they began to -detach him from the road. - -“Oh, do take care!” he said. “That’s the sciatic nerve protruding there -surely, isn’t it? A-ow! No, it didn’t hurt after all. My new clothes, -too: I put them on to-day for the first time. What bad luck! Now you’re -holding my leg upside down. Of course all my money comes out of my -trouser pocket. And there’s my ticket for the séance; I must have that: -I may use it after all.” - -He tweaked it out of the fingers of the man who had picked it up, and -laughed to see the expression of amazement on his face as the card -suddenly vanished. That gave him something fresh to think about, and -he pondered for a moment over some touch of association set up by it. - -“I have it,” he thought. “It is clear that the moment I came into -connection with that card, it became invisible. I’m invisible myself -(of course to the grosser sense), and everything I hold becomes -invisible. Most interesting! That accounts for the sudden appearances -of small objects at a séance. The spirit has been holding them, and as -long as he holds them they are invisible. Then he lets go, and there’s -the flower or the spirit-photograph on the table. It accounts, too, for -the sudden disappearances of such objects. The spirit has taken them, -though the scoffers say that the medium has secreted them about his -person. It is true that when searched he sometimes appears to have done -so; but, after all, that may be a joke on the part of the spirit. Now, -what am I to do with myself.... Let me see, there’s the clock. It’s -just half-past ten. All this has happened in a few minutes, for it was -a quarter past when I left my house. Half-past ten now: what does that -mean exactly? I used to know what it meant, but now it seems nonsense. -Ten what? Hours, is it? What’s an hour?” - -This was very puzzling. He felt that he used to know what an hour and a -minute meant, but the perception of that, naturally enough, had ceased -with his emergence from time and space into eternity. The conception -of time was like some memory which, refusing to record itself on the -consciousness, lies perdu in some dark corner of the brain, laughing at -the efforts of the owner to ferret it out. While he still interrogated -his mind over this lapsed perception, he found that space as well as -time, had similarly grown obsolete for him, for he caught sight of his -friend Miss Ida Soulsby, whom he knew was to be present at the séance -for which he was bound, hurrying with bird-like steps down the pavement -opposite. Forgetting for the moment that he was a disembodied spirit, -he made the effort of will which in his past human existence would have -set his legs in pursuit of her, and found that the effort of will alone -was enough to place him at her side. - -“My dear Miss Soulsby,” he said, “I was on my way to Mrs. Cumberbatch’s -house when I was knocked down and killed. It was far from unpleasant, a -moment’s headache----” - -So far his natural volubility had carried him before he recollected -that he was invisible and inaudible to those still closed in by the -muddy vesture of decay, and stopped short. But though it was clear -that what he said was inaudible to Miss Soulsby’s rather large -intelligent-looking ears, it seemed that some consciousness of his -presence was conveyed to her finer sense, for she looked suddenly -startled, a flush rose to her face, and he heard her murmur, “Very odd. -I wonder why I received so vivid an impression of dear Teddy.” - -That gave Mr. Tilly a pleasant shock. He had long admired the lady, -and here she was alluding to him in her supposed privacy as “dear -Teddy.” That was followed by a momentary regret that he had been -killed: he would have liked to have been possessed of this information -before, and have pursued the primrose path of dalliance down which it -seemed to lead. (His intentions, of course, would, as always, have -been strictly honourable: the path of dalliance would have conducted -them both, if she consented, to the altar, where the primroses would -have been exchanged for orange blossom.) But his regret was quite -short-lived; though the altar seemed inaccessible, the primrose path -might still be open, for many of the spiritualistic circle in which he -lived were on most affectionate terms with their spiritual guides and -friends who, like himself, had passed over. From a human point of view -these innocent and even elevating flirtations had always seemed to him -rather bloodless; but now, looking on them from the far side, he saw -how charming they were, for they gave him the sense of still having -a place and an identity in the world he had just quitted. He pressed -Miss Ida’s hand (or rather put himself into the spiritual condition of -so doing), and could vaguely feel that it had some hint of warmth and -solidity about it. This was gratifying, for it showed that though he -had passed out of the material plane, he could still be in touch with -it. Still more gratifying was it to observe that a pleased and secret -smile overspread Miss Ida’s fine features as he gave this token of his -presence: perhaps she only smiled at her own thoughts, but in any case -it was he who had inspired them. Encouraged by this, he indulged in -a slightly more intimate token of affection, and permitted himself a -respectful salute, and saw that he had gone too far, for she said to -herself, “Hush, hush!” and quickened her pace, as if to leave these -amorous thoughts behind. - -He felt that he was beginning to adjust himself to the new conditions -in which he would now live, or, at any rate, was getting some sort -of inkling as to what they were. Time existed no more for him, nor -yet did space, since the wish to be at Miss Ida’s side had instantly -transported him there, and with a view to testing this further he -wished himself back in his flat. As swiftly as the change of scene in -a cinematograph show he found himself there, and perceived that the -news of his death must have reached his servants, for his cook and -parlour-maid with excited faces, were talking over the event. - -“Poor little gentleman,” said his cook. “It seems a shame it does. He -never hurt a fly, and to think of one of those great engines laying him -out flat. I hope they’ll take him to the cemetery from the hospital: I -never could bear a corpse in the house.” - -The great strapping parlour-maid tossed her head. - -“Well, I’m not sure that it doesn’t serve him right,” she observed. -“Always messing about with spirits he was, and the knockings and -concertinas was awful sometimes when I’ve been laying out supper in -the dining-room. Now perhaps he’ll come himself and visit the rest of -the loonies. But I’m sorry all the same. A less troublesome little -gentleman never stepped. Always pleasant, too, and wages paid to the -day.” - -These regretful comments and encomiums were something of a shock to Mr. -Tilly. He had imagined that his excellent servants regarded him with a -respectful affection, as befitted some sort of demigod, and the rôle of -the poor little gentleman was not at all to his mind. This revelation -of their true estimate of him, although what they thought of him could -no longer have the smallest significance, irritated him profoundly. - -“I never heard such impertinence,” he said (so he thought) quite out -loud, and still intensely earth-bound, was astonished to see that -they had no perception whatever of his presence. He raised his voice, -replete with extreme irony, and addressed his cook. - -“You may reserve your criticism on my character for your saucepans,” he -said. “They will no doubt appreciate them. As regards the arrangements -for my funeral, I have already provided for them in my will, and do not -propose to consult your convenience. At present----” - -“Lor’!” said Mrs. Inglis, “I declare I can almost hear his voice, poor -little fellow. Husky it was, as if he would do better by clearing his -throat. I suppose I’d best be making a black bow to my cap. His lawyers -and what not will be here presently.” - -Mr. Tilly had no sympathy with this suggestion. He was immensely -conscious of being quite alive, and the idea of his servants behaving -as if he were dead, especially after the way in which they had spoken -about him, was very vexing. He wanted to give them some striking -evidence of his presence and his activity, and he banged his hand -angrily on the dining-room table, from which the breakfast equipage -had not yet been cleared. Three tremendous blows he gave it, and was -rejoiced to see that his parlour-maid looked startled. Mrs. Inglis’s -face remained perfectly placid. - -“Why, if I didn’t hear a sort of rapping sound,” said Miss Talton. -“Where did it come from?” - -“Nonsense! You’ve the jumps, dear,” said Mrs. Inglis, picking up a -remaining rasher of bacon on a fork, and putting it into her capacious -mouth. - -Mr. Tilly was delighted at making any impression at all on either of -these impercipient females. - -“Talton!” he called at the top of his voice. - -“Why, what’s that?” said Talton. “Almost hear his voice, do you say, -Mrs. Inglis? I declare I did hear his voice then.” - -“A pack o’ nonsense, dear,” said Mrs. Inglis placidly. “That’s a prime -bit of bacon, and there’s a good cut of it left. Why, you’re all of a -tremble! It’s your imagination.” - -Suddenly it struck Mr. Tilly that he might be employing himself much -better than, with such extreme exertion, managing to convey so slight -a hint of his presence to his parlour-maid, and that the séance at -the house of the medium, Mrs. Cumberbatch, would afford him much -easier opportunities of getting through to the earth-plane again. He -gave a couple more thumps to the table and, wishing himself at Mrs. -Cumberbatch’s, nearly a mile away, scarcely heard the faint scream -of Talton at the sound of his blows before he found himself in West -Norfolk Street. - -He knew the house well, and went straight to the drawing-room, which -was the scene of the séances he had so often and so eagerly attended. -Mrs. Cumberbatch, who had a long spoon-shaped face, had already pulled -down the blinds, leaving the room in total darkness except for the -glimmer of the night-light which, under a shade of ruby-glass, stood -on the chimney-piece in front of the coloured photograph of Cardinal -Newman. Round the table were seated Miss Ida Soulsby, Mr. and Mrs. -Meriott (who paid their guineas at least twice a week in order to -consult their spiritual guide Abibel and received mysterious advice -about their indigestion and investments), and Sir John Plaice, who was -much interested in learning the details of his previous incarnation -as a Chaldean priest, completed the circle. His guide, who revealed -to him his sacerdotal career, was playfully called Mespot. Naturally -many other spirits visited them, for Miss Soulsby had no less than -three guides in her spiritual household, Sapphire, Semiramis, and Sweet -William, while Napoleon and Plato were not infrequent guests. Cardinal -Newman, too, was a great favourite, and they encouraged his presence -by the singing in unison of “Lead, kindly Light”: he could hardly ever -resist that.... - -Mr. Tilly observed with pleasure that there was a vacant seat by the -table which no doubt had been placed there for him. As he entered, Mrs. -Cumberbatch peered at her watch. - -“Eleven o’clock already,” she said, “and Mr. Tilly is not here yet. I -wonder what can have kept him. What shall we do, dear friends? Abibel -gets very impatient sometimes if we keep him waiting.” - -Mr. and Mrs. Meriott were getting impatient too, for he terribly wanted -to ask about Mexican oils, and she had a very vexing heartburn. - -“And Mespot doesn’t like waiting either,” said Sir John, jealous for -the prestige of his protector, “not to mention Sweet William.” - -Miss Soulsby gave a little silvery laugh. - -“Oh, but my Sweet William’s so good and kind,” she said; “besides, I -have a feeling, quite a psychic feeling, Mrs. Cumberbatch, that Mr. -Tilly is very close.” - -“So I am,” said Mr. Tilly. - -“Indeed, as I walked here,” continued Miss Soulsby, “I felt that Mr. -Tilly was somewhere quite close to me. Dear me, what’s that?” - -Mr. Tilly was so delighted at being sensed, that he could not resist -giving a tremendous rap on the table, in a sort of pleased applause. -Mrs. Cumberbatch heard it too. - -“I’m sure that’s Abibel come to tell us that he is ready,” she said. “I -know Abibel’s knock. A little patience, Abibel. Let’s give Mr. Tilly -three minutes more and then begin. Perhaps, if we put up the blinds, -Abibel will understand we haven’t begun.” - -This was done, and Miss Soulsby glided to the window, in order -to make known Mr. Tilly’s approach, for he always came along the -opposite pavement and crossed over by the little island in the river -of traffic. There was evidently some lately published news, for the -readers of early editions were busy, and she caught sight of one of -the advertisement-boards bearing in large letters the announcement -of a terrible accident at Hyde Park Corner. She drew in her breath -with a hissing sound and turned away, unwilling to have her psychic -tranquillity upset by the intrusion of painful incidents. But Mr. -Tilly, who had followed her to the window and saw what she had seen, -could hardly restrain a spiritual whoop of exultation. - -“Why, it’s all about me!” he said. “Such large letters, too. Very -gratifying. Subsequent editions will no doubt contain my name.” - -He gave another loud rap to call attention to himself, and Mrs. -Cumberbatch, sitting down in her antique chair which had once belonged -to Madame Blavatsky, again heard. - -“Well, if that isn’t Abibel again,” she said. “Be quiet, naughty. -Perhaps we had better begin.” - -She recited the usual invocation to guides and angels, and leaned -back in her chair. Presently she began to twitch and mutter, and -shortly afterwards with several loud snorts, relapsed into cataleptic -immobility. There she lay, stiff as a poker, a port of call, so to -speak, for any voyaging intelligence. With pleased anticipation Mr. -Tilly awaited their coming. How gratifying if Napoleon, with whom he -had so often talked, recognised him and said, “Pleased to see you, Mr. -Tilly. I perceive you have joined us....” The room was dark except for -the ruby-shaded lamp in front of Cardinal Newman, but to Mr. Tilly’s -emancipated perceptions the withdrawal of mere material light made no -difference, and he idly wondered why it was generally supposed that -disembodied spirits like himself produced their most powerful effects -in the dark. He could not imagine the reason for that, and, what -puzzled him still more, there was not to his spiritual perception any -sign of those colleagues of his (for so he might now call them) who -usually attended Mrs. Cumberbatch’s séances in such gratifying numbers. -Though she had been moaning and muttering a long time now, Mr. Tilly -was in no way conscious of the presence of Abibel and Sweet William -and Sapphire and Napoleon. “They ought to be here by now,” he said to -himself. - -But while he still wondered at their absence, he saw to his amazed -disgust that the medium’s hand, now covered with a black glove, and -thus invisible to ordinary human vision in the darkness, was groping -about the table and clearly searching for the megaphone-trumpet which -lay there. He found that he could read her mind with the same ease, -though far less satisfaction, as he had read Miss Ida’s half an hour -ago, and knew that she was intending to apply the trumpet to her own -mouth and pretend to be Abibel or Semiramis or somebody, whereas she -affirmed that she never touched the trumpet herself. Much shocked at -this, he snatched up the trumpet himself, and observed that she was not -in trance at all, for she opened her sharp black eyes, which always -reminded him of buttons covered with American cloth, and gave a great -gasp. - -“Why, Mr. Tilly!” she said. “On the spiritual plane too!” - -The rest of the circle was now singing “Lead, kindly Light” in order to -encourage Cardinal Newman, and this conversation was conducted under -cover of the hoarse crooning voices. But Mr. Tilly had the feeling that -though Mrs. Cumberbatch saw and heard him as clearly as he saw her, he -was quite imperceptible to the others. - -“Yes, I’ve been killed,” he said, “and I want to get into touch with -the material world. That’s why I came here. But I want to get into -touch with other spirits too, and surely Abibel or Mespot ought to be -here by this time.” - -He received no answer, and her eyes fell before his like those of a -detected charlatan. A terrible suspicion invaded his mind. - -“What? Are you a fraud, Mrs. Cumberbatch?” he asked. “Oh, for shame! -Think of all the guineas I have paid you.” - -“You shall have them all back,” said Mrs. Cumberbatch. “But don’t tell -of me.” - -She began to whimper, and he remembered that she often made that sort -of sniffling noise when Abibel was taking possession of her. - -“That usually means that Abibel is coming,” he said, with withering -sarcasm. “Come along, Abibel: we’re waiting.” - -“Give me the trumpet,” whispered the miserable medium. “Oh, please give -me the trumpet!” - -“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Tilly indignantly. “I would -sooner use it myself.” - -She gave a sob of relief. - -“Oh do, Mr. Tilly!” she said. “What a wonderful idea! It will be -most interesting to everybody to hear you talk just after you’ve been -killed and before they know. It would be the making of me! And I’m -not a fraud, at least not altogether. I do have spiritual perceptions -sometimes; spirits do communicate through me. And when they won’t come -through it’s a dreadful temptation to a poor woman to--to supplement -them by human agency. And how could I be seeing and hearing you now, -and be able to talk to you--so pleasantly, I’m sure--if I hadn’t -super-normal powers? You’ve been killed, so you assure me, and yet I -can see and hear you quite plainly. Where did it happen, may I ask, if -it’s not a painful subject?” - -“Hyde Park Corner, half an hour ago,” said Mr. Tilly. “No, it only hurt -for a moment, thanks. But about your other suggestion----” - -While the third verse of “Lead, kindly Light” was going on, Mr. Tilly -applied his mind to this difficult situation. It was quite true that -if Mrs. Cumberbatch had no power of communication with the unseen -she could not possibly have seen him. But she evidently had, and had -heard him too, for their conversation had certainly been conducted -on the spirit-plane, with perfect lucidity. Naturally, now that he -was a genuine spirit, he did not want to be mixed up in fraudulent -mediumship, for he felt that such a thing would seriously compromise -him on the other side, where, probably, it was widely known that Mrs. -Cumberbatch was a person to be avoided. But, on the other hand, having -so soon found a medium through whom he could communicate with his -friends, it was hard to take a high moral view, and say that he would -have nothing whatever to do with her. - -“I don’t know if I trust you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have a moment’s -peace if I thought that you would be sending all sorts of bogus -messages from me to the circle, which I wasn’t responsible for at all. -You’ve done it with Abibel and Mespot. How can I know that when I don’t -choose to communicate through you, you won’t make up all sorts of -piffle on your own account?” - -She positively squirmed in her chair. - -“Oh, I’ll turn over a new leaf,” she said. “I will leave all that sort -of thing behind me. And I am a medium. Look at me! Aren’t I more real -to you than any of the others? Don’t I belong to your plane in a way -that none of the others do? I may be occasionally fraudulent, and I can -no more get Napoleon here than I can fly, but I’m genuine as well. Oh, -Mr. Tilly, be indulgent to us poor human creatures! It isn’t so long -since you were one of us yourself.” - -The mention of Napoleon, with the information that Mrs. Cumberbatch had -never been controlled by that great creature, wounded Mr. Tilly again. -Often in this darkened room he had held long colloquies with him, and -Napoleon had given him most interesting details of his life on St. -Helena, which, so Mr. Tilly had found, were often borne out by Lord -Rosebery’s pleasant volume _The Last Phase_. But now the whole thing -wore a more sinister aspect, and suspicion as solid as certainty bumped -against his mind. - -“Confess!” he said. “Where did you get all that Napoleon talk from? You -told us you had never read Lord Rosebery’s book, and allowed us to look -through your library to see that it wasn’t there. Be honest for once, -Mrs. Cumberbatch.” - -She suppressed a sob. - -“I will,” she said. “The book was there all the time. I put it into -an old cover called ‘Elegant Extracts....’ But I’m not wholly a fraud. -We’re talking together, you a spirit and I a mortal female. They can’t -hear us talk. But only look at me, and you’ll see.... You can talk to -them through me, if you’ll only be so kind. I don’t often get in touch -with a genuine spirit like yourself.” - -Mr. Tilly glanced at the other sitters and then back to the medium, -who, to keep the others interested, was making weird gurgling noises -like an undervitalised siphon. Certainly she was far clearer to him -than were the others, and her argument that she was able to see and -hear him had great weight. And then a new and curious perception came -to him. Her mind seemed spread out before him like a pool of slightly -muddy water, and he figured himself as standing on a header-board -above it, perfectly able, if he chose, to immerse himself in it. The -objection to so doing was its muddiness, its materiality; the reason -for so doing was that he felt that then he would be able to be heard by -the others, possibly to be seen by them, certainly to come into touch -with them. As it was, the loudest bangs on the table were only faintly -perceptible. - -“I’m beginning to understand,” he said. - -“Oh, Mr. Tilly! Just jump in like a kind good spirit,” she said. “Make -your own test-conditions. Put your hand over my mouth to make sure that -I’m not speaking, and keep hold of the trumpet.” - -“And you’ll promise not to cheat any more?” he asked. - -“Never!” - -He made up his mind. - -“All right then,” he said, and, so to speak, dived into her mind. - -He experienced the oddest sensation. It was like passing out of some -fine, sunny air into the stuffiest of unventilated rooms. Space and -time closed over him again: his head swam, his eyes were heavy. Then, -with the trumpet in one hand, he laid the other firmly over her mouth. -Looking round, he saw that the room seemed almost completely dark, but -that the outline of the figures sitting round the table had vastly -gained in solidity. - -“Here I am!” he said briskly. - -Miss Soulsby gave a startled exclamation. - -“That’s Mr. Tilly’s voice!” she whispered. - -“Why, of course it is,” said Mr. Tilly. “I’ve just passed over at Hyde -Park Corner under a traction engine....” - -He felt the dead weight of the medium’s mind, her conventional -conceptions, her mild, unreal piety pressing in on him from all sides, -stifling and confusing him. Whatever he said had to pass through muddy -water.... - -“There’s a wonderful feeling of joy and lightness,” he said. “I can’t -tell you of the sunshine and happiness. We’re all very busy and active, -helping others. And it’s such a pleasure, dear friends, to be able to -get into touch with you all again. Death is not death: it is the gate -of life....” - -He broke off suddenly. - -“Oh, I can’t stand this,” he said to the medium. “You make me talk such -twaddle. Do get your stupid mind out of the way. Can’t we do anything -in which you won’t interfere with me so much?” - -“Can you give us some spirit lights round the room?” suggested Mrs. -Cumberbatch in a sleepy voice. “You have come through beautifully, Mr. -Tilly. It’s too dear of you!” - -“You’re sure you haven’t arranged some phosphorescent patches already?” -asked Mr. Tilly suspiciously. - -“Yes, there are one or two near the chimney-piece,” said Mrs. -Cumberbatch, “but none anywhere else. Dear Mr. Tilly, I swear there are -not. Just give us a nice star with long rays on the ceiling!” - -Mr. Tilly was the most good-natured of men, always willing to help -an unattractive female in distress, and whispering to her, “I shall -require the phosphorescent patches to be given into my hands after the -séance,” he proceeded, by the mere effort of his imagination, to light -a beautiful big star with red and violet rays on the ceiling. Of course -it was not nearly as brilliant as his own conception of it, for its -light had to pass through the opacity of the medium’s mind, but it was -still a most striking object, and elicited gasps of applause from the -company. To enhance the effect of it he intoned a few very pretty lines -about a star by Adelaide Anne Procter, whose poems had always seemed to -him to emanate from the topmost peak of Parnassus. - -“Oh, thank you, Mr. Tilly!” whispered the medium. “It was lovely! Would -a photograph of it be permitted on some future occasion, if you would -be so kind as to reproduce it again?” - -“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mr. Tilly irritably. “I want to get out. I’m -very hot and uncomfortable. And it’s all so cheap.” - -“Cheap?” ejaculated Mrs. Cumberbatch. “Why, there’s not a medium in -London whose future wouldn’t be made by a real genuine star like that, -say, twice a week.” - -“But I wasn’t run over in order that I might make the fortune of -mediums,” said Mr. Tilly. “I want to go: it’s all rather degrading. -And I want to see something of my new world. I don’t know what it’s -like yet.” - -“Oh, but, Mr. Tilly,” said she. “You told us lovely things about it, -how busy and happy you were.” - -“No, I didn’t. It was you who said that, at least it was you who put it -into my head.” - -Even as he wished, he found himself emerging from the dull waters of -Mrs. Cumberbatch’s mind. - -“There’s the whole new world waiting for me,” he said. “I must go and -see it. I’ll come back and tell you, for it must be full of marvellous -revelations....” - -Suddenly he felt the hopelessness of it. There was that thick fluid -of materiality to pierce, and, as it dripped off him again, he began -to see that nothing of that fine rare quality of life which he had -just begun to experience, could penetrate these opacities. That was -why, perhaps, all that thus came across from the spirit-world, was so -stupid, so banal. They, of whom he now was one, could tap on furniture, -could light stars, could abound with commonplace, could read as in a -book the mind of medium or sitters, but nothing more. They had to pass -into the region of gross perceptions, in order to be seen of blind eyes -and be heard of deaf ears. - -Mrs. Cumberbatch stirred. - -“The power is failing,” she said, in a deep voice, which Mr. Tilly felt -was meant to imitate his own. “I must leave you now, dear friends----” - -He felt much exasperated. - -“The power isn’t failing,” he shouted. “It wasn’t I who said that.” - -But he had emerged too far, and perceived that nobody except the medium -heard him. - -“Oh, don’t be vexed, Mr. Tilly,” she said. “That’s only a formula. But -you’re leaving us very soon. Not time for just one materialisation? -They are more convincing than anything to most inquirers.” - -“Not one,” said he. “You don’t understand how stifling it is even to -speak through you and make stars. But I’ll come back as soon as I find -there’s anything new that I can get through to you. What’s the use of -my repeating all that stale stuff about being busy and happy? They’ve -been told that often enough already. Besides, I have got to see if it’s -true. Good-bye: don’t cheat any more.” - -He dropped his card of admittance to the séance on the table and heard -murmurs of excitement as he floated off. - - * * * * * - -The news of the wonderful star, and the presence of Mr. Tilly at -the séance within half an hour of his death, which at the time was -unknown to any of the sitters, spread swiftly through spiritualistic -circles. The Psychical Research Society sent investigators to take -independent evidence from all those present, but were inclined to -attribute the occurrence to a subtle mixture of thought-transference -and unconscious visual impression, when they heard that Miss Soulsby -had, a few minutes previously, seen a news-board in the street outside -recording the accident at Hyde Park Corner. This explanation was rather -elaborate, for it postulated that Miss Soulsby, thinking of Mr. Tilly’s -non-arrival, had combined that with the accident at Hyde Park Corner, -and had probably (though unconsciously) seen the name of the victim on -another news-board and had transferred the whole by telepathy to the -mind of the medium. As for the star on the ceiling, though they could -not account for it, they certainly found remains of phosphorescent -paint on the panels of the wall above the chimney-piece, and came -to the conclusion that the star had been produced by some similar -contrivance. So they rejected the whole thing, which was a pity, since, -for once, the phenomena were absolutely genuine. - -Miss Soulsby continued to be a constant attendant at Mrs. Cumberbatch’s -séance, but never experienced the presence of Mr. Tilly again. On -that the reader may put any interpretation he pleases. It looks to me -somewhat as if he had found something else to do. - - - - -Mrs. Amworth - - - - -Mrs. Amworth - - -The village of Maxley, where, last summer and autumn, these strange -events took place, lies on a heathery and pine-clad upland of Sussex. -In all England you could not find a sweeter and saner situation. -Should the wind blow from the south, it comes laden with the spices -of the sea; to the east high downs protect it from the inclemencies -of March; and from the west and north the breezes which reach it -travel over miles of aromatic forest and heather. The village itself -is insignificant enough in point of population, but rich in amenities -and beauty. Half-way down the single street, with its broad road and -spacious areas of grass on each side, stands the little Norman Church -and the antique graveyard long disused: for the rest there are a -dozen small, sedate Georgian houses, red-bricked and long-windowed, -each with a square of flower-garden in front, and an ampler strip -behind; a score of shops, and a couple of score of thatched cottages -belonging to labourers on neighbouring estates, complete the entire -cluster of its peaceful habitations. The general peace, however, is -sadly broken on Saturdays and Sundays, for we lie on one of the main -roads between London and Brighton and our quiet street becomes a -race-course for flying motor-cars and bicycles. A notice just outside -the village begging them to go slowly only seems to encourage them to -accelerate their speed, for the road lies open and straight, and there -is really no reason why they should do otherwise. By way of protest, -therefore, the ladies of Maxley cover their noses and mouths with -their handkerchiefs as they see a motor-car approaching, though, as -the street is asphalted, they need not really take these precautions -against dust. But late on Sunday night the horde of scorchers has -passed, and we settle down again to five days of cheerful and leisurely -seclusion. Railway strikes which agitate the country so much leave us -undisturbed because most of the inhabitants of Maxley never leave it at -all. - -I am the fortunate possessor of one of these small Georgian houses, -and consider myself no less fortunate in having so interesting and -stimulating a neighbour as Francis Urcombe, who, the most confirmed -of Maxleyites, has not slept away from his house, which stands just -opposite to mine in the village street, for nearly two years, at which -date, though still in middle life, he resigned his Physiological -Professorship at Cambridge University and devoted himself to the study -of those occult and curious phenomena which seem equally to concern the -physical and the psychical sides of human nature. Indeed his retirement -was not unconnected with his passion for the strange uncharted places -that lie on the confines and borders of science, the existence of -which is so stoutly denied by the more materialistic minds, for he -advocated that all medical students should be obliged to pass some sort -of examination in mesmerism, and that one of the tripos papers should -be designed to test their knowledge in such subjects as appearances -at time of death, haunted houses, vampirism, automatic writing, and -possession. - -“Of course they wouldn’t listen to me,” ran his account of the matter, -“for there is nothing that these seats of learning are so frightened -of as knowledge, and the road to knowledge lies in the study of things -like these. The functions of the human frame are, broadly speaking, -known. They are a country, anyhow, that has been charted and mapped -out. But outside that lie huge tracts of undiscovered country, which -certainly exist, and the real pioneers of knowledge are those who, at -the cost of being derided as credulous and superstitious, want to push -on into those misty and probably perilous places. I felt that I could -be of more use by setting out without compass or knapsack into the -mists than by sitting in a cage like a canary and chirping about what -was known. Besides, teaching is very bad for a man who knows himself -only to be a learner: you only need to be a self-conceited ass to -teach.” - -Here, then, in Francis Urcombe, was a delightful neighbour to one -who, like myself, has an uneasy and burning curiosity about what he -called the “misty and perilous places”; and this last spring we had a -further and most welcome addition to our pleasant little community, -in the person of Mrs. Amworth, widow of an Indian civil servant. -Her husband had been a judge in the North-West Provinces, and after -his death at Peshawar she came back to England, and after a year in -London found herself starving for the ampler air and sunshine of the -country to take the place of the fogs and griminess of town. She had, -too, a special reason for settling in Maxley, since her ancestors up -till a hundred years ago had long been native to the place, and in -the old church-yard, now disused, are many grave-stones bearing her -maiden name of Chaston. Big and energetic, her vigorous and genial -personality speedily woke Maxley up to a higher degree of sociality -than it had ever known. Most of us were bachelors or spinsters or -elderly folk not much inclined to exert ourselves in the expense and -effort of hospitality, and hitherto the gaiety of a small tea-party, -with bridge afterwards and goloshes (when it was wet) to trip home in -again for a solitary dinner, was about the climax of our festivities. -But Mrs. Amworth showed us a more gregarious way, and set an example -of luncheon-parties and little dinners, which we began to follow. On -other nights when no such hospitality was on foot, a lone man like -myself found it pleasant to know that a call on the telephone to Mrs. -Amworth’s house not a hundred yards off, and an inquiry as to whether -I might come over after dinner for a game of piquet before bed-time, -would probably evoke a response of welcome. There she would be, with a -comrade-like eagerness for companionship, and there was a glass of port -and a cup of coffee and a cigarette and a game of piquet. She played -the piano, too, in a free and exuberant manner, and had a charming -voice and sang to her own accompaniment; and as the days grew long -and the light lingered late, we played our game in her garden, which -in the course of a few months she had turned from being a nursery for -slugs and snails into a glowing patch of luxuriant blossoming. She -was always cheery and jolly; she was interested in everything, and in -music, in gardening, in games of all sorts was a competent performer. -Everybody (with one exception) liked her, everybody felt her to bring -with her the tonic of a sunny day. That one exception was Francis -Urcombe; he, though he confessed he did not like her, acknowledged that -he was vastly interested in her. This always seemed strange to me, for -pleasant and jovial as she was, I could see nothing in her that could -call forth conjecture or intrigued surmise, so healthy and unmysterious -a figure did she present. But of the genuineness of Urcombe’s interest -there could be no doubt; one could see him watching and scrutinising -her. In matter of age, she frankly volunteered the information that she -was forty-five; but her briskness, her activity, her unravaged skin, -her coal-black hair, made it difficult to believe that she was not -adopting an unusual device, and adding ten years on to her age instead -of subtracting them. - -Often, also, as our quite unsentimental friendship ripened, Mrs. -Amworth would ring me up and propose her advent. If I was busy writing, -I was to give her, so we definitely bargained, a frank negative, and -in answer I could hear her jolly laugh and her wishes for a successful -evening of work. Sometimes, before her proposal arrived, Urcombe would -already have stepped across from his house opposite for a smoke and a -chat, and he, hearing who my intending visitor was, always urged me -to beg her to come. She and I should play our piquet, said he, and -he would look on, if we did not object, and learn something of the -game. But I doubt whether he paid much attention to it, for nothing -could be clearer than that, under that penthouse of forehead and thick -eyebrows, his attention was fixed not on the cards, but on one of the -players. But he seemed to enjoy an hour spent thus, and often, until -one particular evening in July, he would watch her with the air of a -man who has some deep problem in front of him. She, enthusiastically -keen about our game, seemed not to notice his scrutiny. Then came that -evening, when, as I see in the light of subsequent events, began the -first twitching of the veil that hid the secret horror from my eyes. I -did not know it then, though I noticed that thereafter, if she rang up -to propose coming round, she always asked not only if I was at leisure, -but whether Mr. Urcombe was with me. If so, she said, she would not -spoil the chat of two old bachelors, and laughingly wished me good -night. - -Urcombe, on this occasion, had been with me for some half-hour -before Mrs. Amworth’s appearance, and had been talking to me about -the mediæval beliefs concerning vampirism, one of those borderland -subjects which he declared had not been sufficiently studied before -it had been consigned by the medical profession to the dust-heap of -exploded superstitions. There he sat, grim and eager, tracing, with -that pellucid clearness which had made him in his Cambridge days so -admirable a lecturer, the history of those mysterious visitations. In -them all there were the same general features: one of those ghoulish -spirits took up its abode in a living man or woman, conferring -supernatural powers of bat-like flight and glutting itself with -nocturnal blood-feasts. When its host died it continued to dwell in the -corpse, which remained undecayed. By day it rested, by night it left -the grave and went on its awful errands. No European country in the -Middle Ages seemed to have escaped them; earlier yet, parallels were to -be found, in Roman and Greek and in Jewish history. - -“It’s a large order to set all that evidence aside as being moonshine,” -he said. “Hundreds of totally independent witnesses in many ages -have testified to the occurrence of these phenomena, and there’s no -explanation known to me which covers all the facts. And if you feel -inclined to say ‘Why, then, if these are facts, do we not come across -them now?’ there are two answers I can make you. One is that there -were diseases known in the Middle Ages, such as the black death, which -were certainly existent then and which have become extinct since, but -for that reason we do not assert that such diseases never existed. -Just as the black death visited England and decimated the population -of Norfolk, so here in this very district about three hundred years -ago there was certainly an outbreak of vampirism, and Maxley was the -centre of it. My second answer is even more convincing, for I tell you -that vampirism is by no means extinct now. An outbreak of it certainly -occurred in India a year or two ago.” - -At that moment I heard my knocker plied in the cheerful and peremptory -manner in which Mrs. Amworth is accustomed to announce her arrival, and -I went to the door to open it. - -“Come in at once,” I said, “and save me from having my blood curdled. -Mr. Urcombe has been trying to alarm me.” - -Instantly her vital, voluminous presence seemed to fill the room. - -“Ah, but how lovely!” she said. “I delight in having my blood curdled. -Go on with your ghost-story, Mr. Urcombe. I adore ghost-stories.” - -I saw that, as his habit was, he was intently observing her. - -“It wasn’t a ghost-story exactly,” said he. “I was only telling our -host how vampirism was not extinct yet. I was saying that there was an -outbreak of it in India only a few years ago.” - -There was a more than perceptible pause, and I saw that, if Urcombe was -observing her, she on her side was observing him with fixed eye and -parted mouth. Then her jolly laugh invaded that rather tense silence. - -“Oh, what a shame!” she said. “You’re not going to curdle my blood -at all. Where did you pick up such a tale, Mr. Urcombe? I have lived -for years in India and never heard a rumour of such a thing. Some -story-teller in the bazaars must have invented it: they are famous at -that.” - -I could see that Urcombe was on the point of saying something further, -but checked himself. - -“Ah! very likely that was it,” he said. - -But something had disturbed our usual peaceful sociability that night, -and something had damped Mrs. Amworth’s usual high spirits. She had no -gusto for her piquet, and left after a couple of games. Urcombe had -been silent too, indeed he hardly spoke again till she departed. - -“That was unfortunate,” he said, “for the outbreak of--of a very -mysterious disease, let us call it, took place at Peshawar, where she -and her husband were. And----” - -“Well?” I asked. - -“He was one of the victims of it,” said he. “Naturally I had quite -forgotten that when I spoke.” - -The summer was unreasonably hot and rainless, and Maxley suffered much -from drought, and also from a plague of big black night-flying gnats, -the bite of which was very irritating and virulent. They came sailing -in of an evening, settling on one’s skin so quietly that one perceived -nothing till the sharp stab announced that one had been bitten. They -did not bite the hands or face, but chose always the neck and throat -for their feeding-ground, and most of us, as the poison spread, assumed -a temporary goitre. Then about the middle of August appeared the first -of those mysterious cases of illness which our local doctor attributed -to the long-continued heat coupled with the bite of these venomous -insects. The patient was a boy of sixteen or seventeen, the son of -Mrs. Amworth’s gardener, and the symptoms were an anæmic pallor and a -languid prostration, accompanied by great drowsiness and an abnormal -appetite. He had, too, on his throat two small punctures where, so Dr. -Ross conjectured, one of these great gnats had bitten him. But the odd -thing was that there was no swelling or inflammation round the place -where he had been bitten. The heat at this time had begun to abate, but -the cooler weather failed to restore him, and the boy, in spite of the -quantity of good food which he so ravenously swallowed, wasted away to -a skin-clad skeleton. - -I met Dr. Ross in the street one afternoon about this time, and in -answer to my inquiries about his patient he said that he was afraid -the boy was dying. The case, he confessed, completely puzzled him: -some obscure form of pernicious anæmia was all he could suggest. But -he wondered whether Mr. Urcombe would consent to see the boy, on -the chance of his being able to throw some new light on the case, -and since Urcombe was dining with me that night, I proposed to Dr. -Ross to join us. He could not do this, but said he would look in -later. When he came, Urcombe at once consented to put his skill at -the other’s disposal, and together they went off at once. Being thus -shorn of my sociable evening, I telephoned to Mrs. Amworth to know if -I might inflict myself on her for an hour. Her answer was a welcoming -affirmative, and between piquet and music the hour lengthened itself -into two. She spoke of the boy who was lying so desperately and -mysteriously ill, and told me that she had often been to see him, -taking him nourishing and delicate food. But to-day--and her kind eyes -moistened as she spoke--she was afraid she had paid her last visit. -Knowing the antipathy between her and Urcombe, I did not tell her that -he had been called into consultation; and when I returned home she -accompanied me to my door, for the sake of a breath of night air, and -in order to borrow a magazine which contained an article on gardening -which she wished to read. - -“Ah, this delicious night air,” she said, luxuriously sniffing in the -coolness. “Night air and gardening are the great tonics. There is -nothing so stimulating as bare contact with rich mother earth. You are -never so fresh as when you have been grubbing in the soil--black hands, -black nails, and boots covered with mud.” She gave her great jovial -laugh. - -“I’m a glutton for air and earth,” she said. “Positively I look forward -to death, for then I shall be buried and have the kind earth all round -me. No leaden caskets for me--I have given explicit directions. But -what shall I do about air? Well, I suppose one can’t have everything. -The magazine? A thousand thanks, I will faithfully return it. Good -night: garden and keep your windows open, and you won’t have anæmia.” - -“I always sleep with my windows open,” said I. - -I went straight up to my bedroom, of which one of the windows looks -out over the street, and as I undressed I thought I heard voices -talking outside not far away. But I paid no particular attention, put -out my lights, and falling asleep plunged into the depths of a most -horrible dream, distortedly suggested no doubt, by my last words with -Mrs. Amworth. I dreamed that I woke, and found that both my bedroom -windows were shut. Half-suffocating I dreamed that I sprang out of -bed, and went across to open them. The blind over the first was drawn -down, and pulling it up I saw, with the indescribable horror of -incipient nightmare, Mrs. Amworth’s face suspended close to the pane -in the darkness outside, nodding and smiling at me. Pulling down the -blind again to keep that terror out, I rushed to the second window on -the other side of the room, and there again was Mrs. Amworth’s face. -Then the panic came upon me in full blast; here was I suffocating in -the airless room, and whichever window I opened Mrs. Amworth’s face -would float in, like those noiseless black gnats that bit before one -was aware. The nightmare rose to screaming point, and with strangled -yells I awoke to find my room cool and quiet with both windows open -and blinds up and a half-moon high in its course, casting an oblong -of tranquil light on the floor. But even when I was awake the horror -persisted, and I lay tossing and turning. I must have slept long before -the nightmare seized me, for now it was nearly day, and soon in the -east the drowsy eyelids of morning began to lift. - -I was scarcely downstairs next morning--for after the dawn I slept -late--when Urcombe rang up to know if he might see me immediately. He -came in, grim and preoccupied, and I noticed that he was pulling on a -pipe that was not even filled. - -“I want your help,” he said, “and so I must tell you first of all -what happened last night. I went round with the little doctor to see -his patient, and found him just alive, but scarcely more. I instantly -diagnosed in my own mind what this anæmia, unaccountable by any other -explanation, meant. The boy is the prey of a vampire.” - -He put his empty pipe on the breakfast-table, by which I had just -sat down, and folded his arms, looking at me steadily from under his -overhanging brows. - -“Now about last night,” he said. “I insisted that he should be moved -from his father’s cottage into my house. As we were carrying him on a -stretcher, whom should we meet but Mrs. Amworth? She expressed shocked -surprise that we were moving him. Now why do you think she did that?” - -With a start of horror, as I remembered my dream that night before, I -felt an idea come into my mind so preposterous and unthinkable that I -instantly turned it out again. - -“I haven’t the smallest idea,” I said. - -“Then listen, while I tell you about what happened later. I put out -all light in the room where the boy lay, and watched. One window was -a little open, for I had forgotten to close it, and about midnight I -heard something outside, trying apparently to push it farther open. I -guessed who it was--yes, it was full twenty feet from the ground--and -I peeped round the corner of the blind. Just outside was the face of -Mrs. Amworth and her hand was on the frame of the window. Very softly I -crept close, and then banged the window down, and I think I just caught -the tip of one of her fingers.” - -“But it’s impossible,” I cried. “How could she be floating in the air -like that? And what had she come for? Don’t tell me such----” - -Once more, with closer grip, the remembrance of my nightmare seized me. - -“I am telling you what I saw,” said he. “And all night long, until it -was nearly day, she was fluttering outside, like some terrible bat, -trying to gain admittance. Now put together various things I have told -you.” - -He began checking them off on his fingers. - -“Number one,” he said: “there was an outbreak of disease similar to -that which this boy is suffering from at Peshawar, and her husband -died of it. Number two: Mrs. Amworth protested against my moving the -boy to my house. Number three: she, or the demon that inhabits her -body, a creature powerful and deadly, tries to gain admittance. And add -this, too: in mediæval times there was an epidemic of vampirism here -at Maxley. The vampire, so the accounts run, was found to be Elizabeth -Chaston ... I see you remember Mrs. Amworth’s maiden name. Finally, the -boy is stronger this morning. He would certainly not have been alive if -he had been visited again. And what do you make of it?” - -There was a long silence, during which I found this incredible horror -assuming the hues of reality. - -“I have something to add,” I said, “which may or may not bear on it. -You say that the--the spectre went away shortly before dawn.” - -“Yes.” - -I told him of my dream, and he smiled grimly. - -“Yes, you did well to awake,” he said. “That warning came from your -subconscious self, which never wholly slumbers, and cried out to you -of deadly danger. For two reasons, then, you must help me: one to save -others, the second to save yourself.” - -“What do you want me to do?” I asked. - -“I want you first of all to help me in watching this boy, and ensuring -that she does not come near him. Eventually I want you to help me in -tracking the thing down, in exposing and destroying it. It is not -human: it is an incarnate fiend. What steps we shall have to take I -don’t yet know.” - -It was now eleven of the forenoon, and presently I went across to his -house for a twelve-hour vigil while he slept, to come on duty again -that night, so that for the next twenty-four hours either Urcombe or -myself was always in the room where the boy, now getting stronger -every hour, was lying. The day following was Saturday and a morning -of brilliant, pellucid weather, and already when I went across to his -house to resume my duty the stream of motors down to Brighton had -begun. Simultaneously I saw Urcombe with a cheerful face, which boded -good news of his patient, coming out of his house, and Mrs. Amworth, -with a gesture of salutation to me and a basket in her hand, walking up -the broad strip of grass which bordered the road. There we all three -met. I noticed (and saw that Urcombe noticed it too) that one finger of -her left hand was bandaged. - -“Good morning to you both,” said she. “And I hear your patient is doing -well, Mr. Urcombe. I have come to bring him a bowl of jelly, and to sit -with him for an hour. He and I are great friends. I am overjoyed at his -recovery.” - -Urcombe paused a moment, as if making up his mind, and then shot out a -pointing finger at her. - -“I forbid that,” he said. “You shall not sit with him or see him. And -you know the reason as well as I do.” - -I have never seen so horrible a change pass over a human face as that -which now blanched hers to the colour of a grey mist. She put up her -hand as if to shield herself from that pointing finger, which drew the -sign of the cross in the air, and shrank back cowering on to the road. -There was a wild hoot from a horn, a grinding of brakes, a shout--too -late--from a passing car, and one long scream suddenly cut short. Her -body rebounded from the roadway after the first wheel had gone over it, -and the second followed. It lay there, quivering and twitching, and was -still. - -She was buried three days afterwards in the cemetery outside Maxley, -in accordance with the wishes she had told me that she had devised -about her interment, and the shock which her sudden and awful death -had caused to the little community began by degrees to pass off. To -two people only, Urcombe and myself, the horror of it was mitigated -from the first by the nature of the relief that her death brought; -but, naturally enough, we kept our own counsel, and no hint of what -greater horror had been thus averted was ever let slip. But, oddly -enough, so it seemed to me, he was still not satisfied about something -in connection with her, and would give no answer to my questions on -the subject. Then as the days of a tranquil mellow September and -the October that followed began to drop away like the leaves of the -yellowing trees, his uneasiness relaxed. But before the entry of -November the seeming tranquillity broke into hurricane. - -I had been dining one night at the far end of the village, and about -eleven o’clock was walking home again. The moon was of an unusual -brilliance, rendering all that it shone on as distinct as in some -etching. I had just come opposite the house which Mrs. Amworth had -occupied, where there was a board up telling that it was to let, when I -heard the click of her front gate, and next moment I saw, with a sudden -chill and quaking of my very spirit, that she stood there. Her profile, -vividly illuminated, was turned to me, and I could not be mistaken in -my identification of her. She appeared not to see me (indeed the shadow -of the yew hedge in front of her garden enveloped me in its blackness) -and she went swiftly across the road, and entered the gate of the -house directly opposite. There I lost sight of her completely. - -My breath was coming in short pants as if I had been running--and now -indeed I ran, with fearful backward glances, along the hundred yards -that separated me from my house and Urcombe’s. It was to his that my -flying steps took me, and next minute I was within. - -“What have you come to tell me?” he asked. “Or shall I guess?” - -“You can’t guess,” said I. - -“No; it’s no guess. She has come back and you have seen her. Tell me -about it.” - -I gave him my story. - -“That’s Major Pearsall’s house,” he said. “Come back with me there at -once.” - -“But what can we do?” I asked. - -“I’ve no idea. That’s what we have got to find out.” - -A minute later, we were opposite the house. When I had passed it -before, it was all dark; now lights gleamed from a couple of windows -upstairs. Even as we faced it, the front door opened, and next moment -Major Pearsall emerged from the gate. He saw us and stopped. - -“I’m on my way to Dr. Ross,” he said quickly. “My wife has been taken -suddenly ill. She had been in bed an hour when I came upstairs, and -I found her white as a ghost and utterly exhausted. She had been to -sleep, it seemed---- but you will excuse me.” - -“One moment, Major,” said Urcombe. “Was there any mark on her throat?” - -“How did you guess that?” said he. “There was: one of those beastly -gnats must have bitten her twice there. She was streaming with blood.” - -“And there’s someone with her?” asked Urcombe. - -“Yes, I roused her maid.” - -He went off, and Urcombe turned to me. “I know now what we have to do,” -he said. “Change your clothes, and I’ll join you at your house.” - -“What is it?” I asked. - -“I’ll tell you on our way. We’re going to the cemetery.” - - * * * * * - -He carried a pick, a shovel, and a screwdriver when he rejoined me, and -wore round his shoulders a long coil of rope. As we walked, he gave me -the outlines of the ghastly hour that lay before us. - -“What I have to tell you,” he said, “will seem to you now too fantastic -for credence, but before dawn we shall see whether it outstrips -reality. By a most fortunate happening, you saw the spectre, the -astral body, whatever you choose to call it, of Mrs. Amworth, going on -its grisly business, and therefore, beyond doubt, the vampire spirit -which abode in her during life animates her again in death. That is -not exceptional--indeed, all these weeks since her death I have been -expecting it. If I am right, we shall find her body undecayed and -untouched by corruption.” - -“But she has been dead nearly two months,” said I. - -“If she had been dead two years it would still be so, if the vampire -has possession of her. So remember: whatever you see done, it will be -done not to her, who in the natural course would now be feeding the -grasses above her grave, but to a spirit of untold evil and malignancy, -which gives a phantom life to her body.” - -“But what shall I see done?” said I. - -“I will tell you. We know that now, at this moment, the vampire clad in -her mortal semblance is out; dining out. But it must get back before -dawn, and it will pass into the material form that lies in her grave. -We must wait for that, and then with your help I shall dig up her -body. If I am right, you will look on her as she was in life, with the -full vigour of the dreadful nutriment she has received pulsing in her -veins. And then, when dawn has come, and the vampire cannot leave the -lair of her body, I shall strike her with this”--and he pointed to his -pick--“through the heart, and she, who comes to life again only with -the animation the fiend gives her, she and her hellish partner will be -dead indeed. Then we must bury her again, delivered at last.” - -We had come to the cemetery, and in the brightness of the moonshine -there was no difficulty in identifying her grave. It lay some twenty -yards from the small chapel, in the porch of which, obscured by shadow, -we concealed ourselves. From there we had a clear and open sight of -the grave, and now we must wait till its infernal visitor returned -home. The night was warm and windless, yet even if a freezing wind had -been raging I think I should have felt nothing of it, so intense was -my preoccupation as to what the night and dawn would bring. There was -a bell in the turret of the chapel, that struck the quarters of the -hour, and it amazed me to find how swiftly the chimes succeeded one -another. - -The moon had long set, but a twilight of stars shone in a clear sky, -when five o’clock of the morning sounded from the turret. A few minutes -more passed, and then I felt Urcombe’s hand softly nudging me; and -looking out in the direction of his pointing finger, I saw that the -form of a woman, tall and large in build, was approaching from the -right. Noiselessly, with a motion more of gliding and floating than -walking, she moved across the cemetery to the grave which was the -centre of our observation. She moved round it as if to be certain -of its identity, and for a moment stood directly facing us. In the -greyness to which now my eyes had grown accustomed, I could easily see -her face, and recognise its features. - -She drew her hand across her mouth as if wiping it, and broke into a -chuckle of such laughter as made my hair stir on my head. Then she -leaped on to the grave, holding her hands high above her head, and inch -by inch disappeared into the earth. Urcombe’s hand was laid on my arm, -in an injunction to keep still, but now he removed it. - -“Come,” he said. - -With pick and shovel and rope we went to the grave. The earth was light -and sandy, and soon after six struck we had delved down to the coffin -lid. With his pick he loosened the earth round it, and, adjusting the -rope through the handles by which it had been lowered, we tried to -raise it. This was a long and laborious business, and the light had -begun to herald day in the east before we had it out, and lying by the -side of the grave. With his screwdriver he loosed the fastenings of -the lid, and slid it aside, and standing there we looked on the face -of Mrs. Amworth. The eyes, once closed in death, were open, the cheeks -were flushed with colour, the red, full-lipped mouth seemed to smile. - -“One blow and it is all over,” he said. “You need not look.” - -Even as he spoke he took up the pick again, and, laying the point of it -on her left breast, measured his distance. And though I knew what was -coming I could not look away.... - -He grasped the pick in both hands, raised it an inch or two for the -taking of his aim, and then with full force brought it down on her -breast. A fountain of blood, though she had been dead so long, spouted -high in the air, falling with the thud of a heavy splash over the -shroud, and simultaneously from those red lips came one long, appalling -cry, swelling up like some hooting siren, and dying away again. With -that, instantaneous as a lightning flash, came the touch of corruption -on her face, the colour of it faded to ash, the plump cheeks fell in, -the mouth dropped. - -“Thank God, that’s over,” said he, and without pause slipped the coffin -lid back into its place. - -Day was coming fast now, and, working like men possessed, we lowered -the coffin into its place again, and shovelled the earth over it.... -The birds were busy with their earliest pipings as we went back to -Maxley. - - - - -In the Tube - - - - -In the Tube - - -“It’s a convention,” said Anthony Carling cheerfully, “and not a very -convincing one. Time, indeed! There’s no such thing as Time really; it -has no actual existence. Time is nothing more than an infinitesimal -point in eternity, just as space is an infinitesimal point in infinity. -At the most, Time is a sort of tunnel through which we are accustomed -to believe that we are travelling. There’s a roar in our ears and a -darkness in our eyes which makes it seem real to us. But before we came -into the tunnel we existed for ever in an infinite sunlight, and after -we have got through it we shall exist in an infinite sunlight again. -So why should we bother ourselves about the confusion and noise and -darkness which only encompass us for a moment?” - -For a firm-rooted believer in such immeasurable ideas as these, which -he punctuated with brisk application of the poker to the brave sparkle -and glow of the fire, Anthony has a very pleasant appreciation of the -measurable and the finite, and nobody with whom I have acquaintance has -so keen a zest for life and its enjoyments as he. He had given us this -evening an admirable dinner, had passed round a port beyond praise, -and had illuminated the jolly hours with the light of his infectious -optimism. Now the small company had melted away, and I was left with -him over the fire in his study. Outside the tattoo of wind-driven sleet -was audible on the window-panes, over-scoring now and again the flap -of the flames on the open hearth, and the thought of the chilly blasts -and the snow-covered pavement in Brompton Square, across which, to -skidding taxicabs, the last of his other guests had scurried, made my -position, resident here till to-morrow morning, the more delicately -delightful. Above all there was this stimulating and suggestive -companion, who, whether he talked of the great abstractions which were -so intensely real and practical to him, or of the very remarkable -experiences which he had encountered among these conventions of time -and space, was equally fascinating to the listener. - -“I adore life,” he said. “I find it the most entrancing plaything. It’s -a delightful game, and, as you know very well, the only conceivable -way to play a game is to treat it extremely seriously. If you say to -yourself, ‘It’s only a game,’ you cease to take the slightest interest -in it. You have to know that it’s only a game, and behave as if it -was the one object of existence. I should like it to go on for many -years yet. But all the time one has to be living on the true plane as -well, which is eternity and infinity. If you come to think of it, the -one thing which the human mind cannot grasp is the finite, not the -infinite, the temporary, not the eternal.” - -“That sounds rather paradoxical,” said I. - -“Only because you’ve made a habit of thinking about things that seem -bounded and limited. Look it in the face for a minute. Try to imagine -finite Time and Space, and you find you can’t. Go back a million -years, and multiply that million of years by another million, and you -find that you can’t conceive of a beginning. What happened before -that beginning? Another beginning and another beginning? And before -that? Look at it like that, and you find that the only solution -comprehensible to you is the existence of an eternity, something that -never began and will never end. It’s the same about space. Project -yourself to the farthest star, and what comes beyond that? Emptiness? -Go on through the emptiness, and you can’t imagine it being finite and -having an end. It must needs go on for ever: that’s the only thing -you can understand. There’s no such thing as before or after, or -beginning or end, and what a comfort that is! I should fidget myself -to death if there wasn’t the huge soft cushion of eternity to lean -one’s head against. Some people say--I believe I’ve heard you say it -yourself--that the idea of eternity is so tiring; you feel that you -want to stop. But that’s because you are thinking of eternity in terms -of Time, and mumbling in your brain, ‘And after that, and after that?’ -Don’t you grasp the idea that in eternity there isn’t any ‘after,’ -any more than there is any ‘before’? It’s all one. Eternity isn’t a -quantity: it’s a quality.” - -Sometimes, when Anthony talks in this manner, I seem to get a glimpse -of that which to his mind is so transparently clear and solidly -real, at other times (not having a brain that readily envisages -abstractions) I feel as though he was pushing me over a precipice, -and my intellectual faculties grasp wildly at anything tangible or -comprehensible. This was the case now, and I hastily interrupted. - -“But there is a ‘before’ and ‘after,’” I said. “A few hours ago you -gave us an admirable dinner, and after that--yes, after--we played -bridge. And now you are going to explain things a little more clearly -to me, and after that I shall go to bed----” - -He laughed. - -“You shall do exactly as you like,” he said, “and you shan’t be a slave -to Time either to-night or to-morrow morning. We won’t even mention -an hour for breakfast, but you shall have it in eternity whenever you -awake. And as I see it is not midnight yet, we’ll slip the bonds of -Time, and talk quite infinitely. I will stop the clock, if that will -assist you in getting rid of your illusion, and then I’ll tell you a -story, which to my mind, shows how unreal so-called realities are; or, -at any rate, how fallacious are our senses as judges of what is real -and what is not.” - -“Something occult, something spookish?” I asked, pricking up my ears, -for Anthony has the strangest clairvoyances and visions of things -unseen by the normal eye. - -“I suppose you might call some of it occult,” he said, “though there’s -a certain amount of rather grim reality mixed up in it.” - -“Go on; excellent mixture,” said I. - -He threw a fresh log on the fire. - -“It’s a longish story,” he said. “You may stop me as soon as you’ve -had enough. But there will come a point for which I claim your -consideration. You, who cling to your ‘before’ and ‘after,’ has it -ever occurred to you how difficult it is to say _when_ an incident -takes place? Say that a man commits some crime of violence, can we -not, with a good deal of truth, say that he really commits that crime -when he definitely plans and determines upon it, dwelling on it with -gusto? The actual commission of it, I think we can reasonably argue, -is the mere material sequel of his resolve: he is guilty of it when he -makes that determination. When, therefore, in the term of ‘before’ and -‘after,’ does the crime truly take place? There is also in my story a -further point for your consideration. For it seems certain that the -spirit of a man, after the death of his body, is obliged to re-enact -such a crime, with a view, I suppose we may guess, to his remorse and -his eventual redemption. Those who have second sight have seen such -re-enactments. Perhaps he may have done his deed blindly in this life; -but then his spirit re-commits it with its spiritual eyes open, and -able to comprehend its enormity. So, shall we view the man’s original -determination and the material commission of his crime only as preludes -to the real commission of it, when with eyes unsealed he does it and -repents of it?... That all sounds very obscure when I speak in the -abstract, but I think you will see what I mean, if you follow my tale. -Comfortable? Got everything you want? Here goes, then.” - -He leaned back in his chair, concentrating his mind, and then spoke: - -“The story that I am about to tell you,” he said, “had its beginning -a month ago, when you were away in Switzerland. It reached its -conclusion, so I imagine, last night. I do not, at any rate, expect to -experience any more of it. Well, a month ago I was returning late on -a very wet night from dining out. There was not a taxi to be had, and -I hurried through the pouring rain to the tube-station at Piccadilly -Circus, and thought myself very lucky to catch the last train in this -direction. The carriage into which I stepped was quite empty except -for one other passenger, who sat next the door immediately opposite -to me. I had never, to my knowledge, seen him before, but I found my -attention vividly fixed on him, as if he somehow concerned me. He was -a man of middle age, in dress-clothes, and his face wore an expression -of intense thought, as if in his mind he was pondering some very -significant matter, and his hand which was resting on his knee clenched -and unclenched itself. Suddenly he looked up and stared me in the face, -and I saw there suspicion and fear, as if I had surprised him in some -secret deed. - -“At that moment we stopped at Dover Street, and the conductor threw -open the doors, announced the station and added, ‘Change here for Hyde -Park Corner and Gloucester Road.’ That was all right for me since -it meant that the train would stop at Brompton Road, which was my -destination. It was all right apparently, too, for my companion, for he -certainly did not get out, and after a moment’s stop, during which no -one else got in, we went on. I saw him, I must insist, after the doors -were closed and the train had started. But when I looked again, as we -rattled on, I saw that there was no one there. I was quite alone in the -carriage. - -“Now you may think that I had had one of those swift momentary dreams -which flash in and out of the mind in the space of a second, but I did -not believe it was so myself, for I felt that I had experienced some -sort of premonition or clairvoyant vision. A man, the semblance of -whom, astral body or whatever you may choose to call it, I had just -seen, would sometime sit in that seat opposite to me, pondering and -planning.” - -“But why?” I asked. “Why should it have been the astral body of a -living man which you thought you had seen? Why not the ghost of a dead -one?” - -“Because of my own sensations. The sight of the spirit of someone dead, -which has occurred to me two or three times in my life, has always been -accompanied by a physical shrinking and fear, and by the sensation of -cold and of loneliness. I believed, at any rate, that I had seen a -phantom of the living, and that impression was confirmed, I might say -proved, the next day. For I met the man himself. And the next night, as -you shall hear, I met the phantom again. We will take them in order. - -“I was lunching, then, the next day with my neighbour Mrs. Stanley: -there was a small party, and when I arrived we waited but for the final -guest. He entered while I was talking to some friend, and presently at -my elbow I heard Mrs. Stanley’s voice-- - -“‘Let me introduce you to Sir Henry Payle,’ she said. - -“I turned and saw my _vis-à-vis_ of the night before. It was quite -unmistakably he, and as we shook hands he looked at me I thought with -vague and puzzled recognition. - -“‘Haven’t we met before, Mr. Carling?’ he said. ‘I seem to -recollect----’ - -“For the moment I forgot the strange manner of his disappearance from -the carriage, and thought that it had been the man himself whom I had -seen last night. - -“‘Surely, and not so long ago,’ I said. ‘For we sat opposite each other -in the last tube-train from Piccadilly Circus yesterday night.’ - -“He still looked at me, frowning, puzzled, and shook his head. - -“‘That can hardly be,’ he said. ‘I only came up from the country this -morning.’ - -“Now this interested me profoundly, for the astral body, we are told, -abides in some half-conscious region of the mind or spirit, and has -recollections of what has happened to it, which it can convey only very -vaguely and dimly to the conscious mind. All lunch-time I could see his -eyes again and again directed to me with the same puzzled and perplexed -air, and as I was taking my departure he came up to me. - -“‘I shall recollect some day,’ he said, ‘where we met before, and I -hope we may meet again. Was it not----?’--and he stopped. ‘No: it has -gone from me,’ he added.” - -The log that Anthony had thrown on the fire was burning bravely now, -and its high-flickering flame lit up his face. - -“Now, I don’t know whether you believe in coincidences as chance -things,” he said, “but if you do, get rid of the notion. Or if you -can’t at once, call it a coincidence that that very night I again -caught the last train on the tube going westwards. This time, so far -from my being a solitary passenger, there was a considerable crowd -waiting at Dover Street, where I entered, and just as the noise of the -approaching train began to reverberate in the tunnel I caught sight of -Sir Henry Payle standing near the opening from which the train would -presently emerge, apart from the rest of the crowd. And I thought to -myself how odd it was that I should have seen the phantom of him at -this very hour last night and the man himself now, and I began walking -towards him with the idea of saying, ‘Anyhow, it is in the tube that we -meet to-night.’... And then a terrible and awful thing happened. Just -as the train emerged from the tunnel he jumped down on to the line in -front of it, and the train swept along over him up the platform. - -“For a moment I was stricken with horror at the sight, and I remember -covering my eyes against the dreadful tragedy. But then I perceived -that, though it had taken place in full sight of those who were -waiting, no one seemed to have seen it except myself. The driver, -looking out from his window, had not applied his brakes, there was no -jolt from the advancing train, no scream, no cry, and the rest of the -passengers began boarding the train with perfect nonchalance. I must -have staggered, for I felt sick and faint with what I had seen, and -some kindly soul put his arm round me and supported me into the train. -He was a doctor, he told me, and asked if I was in pain, or what ailed -me. I told him what I thought I had seen, and he assured me that no -such accident had taken place. - -“It was clear then to my own mind that I had seen the second act, so -to speak, in this psychical drama, and I pondered next morning over -the problem as to what I should do. Already I had glanced at the -morning paper, which, as I knew would be the case, contained no mention -whatever of what I had seen. The thing had certainly not happened, but -I knew in myself that it would happen. The flimsy veil of Time had been -withdrawn from my eyes, and I had seen into what you would call the -future. In terms of Time of course it was the future, but from my point -of view the thing was just as much in the past as it was in the future. -It existed, and waited only for its material fulfilment. The more I -thought about it, the more I saw that I could do nothing.” - -I interrupted his narrative. - -“You did nothing?” I exclaimed. “Surely you might have taken some step -in order to try to avert the tragedy.” - -He shook his head. - -“What step precisely?” he said. “Was I to go to Sir Henry and -tell him that once more I had seen him in the tube in the act of -committing suicide? Look at it like this. Either what I had seen was -pure illusion, pure imagination, in which case it had no existence or -significance at all, or it was actual and real, and essentially it had -happened. Or take it, though not very logically, somewhere between -the two. Say that the idea of suicide, for some cause of which I knew -nothing, had occurred to him or would occur. Should I not, if that was -the case, be doing a very dangerous thing, by making such a suggestion -to him? Might not the fact of my telling him what I had seen put -the idea into his mind, or, if it was already there, confirm it and -strengthen it? ‘It’s a ticklish matter to play with souls,’ as Browning -says.” - -“But it seems so inhuman not to interfere in any way,” said I, “not to -make any attempt.” - -“What interference?” asked he. “What attempt?” - -The human instinct in me still seemed to cry aloud at the thought of -doing nothing to avert such a tragedy, but it seemed to be beating -itself against something austere and inexorable. And cudgel my brain -as I would, I could not combat the sense of what he had said. I had no -answer for him, and he went on. - -“You must recollect, too,” he said, “that I believed then and believe -now that the thing had happened. The cause of it, whatever that was, -had begun to work, and the effect, in this material sphere, was -inevitable. That is what I alluded to when, at the beginning of my -story, I asked you to consider how difficult it was to say when an -action took place. You still hold that this particular action, this -suicide of Sir Henry, had not yet taken place, because he had not -yet thrown himself under the advancing train. To me that seems a -materialistic view. I hold that in all but the endorsement of it, so to -speak, it had taken place. I fancy that Sir Henry, for instance, now -free from the material dusks, knows that himself.” - -Exactly as he spoke there swept through the warm lit room a current of -ice-cold air, ruffling my hair as it passed me, and making the wood -flames on the hearth to dwindle and flare. I looked round to see if the -door at my back had opened, but nothing stirred there, and over the -closed window the curtains were fully drawn. As it reached Anthony, he -sat up quickly in his chair and directed his glance this way and that -about the room. - -“Did you feel that?” he asked. - -“Yes: a sudden draught,” I said. “Ice-cold.” - -“Anything else?” he asked. “Any other sensation?” - -I paused before I answered, for at the moment there occurred to me -Anthony’s differentiation of the effects produced on the beholder by -a phantasm of the living and the apparition of the dead. It was the -latter which accurately described my sensations now, a certain physical -shrinking, a fear, a feeling of desolation. But yet I had seen nothing. -“I felt rather creepy,” I said. - -As I spoke I drew my chair rather closer to the fire, and sent a swift -and, I confess, a somewhat apprehensive scrutiny round the walls of the -brightly lit room. I noticed at the same time that Anthony was peering -across to the chimney-piece, on which, just below a sconce holding two -electric lights, stood the clock which at the beginning of our talk he -had offered to stop. The hands I noticed pointed to twenty-five minutes -to one. - -“But you saw nothing?” he asked. - -“Nothing whatever,” I said. “Why should I? What was there to see? Or -did you----” - -“I don’t think so,” he said. - -Somehow this answer got on my nerves, for the queer feeling which had -accompanied that cold current of air had not left me. If anything it -had become more acute. - -“But surely you know whether you saw anything or not?” I said. - -“One can’t always be certain,” said he. “I say that I don’t think I -saw anything. But I’m not sure, either, whether the story I am telling -you was quite concluded last night. I think there may be a further -incident. If you prefer it, I will leave the rest of it, as far as I -know it, unfinished till to-morrow morning, and you can go off to bed -now.” - -His complete calmness and tranquillity reassured me. - -“But why should I do that?” I asked. - -Again he looked round on the bright walls. - -“Well, I think something entered the room just now,” he said, “and -it may develop. If you don’t like the notion, you had better go. Of -course there’s nothing to be alarmed at; whatever it is, it can’t hurt -us. But it is close on the hour when on two successive nights I saw -what I have already told you, and an apparition usually occurs at the -same time. Why that is so, I cannot say, but certainly it looks as if -a spirit that is earth-bound is still subject to certain conventions, -the conventions of time for instance. I think that personally I shall -see something before long, but most likely you won’t. You’re not such a -sufferer as I from these--these delusions----” - -I was frightened and knew it, but I was also intensely interested, and -some perverse pride wriggled within me at his last words. Why, so I -asked myself, shouldn’t I see whatever was to be seen?... - -“I don’t want to go in the least,” I said. “I want to hear the rest of -your story.” - -“Where was I, then? Ah, yes: you were wondering why I didn’t do -something after I saw the train move up to the platform, and I said -that there was nothing to be done. If you think it over, I fancy you -will agree with me.... A couple of days passed, and on the third -morning I saw in the paper that there had come fulfilment to my vision. -Sir Henry Payle, who had been waiting on the platform of Dover Street -Station for the last train to South Kensington, had thrown himself in -front of it as it came into the station. The train had been pulled up -in a couple of yards, but a wheel had passed over his chest, crushing -it in and instantly killing him. - -“An inquest was held, and there emerged at it one of those dark stories -which, on occasions like these, sometimes fall like a midnight shadow -across a life that the world perhaps had thought prosperous. He had -long been on bad terms with his wife, from whom he had lived apart, -and it appeared that not long before this he had fallen desperately in -love with another woman. The night before his suicide he had appeared -very late at his wife’s house, and had a long and angry scene with -her in which he entreated her to divorce him, threatening otherwise -to make her life a hell to her. She refused, and in an ungovernable -fit of passion he attempted to strangle her. There was a struggle, and -the noise of it caused her manservant to come up, who succeeded in -over-mastering him. Lady Payle threatened to proceed against him for -assault with the intention to murder her. With this hanging over his -head, the next night, as I have already told you, he committed suicide.” - -He glanced at the clock again, and I saw that the hands now pointed to -ten minutes to one. The fire was beginning to burn low and the room -surely was growing strangely cold. - -“That’s not quite all,” said Anthony, again looking round. “Are you -sure you wouldn’t prefer to hear it to-morrow?” - -The mixture of shame and pride and curiosity again prevailed. - -“No: tell me the rest of it at once,” I said. - -Before speaking, he peered suddenly at some point behind my chair, -shading his eyes. I followed his glance, and knew what he meant by -saying that sometimes one could not be sure whether one saw something -or not. But was that an outlined shadow that intervened between me and -the wall? It was difficult to focus; I did not know whether it was near -the wall or near my chair. It seemed to clear away, anyhow, as I looked -more closely at it. - -“You see nothing?” asked Anthony. - -“No: I don’t think so,” said I. “And you?” - -“I think I do,” he said, and his eyes followed something which was -invisible to mine. They came to rest between him and the chimney-piece. -Looking steadily there, he spoke again. - -“All this happened some weeks ago,” he said, “when you were out in -Switzerland, and since then, up till last night, I saw nothing further. -But all the time I was expecting something further. I felt that, as -far as I was concerned, it was not all over yet, and last night, with -the intention of assisting any communication to come through to me -from--from beyond, I went into the Dover Street tube-station at a few -minutes before one o’clock, the hour at which both the assault and -the suicide had taken place. The platform when I arrived on it was -absolutely empty, or appeared to be so, but presently, just as I began -to hear the roar of the approaching train, I saw there was the figure -of a man standing some twenty yards from me, looking into the tunnel. -He had not come down with me in the lift, and the moment before he had -not been there. He began moving towards me, and then I saw who it was, -and I felt a stir of wind icy-cold coming towards me as he approached. -It was not the draught that heralds the approach of a train, for it -came from the opposite direction. He came close up to me, and I saw -there was recognition in his eyes. He raised his face towards me and -I saw his lips move, but, perhaps in the increasing noise from the -tunnel, I heard nothing come from them. He put out his hand, as if -entreating me to do something, and with a cowardice from which I cannot -forgive myself, I shrank from him, for I knew, by the sign that I have -told you, that this was one from the dead, and my flesh quaked before -him, drowning for the moment all pity and all desire to help him, if -that was possible. Certainly he had something which he wanted of me, -but I recoiled from him. And by now the train was emerging from the -tunnel, and next moment, with a dreadful gesture of despair, he threw -himself in front of it.” - -As he finished speaking he got up quickly from his chair, still looking -fixedly in front of him. I saw his pupils dilate, and his mouth worked. - -“It is coming,” he said. “I am to be given a chance of atoning for -my cowardice. There is nothing to be afraid of: I must remember that -myself....” - -As he spoke there came from the panelling above the chimney-piece one -loud shattering crack, and the cold wind again circled about my head. -I found myself shrinking back in my chair with my hands held in front -of me as instinctively I screened myself against something which I knew -was there but which I could not see. Every sense told me that there was -a presence in the room other than mine and Anthony’s, and the horror of -it was that I could not see it. Any vision, however terrible, would, I -felt, be more tolerable than this clear certain knowledge that close to -me was this invisible thing. And yet what horror might not be disclosed -of the face of the dead and the crushed chest.... But all I could see, -as I shuddered in this cold wind, was the familiar walls of the room, -and Anthony standing in front of me stiff and firm, making, as I knew, -a call on his courage. His eyes were focused on something quite close -to him, and some semblance of a smile quivered on his mouth. And then -he spoke again. - -“Yes, I know you,” he said. “And you want something of me. Tell me, -then, what it is.” - -There was absolute silence, but what was silence to my ears could not -have been so to his, for once or twice he nodded, and once he said, -“Yes: I see. I will do it.” And with the knowledge that, even as there -was someone here whom I could not see, so there was speech going on -which I could not hear, this terror of the dead and of the unknown -rose in me with the sense of powerlessness to move that accompanies -nightmare. I could not stir, I could not speak. I could only strain my -ears for the inaudible and my eyes for the unseen, while the cold wind -from the very valley of the shadow of death streamed over me. It was -not that the presence of death itself was terrible; it was that from -its tranquillity and serene keeping there had been driven some unquiet -soul unable to rest in peace for whatever ultimate awakening rouses the -countless generations of those who have passed away, driven, no less, -from whatever activities are theirs, back into the material world from -which it should have been delivered. Never, until the gulf between the -living and the dead was thus bridged, had it seemed so immense and so -unnatural. It is possible that the dead may have communication with -the living, and it was not that exactly that so terrified me, for such -communication, as we know it, comes voluntarily from them. But here was -something icy-cold and crime-laden, that was chased back from the peace -that would not pacify it. - -And then, most horrible of all, there came a change in these unseen -conditions. Anthony was silent now, and from looking straight and -fixedly in front of him, he began to glance sideways to where I sat and -back again, and with that I felt that the unseen presence had turned -its attention from him to me. And now, too, gradually and by awful -degrees I began to see.... - -There came an outline of shadow across the chimney-piece and the panels -above it. It took shape: it fashioned itself into the outline of a -man. Within the shape of the shadow details began to form themselves, -and I saw wavering in the air, like something concealed by haze, the -semblance of a face, stricken and tragic, and burdened with such a -weight of woe as no human face had ever worn. Next, the shoulders -outlined themselves, and a stain livid and red spread out below them, -and suddenly the vision leaped into clearness. There he stood, the -chest crushed in and drowned in the red stain, from which broken ribs, -like the bones of a wrecked ship, protruded. The mournful, terrible -eyes were fixed on me, and it was from them, so I knew, that the bitter -wind proceeded.... - -Then, quick as the switching off of a lamp, the spectre vanished, and -the bitter wind was still, and opposite to me stood Anthony, in a -quiet, bright-lit room. There was no sense of an unseen presence any -more; he and I were then alone, with an interrupted conversation still -dangling between us in the warm air. I came round to that, as one comes -round after an anæsthetic. It all swam into sight again, unreal at -first, and gradually assuming the texture of actuality. - -“You were talking to somebody, not to me,” I said. “Who was it? What -was it?” - -He passed the back of his hand over his forehead, which glistened in -the light. - -“A soul in hell,” he said. - -Now it is hard ever to recall mere physical sensations, when they -have passed. If you have been cold and are warmed, it is difficult to -remember what cold was like: if you have been hot and have got cool, -it is difficult to realise what the oppression of heat really meant. -Just so, with the passing of that presence, I found myself unable to -recapture the sense of the terror with which, a few moments ago only, -it had invaded and inspired me. - -“A soul in hell?” I said. “What are you talking about?” - -He moved about the room for a minute or so, and then came and sat on -the arm of my chair. - -“I don’t know what you saw,” he said, “or what you felt, but there has -never in all my life happened to me anything more real than what these -last few minutes have brought. I have talked to a soul in the hell of -remorse, which is the only possible hell. He knew, from what happened -last night, that he could perhaps establish communication through me -with the world he had quitted, and he sought me and found me. I am -charged with a mission to a woman I have never seen, a message from the -contrite.... You can guess who it is....” - -He got up with a sudden briskness. - -“Let’s verify it anyhow,” he said. “He gave me the street and the -number. Ah, there’s the telephone book! Would it be a coincidence -merely if I found that at No. 20 in Chasemore Street, South Kensington, -there lived a Lady Payle?” - -He turned over the leaves of the bulky volume. - -“Yes, that’s right,” he said. - - - - -Roderick’s Story - - - - -Roderick’s Story - - -My powers of persuasion at first seemed quite ineffectual; I could -not induce my friend Roderick Cardew to strike his melancholy tent in -Chelsea, and (leaving it struck) steal away like the Arabs and spend -this month of spring with me at my newly acquired house at Tilling to -observe the spell of April’s wand making magic in the country. I seemed -to have brought out all the arguments of which I was master; he had -been very ill, and his doctor recommended a clearer air with as mild a -climate as he could conveniently attain; he loved the great stretches -of drained marsh-land which lay spread like a pool of verdure round the -little town; he had not seen my new home which made a breach in the -functions of hospitality, and he really could not be expected to object -to his host, who, after all, was one of his oldest friends. Besides (to -leave no stone unturned) as he regained his strength he could begin to -play golf again, and it entailed, as he well remembered, a very mild -exertion for him to keep me in my proper position in such a pursuit. - -At last there was some sign of yielding. - -“Yes. I should like to see the marsh and the big sky once more,” he -said. - -A rather sinister interpretation of his words “once more,” made a -sudden flashed signal of alarm in my mind. It was utterly fanciful, no -doubt, but that had better be extinguished first. - -“Once more?” I asked. “What does that mean?” - -“I always say ‘once more,’” he said. “It’s greedy to ask for too much.” - -The very fact that he fenced so ingeniously deepened my suspicion. - -“That won’t do,” I said. “Tell me, Roddie.” - -He was silent a moment. - -“I didn’t intend to,” he said, “for there can be no use in it. But -if you insist, as apparently you mean to do, I may as well give in. -It’s what you think; ‘once more’ will very likely be the most. But you -mustn’t fuss about it; I’m not going to. No proper person fusses about -death; that’s a train which we are all sure to catch. It always waits -for you.” - -I have noticed that when one learns tidings of that sort, one feels, -almost immediately, that one has known them a long time. I felt so now. - -“Go on,” I said. - -“Well, that’s about all there is. I’ve had sentence of death passed -upon me, and it will probably be carried out, I’m delighted to say, in -the French fashion. In France, you know, they don’t tell you when you -are to be executed till a few minutes before. It is likely that I shall -have even less than that, so my doctor informs me. A second or two will -be all I shall get. Congratulate me, please.” - -I thought it over for a moment. - -“Yes, heartily,” I said. “I want to know a little more though.” - -“Well, my heart’s all wrong, quite unmendably so. Heart-disease! -Doesn’t it sound romantic? In mid-Victorian romance, heroes and -heroines alone die of heart-disease. But that’s by the way. The fact -is that I may die at any time without a moment’s warning. I shall give -a couple of gasps, so he told me when I insisted on knowing details, -and that’ll be all. Now, perhaps, you understand why I was unwilling -to come and stay with you. I don’t want to die in your house; I think -it’s dreadfully bad manners to die in other people’s houses. I long -to see Tilling again, but I think I shall go to an hotel. Hotels are -fair game, for the management over-charges those who live there to -compensate themselves for those who die there. But it would be rude of -me to die in your house; it might entail a lot of bother for you, and I -couldn’t apologize----” - -“But I don’t mind your dying in my house,” I said. “At least you see -what I mean----” - -He laughed. - -“I do, indeed,” he said. “And you couldn’t give a warmer assurance of -friendship. But I couldn’t come and stay with you in my present plight -without telling you what it was, and yet I didn’t mean to tell you. But -there we are now. Think again; reconsider your decision.” - -“I don’t,” I said. “Come and die in my house by all means, if you’ve -got to. I would much sooner you lived there: your dying will, in any -case, annoy me immensely. But it would annoy me even more to know that -you had done it in some beastly hotel among plush and looking-glasses. -You shall have any bedroom you like. And I want you dreadfully to see -my house, which is adorable.... O Roddie, what a bore it all is!” - -It was impossible to speak or to think differently. I knew well how -trivial a matter death was to my friend, and I was not sure that at -heart I did not agree with him. We were quite at one, too, in that -we had so often gossiped about death with cheerful conjecture and -interested surmise based on the steady assurance that something of new -and delightful import was to follow, since neither of us happened to be -of that melancholy cast of mind that can envisage annihilation. I had -promised, in case I was the first to embark on the great adventure, to -do my best to “get through,” and give him some irrefutable proof of the -continuance of my existence, just by way of endorsement of our belief, -and he had given a similar pledge, for it appeared to us both, that, -whatever the conditions of the future might turn out to be, it would -be impossible when lately translated there, not to be still greatly -concerned with what the present world still held for us in ties of -love and affection. I laughed now to remember how he had once imagined -himself begging to be excused for a few minutes, directly after death, -and saying to St. Peter: “May I keep your Holiness waiting for a minute -before you finally lock me into Heaven or Hell with those beautiful -keys? I won’t be a minute, but I do want so much to be a ghost, and -appear to a friend of mine who is on the look-out for such a visit. If -I find I can’t make myself visible I will come back at once.... Oh, -_thank_ you, your Holiness.” - -So we agreed that I should run the risk of his dying in my house, and -promised not to make any reproaches posthumously (as far as he was -concerned) in case he did so. He on his side promised not to die if he -could possibly help it, and next week or so he would come down to me in -the heart of the country that he loved, and see April at work. - -“And I haven’t told you anything about my house yet,” I said. “It’s -right at the top of the hill, square and Georgian and red-bricked. A -panelled hall, dining-room and panelled sitting-room downstairs, and -more panelled rooms upstairs. And there’s a garden with a lawn, and -a high brick wall round it, and there is a big garden room, full of -books, with a bow-window looking down the cobbled street. Which bedroom -will you have? Do you like looking on to the garden or on to the -street? You may even have my room if you like.” - -He looked at me a moment with eager attention. “I’ll have the square -panelled bedroom that looks out on to the garden, please,” he said. -“It’s the second door on the right when you stand at the top of the -stairs.” - -“But how do you know?” I asked. - -“Because I’ve been in the house before, once only, three years ago,” -he said. “Margaret Alton took it furnished and lived there for a year -or so. She died there, and I was with her. And if I had known that -this was your house, I should never have dreamed of hesitating whether -I should accept your invitation. I should have thrown my good manners -about not dying in other people’s houses to the winds. But the moment -you began to describe the garden and garden-room I knew what house it -was. I have always longed to go there again. When may I come, please? -Next week is too far ahead. You’re off there this afternoon, aren’t -you?” - -I rose: the clock warned me that it was time for me to go to the -station. - -“Yes. Come this afternoon,” I suggested. “Come with me.” - -“I wish I could, but I take that to mean that it will suit you if I -come to-morrow. For I certainly will. Good Lord! To think of your -having got just that house! It ought to be a wonderfully happy one, -for I saw---- But I’ll tell you about that perhaps when I’m there. But -don’t ask me to: I’ll tell you if and when I can, as the lawyers say. -Are you really off?” - -I was really off, for I had no time to spare, but before I got to the -door he spoke again. - -“Of course, the room I have chosen was _the_ room,” he said, and there -was no need for me to ask what he meant by _the_ room. - - * * * * * - -I knew no more than the barest and most public outline of that affair, -distant now by the space of many years, but, so I conceived, ever green -in Roderick’s heart, and, as my train threaded its way through the -gleams of this translucent spring evening, I retraced this outline as -far as I knew it. It was the one thing of which Roderick never spoke -(even now he was not sure that he could manage to tell me the end of -it), and I had to rummage in my memory for the reconstruction of the -half-obliterated lines. - -Margaret--her maiden-name would not be conjured back into memory--had -been an extremely beautiful girl when Roderick first met her, and, not -without encouragement, he had fallen head over ears in love with her. -All seemed to be going well with his wooing, he had the air of a happy -lover, when there appeared on the scene that handsome and outrageous -fellow, Richard Alton. He was the heir to his uncle’s barony and his -really vast estates, and the girl, when he proceeded to lay siege, very -soon capitulated. She may have fallen in love with him, for he was -an attractive scamp, but the verdict at the time was that it was her -ambition, not her heart, that she indulged. In any case, there was the -end of Roderick’s wooing, and before the year was out she had married -the other. - -I remembered seeing her once or twice in London about this time, -splendid and brilliant, of a beauty that dazzled, with the world -very much at her feet. She bore him two sons; she succeeded to a -great position; and then with the granting of her heart’s desire, the -leanness withal followed. Her husband’s infidelities were numerous and -notorious; he treated her with a subtle cruelty that just kept on the -right side of the law, and, finally, seeking his freedom, he deserted -her, and openly lived with another woman. Whether it was pride that -kept her from divorcing him, or whether she still loved him (if she -had ever done so) and was ready to take him back, or whether it was -out of revenge that she refused to have done with him legally, was an -affair of which I knew nothing. Calamity followed on calamity; first -one and then the other of her sons was killed in the European War, and -I remembered having heard that she was the victim of some malignant and -disfiguring disease, which caused her to lead a hermit life, seeing -nobody. It was now three years or so since she had died. - -Such, with the addition that she had died in my house, and that -Roderick had been with her, was the sum of my meagre knowledge, which -might or might not, so he had intimated, be supplemented by him. He -arrived next day, having motored down from London for the avoidance -of fatigue, and certainly as we sat after dinner that night in the -garden-room, he had avoided it very successfully, for never had I seen -him more animated. - -“Oh, I have been so right to come here,” he said, “for I feel steeped -in tranquillity and content. There’s such a tremendous sense of -Margaret’s presence here, and I never knew how much I wanted it. -Perhaps that is purely subjective, but what does that matter so long as -I feel it? How a scene soaks into the place where it has been enacted; -my room, which you know was her room, is alive with her. I want nothing -better than to be here, prowling and purring over the memory of the -last time, which was the only one, that I was here. Yes, just that; and -I know how odd you must think it. But it’s true, it was here that I saw -her die, and instead of shunning the place, I bathe myself in it. For -it was one of the happiest hours of my life.” - -“Because----” I began. - -“No; not because it gave her release, if that’s in your mind,” he said. -“It’s because I saw----” - -He broke off, and remembering his stipulation that I should ask him -nothing, but that he would tell me “if and when” he could, I put no -question to him. His eyes were dancing with the sparkle of fire that -burned on the hearth, for though April was here, the evenings were -still chilly, and it was not the fire that gave them their light, but -a joyousness that was as bright as glee, and as deep as happiness. - -“No, I’m not going on with that now,” he said, “though I expect I -shall before my days are out. At present I shall leave you wondering -why a place that should hold such mournful memories for me, is such a -well-spring. And as I am not for telling you about me, let me enquire -about you. Bring yourself up to date; what have you been doing, and -much more important, what have you been thinking about?” - -“My doings have chiefly been confined to settling into this house,” I -said. “I’ve been pulling and pushing furniture into places where it -wouldn’t go, and cursing it.” - -He looked round the room. - -“It doesn’t seem to bear you any grudge,” he said. “It looks contented. -And what else?” - -“In the intervals, when I couldn’t push and curse any more,” I said, -“I’ve been writing a few spook stories. All about the borderland, which -I love as much as you do.” - -He laughed outright. - -“Do you, indeed?” he said. “Then it’s no use my saying that it is quite -impossible. But I should like to know your views on the borderland.” - -I pointed to a sheaf of typewritten stuff that littered my table. - -“Them’s my sentiments,” I said, “and quite at your service.” - -“Good; then I’ll take them to bed with me when I go, if you’ll allow -me. I’ve always thought that you had a pretty notion of the creepy, -but the mistake that you make is to imagine that creepiness is -characteristic of the borderland. No doubt there are creepy things -there, but so there are everywhere, and a thunder-storm is far more -terrifying than an apparition. And when you get really close to -the borderland, you see how enchanting it is, and how vastly more -enchanting the other side must be. I got right on to the borderland -once, here in this house, as I shall probably tell you, and I never -saw so happy and kindly a place. And without doubt I shall soon be -careering across it in my own person. That’ll be, as we’ve often -determined, wildly interesting, and it will have the solemnity of a -first night at a new play about it. There’ll be the curtain close -in front of you, and presently it will be raised, and you will see -something you never saw before. How well, on the whole, the secret has -been kept, though from time to time little bits of information, little -scraps of dialogue, little descriptions of scenery have leaked out. -Enthrallingly interesting; one wonders how they will come into the -great new drama.” - -“You don’t mean the sort of thing that mediums tell us?” I asked. - -“Of course I don’t. I hate the sloshy--really there’s no other word for -it, and why should there be, since that word fits so admirably--the -sloshy utterances of the ordinary high-class, beyond-suspicion medium -at half a guinea a sitting, who asks if there’s anybody present who -once knew a Charles, or if not Charles, Thomas or William. Naturally -somebody has known a Charles, Thomas or William who has passed over, -and is the son, brother, father or cousin of a lady in black. So -when she claims Thomas, he tells her that he is very busy and happy, -helping people.... O Lord, what rot! I went to one such séance a month -ago, just before I was taken ill, and the medium said that Margaret -wanted to get into touch with somebody. Two of us claimed Margaret, -but Margaret chose me and said she was the spirit of my wife. Wife, -you know! You must allow that this was a very unfortunate shot. When I -said that I was unmarried, Margaret said that she was my mother, whose -name was Charlotte. Oh dear, oh dear! Well, I shall go to bed with joy, -bringing your spooks with me....” - -“Sheaves,” said I. - -“Yes, but aren’t they the sheaves? Isn’t one’s gleaning of sheaves in -this world what they call spooks? That is, the knowledge of what one -takes across?” - -“I don’t understand one word,” said I. - -“But you must understand. All the knowledge--worth anything--which -you or I have collected here, is the beginning of the other life. We -toil and moil, and make our gleanings and our harvestings, and all our -decent efforts help us to realize what the real harvest is. Surely we -shall take with us exactly that which we have reaped....” - -After he had gone up to bed I sat trying to correct the errors of a -typist, but still between me and the pages there dwelt that haunting -sense of all that we did here being only the grist for what was to -come. Our achievements were rewarded, so he seemed to say, by a -glimpse. And those glimpses--so I tried to follow him--were the hints -that had leaked out of the drama for which the curtain was twitching. -Was that it? - -Roderick came down to breakfast next morning, superlatively frank and -happy. - -“I didn’t read a single line of your stories,” he said. “When I got -into my bedroom I was so immeasurably content that I couldn’t risk -getting interested in anything else. I lay awake a long time, pinching -myself in order to prolong my sheer happiness, but the flesh was weak, -and at last, from sheer happiness, I slept and probably snored. Did -you hear me? I hope not. And then sheer happiness dictated my dreams, -though I don’t know what they were, and the moment I was called I got -up, because ... because I didn’t want to miss anything. Now, to be -practical again, what are you doing this morning?” - -“I was intending to play golf,” I said, “unless----” - -“There isn’t an ‘unless,’ if you mean Me. My plan made itself for me, -and I intend--this is my plan--to drive out with you, and sit in the -hollow by the fourth tee, and read your stories there. There’s a great -south-westerly wind, like a celestial housemaid, scouring the skies, -and I shall be completely sheltered there, and in the intervals of my -reading, I shall pleasantly observe the unsuccessful efforts of the -golfers to carry the big bunker. I can’t personally play golf any more, -but I shall enjoy seeing other people attempting to do it.” - -“And no prowling or purring?” I asked. - -“Not this morning. That’s all right: it’s there. It’s so much all right -that I want to be active in other directions. Sitting in a windless -hollow is about the range of my activities. I say that for fear that -you should.” - -I found a match when we arrived at the club-house, and Roderick -strolled away to the goal of his observations. Half an hour afterwards -I found him watching with criminally ecstatic joy the soaring drives -that, in the teeth of the great wind, were arrested and blown back into -the unholiest bunker in all the world or the low clever balls that -never rose to the height of the shored-up cliff of sand. The couple -in front of my partner and me were sarcastic dogs, and bade us wait -only till they had delved themselves over the ridge, and then we might -follow as soon as we chose. After violent deeds in the bunker they -climbed over the big dune, thirty yards beyond which lay the green on -which they would now be putting. - -As soon as they had disappeared, Roderick snatched my driver from my -hand. - -“I can’t bear it,” he said. “I must hit a ball again. Tee it low, -caddie.... No, no tee at all.” - -He hit a superb shot, just high enough to carry the ridge, and not so -high that it caught the opposing wind and was stopped towards the end -of its flight. He gave a loud croak of laughter. - -“That’ll teach them not to insult my friend,” he said. “It must have -been pitched right among their careful puttings. And now I shall read -his ghost-stories.” - -I have recorded this athletic incident because better than any analysis -of his attitude towards life and death it conveys just what that -attitude was. He knew perfectly well that any swift exertion might be -fatal to him, but he wanted to hit a golf ball again as sweetly and as -hard as it could be hit. He had done it: he had scored off death. And -as I went on my way I felt perfectly confident that if, with that brisk -free effort, he had fallen dead on the tee, he would have thought it -well worth while, provided only that he had made that irreproachable -shot. While alive, he proposed to partake in the pleasures of life, -amongst which he had always reckoned that of hitting golf balls, not -caring, though he liked to be alive, whether the immediate consequence -was death, just because he did not in the least object to being dead. -The choice was of such little consequence.... The history of that I was -to know that evening. - -The stories which Roderick had taken to read were designed to be of -an uncomfortable type: one concerned a vampire, one an elemental, the -third the reincarnation of a certain execrable personage, and as we sat -in the garden-room after tea, he with these pages on his knees, I had -the pleasure of seeing him give hasty glances round, as he read, as if -to assure himself that there was nothing unusual in the dimmer corners -of the room.... I liked that; he was doing as I intended that a reader -should. - -Before long he came to the last page. - -“And are you intending to make a book of them?” he asked. “What are the -other stories like?” - -“Worse,” said I, with the complacency of the horror-monger. - -“Then--did you ask for criticism? I shall give it in any case--you will -make a book that not only is inartistic, all shadows and no light, but -a false book. Fiction can be false, you know, inherently false. You -play godfather to your stories, you see: you tell them in the first -person, those at least that I have read, and that, though it need not -be supposed that those experiences were actually yours, yet gives a -sort of guarantee that you believe the borderland of which you write to -be entirely terrible. But it isn’t: there are probably terrors there--I -think for instance that I believe in elemental spirits, of some ghastly -kind--but I am sure that I believe that the borderland, for the most -part, is almost inconceivably delightful. I’ve got the best of reasons -for believing that.” - -“I’m willing to be convinced,” said I. - -Again, as he looked at the fire, his eye sparkled, not with the -reflected flame, but with the brightness of some interior vision. - -“Well, there’s an hour yet before dinner,” he said, “and my story won’t -take half of that. It’s about my previous experience of this house; -what I saw, in fact, in the room which I now occupy. It was because of -that, naturally, that I wanted the same room again. Here goes, then. - -“For the twenty years of Margaret’s married life,” he said, “I never -saw her except quite accidentally and casually. Casually, like that, -I had seen her at theatres and what not with her two boys whom thus I -knew by sight. But I had never spoken to either of them, nor, after her -marriage, to their mother. I knew, as all the world knew, that she had -a terrible life, but circumstances being what they were, I could not -bring myself to her notice, the more so because she made no sign or -gesture of wanting me. But I am sure that no day passed on which I did -not long to be able to show her that my love and sympathy were hers. -Only, so I thought, I had to know that she wanted them. - -“I heard, of course, of the death of her sons. They were both killed -in France within a few days of each other; one was eighteen, the other -nineteen. I wrote to her then formally, so long had we been strangers, -and she answered formally. After that, she took this house, where she -lived alone. A year later, I was told that she had now for some months -been suffering from a malignant and disfiguring disease. - -“I was in London, strolling down Piccadilly when my companion mentioned -it, and I at once became aware that I must go to see her, not to-morrow -or soon, but now. It is difficult to describe the quality of that -conviction, or tell you how instinctive and over-mastering it was. -There are some things which you can’t help doing, not exactly because -you desire to do them, but because they must be done. If, for instance, -you are in the middle of the road, and see a motor coming towards you -at top-speed, you have to step to the side of the road, unless you -deliberately choose to commit suicide. It was just like that; unless I -intended to commit a sort of spiritual suicide there was no choice. - -“A few hours later I was at your door here, asked to see her, and was -told that she was desperately ill and could see nobody. But I got her -maid to take the message that I was here, and presently her nurse came -down to tell me that she would see me. I should find Margaret, she -said, wearing a veil so as to conceal from me the dreadful ravages -which the disease had inflicted on her face, and the scars of the two -operations which she had undergone. Very likely she would not speak to -me, for she had great difficulty in speaking at all, and in any case -I was not to stay for more than a few minutes. Probably she could not -live many hours: I had only just come in time. And at that moment I -wished I had done anything rather than come here, for though instinct -had driven me here, yet instinct now recoiled with unspeakable horror. -The flesh wars against the spirit, you know, and under its stress I -now suggested that it was better perhaps that I should not see her.... -But the nurse merely said again that Margaret wished to see me, and -guessing perhaps the cause of my unwillingness, ‘Her face will be quite -invisible,’ she added. ‘There will be nothing to shock you.’ - -“I went in alone: Margaret was propped up in bed with pillows, so that -she sat nearly upright, and over her head was a dark veil through which -I could see nothing whatever. Her right hand lay on the coverlet, and -as I seated myself by her bedside, where the nurse had put a chair for -me, Margaret advanced her hand towards me, shyly, hesitatingly, as if -not sure that I would take it. But it was a sign, a gesture.” - -He paused, his face beaming and radiant with the light of that memory. - -“I am speaking of things unspeakable,” he said. “I can no more convey -to you all that meant than by a mere enumeration of colours can I steep -your soul in the feeling of a sunset.... So there I sat, with her hand -covered and clasped in mine. I had been told that very likely she would -not speak, and for myself there was no word in the world which would -not be dross in the gold of that silence. - -“And then from behind her veil there came a whisper. - -“‘I couldn’t die without seeing you,’ she said. ‘I was sure you would -come. I’ve one thing to say to you. I loved you, and I tried to choke -my love. And for years, my dear, I have been reaping the harvest of -what I did. I tried to kill love, but it was so much stronger than I. -And now the harvest is gathered. I have suffered cruelly, you know, but -I bless every pang of it. I needed it all....’ - -“Only a few minutes before, I had quaked at the thought of seeing her. -But now I could not suffer that the veil should cover her face. - -“‘Put up your veil, darling,’ I said. ‘I must see you.’ - -“‘No, no,’ she whispered. ‘I should horrify you. I am terrible.’ - -“‘You can’t be terrible to me,’ I said. ‘I am going to lift it.’ - -“I raised her veil. And what did I see? I might have known, I think: I -might have guessed that at this moment, supreme and perfect, I should -see with vision. - -“There was no scar or ravage of disease or disfigurement there. She was -far lovelier than she had ever been, and on her face there shone the -dawn of the everlasting day. She had shed all that was perishable and -subject to decay, and her immortal spirit was manifested to me, purged -and punished if you will, but humble and holy. There was granted to my -frail mortal sight the power of seeing truly; it was permitted to me to -be with her beyond the bounds of mortality.... - -“And then, even as I was lost in an amazement of love and wonder, I -saw we were not alone in the room. Two boys, whom I recognized, were -standing at the other side of the bed, looking at her. It seemed -utterly natural that they should be there. - -“‘We’ve been allowed to come for you, mother darling,’ said one. ‘Get -up.’ - -“She turned her face to them. - -“‘Ah, my dears,’ she said. ‘How lovely of you. But just one moment.’ - -“She bent over towards me and kissed me. - -“‘Thank you for coming, Roderick,’ she said. ‘Good-bye, just for a -little while.’ - -“At that my power of sight--my power of true sight--failed. Her head -fell back on the pillows and turned over on one side. For one second, -before I let the veil drop over it again, I had a glimpse of her face, -marred and cruelly mutilated. I saw that, I say, but never then nor -afterwards could I remember it. It was like a terrible dream, which -utterly fades on the awaking. Then her hand, which had been clasping -mine, in that moment of her farewell slackened its hold, and dropped on -to the bed. She had just moved away, somewhere out of sight, with her -two boys to look after her.” - -He paused. - -“That’s all,” he said. “And do you wonder that I chose that room? How -I hope that she will come for me.” - -My room was next to Roderick’s, the head of his bed being just opposite -the head of mine on the other side of the wall. That night I had -undressed, lain down, and had just put out my light, when I heard a -sharp tap just above me. I thought it was some fortuitous noise, as of -a picture swinging in a draught, but the moment after it was repeated, -and it struck me that it was perhaps a summons from Roderick who wanted -something. Still quite unalarmed, I got out of bed, and, candle in -hand, went to his door. I knocked, but receiving no answer, opened it -an inch or two. - -“Did you want anything?” I asked, and, again receiving no answer, I -went in. - -His lights were burning, and he was sitting up in bed. He did not -appear to see me or be conscious of my presence, and his eyes were -fixed on some point a few feet away in front of him. His mouth smiled, -and in his eyes was just such a joy as I had seen there when he told me -his story. Then, leaning on his arm, he moved as if to rise. - -“Oh, Margaret, my dear....” he cried. - -He drew a couple of short breaths, and fell back. - - -PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE PITMAN PRESS, BATH - - - - - * * * * * * - - - - -Transcriber’s note: - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE*** - - -******* This file should be named 60339-0.txt or 60339-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/0/3/3/60339 - - -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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(Edward Frederic) Benson</title> -<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2,h3,h4 { - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} -h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} - -div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; page-break-after: always;} -div.titlepage p {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 2em;} - - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - - - -table { - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; -} - - .tdr {text-align: right;} - - -.pagenum { - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; -} - -.indent {margin-right: 5em;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} - -.xlarge {font-size: 150%;} - -.ph1 {text-align: center; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;} - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; - color: black; - font-size:smaller; - padding:0.5em; - margin-bottom:5em; - font-family:sans-serif, serif; } - - 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>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Visible and Invisible, by E. F. (Edward -Frederic) Benson</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: Visible and Invisible</p> -<p>Author: E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson</p> -<p>Release Date: September 22, 2019 [eBook #60339]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4>E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, David E. Brown,<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> - from page images digitized by<br /> - the Google Books Library Project<br /> - (<a href="http://books.google.com">http://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 - HathiTrust Digital Library. See - <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008921437"> - https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008921437</a> - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<hr class="full" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1><i>Visible and Invisible</i></h1> - -<p><span class="xlarge"><i>By E. F. Benson</i> . . </span><i>Author of<br /> -“Dodo Wonders,” “Miss Mapp,” “Colin,” etc. :: ::</i></p> - - - -<p><i>LONDON: HUTCHINSON AND CO.</i><br /> -<i>PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.</i> -</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="center"> -PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN<br /> -AT THE PITMAN PRESS, BATH</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2></div> - - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="table"> - -<tr><td> </td><td class="tdr"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td>“AND THE DEAD SPAKE——”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>THE OUTCAST</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>THE HORROR-HORN</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>MACHAON</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>NEGOTIUM PERAMBULANS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>AT THE FARMHOUSE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>INSCRUTABLE DECREES</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>THE GARDENER</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>MR. TILLY’S SANCE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>MRS. AMWORTH</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>IN THE TUBE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_247">247</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>RODERICK’S STORY</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">“And the Dead Spake——”</h2></div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph1">“And the Dead Spake——”</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is not in all London a quieter spot, or one, -apparently, more withdrawn from the heat and -bustle of life than Newsome Terrace. It is a cul-de-sac, -for at the upper end the roadway between its -two lines of square, compact little residences is -brought to an end by a high brick wall, while at the -lower end, the only access to it is through Newsome -Square, that small discreet oblong of Georgian -houses, a relic of the time when Kensington was a -suburban village sundered from the metropolis by -a stretch of pastures stretching to the river. Both -square and terrace are most inconveniently situated -for those whose ideal environment includes a rank -of taxicabs immediately opposite their door, a spate -of ’buses roaring down the street, and a procession -of underground trains, accessible by a station a -few yards away, shaking and rattling the cutlery -and silver on their dining tables. In consequence -Newsome Terrace had come, two years ago, to be -inhabited by leisurely and retired folk or by those -who wished to pursue their work in quiet and tranquillity. -Children with hoops and scooters are -phenomena rarely encountered in the Terrace and -dogs are equally uncommon.</p> - -<p>In front of each of the couple of dozen houses of -which the Terrace is composed lies a little square -of railinged garden, in which you may often see the -middle-aged or elderly mistress of the residence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -horticulturally employed. By five o’clock of a -winter’s evening the pavements will generally be -empty of all passengers except the policeman, who -with felted step, at intervals throughout the night, -peers with his bull’s-eye into these small front gardens, -and never finds anything more suspicious there -than an early crocus or an aconite. For by the time -it is dark the inhabitants of the Terrace have got -themselves home, where behind drawn curtains and -bolted shutters they will pass a domestic and uninterrupted -evening. No funeral (up to the time -I speak of) had I ever seen leave the Terrace, no -marriage party had strewed its pavements with -confetti, and perambulators were unknown. It and -its inhabitants seemed to be quietly mellowing like -bottles of sound wine. No doubt there was stored -within them the sunshine and summer of youth -long past, and now, dozing in a cool place, they -waited for the turn of the key in the cellar door, -and the entry of one who would draw them forth -and see what they were worth.</p> - -<p>Yet, after the time of which I shall now speak, -I have never passed down its pavement without -wondering whether each house, so seemingly-tranquil, -is not, like some dynamo, softly and smoothly bringing -into being vast and terrible forces, such as those I -once saw at work in the last house at the upper end -of the Terrace, the quietest, you would have said, -of all the row. Had you observed it with continuous -scrutiny, for all the length of a summer day, it is -quite possible that you might have only seen issue -from it in the morning an elderly woman whom you -would have rightly conjectured to be the housekeeper,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -with her basket for marketing on her arm, who -returned an hour later. Except for her the entire -day might often pass without there being either -ingress or egress from the door. Occasionally a -middle-aged man, lean and wiry, came swiftly down -the pavement, but his exit was by no means a daily -occurrence, and indeed when he did emerge, he broke -the almost universal usage of the Terrace, for his -appearances took place, when such there were, -between nine and ten in the evening. At that hour -sometimes he would come round to my house in -Newsome Square to see if I was at home and inclined -for a talk a little later on. For the sake of air and -exercise he would then have an hour’s tramp through -the lit and noisy streets, and return about ten, -still pale and unflushed, for one of those talks which -grew to have an absorbing fascination for me. More -rarely through the telephone I proposed that I -should drop in on him: this I did not often do, since -I found that if he did not come out himself, it implied -that he was busy with some investigation, and -though he made me welcome, I could easily see -that he burned for my departure, so that he might -get busy with his batteries and pieces of tissue, -hot on the track of discoveries that never yet had -presented themselves to the mind of man as coming -within the horizon of possibility.</p> - -<p>My last sentence may have led the reader to -guess that I am indeed speaking of none other than -that recluse and mysterious physicist Sir James -Horton, with whose death a hundred half-hewn -avenues into the dark forest from which life comes -must wait completion till another pioneer as bold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -as he takes up the axe which hitherto none but -himself has been able to wield. Probably there was -never a man to whom humanity owed more, and of -whom humanity knew less. He seemed utterly -independent of the race to whom (though indeed -with no service of love) he devoted himself: for -years he lived aloof and apart in his house at the -end of the Terrace. Men and women were to him -like fossils to the geologist, things to be tapped and -hammered and dissected and studied with a view -not only to the reconstruction of past ages, but to -construction in the future. It is known, for instance, -that he made an artificial being formed of the tissue, -still living, of animals lately killed, with the brain -of an ape and the heart of a bullock, and a sheep’s -thyroid, and so forth. Of that I can give no first-hand -account; Horton, it is true, told me something -about it, and in his will directed that certain memoranda -on the subject should on his death be sent to -me. But on the bulky envelope there is the direction, -“Not to be opened till January, 1925.” He spoke -with some reserve and, so I think, with slight horror -at the strange things which had happened on the -completion of this creature. It evidently made him -uncomfortable to talk about it, and for that reason -I fancy he put what was then a rather remote date -to the day when his record should reach my eye. -Finally, in these preliminaries, for the last five years -before the war, he had scarcely entered, for the -sake of companionship, any house other than his -own and mine. Ours was a friendship dating from -school-days, which he had never suffered to drop -entirely, but I doubt if in those years he spoke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -except on matters of business to half a dozen other -people. He had already retired from surgical practice -in which his skill was unapproached, and most -completely now did he avoid the slightest intercourse -with his colleagues, whom he regarded as ignorant -pedants without courage or the rudiments of knowledge. -Now and then he would write an epoch-making -little monograph, which he flung to them like a bone -to a starving dog, but for the most part, utterly -absorbed in his own investigations, he left them to -grope along unaided. He frankly told me that he -enjoyed talking to me about such subjects, since -I was utterly unacquainted with them. It clarified -his mind to be obliged to put his theories and guesses -and confirmations with such simplicity that anyone -could understand them.</p> - -<p>I well remember his coming in to see me on the -evening of the 4th of August, 1914.</p> - -<p>“So the war has broken out,” he said, “and -the streets are impassable with excited crowds. -Odd, isn’t it? Just as if each of us already was -not a far more murderous battlefield than any which -can be conceived between warring nations.”</p> - -<p>“How’s that?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Let me try to put it plainly, though it isn’t -that I want to talk about. Your blood is one eternal -battlefield. It is full of armies eternally marching -and counter-marching. As long as the armies friendly -to you are in a superior position, you remain in good -health; if a detachment of microbes that, if suffered -to establish themselves, would give you a cold in -the head, entrench themselves in your mucous -membrane, the commander-in-chief sends a regiment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -down and drives them out. He doesn’t give his -orders from your brain, mind you—those aren’t -his headquarters, for your brain knows nothing -about the landing of the enemy till they have made -good their position and given you a cold.”</p> - -<p>He paused a moment.</p> - -<p>“There isn’t one headquarters inside you,” he -said, “there are many. For instance, I killed a -frog this morning; at least most people would say -I killed it. But had I killed it, though its head -lay in one place and its severed body in another? -Not a bit: I had only killed a piece of it. For I -opened the body afterwards and took out the heart, -which I put in a sterilised chamber of suitable temperature, -so that it wouldn’t get cold or be infected -by any microbe. That was about twelve o’clock -to-day. And when I came out just now, the heart -was beating still. It was alive, in fact. That’s -full of suggestions, you know. Come and see it.”</p> - -<p>The Terrace had been stirred into volcanic activity -by the news of war: the vendor of some late edition -had penetrated into its quietude, and there were -half a dozen parlour-maids fluttering about like -black and white moths. But once inside Horton’s -door isolation as of an Arctic night seemed to close -round me. He had forgotten his latch-key, but his -housekeeper, then newly come to him, who became -so regular and familiar a figure in the Terrace, must -have heard his step, for before he rang the bell she -had opened the door, and stood with his forgotten -latch-key in her hand.</p> - -<p>“Thanks, Mrs. Gabriel,” said he, and without a -sound the door shut behind us. Both her name and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -face, as reproduced in some illustrated daily paper, -seemed familiar, rather terribly familiar, but before -I had time to grope for the association, Horton -supplied it.</p> - -<p>“Tried for the murder of her husband six months -ago,” he said. “Odd case. The point is that she -is the one and perfect housekeeper. I once had four -servants, and everything was all mucky, as we used -to say at school. Now I live in amazing comfort -and propriety with one. She does everything. She -is cook, valet, housemaid, butler, and won’t have -anyone to help her. No doubt she killed her husband, -but she planned it so well that she could not be -convicted. She told me quite frankly who she was -when I engaged her.”</p> - -<p>Of course I remembered the whole trial vividly -now. Her husband, a morose, quarrelsome fellow, -tipsy as often as sober, had, according to the defence -cut his own throat while shaving; according to -the prosecution, she had done that for him. There -was the usual discrepancy of evidence as to whether -the wound could have been self-inflicted, and the -prosecution tried to prove that the face had been -lathered after his throat had been cut. So singular -an exhibition of forethought and nerve had hurt -rather than helped their case, and after prolonged -deliberation on the part of the jury, she had been -acquitted. Yet not less singular was Horton’s -selection of a probable murderess, however efficient, -as housekeeper.</p> - -<p>He anticipated this reflection.</p> - -<p>“Apart from the wonderful comfort of having a -perfectly appointed and absolutely silent house,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -he said, “I regard Mrs. Gabriel as a sort of insurance -against my being murdered. If you had been tried -for your life, you would take very especial care not -to find yourself in suspicious proximity to a murdered -body again: no more deaths in your house, if you -could help it. Come through to my laboratory, -and look at my little instance of life after death.”</p> - -<p>Certainly it was amazing to see that little piece -of tissue still pulsating with what must be called -life; it contracted and expanded faintly indeed -but perceptibly, though for nine hours now it had -been severed from the rest of the organisation. All -by itself it went on living, and if the heart could go -on living with nothing, you would say, to feed and -stimulate its energy, there must also, so reasoned -Horton, reside in all the other vital organs of the -body other independent focuses of life.</p> - -<p>“Of course a severed organ like that,” he said, -“will run down quicker than if it had the co-operation -of the others, and presently I shall apply a gentle -electric stimulus to it. If I can keep that glass -bowl under which it beats at the temperature of a -frog’s body, in sterilised air, I don’t see why it should -not go on living. Food—of course there’s the question -of feeding it. Do you see what that opens up -in the way of surgery? Imagine a shop with glass -cases containing healthy organs taken from the dead. -Say a man dies of pneumonia. He should, as soon -as ever the breath is out of his body, be dissected, -and though they would, of course, destroy his lungs, -as they will be full of pneumococci, his liver and -digestive organs are probably healthy. Take them -out, keep them in a sterilised atmosphere with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -temperature at 984, and sell the liver, let us say, -to another poor devil who has cancer there. Fit -him with a new healthy liver, eh?”</p> - -<p>“And insert the brain of someone who has died -of heart disease into the skull of a congenital idiot?” -I asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes, perhaps; but the brain’s tiresomely complicated -in its connections and the joining up of -the nerves, you know. Surgery will have to learn a -lot before it fits new brains in. And the brain has -got such a lot of functions. All thinking, all inventing -seem to belong to it, though, as you have seen, -the heart can get on quite well without it. But -there are other functions of the brain I want to study -first. I’ve been trying some experiments already.”</p> - -<p>He made some little readjustment to the flame -of the spirit lamp which kept at the right temperature -the water that surrounded the sterilised receptacle -in which the frog’s heart was beating.</p> - -<p>“Start with the more simple and mechanical -uses of the brain,” he said. “Primarily it is a sort -of record office, a diary. Say that I rap your knuckles -with that ruler. What happens? The nerves there -send a message to the brain, of course, saying—how -can I put it most simply—saying, ‘Somebody is -hurting me.’ And the eye sends another, saying -‘I perceive a ruler hitting my knuckles,’ and the ear -sends another, saying ‘I hear the rap of it.’ But -leaving all that alone, what else happens? Why, -the brain records it. It makes a note of your -knuckles having been hit.”</p> - -<p>He had been moving about the room as he spoke, -taking off his coat and waistcoat and putting on in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -their place a thin black dressing-gown, and by now -he was seated in his favourite attitude cross-legged -on the hearthrug, looking like some magician or -perhaps the afrit which a magician of black arts -had caused to appear. He was thinking intently -now, passing through his fingers his string of amber -beads, and talking more to himself than to me.</p> - -<p>“And how does it make that note?” he went -on. “Why, in the manner in which phonograph -records are made. There are millions of minute -dots, depressions, pockmarks on your brain which -certainly record what you remember, what you have -enjoyed or disliked, or done or said. The surface -of the brain anyhow is large enough to furnish -writing-paper for the record of all these things, of -all your memories. If the impression of an experience -has not been acute, the dot is not sharply impressed, -and the record fades: in other words, you come to -forget it. But if it has been vividly impressed, the -record is never obliterated. Mrs. Gabriel, for -instance, won’t lose the impression of how she lathered -her husband’s face after she had cut his throat. -That’s to say, if she did it.”</p> - -<p>“Now do you see what I’m driving at? Of course -you do. There is stored within a man’s head the -complete record of all the memorable things he has -done and said: there are all his thoughts there, and -all his speeches, and, most well-marked of all, his -habitual thoughts and the things he has often said; -for habit, there is reason to believe, wears a sort of -rut in the brain, so that the life-principle, whatever -it is, as it gropes and steals about the brain, is continually -stumbling into it. There’s your record,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -your gramophone plate all ready. What we want, -and what I’m trying to arrive at, is a needle which, -as it traces its minute way over these dots, will come -across words or sentences which the dead have -uttered, and will reproduce them. My word, what -Judgment Books! What a resurrection!”</p> - -<p>Here in this withdrawn situation no remotest -echo of the excitement which was seething through -the streets penetrated; through the open window -there came in only the tide of the midnight silence. -But from somewhere closer at hand, through the -wall surely of the laboratory, there came a low, -somewhat persistent murmur.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps our needle—unhappily not yet invented—as -it passed over the record of speech in the brain, -might induce even facial expression,” he said. “Enjoyment -or horror might even pass over dead features. -There might be gestures and movements even, -as the words were reproduced in our gramophone -of the dead. Some people when they want to think -intensely walk about: some, there’s an instance of -it audible now, talk to themselves aloud.”</p> - -<p>He held up his finger for silence.</p> - -<p>“Yes, that’s Mrs. Gabriel,” he said. “She talks -to herself by the hour together. She’s always done -that, she tells me. I shouldn’t wonder if she has -plenty to talk about.”</p> - -<p>It was that night when, first of all, the notion of -intense activity going on below the placid house-fronts -of the Terrace occurred to me. None looked more -quiet than this, and yet there was seething here a -volcanic activity and intensity of living, both in -the man who sat cross-legged on the floor and behind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -that voice just audible through the partition wall. -But I thought of that no more, for Horton began -speaking of the brain-gramophone again.... Were -it possible to trace those infinitesimal dots and -pockmarks in the brain by some needle exquisitely -fine, it might follow that by the aid of some such -contrivance as translated the pockmarks on a -gramophone record into sound, some audible rendering -of speech might be recovered from the brain -of a dead man. It was necessary, so he pointed -out to me, that this strange gramophone record -should be new; it must be that of one lately dead, -for corruption and decay would soon obliterate -these infinitesimal markings. He was not of opinion -that unspoken thought could be thus recovered: -the utmost he hoped for from his pioneering work -was to be able to recapture actual speech, especially -when such speech had habitually dwelt on one subject, -and thus had worn a rut on that part of the brain -known as the speech-centre.</p> - -<p>“Let me get, for instance,” he said, “the brain -of a railway porter, newly dead, who has been -accustomed for years to call out the name of a station, -and I do not despair of hearing his voice through -my gramophone trumpet. Or again, given that -Mrs. Gabriel, in all her interminable conversations -with herself, talks about one subject, I might, in -similar circumstances, recapture what she had been -constantly saying. Of course my instrument must -be of a power and delicacy still unknown, one of -which the needle can trace the minutest irregularities -of surface, and of which the trumpet must be of -immense magnifying power, able to translate the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -smallest whisper into a shout. But just as a microscope -will show you the details of an object invisible -to the eye, so there are instruments which act in -the same way on sound. Here, for instance, is one -of remarkable magnifying power. Try it if you -like.”</p> - -<p>He took me over to a table on which was standing -an electric battery connected with a round steel -globe, out of the side of which sprang a gramophone -trumpet of curious construction. He adjusted the -battery, and directed me to click my fingers quite -gently opposite an aperture in the globe, and the -noise, ordinarily scarcely audible, resounded through -the room like a thunderclap.</p> - -<p>“Something of that sort might permit us to hear -the record on a brain,” he said.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>After this night my visits to Horton became far -more common than they had hitherto been. Having -once admitted me into the region of his strange -explorations, he seemed to welcome me there. -Partly, as he had said, it clarified his own thought -to put it into simple language, partly, as he subsequently -admitted, he was beginning to penetrate -into such lonely fields of knowledge by paths so -utterly untrodden, that even he, the most aloof and -independent of mankind, wanted some human -presence near him. Despite his utter indifference -to the issues of the war—for, in his regard, issues far -more crucial demanded his energies—he offered -himself as surgeon to a London hospital for operations -on the brain, and his services, naturally, were -welcomed, for none brought knowledge or skill like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -his to such work. Occupied all day, he performed -miracles of healing, with bold and dexterous excisions -which none but he would have dared to attempt. -He would operate, often successfully, for lesions -that seemed certainly fatal, and all the time he was -learning. He refused to accept any salary; he only -asked, in cases where he had removed pieces of brain -matter, to take these away, in order by further -examination and dissection, to add to the knowledge -and manipulative skill which he devoted to the -wounded. He wrapped these morsels in sterilised -lint, and took them back to the Terrace in a box, -electrically heated to maintain the normal temperature -of a man’s blood. His fragment might then, so he -reasoned, keep some sort of independent life of its -own, even as the severed heart of a frog had continued -to beat for hours without connection with the rest -of the body. Then for half the night he would -continue to work on these sundered pieces of tissue -scarcely dead, which his operations during the day -had given him. Simultaneously, he was busy over -the needle that must be of such infinite delicacy.</p> - -<p>One evening, fatigued with a long day’s work, -I had just heard with a certain tremor of uneasy -anticipation the whistles of warning which heralded -an air-raid, when my telephone bell rang. My -servants, according to custom, had already betaken -themselves to the cellar, and I went to see what the -summons was, determined in any case not to go out -into the streets. I recognised Horton’s voice. “I -want you at once,” he said.</p> - -<p>“But the warning whistles have gone,” said I, -“And I don’t like showers of shrapnel.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>“Oh, never mind that,” said he. “You must -come. I’m so excited that I distrust the evidence -of my own ears. I want a witness. Just come.”</p> - -<p>He did not pause for my reply, for I heard the -click of his receiver going back into its place. Clearly -he assumed that I was coming, and that I suppose -had the effect of suggestion on my mind. I told -myself that I would not go, but in a couple of minutes -his certainty that I was coming, coupled with the -prospect of being interested in something else than -air-raids, made me fidget in my chair and eventually -go to the street door and look out. The moon was -brilliantly bright, the square quite empty, and far -away the coughings of very distant guns. Next -moment, almost against my will, I was running -down the deserted pavements of Newsome Terrace. -My ring at his bell was answered by Horton, before -Mrs. Gabriel could come to the door, and he positively -dragged me in.</p> - -<p>“I shan’t tell you a word of what I am doing,” -he said. “I want you to tell me what you hear. -Come into the laboratory.”</p> - -<p>The remote guns were silent again as I sat myself, -as directed, in a chair close to the gramophone -trumpet, but suddenly through the wall I heard the -familiar mutter of Mrs. Gabriel’s voice. Horton, -already busy with his battery, sprang to his feet.</p> - -<p>“That won’t do,” he said. “I want absolute -silence.”</p> - -<p>He went out of the room, and I heard him calling -to her. While he was gone I observed more closely -what was on the table. Battery, round steel globe, -and gramophone trumpet were there, and some sort of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -a needle on a spiral steel spring linked up with the -battery and the glass vessel, in which I had seen -the frog’s heart beat. In it now there lay a fragment -of grey matter.</p> - -<p>Horton came back in a minute or two, and stood -in the middle of the room listening.</p> - -<p>“That’s better,” he said. “Now I want you to -listen at the mouth of the trumpet. I’ll answer -any questions afterwards.”</p> - -<p>With my ear turned to the trumpet, I could see -nothing of what he was doing, and I listened till -the silence became a rustling in my ears. Then -suddenly that rustling ceased, for it was overscored -by a whisper which undoubtedly came from the -aperture on which my aural attention was fixed. -It was no more than the faintest murmur, and -though no words were audible, it had the timbre of -a human voice.</p> - -<p>“Well, do you hear anything?” asked Horton.</p> - -<p>“Yes, something very faint, scarcely audible.”</p> - -<p>“Describe it,” said he.</p> - -<p>“Somebody whispering.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll try a fresh place,” said he.</p> - -<p>The silence descended again; the mutter of the -distant guns was still mute, and some slight creaking -from my shirt front, as I breathed, alone broke it. -And then the whispering from the gramophone -trumpet began again, this time much louder than it -had been before—it was as if the speaker (still -whispering) had advanced a dozen yards—but still -blurred and indistinct. More unmistakable, too, was -it that the whisper was that of a human voice, and -every now and then, whether fancifully or not, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -thought I caught a word or two. For a moment it -was silent altogether, and then with a sudden inkling -of what I was listening to I heard something begin -to sing. Though the words were still inaudible -there was melody, and the tune was “Tipperary.” -From that convolvulus-shaped trumpet there came -two bars of it.</p> - -<p>“And what do you hear now?” cried Horton -with a crack of exultation in his voice. “Singing, -singing! That’s the tune they all sang. Fine -music that from a dead man. Encore! you say? -Yes, wait a second, and he’ll sing it again for you. -Confound it, I can’t get on to the place. Ah! I’ve -got it: listen again.”</p> - -<p>Surely that was the strangest manner of song -ever yet heard on the earth, this melody from the -brain of the dead. Horror and fascination strove -within me, and I suppose the first for the moment -prevailed, for with a shudder I jumped up.</p> - -<p>“Stop it!” I said. “It’s terrible.”</p> - -<p>His face, thin and eager, gleamed in the strong -ray of the lamp which he had placed close to him. -His hand was on the metal rod from which depended -the spiral spring and the needle, which just rested -on that fragment of grey stuff which I had seen in -the glass vessel.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I’m going to stop it now,” he said, “or -the germs will be getting at my gramophone record, -or the record will get cold. See, I spray it with -carbolic vapour, I put it back into its nice warm -bed. It will sing to us again. But terrible? What -do you mean by terrible?”</p> - -<p>Indeed, when he asked that I scarcely knew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -myself what I meant. I had been witness to a new -marvel of science as wonderful perhaps as any that -had ever astounded the beholder, and my nerves—these -childish whimperers—had cried out at the -darkness and the profundity. But the horror -diminished, the fascination increased as he quite -shortly told me the history of this phenomenon. -He had attended that day and operated upon a -young soldier in whose brain was embedded a piece -of shrapnel. The boy was <i>in extremis</i>, but Horton -had hoped for the possibility of saving him. To -extract the shrapnel was the only chance, and this -involved the cutting away of a piece of brain known -as the speech-centre, and taking from it what was -embedded there. But the hope was not realised, -and two hours later the boy died. It was to this -fragment of brain that, when Horton returned -home, he had applied the needle of his gramophone, -and had obtained the faint whisperings which had -caused him to ring me up, so that he might have a -witness of this wonder. Witness I had been, not to -these whisperings alone, but to the fragment of singing.</p> - -<p>“And this is but the first step on the new road,” -said he. “Who knows where it may lead, or to -what new temple of knowledge it may not be the -avenue? Well, it is late: I shall do no more -to-night. What about the raid, by the way?”</p> - -<p>To my amazement I saw that the time was verging -on midnight. Two hours had elapsed since he let -me in at his door; they had passed like a couple of -minutes. Next morning some neighbours spoke of -the prolonged firing that had gone on, of which I -had been wholly unconscious.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>Week after week Horton worked on this new road -of research, perfecting the sensitiveness and subtlety -of the needle, and, by vastly increasing the power of -his batteries, enlarging the magnifying power of -his trumpet. Many and many an evening during -the next year did I listen to voices that were dumb -in death, and the sounds which had been blurred -and unintelligible mutterings in the earlier experiments, -developed, as the delicacy of his mechanical -devices increased, into coherence and clear articulation. -It was no longer necessary to impose silence -on Mrs. Gabriel when the gramophone was at work, -for now the voice we listened to had risen to the -pitch of ordinary human utterance, while as for the -faithfulness and individuality of these records, -striking testimony was given more than once by -some living friend of the dead, who, without knowing -what he was about to hear, recognised the tones -of the speaker. More than once also, Mrs. Gabriel, -bringing in syphons and whisky, provided us with -three glasses, for she had heard, so she told us, three -different voices in talk. But for the present no -fresh phenomenon occurred: Horton was but perfecting -the mechanism of his previous discovery and, -rather grudging the time, was scribbling at a monograph, -which presently he would toss to his colleagues, -concerning the results he had already obtained. -And then, even while Horton was on the threshold -of new wonders, which he had already foreseen and -spoken of as theoretically possible, there came an -evening of marvel and of swift catastrophe.</p> - -<p>I had dined with him that day, Mrs. Gabriel -deftly serving the meal that she had so daintily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -prepared, and towards the end, as she was clearing -the table for our dessert, she stumbled, I supposed, -on a loose edge of carpet, quickly recovering herself. -But instantly Horton checked some half-finished -sentence, and turned to her.</p> - -<p>“You’re all right, Mrs. Gabriel?” he asked -quickly.</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir, thank you,” said she, and went on -with her serving.</p> - -<p>“As I was saying,” began Horton again, but his -attention clearly wandered, and without concluding -his narrative, he relapsed into silence, till Mrs. -Gabriel had given us our coffee and left the room.</p> - -<p>“I’m sadly afraid my domestic felicity may be -disturbed,” he said. “Mrs. Gabriel had an epileptic -fit yesterday, and she confessed when she recovered -that she had been subject to them when a child, and -since then had occasionally experienced them.”</p> - -<p>“Dangerous, then?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“In themselves not in the least,” said he. “If -she was sitting in her chair or lying in bed when one -occurred, there would be nothing to trouble about. -But if one occurred while she was cooking my dinner -or beginning to come downstairs, she might fall into -the fire or tumble down the whole flight. We’ll -hope no such deplorable calamity will happen. Now, -if you’ve finished your coffee, let us go into the -laboratory. Not that I’ve got anything very interesting -in the way of new records. But I’ve introduced -a second battery with a very strong induction -coil into my apparatus. I find that if I link it up -with my record, given that the record is a—a fresh -one, it stimulates certain nerve centres. It’s odd,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -isn’t it, that the same forces which so encourage -the dead to live would certainly encourage the living -to die, if a man received the full current. One has -to be careful in handling it. Yes, and what then? -you ask.”</p> - -<p>The night was very hot, and he threw the windows -wide before he settled himself cross-legged on the -floor.</p> - -<p>“I’ll answer your question for you,” he said, -“though I believe we’ve talked of it before. Supposing -I had not a fragment of brain-tissue only, but a whole -head, let us say, or best of all, a complete corpse, -I think I could expect to produce more than -mere speech through the gramophone. The dead -lips themselves perhaps might utter—God! what’s -that?”</p> - -<p>From close outside, at the bottom of the stairs -leading from the dining room which we had just -quitted to the laboratory where we now sat, there -came a crash of glass followed by the fall as of something -heavy which bumped from step to step, and -was finally flung on the threshold against the door -with the sound as of knuckles rapping at it, and -demanding admittance. Horton sprang up and -threw the door open, and there lay, half inside the -room and half on the landing outside, the body of -Mrs. Gabriel. Round her were splinters of broken -bottles and glasses, and from a cut in her forehead, -as she lay ghastly with face upturned, the blood -trickled into her thick grey hair.</p> - -<p>Horton was on his knees beside her, dabbing his -handkerchief on her forehead.</p> - -<p>“Ah! that’s not serious,” he said; “there’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -neither vein nor artery cut. I’ll just bind that up -first.”</p> - -<p>He tore his handkerchief into strips which he tied -together, and made a dexterous bandage covering -the lower part of her forehead, but leaving her eyes -unobscured. They stared with a fixed meaningless -steadiness, and he scrutinised them closely.</p> - -<p>“But there’s worse yet,” he said. “There’s -been some severe blow on the head. Help me to -carry her into the laboratory. Get round to her -feet and lift underneath the knees when I am ready. -There! Now put your arm right under her and -carry her.”</p> - -<p>Her head swung limply back as he lifted her -shoulders, and he propped it up against his knee, -where it mutely nodded and bowed, as his leg moved, -as if in silent assent to what we were doing, and -the mouth, at the extremity of which there had -gathered a little lather, lolled open. He still supported -her shoulders as I fetched a cushion on which -to place her head, and presently she was lying close -to the low table on which stood the gramophone -of the dead. Then with light deft fingers he passed -his hands over her skull, pausing as he came to -the spot just above and behind her right ear. -Twice and again his fingers groped and lightly -pressed, while with shut eyes and concentrated -attention he interpreted what his trained touch -revealed.</p> - -<p>“Her skull is broken to fragments just here,” -he said. “In the middle there is a piece completely -severed from the rest, and the edges of the cracked -pieces must be pressing on her brain.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>Her right arm was lying palm upwards on the -floor, and with one hand he felt her wrist with -finger-tips.</p> - -<p>“Not a sign of pulse,” he said. “She’s dead in -the ordinary sense of the word. But life persists -in an extraordinary manner, you may remember. -She can’t be wholly dead: no one is wholly dead in -a moment, unless every organ is blown to bits. But -she soon will be dead, if we don’t relieve the pressure -on the brain. That’s the first thing to be done. -While I’m busy at that, shut the window, will you, -and make up the fire. In this sort of case the vital -heat, whatever that is, leaves the body very quickly. -Make the room as hot as you can—fetch an oil-stove, -and turn on the electric radiator, and stoke up a -roaring fire. The hotter the room is the more slowly -will the heat of life leave her.”</p> - -<p>Already he had opened his cabinet of surgical -instruments, and taken out of it two drawers full of -bright steel which he laid on the floor beside her. -I heard the grating chink of scissors severing her long -grey hair, and as I busied myself with laying and -lighting the fire in the hearth, and kindling the -oil-stove, which I found, by Horton’s directions, -in the pantry, I saw that his lancet was busy on the -exposed skin. He had placed some vaporising -spray, heated by a spirit lamp close to her head, -and as he worked its fizzing nozzle filled the air with -some clean and aromatic odour. Now and then -he threw out an order.</p> - -<p>“Bring me that electric lamp on the long cord,” -he said. “I haven’t got enough light. Don’t -look at what I’m doing if you’re squeamish, for if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -it makes you feel faint, I shan’t be able to attend -to you.”</p> - -<p>I suppose that violent interest in what he was -doing overcame any qualm that I might have had, -for I looked quite unflinching over his shoulder as -I moved the lamp about till it was in such a place -that it threw its beam directly into a dark hole at -the edge of which depended a flap of skin. Into -this he put his forceps, and as he withdrew them -they grasped a piece of blood-stained bone.</p> - -<p>“That’s better,” he said, “and the room’s warming -up well. But there’s no sign of pulse yet. Go on -stoking, will you, till the thermometer on the wall -there registers a hundred degrees.”</p> - -<p>When next, on my journey from the coal-cellar, -I looked, two more pieces of bone lay beside the one -I had seen extracted, and presently referring to the -thermometer, I saw that between the oil-stove and -the roaring fire and the electric radiator, I had raised -the room to the temperature he wanted. Soon, -peering fixedly at the seat of his operation, he felt -for her pulse again.</p> - -<p>“Not a sign of returning vitality,” he said, “and -I’ve done all I can. There’s nothing more possible -that can be devised to restore her.”</p> - -<p>As he spoke the zeal of the unrivalled surgeon -relaxed, and with a sigh and a shrug he rose to his -feet and mopped his face. Then suddenly the fire -and eagerness blazed there again. “The gramophone!” -he said. “The speech centre is close to -where I’ve been working, and it is quite uninjured. -Good heavens, what a wonderful opportunity. She -served me well living, and she shall serve me dead.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -And I can stimulate the motor nerve-centre, too, -with the second battery. We may see a new wonder -to-night.”</p> - -<p>Some qualm of horror shook me.</p> - -<p>“No, don’t!” I said. “It’s terrible: she’s -just dead. I shall go if you do.”</p> - -<p>“But I’ve got exactly all the conditions I have -long been wanting,” said he. “And I simply can’t -spare you. You must be witness: I must have a -witness. Why, man, there’s not a surgeon or a -physiologist in the kingdom who would not give an -eye or an ear to be in your place now. She’s dead. -I pledge you my honour on that, and it’s grand to -be dead if you can help the living.”</p> - -<p>Once again, in a far fiercer struggle, horror and the -intensest curiosity strove together in me.</p> - -<p>“Be quick, then,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Ha! That’s right,” exclaimed Horton. “Help -me to lift her on to the table by the gramophone. -The cushion too; I can get at the place more easily -with her head a little raised.”</p> - -<p>He turned on the battery and with the movable -light close beside him, brilliantly illuminating what -he sought, he inserted the needle of the gramophone -into the jagged aperture in her skull. For a few -minutes, as he groped and explored there, there -was silence, and then quite suddenly Mrs. Gabriel’s -voice, clear and unmistakable and of the normal -loudness of human speech, issued from the -trumpet.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I always said that I’d be even with him,” -came the articulated syllables. “He used to knock -me about, he did, when he came home drunk, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -often I was black and blue with bruises. But I’ll -give him a redness for the black and blue.”</p> - -<p>The record grew blurred; instead of articulate -words there came from it a gobbling noise. By -degrees that cleared, and we were listening to some -dreadful suppressed sort of laughter, hideous to -hear. On and on it went.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got into some sort of rut,” said Horton. -“She must have laughed a lot to herself.”</p> - -<p>For a long time we got nothing more except the -repetition of the words we had already heard and -the sound of that suppressed laughter. Then Horton -drew towards him the second battery.</p> - -<p>“I’ll try a stimulation of the motor nerve-centres,” -he said. “Watch her face.”</p> - -<p>He propped the gramophone needle in position, -and inserted into the fractured skull the two poles -of the second battery, moving them about there very -carefully. And as I watched her face, I saw with a -freezing horror that her lips were beginning to move.</p> - -<p>“Her mouth’s moving,” I cried. “She can’t be -dead.”</p> - -<p>He peered into her face.</p> - -<p>“Nonsense,” he said. “That’s only the stimulus -from the current. She’s been dead half an hour. -Ah! what’s coming now?”</p> - -<p>The lips lengthened into a smile, the lower jaw -dropped, and from her mouth came the laughter -we had heard just now through the gramophone. -And then the dead mouth spoke, with a mumble of -unintelligible words, a bubbling torrent of incoherent -syllables.</p> - -<p>“I’ll turn the full current on,” he said.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>The head jerked and raised itself, the lips struggled -for utterance, and suddenly she spoke swiftly and -distinctly.</p> - -<p>“Just when he’d got his razor out,” she said, -“I came up behind him, and put my hand over his -face, and bent his neck back over his chair with all -my strength. And I picked up his razor and with -one slit—ha, ha, that was the way to pay him out. -And I didn’t lose my head, but I lathered his chin -well, and put the razor in his hand, and left him -there, and went downstairs and cooked his dinner -for him, and then an hour afterwards, as he didn’t -come down, up I went to see what kept him. It -was a nasty cut in his neck that had kept him——”</p> - -<p>Horton suddenly withdrew the two poles of the -battery from her head, and even in the middle of her -word the mouth ceased working, and lay rigid and -open.</p> - -<p>“By God!” he said. “There’s a tale for dead -lips to tell. But we’ll get more yet.”</p> - -<p>Exactly what happened then I never knew. It -appeared to me that as he still leaned over the table -with the two poles of the battery in his hand, his foot -slipped, and he fell forward across it. There came -a sharp crack, and a flash of blue dazzling light, -and there he lay face downwards, with arms that -just stirred and quivered. With his fall the two -poles that must momentarily have come into contact -with his hand were jerked away again, and I lifted -him and laid him on the floor. But his lips as well -as those of the dead woman had spoken for the -last time.</p> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p> - - - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">The Outcast</h2></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph1">The Outcast</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Mrs. Acres bought the Gate-house at Tarleton, -which had stood so long without a tenant, and -appeared in that very agreeable and lively little -town as a resident, sufficient was already known -about her past history to entitle her to friendliness -and sympathy. Hers had been a tragic story, and -the account of the inquest held on her husband’s -body, when, within a month of their marriage, he -had shot himself before her eyes, was recent enough, -and of as full a report in the papers as to enable our -little community of Tarleton to remember and run -over the salient grimness of the case without -the need of inventing any further details—which, -otherwise, it would have been quite capable of doing.</p> - -<p>Briefly, then, the facts had been as follows. Horace -Acres appeared to have been a heartless fortune-hunter—a -handsome, plausible wretch, ten years -younger than his wife. He had made no secret to -his friends of not being in love with her but of having -a considerable regard for her more than considerable -fortune. But hardly had he married her than his -indifference developed into violent dislike, accompanied -by some mysterious, inexplicable dread of -her. He hated and feared her, and on the morning -of the very day when he had put an end to himself -he had begged her to divorce him; the case he -promised would be undefended, and he would make -it indefensible. She, poor soul, had refused to -grant this; for, as corroborated by the evidence of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -friends and servants, she was utterly devoted to -him, and stated with that quiet dignity which distinguished -her throughout this ordeal, that she -hoped that he was the victim of some miserable -but temporary derangement, and would come to -his right mind again. He had dined that night at -his club, leaving his month-old bride to pass the -evening alone, and had returned between eleven and -twelve that night in a state of vile intoxication. He -had gone up to her bedroom, pistol in hand, had -locked the door, and his voice was heard screaming -and yelling at her. Then followed the sound of -one shot. On the table in his dressing-room was -found a half-sheet of paper, dated that day, and -this was read out in court. “The horror of my -position,” he had written, “is beyond description -and endurance. I can bear it no longer: my soul -sickens....” The jury, without leaving the court, -returned the verdict that he had committed suicide -while temporarily insane, and the coroner, at their -request, expressed their sympathy and his own with -the poor lady, who, as testified on all hands, had -treated her husband with the utmost tenderness -and affection.</p> - -<p>For six months Bertha Acres had travelled abroad, -and then in the autumn she had bought Gate-house -at Tarleton, and settled down to the absorbing -trifles which make life in a small country town so -busy and strenuous.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Our modest little dwelling is within a stone’s -throw of the Gate-house; and when, on the return -of my wife and myself from two months in Scotland,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -we found that Mrs. Acres was installed as a neighbour, -Madge lost no time in going to call on her. She -returned with a series of pleasant impressions. -Mrs. Acres, still on the sunny slope that leads up -to the table-land of life which begins at forty years, -was extremely handsome, cordial, and charming in -manner, witty and agreeable, and wonderfully well -dressed. Before the conclusion of her call Madge, -in country fashion, had begged her to dispose with -formalities, and, instead of a frigid return of the call, -to dine with us quietly next day. Did she play -bridge? That being so, we would just be a party -of four; for her brother, Charles Alington, had -proposed himself for a visit....</p> - -<p>I listened to this with sufficient attention to grasp -what Madge was saying, but what I was really -thinking about was a chess-problem which I was -attempting to solve. But at this point I became -acutely aware that her stream of pleasant impressions -dried up suddenly, and she became stonily silent. -She shut speech off as by the turn of a tap, and glowered -at the fire, rubbing the back of one hand with -the fingers of another, as is her habit in perplexity.</p> - -<p>“Go on,” I said.</p> - -<p>She got up, suddenly restless.</p> - -<p>“All I have been telling you is literally and soberly -true,” she said. “I thought Mrs. Acres charming -and witty and good-looking and friendly. What -more could you ask from a new acquaintance? And -then, after I had asked her to dinner, I suddenly -found for no earthly reason that I very much disliked -her; I couldn’t bear her.”</p> - -<p>“You said she was wonderfully well dressed,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -I permitted myself to remark.... If the Queen -took the Knight——</p> - -<p>“Don’t be silly!” said Madge. “I am wonderfully -well dressed too. But behind all her agreeableness -and charm and good looks I suddenly felt -there was something else which I detested and -dreaded. It’s no use asking me what it was, because -I haven’t the slightest idea. If I knew what it was, -the thing would explain itself. But I felt a horror—nothing -vivid, nothing close, you understand, but -somewhere in the background. Can the mind have -a ‘turn,’ do you think, just as the body can, when -for a second or two you suddenly feel giddy? I -think it must have been that—oh! I’m sure it was -that. But I’m glad I asked her to dine. I mean -to like her. I shan’t have a ‘turn’ again, shall I?”</p> - -<p>“No, certainly not,” I said.... If the Queen -refrained from taking the tempting Knight——</p> - -<p>“Oh, do stop your silly chess-problem!” said -Madge. “Bite him, Fungus!”</p> - -<p>Fungus, so called because he is the son of Humour -and Gustavus Adolphus, rose from his place on the -hearthrug, and with a horse laugh nuzzled against -my leg, which is his way of biting those he loves. -Then the most amiable of bull-dogs, who has a -passion for the human race, lay down on my foot -and sighed heavily. But Madge evidently wanted -to talk, and I pushed the chessboard away.</p> - -<p>“Tell me more about the horror,” I said.</p> - -<p>“It was just horror,” she said—“a sort of sickness -of the soul.”...</p> - -<p>I found my brain puzzling over some vague -reminiscence, surely connected with Mrs. Acres,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -which those words mistily evoked. But next -moment that train of thought was cut short, for the -old and sinister legend about the Gate-house came -into my mind as accounting for the horror of which -Madge spoke. In the days of Elizabethan religious -persecutions it had, then newly built, been inhabited -by two brothers, of whom the elder, to whom it -belonged, had Mass said there every Sunday. Betrayed -by the younger, he was arrested and racked -to death. Subsequently the younger, in a fit of -remorse, hanged himself in the panelled parlour. -Certainly there was a story that the house was haunted -by his strangled apparition dangling from the beams, -and the late tenants of the house (which now had -stood vacant for over three years) had quitted it -after a month’s occupation, in consequence, so it was -commonly said, of unaccountable and horrible sights. -What was more likely, then, than that Madge, who -from childhood has been intensely sensitive to occult -and psychic phenomena, should have caught, on -that strange wireless receiver which is characteristic -of “sensitives,” some whispered message?</p> - -<p>“But you know the story of the house,” I said. -“Isn’t it quite possible that something of that may -have reached you? Where did you sit, for instance? -In the panelled parlour?”</p> - -<p>She brightened at that.</p> - -<p>“Ah, you wise man!” she said. “I never -thought of that. That may account for it all. I -hope it does. You shall be left in peace with your -chess for being so brilliant.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I had occasion half an hour later to go to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -post-office, a hundred yards up the High Street, on -the matter of a registered letter which I wanted to -despatch that evening. Dusk was gathering, but -the red glow of sunset still smouldered in the west, -sufficient to enable me to recognise familiar forms -and features of passers-by. Just as I came opposite -the post-office there approached from the other -direction a tall, finely built woman, whom, I felt -sure, I had never seen before. Her destination was -the same as mine, and I hung on my step a moment -to let her pass in first. Simultaneously I felt that -I knew, in some vague, faint manner, what Madge -had meant when she talked about a “sickness of -the soul.” It was no nearer realisation to me than is -the running of a tune in the head to the audible -external hearing of it, and I attributed my sudden -recognition of her feeling to the fact that in all -probability my mind had subconsciously been dwelling -on what she had said, and not for a moment did I -connect it with any external cause. And then it -occurred to me who, possibly, this woman was....</p> - -<p>She finished the transaction of her errand a few -seconds before me, and when I got out into the -street again she was a dozen yards down the pavement, -walking in the direction of my house and of -the Gate-house. Opposite my own door I deliberately -lingered, and saw her pass down the steps that -led from the road to the entrance of the Gate-house. -Even as I turned into my own door the unbidden -reminiscence which had eluded me before came out -into the open, and I cast my net over it. It was -her husband, who, in the inexplicable communication -he had left on his dressing-room table, just before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -he shot himself, had written “my soul sickens.” It -was odd, though scarcely more than that, for Madge -to have used those identical words.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Charles Alington, my wife’s brother, who arrived -next afternoon, is quite the happiest man whom I -have ever come across. The material world, that -perennial spring of thwarted ambition, physical -desire, and perpetual disappointment, is practically -unknown to him. Envy, malice, and all uncharitableness -are equally alien, because he does not want -to obtain what anybody else has got, and has no -sense of possession, which is queer, since he is enormously -rich. He fears nothing, he hopes for nothing, -he has no abhorrences or affections, for all physical -and nervous functions are in him in the service of -an intense inquisitiveness. He never passed a moral -judgment in his life, he only wants to explore and to -know. Knowledge, in fact, is his entire preoccupation, -and since chemists and medical scientists probe -and mine in the world of tinctures and microbes far -more efficiently than he could do, as he has so little -care for anything that can be weighed or propagated, -he devotes himself, absorbedly and ecstatically, to -that world that lies about the confines of conscious -existence. Anything not yet certainly determined -appeals to him with the call of a trumpet: he ceases -to take an interest in a subject as soon as it shows -signs of assuming a practical and definite status. -He was intensely concerned, for instance, in wireless -transmission, until Signor Marconi proved that it -came within the scope of practical science, and then -Charles abandoned it as dull. I had seen him last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -two months before, when he was in a great perturbation, -since he was speaking at a meeting of Anglo-Israelites -in the morning, to show that the Scone -Stone, which is now in the Coronation Chair at -Westminster, was for certain the pillow on which -Jacob’s head had rested when he saw the vision at -Bethel; was addressing the Psychical Research -Society in the afternoon on the subject of messages -received from the dead through automatic script, -and in the evening was, by way of a holiday, only -listening to a lecture on reincarnation. None of -these things could, as yet, be definitely proved, and -that was why he loved them. During the intervals -when the occult and the fantastic do not occupy -him, he is, in spite of his fifty years and wizened mien, -exactly like a schoolboy of eighteen back on his -holidays and brimming with superfluous energy.</p> - -<p>I found Charles already arrived when I got home -next afternoon, after a round of golf. He was -betwixt and between the serious and the holiday -mood, for he had evidently been reading to Madge -from a journal concerning reincarnation, and was -rather severe to me....</p> - -<p>“Golf!” he said, with insulting scorn. “What -is there to know about golf? You hit a ball into -the air——”</p> - -<p>I was a little sore over the events of the afternoon.</p> - -<p>“That’s just what I don’t do,” I said. “I hit -it along the ground!”</p> - -<p>“Well, it doesn’t matter where you hit it,” said he. -“It’s all subject to known laws. But the guess, the -conjecture: there’s the thrill and the excitement of -life. The charlatan with his new cure for cancer, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -automatic writer with his messages from the dead, the -reincarnationist with his positive assertions that he -was Napoleon or a Christian slave—they are the -people who advance knowledge. You have to guess -before you know. Even Darwin saw that when he said -you could not investigate without a hypothesis!”</p> - -<p>“So what’s your hypothesis this minute?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Why, that we’ve all lived before, and that we’re -going to live again here on this same old earth. -Any other conception of a future life is impossible. -Are all the people who have been born and have -died since the world emerged from chaos going to -become inhabitants of some future world? What -a squash, you know, my dear Madge! Now, I -know what you’re going to ask me. If we’ve all -lived before, why can’t we remember it? But that’s -so simple! If you remembered being Cleopatra, -you would go on behaving like Cleopatra; and -what would Tarleton say? Judas Iscariot, too! -Fancy knowing you had been Judas Iscariot! You -couldn’t get over it! you would commit suicide, -or cause everybody who was connected with you to -commit suicide from their horror of you. Or imagine -being a grocer’s boy who knew he had been Julius -Csar.... Of course, sex doesn’t matter: souls, -as far as I understand, are sexless—just sparks of -life, which are put into physical envelopes, some -male, some female. You might have been King -David, Madge and poor Tony here one of his wives.”</p> - -<p>“That would be wonderfully neat,” said I.</p> - -<p>Charles broke out into a shout of laughter.</p> - -<p>“It would indeed,” he said. “But I won’t talk -sense any more to you scoffers. I’m absolutely tired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -out, I will confess, with thinking. I want to have -a pretty lady to come to dinner, and talk to her as -if she was just herself and I myself, and nobody else. -I want to win two-and-sixpence at bridge with the -expenditure of enormous thought. I want to have -a large breakfast to-morrow and read <i>The Times</i> -afterwards, and go to Tony’s club and talk about -crops and golf and Irish affairs and Peace Conferences, -and all the things that don’t matter one straw!”</p> - -<p>“You’re going to begin your programme to-night, -dear,” said Madge. “A very pretty lady is coming -to dinner, and we’re going to play bridge afterwards.”</p> - -<p>Madge and I were ready for Mrs. Acres when she -arrived, but Charles was not yet down. Fungus, -who has a wild adoration for Charles, quite unaccountable, -since Charles has no feelings for dogs, -was helping him to dress, and Madge, Mrs. Acres, -and I waited for his appearance. It was certainly -Mrs. Acres whom I had met last night at the door -of the post-office, but the dim light of sunset had -not enabled me to see how wonderfully handsome -she was. There was something slightly Jewish about -her profile: the high forehead, the very full-lipped -mouth, the bridged nose, the prominent chin, all -suggested rather than exemplified an Eastern origin. -And when she spoke she had that rich softness of utterance, -not quite hoarseness, but not quite of the clear-cut -distinctness of tone which characterises northern -nations. Something southern, something Eastern....</p> - -<p>“I am bound to ask one thing,” she said, when, -after the usual greetings, we stood round the fireplace, -waiting for Charles—“but have you got a dog?”</p> - -<p>Madge moved towards the bell.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>“Yes, but he shan’t come down if you dislike dogs,” -she said. “He’s wonderfully kind, but I know——”</p> - -<p>“Ah, it’s not that,” said Mrs. Acres. “I adore -dogs. But I only wished to spare your dog’s feelings. -Though I adore them, they hate me, and they’re -terribly frightened of me. There’s something -anti-canine about me.”</p> - -<p>It was too late to say more. Charles’s steps -clattered in the little hall outside, and Fungus was -hoarse and amused. Next moment the door opened, -and the two came in.</p> - -<p>Fungus came in first. He lolloped in a festive -manner into the middle of the room, sniffed and snored -in greeting, and then turned tail. He slipped and -skidded on the parquet outside, and we heard him -bundling down the kitchen stairs.</p> - -<p>“Rude dog,” said Madge. “Charles, let me -introduce you to Mrs. Acres. My brother, Mrs. -Acres: Sir Charles Alington.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Our little dinner-table of four would not permit -of separate conversations, and general topics, springing -up like mushrooms, wilted and died at their -very inception. What mood possessed the others I -did not at that time know, but for myself I was only -conscious of some fundamental distaste of the handsome, -clever woman who sat on my right, and seemed -quite unaffected by the withering atmosphere. She -was charming to the eye, she was witty to the ear, -she had grace and gracefulness, and all the time she -was something terrible. But by degrees, as I found -my own distaste increasing, I saw that my brother-in-law’s -interest was growing correspondingly keen.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -The “pretty lady” whose presence at dinner he had -desired and obtained was enchaining him—not, -so I began to guess, for her charm and her prettiness, -but for some purpose of study, and I wondered -whether it was her beautiful Jewish profile that -was confirming to his mind some Anglo-Israelitish -theory, whether he saw in her fine brown eyes the -glance of the seer and the clairvoyante, or whether he -divined in her some reincarnation of one of the -famous or the infamous dead. Certainly she had -for him some fascination beyond that of the legitimate -charm of a very handsome woman; he was studying -her with intense curiosity.</p> - -<p>“And you are comfortable in the Gate-house?” -he suddenly rapped out at her, as if asking some -question of which the answer was crucial.</p> - -<p>“Ah! but so comfortable,” she said—“such a -delightful atmosphere. I have never known a house -that ‘felt’ so peaceful and homelike. Or is it merely -fanciful to imagine that some houses have a sense -of tranquillity about them and others are uneasy -and even terrible?”</p> - -<p>Charles stared at her a moment in silence before -he recollected his manners.</p> - -<p>“No, there may easily be something in it, I should -say,” he answered. “One can imagine long centuries -of tranquillity actually investing a home with some -sort of psychical aura perceptible to those who are -sensitive.”</p> - -<p>She turned to Madge.</p> - -<p>“And yet I have heard a ridiculous story that the -house is supposed to be haunted,” she said. “If it is, -it is surely haunted by delightful, contented spirits.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>Dinner was over. Madge rose.</p> - -<p>“Come in very soon, Tony,” she said to me, -“and let’s get to our bridge.”</p> - -<p>But her eyes said, “Don’t leave me long alone -with her.”</p> - -<p>Charles turned briskly round when the door had -shut.</p> - -<p>“An extremely interesting woman,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Very handsome,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Is she? I didn’t notice. Her mind, her spirit—that’s -what intrigued me. What is she? What’s -behind? Why did Fungus turn tail like that? -Queer, too, about her finding the atmosphere of the -Gate-house so tranquil. The late tenants, I remember, -didn’t find that soothing touch about it!”</p> - -<p>“How do you account for that?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“There might be several explanations. You might -say that the late tenants were fanciful, imaginative -people, and that the present tenant is a sensible, -matter-of-fact woman. Certainly she seemed to be.”</p> - -<p>“Or——” I suggested.</p> - -<p>He laughed.</p> - -<p>“Well, you might say—mind, I don’t say so—but -you might say that the—the spiritual tenants -of the house find Mrs. Acres a congenial companion, -and want to retain her. So they keep quiet, and -don’t upset the cook’s nerves!”</p> - -<p>Somehow this answer exasperated and jarred on me.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?” I said. “The spiritual -tenant of the house, I suppose, is the man who -betrayed his brother and hanged himself. Why -should he find a charming woman like Mrs. Acres -a congenial companion?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>Charles got up briskly. Usually he is more than -ready to discuss such topics, but to-night it seemed -that he had no such inclination.</p> - -<p>“Didn’t Madge tell us not to be long?” he asked. -“You know how I run on if I once get on that subject, -Tony, so don’t give me the opportunity.”</p> - -<p>“But why did you say that?” I persisted.</p> - -<p>“Because I was talking nonsense. You know me -well enough to be aware that I am an habitual -criminal in that respect.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was indeed strange to find how completely -both the first impression that Madge had formed -of Mrs. Acres and the feeling that followed so quickly -on its heels were endorsed by those who, during the -next week or two, did a neighbour’s duty to the -newcomer. All were loud in praise of her charm, -her pleasant, kindly wit, her good looks, her beautiful -clothes, but even while this <i>Lob-gesang</i> was in full -chorus it would suddenly die away, and an uneasy -silence descended, which somehow was more eloquent -than all the appreciative speech. Odd, unaccountable -little incidents had occurred, which were whispered -from mouth to mouth till they became common -property. The same fear that Fungus had shown -of her was exhibited by another dog. A parallel -case occurred when she returned the call of our -parson’s wife. Mrs. Dowlett had a cage of canaries -in the window of her drawing-room. These birds -had manifested symptoms of extreme terror when -Mrs. Acres entered the room, beating themselves -against the wires of their cage, and uttering the alarm-note.... -She inspired some sort of inexplicable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -fear, over which we, as trained and civilised human -beings, had control, so that we behaved ourselves. -But animals, without that check, gave way altogether -to it, even as Fungus had done.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Acres entertained; she gave charming little -dinner-parties of eight, with a couple of tables at -bridge to follow, but over these evenings there hung -a blight and a blackness. No doubt the sinister -story of the panelled parlour contributed to this.</p> - -<p>This curious secret dread of her, of which as on -that first evening at my house, she appeared to be -completely unconscious differed very widely in -degree. Most people, like myself, were conscious -of it, but only very remotely so, and we found ourselves -at the Gate-house behaving quite as usual, -though with this unease in the background. But -with a few, and most of all with Madge, it grew into -a sort of obsession. She made every effort to combat -it; her will was entirely set against it, but her struggle -seemed only to establish its power over her. The -pathetic and pitiful part was that Mrs. Acres from -the first had taken a tremendous liking to her, and -used to drop in continually, calling first to Madge -at the window, in that pleasant, serene voice of hers, -to tell Fungus that the hated one was imminent.</p> - -<p>Then came a day when Madge and I were bidden -to a party at the Gate-house on Christmas evening. -This was to be the last of Mrs. Acres’s hospitalities -for the present, since she was leaving immediately -afterwards for a couple of months in Egypt. So, -with this remission ahead, Madge almost gleefully -accepted the bidding. But when the evening came -she was seized with so violent an attack of sickness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -and shivering that she was utterly unable to fulfil -her engagement. Her doctor could find no physical -trouble to account for this: it seemed that the -anticipation of her evening alone caused it, and here -was the culmination of her shrinking from our kindly -and pleasant neighbour. She could only tell me that -her sensations, as she began to dress for the party, -were like those of that moment in sleep when somewhere -in the drowsy brain nightmare is ripening. -Something independent of her will revolted at what -lay before her....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Spring had begun to stretch herself in the lap of -winter when next the curtain rose on this veiled -drama of forces but dimly comprehended and -shudderingly conjectured; but then, indeed, nightmare -ripened swiftly in broad noon. And this was -the way of it.</p> - -<p>Charles Alington had again come to stay with us -five days before Easter, and expressed himself as -humorously disappointed to find that the subject -of his curiosity was still absent from the Gate-house. -On the Saturday morning before Easter he appeared -very late for breakfast, and Madge had already gone -her ways. I rang for a fresh teapot, and while this -was on its way he took up <i>The Times</i>.</p> - -<p>“I only read the outside page of it,” he said. -“The rest is too full of mere materialistic dullnesses—politics, -sports, money-market——”</p> - -<p>He stopped, and passed the paper over to me.</p> - -<p>“There, where I’m pointing,” he said—“among -the deaths. The first one.”</p> - -<p>What I read was this:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Acres, Bertha.</span> Died at sea, Thursday night, -30th March, and by her own request buried at sea. -(Received by wireless from P. & O. steamer -<i>Peshawar</i>.)”</p></blockquote> - -<p>He held out his hand for the paper again, and -turned over the leaves.</p> - -<p>“Lloyd’s,” he said. “The <i>Peshawar</i> arrived at -Tilbury yesterday afternoon. The burial must have -taken place somewhere in the English Channel.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>On the afternoon of Easter Sunday Madge and I -motored out to the golf links three miles away. -She proposed to walk along the beach just outside -the dunes while I had my round, and return to the -club-house for tea in two hours’ time. The day -was one of most lucid spring: a warm south-west -wind bowled white clouds along the sky, and their -shadows jovially scudded over the sandhills. We -had told her of Mrs. Acres’s death, and from that -moment something dark and vague which had been -lying over her mind since the autumn seemed to join -this fleet of the shadows of clouds and leave her in -sunlight. We parted at the door of the club-house, -and she set out on her walk.</p> - -<p>Half an hour later, as my opponent and I were -waiting on the fifth tee, where the road crosses the -links, for the couple in front of us to move on, a -servant from the club-house, scudding along the road, -caught sight of us, and, jumping from his bicycle, -came to where we stood.</p> - -<p>“You’re wanted at the club-house, sir,” he said -to me. “Mrs. Carford was walking along the shore,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -and she found something left by the tide. A body, -sir. ’Twas in a sack, but the sack was torn, and -she saw—— It’s upset her very much, sir. We -thought it best to come for you.”</p> - -<p>I took the boy’s bicycle and went back to the -club-house as fast as I could turn the wheel. I felt -sure I knew what Madge had found, and, knowing -that, realised the shock.... Five minutes later she -was telling me her story in gasps and whispers.</p> - -<p>“The tide was going down,” she said, “and I -walked along the high-water mark.... There were -pretty shells; I was picking them up.... And -then I saw it in front of me—just shapeless, just a -sack ... and then, as I came nearer, it took shape; -there were knees and elbows. It moved, it rolled -over, and where the head was the sack was torn, -and I saw her face. Her eyes were open, Tony, -and I fled.... All the time I felt it was rolling -along after me. Oh, Tony! she’s dead, isn’t she? -She won’t come back to the Gate-house? Do you -promise me?... There’s something awful! I -wonder if I guess. The sea gives her up. The sea -won’t suffer her to rest in it.”...</p> - -<p>The news of the finding had already been telephoned -to Tarleton, and soon a party of four men -with a stretcher arrived. There was no doubt as -to the identity of the body, for though it had been -in the water for three days no corruption had come -to it. The weights with which at burial it had been -laden must by some strange chance have been -detached from it, and by a chance stranger yet it -had drifted to the shore closest to her home. That -night it lay in the mortuary, and the inquest was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -held on it next day, though that was a bank-holiday. -From there it was taken to the Gate-house and -coffined, and it lay in the panelled parlour for the -funeral on the morrow.</p> - -<p>Madge, after that one hysterical outburst, had -completely recovered herself, and on the Monday -evening she made a little wreath of the spring-flowers -which the early warmth had called into blossom in -the garden, and I went across with it to the Gate-house. -Though the news of Mrs. Acres’s death and -the subsequent finding of the body had been widely -advertised, there had been no response from relations -or friends, and as I laid the solitary wreath on the -coffin a sense of the utter loneliness of what lay -within seized and encompassed me. And then a -portent, no less, took place before my eyes. Hardly -had the freshly gathered flowers been laid on the -coffin than they drooped and wilted. The stalks -of the daffodils bent, and their bright chalices closed; -the odour of the wallflowers died, and they withered -as I watched.... What did it mean, that even -the petals of spring shrank and were moribund?</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I told Madge nothing of this; and she, as if through -some pang of remorse, was determined to be present -next day at the funeral. No arrival of friends or -relations had taken place, and from the Gate-house -there came none of the servants. They stood in -the porch as the coffin was brought out of the house, -and even before it was put into the hearse had gone -back again and closed the door. So, at the cemetery -on the hill above Tarleton, Madge and her brother -and I were the only mourners.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>The afternoon was densely overcast, though we -got no rainfall, and it was with thick clouds above -and a sea-mist drifting between the grave-stones that -we came, after the service in the cemetery-chapel, -to the place of interment. And then—I can hardly -write of it now—when it came for the coffin to be -lowered into the grave, it was found that by some -faulty measurement it could not descend, for the -excavation was not long enough to hold it.</p> - -<p>Madge was standing close to us, and at this moment -I heard her sob.</p> - -<p>“And the kindly earth will not receive her,” -she whispered.</p> - -<p>There was awful delay: the diggers must be sent -for again, and meantime the rain had begun to fall -thick and tepid. For some reason—perhaps some -outlying feeler of Madge’s obsession had wound a -tentacle round me—I felt that I must know that -earth had gone to earth, but I could not suffer Madge -to wait. So, in this miserable pause, I got Charles -to take her home, and then returned.</p> - -<p>Pick and shovel were busy, and soon the resting-place -was ready. The interrupted service continued, -the handful of wet earth splashed on the coffin-lid, -and when all was over I left the cemetery, still -feeling, I knew not why, that all was <i>not</i> over. Some -restlessness and want of certainty possessed me, -and instead of going home I fared forth into the rolling -wooded country inland, with the intention of walking -off these bat-like terrors that flapped around me. -The rain had ceased, and a blurred sunlight penetrated -the sea-mist which still blanketed the fields and -woods, and for half an hour, moving briskly, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -endeavoured to fight down some fantastic conviction -that had gripped my mind in its claws. I refused to -look straight at that conviction, telling myself how -fantastic, how unreasonable it was; but as often as -I put out a hand to throttle it there came the echo -of Madge’s words: “The sea will not suffer her; -the kindly earth will not receive her.” And if I -could shut my eyes to that there came some remembrance -of the day she died, and of half-forgotten -fragments of Charles’s superstitious belief in reincarnation. -The whole thing, incredible though its -component parts were, hung together with a terrible -tenacity.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Before long the rain began again, and I turned, -meaning to go by the main-road into Tarleton, -which passes in a wide-flung curve some half-mile -outside the cemetery. But as I approached the path -through the fields, which, leaving the less direct -route, passes close to the cemetery and brings you -by a steeper and shorter descent into the town, I -felt myself irresistibly impelled to take it. I told -myself, of course, that I wished to make my wet walk -as short as possible; but at the back of my mind was -the half-conscious, but none the less imperative -need to know by ocular evidence that the grave by -which I had stood that afternoon had been filled in, -and that the body of Mrs. Acres now lay tranquil -beneath the soil. My path would be even shorter -if I passed through the graveyard, and so presently -I was fumbling in the gloom for the latch of the gate, -and closed it again behind me. Rain was falling now -thick and sullenly, and in the bleared twilight I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -picked my way among the mounds and slipped on -the dripping grass, and there in front of me was the -newly turned earth. All was finished: the grave-diggers -had done their work and departed, and earth -had gone back again into the keeping of the earth.</p> - -<p>It brought me some great lightening of the spirit -to know that, and I was on the point of turning away -when a sound of stir from the heaped soil caught my -ear, and I saw a little stream of pebbles mixed with -clay trickle down the side of the mound above the -grave: the heavy rain, no doubt, had loosened the -earth. And then came another and yet another, -and with terror gripping at my heart I perceived -that this was no loosening from without, but from -within, for to right and left the piled soil was falling -away with the press of something from below. Faster -and faster it poured off the grave, and ever higher at -the head of it rose a mound of earth pushed upwards -from beneath. Somewhere out of sight there came -the sound as of creaking and breaking wood, and -then through that mound of earth there protruded -the end of the coffin. The lid was shattered: loose -pieces of the boards fell off it, and from within the -cavity there faced me white features and wide eyes. -All this I saw, while sheer terror held me motionless; -then, I suppose, came the breaking-point, and with -such panic as surely man never felt before I was -stumbling away among the graves and racing towards -the kindly human lights of the town below.</p> - -<p>I went to the parson who had conducted the -service that afternoon with my incredible tale, and -an hour later he, Charles Alington, and two or three -men from the undertaker’s were on the spot. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -found the coffin, completely disinterred, lying on -the ground by the grave, which was now three-quarters -full of the earth which had fallen back into -it. After what had happened it was decided to -make no further attempt to bury it; and next day -the body was cremated.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Now, it is open to anyone who may read this tale -to reject the incident of this emergence of the coffin -altogether, and account for the other strange happenings -by the comfortable theory of coincidence. He can -certainly satisfy himself that one Bertha Acres did die -at sea on this particular Thursday before Easter, and -was buried at sea: there is nothing extraordinary about -that. Nor is it the least impossible that the weights -should have slipped from the canvas shroud, and -that the body should have been washed ashore on -the coast by Tarleton (why not Tarleton, as well as -any other little town near the coast?); nor is there -anything inherently significant in the fact that the -grave, as originally dug, was not of sufficient dimensions -to receive the coffin. That all these incidents -should have happened to the body of a single individual -is odd, but then the nature of coincidence is -to be odd. They form a startling series, but unless -coincidences are startling they escape observation -altogether. So, if you reject the last incident here -recorded, or account for it by some local disturbance, -an earthquake, or the breaking of a spring just below -the grave, you can comfortably recline on the cushion -of coincidence....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>For myself, I give no explanation of these events,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -though my brother-in-law brought forward one with -which he himself is perfectly satisfied. Only the -other day he sent me, with considerable jubilation, -a copy of some extracts from a medival treatise -on the subject of reincarnation which sufficiently -indicates his theory. The original work was in -Latin, which, mistrusting my scholarship, he kindly -translated for me. I transcribe his quotations -exactly as he sent them to me.</p> - -<p>“We have these certain instances of his reincarnation. -In one his spirit was incarnated in the body -of a man; in the other, in that of a woman, fair of -outward aspect, and of a pleasant conversation, but -held in dread and in horror by those who came into -more than casual intercourse with her.... She, -it is said, died on the anniversary of the day on which -he hanged himself, after the betrayal, but of this -I have no certain information. What is sure is that, -when the time came for her burial, the kindly earth -would receive her not, but though the grave was -dug deep and well it spewed her forth again.... Of -the man in whom his cursed spirit was reincarnated -it is said that, being on a voyage when he died, he -was cast overboard with weights to sink him; but -the sea would not suffer him to rest in her bosom, -but slipped the weights from him, and cast him forth -again on to the coast.... Howbeit, when the full -time of his expiation shall have come and his deadly -sin forgiven, the corporal body which is the cursed -receptacle of his spirit shall at length be purged with -fire, and so he shall, in the infinite mercy of the -Almighty, have rest, and shall wander no more.”</p> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p> - - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">The Horror-Horn</h2></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph1">The Horror-Horn</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">For</span> the past ten days Alhubel had basked in the -radiant midwinter weather proper to its eminence -of over 6,000 feet. From rising to setting the sun -(so surprising to those who have hitherto associated -it with a pale, tepid plate indistinctly shining through -the murky air of England) had blazed its way across -the sparkling blue, and every night the serene and -windless frost had made the stars sparkle like -illuminated diamond dust. Sufficient snow had -fallen before Christmas to content the skiers, and -the big rink, sprinkled every evening, had given the -skaters each morning a fresh surface on which to -perform their slippery antics. Bridge and dancing -served to while away the greater part of the night, -and to me, now for the first time tasting the joys of -a winter in the Engadine, it seemed that a new -heaven and a new earth had been lighted, warmed, -and refrigerated for the special benefit of those who -like myself had been wise enough to save up their -days of holiday for the winter.</p> - -<p>But a break came in these ideal conditions: one -afternoon the sun grew vapour-veiled and up the -valley from the north-west a wind frozen with miles -of travel over ice-bound hill-sides began scouting -through the calm halls of the heavens. Soon it -grew dusted with snow, first in small flakes driven -almost horizontally before its congealing breath -and then in larger tufts as of swansdown. And -though all day for a fortnight before the fate of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -nations and life and death had seemed to me of far less -importance than to get certain tracings of the skate-blades -on the ice of proper shape and size, it now -seemed that the one paramount consideration was -to hurry back to the hotel for shelter: it was wiser -to leave rocking-turns alone than to be frozen in -their quest.</p> - -<p>I had come out here with my cousin, Professor -Ingram, the celebrated physiologist and Alpine -climber. During the serenity of the last fortnight -he had made a couple of notable winter ascents, but -this morning his weather-wisdom had mistrusted the -signs of the heavens, and instead of attempting the -ascent of the Piz Passug he had waited to see whether -his misgivings justified themselves. So there he -sat now in the hall of the admirable hotel with his -feet on the hot-water pipes and the latest delivery -of the English post in his hands. This contained a -pamphlet concerning the result of the Mount Everest -expedition, of which he had just finished the perusal -when I entered.</p> - -<p>“A very interesting report,” he said, passing it -to me, “and they certainly deserve to succeed next -year. But who can tell, what that final six thousand -feet may entail? Six thousand feet more when you -have already accomplished twenty-three thousand -does not seem much, but at present no one knows -whether the human frame can stand exertion at -such a height. It may affect not the lungs and heart -only, but possibly the brain. Delirious hallucinations -may occur. In fact, if I did not know better, I -should have said that one such hallucination had -occurred to the climbers already.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>“And what was that?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“You will find that they thought they came -across the tracks of some naked human foot at a -great altitude. That looks at first sight like an -hallucination. What more natural than that a -brain excited and exhilarated by the extreme height -should have interpreted certain marks in the snow -as the footprints of a human being? Every bodily -organ at these altitudes is exerting itself to the -utmost to do its work, and the brain seizes on those -marks in the snow and says ‘Yes, I’m all right, I’m -doing my job, and I perceive marks in the snow -which I affirm are human footprints.’ You know, -even at this altitude, how restless and eager the -brain is, how vividly, as you told me, you dream at -night. Multiply that stimulus and that consequent -eagerness and restlessness by three, and how natural -that the brain should harbour illusions! What after -all is the delirium which often accompanies high -fever but the effort of the brain to do its work under -the pressure of feverish conditions? It is so eager -to continue perceiving that it perceives things which -have no existence!”</p> - -<p>“And yet you don’t think that these naked human -footprints were illusions,” said I. “You told me you -would have thought so, if you had not known better.”</p> - -<p>He shifted in his chair and looked out of the window -a moment. The air was thick now with the density -of the big snow-flakes that were driven along by the -squealing north-west gale.</p> - -<p>“Quite so,” he said. “In all probability the -human footprints were real human footprints. I -expect that they were the footprints, anyhow, of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -being more nearly a man than anything else. My -reason for saying so is that I know such beings exist. -I have even seen quite near at hand—and I assure -you I did not wish to be nearer in spite of my intense -curiosity—the creature, shall we say, which would -make such footprints. And if the snow was not so -dense, I could show you the place where I saw him.”</p> - -<p>He pointed straight out of the window, where across -the valley lies the huge tower of the Ungeheuerhorn -with the carved pinnacle of rock at the top like some -gigantic rhinoceros-horn. On one side only, as I -knew, was the mountain practicable, and that for -none but the finest climbers; on the other three a -succession of ledges and precipices rendered it unscalable. -Two thousand feet of sheer rock form the -tower; below are five hundred feet of fallen boulders, -up to the edge of which grow dense woods of larch -and pine.</p> - -<p>“Upon the Ungeheuerhorn?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes. Up till twenty years ago it had never been -ascended, and I, like several others, spent a lot of -time in trying to find a route up it. My guide and I -sometimes spent three nights together at the hut -beside the Blumen glacier, prowling round it, and -it was by luck really that we found the route, for -the mountain looks even more impracticable from -the far side than it does from this. But one day -we found a long, transverse fissure in the side which -led to a negotiable ledge; then there came a slanting -ice couloir which you could not see till you got to -the foot of it. However, I need not go into that.”</p> - -<p>The big room where we sat was filling up with -cheerful groups driven indoors by this sudden gale<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -and snowfall, and the cackle of merry tongues grew -loud. The band, too, that invariable appanage of -tea-time at Swiss resorts, had begun to tune up for -the usual potpourri from the works of Puccini. Next -moment the sugary, sentimental melodies began.</p> - -<p>“Strange contrast!” said Ingram. “Here are -we sitting warm and cosy, our ears pleasantly tickled -with these little baby tunes and outside is the great -storm growing more violent every moment, and -swirling round the austere cliffs of the Ungeheuerhorn: -the Horror-Horn, as indeed it was to me.”</p> - -<p>“I want to hear all about it,” I said. “Every -detail: make a short story long, if it’s short. I -want to know why it’s <i>your</i> Horror-horn?”</p> - -<p>“Well, Chanton and I (he was my guide) used to -spend days prowling about the cliffs, making a little -progress on one side and then being stopped, and -gaining perhaps five hundred feet on another side -and then being confronted by some insuperable -obstacle, till the day when by luck we found the -route. Chanton never liked the job, for some reason -that I could not fathom. It was not because of the -difficulty or danger of the climbing, for he was the -most fearless man I have ever met when dealing -with rocks and ice, but he was always insistent that -we should get off the mountain and back to the -Blumen hut before sunset. He was scarcely easy -even when we had got back to shelter and locked -and barred the door, and I well remember one night -when, as we ate our supper, we heard some animal, -a wolf probably, howling somewhere out in the -night. A positive panic seized him, and I don’t -think he closed his eyes till morning. It struck me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -then that there might be some grisly legend about -the mountain, connected possibly with its name, -and next day I asked him why the peak was called -the Horror-horn. He put the question off at first, -and said that, like the Schreckhorn, its name was -due to its precipices and falling stones; but when I -pressed him further he acknowledged that there was -a legend about it, which his father had told him. -There were creatures, so it was supposed, that lived -in its caves, things human in shape, and covered, -except for the face and hands, with long black hair. -They were dwarfs in size, four feet high or thereabouts, -but of prodigious strength and agility, remnants of -some wild primeval race. It seemed that they were -still in an upward stage of evolution, or so I guessed, -for the story ran that sometimes girls had been carried -off by them, not as prey, and not for any such fate -as for those captured by cannibals, but to be bred -from. Young men also had been raped by them, -to be mated with the females of their tribe. All this -looked as if the creatures, as I said, were tending -towards humanity. But naturally I did not believe -a word of it, as applied to the conditions of the present -day. Centuries ago, conceivably, there may have -been such beings, and, with the extraordinary tenacity -of tradition, the news of this had been handed down -and was still current round the hearths of the peasants. -As for their numbers, Chanton told me that three -had been once seen together by a man who owing -to his swiftness on skis had escaped to tell the tale. -This man, he averred, was no other than his grandfather, -who had been benighted one winter evening -as he passed through the dense woods below the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -Ungeheuerhorn, and Chanton supposed that they -had been driven down to these lower altitudes in -search of food during severe winter weather, for -otherwise the recorded sights of them had always -taken place among the rocks of the peak itself. They -had pursued his grandfather, then a young man, at -an extraordinarily swift canter, running sometimes -upright as men run, sometimes on all-fours in the -manner of beasts, and their howls were just such as -that we had heard that night in the Blumen hut. -Such at any rate was the story Chanton told me, and, -like you, I regarded it as the very moonshine of -superstition. But the very next day I had reason -to reconsider my judgment about it.</p> - -<p>“It was on that day that after a week of exploration -we hit on the only route at present known to the top -of our peak. We started as soon as there was light -enough to climb by, for, as you may guess, on very -difficult rocks it is impossible to climb by lantern -or moonlight. We hit on the long fissure I have -spoken of, we explored the ledge which from below -seemed to end in nothingness, and with an hour’s -step-cutting ascended the couloir which led upwards -from it. From there onwards it was a rock-climb, -certainly of considerable difficulty, but with no -heart-breaking discoveries ahead, and it was about -nine in the morning that we stood on the top. We did -not wait there long, for that side of the mountain -is raked by falling stones loosened, when the sun -grows hot, from the ice that holds them, and we made -haste to pass the ledge where the falls are most -frequent. After that there was the long fissure to -descend, a matter of no great difficulty, and we were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -at the end of our work by midday, both of us, as you -may imagine, in the state of the highest elation.</p> - -<p>“A long and tiresome scramble among the huge -boulders at the foot of the cliff then lay before us. -Here the hill-side is very porous and great caves -extend far into the mountain. We had unroped -at the base of the fissure, and were picking our way as -seemed good to either of us among these fallen rocks, -many of them bigger than an ordinary house, when, on -coming round the corner of one of these, I saw that -which made it clear that the stories Chanton had -told me were no figment of traditional superstition.</p> - -<p>“Not twenty yards in front of me lay one of the -beings of which he had spoken. There it sprawled -naked and basking on its back with face turned up -to the sun, which its narrow eyes regarded unwinking. -In form it was completely human, but the growth -of hair that covered limbs and trunk alike almost -completely hid the sun-tanned skin beneath. But -its face, save for the down on its cheeks and chin, -was hairless, and I looked on a countenance the -sensual and malevolent bestiality of which froze me -with horror. Had the creature been an animal, -one would have felt scarcely a shudder at the gross -animalism of it; the horror lay in the fact that it -was a man. There lay by it a couple of gnawed -bones, and, its meal finished, it was lazily licking -its protuberant lips, from which came a purring -murmur of content. With one hand it scratched -the thick hair on its belly, in the other it held one -of these bones, which presently split in half beneath -the pressure of its finger and thumb. But my horror -was not based on the information of what happened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> -to those men whom these creatures caught, it was -due only to my proximity to a thing so human and -so infernal. The peak, of which the ascent had a -moment ago filled us with such elated satisfaction, -became to me an Ungeheuerhorn indeed, for it was -the home of beings more awful than the delirium of -nightmare could ever have conceived.</p> - -<p>“Chanton was a dozen paces behind me, and with -a backward wave of my hand I caused him to halt. -Then withdrawing myself with infinite precaution, -so as not to attract the gaze of that basking creature, -I slipped back round the rock, whispered to him -what I had seen, and with blanched faces we made a -long detour, peering round every corner, and crouching -low, not knowing that at any step we might not come -upon another of these beings, or that from the mouth -of one of these caves in the mountain-side there -might not appear another of those hairless and -dreadful faces, with perhaps this time the breasts -and insignia of womanhood. That would have been -the worst of all.</p> - -<p>“Luck favoured us, for we made our way among -the boulders and shifting stones, the rattle of which -might at any moment have betrayed us, without a -repetition of my experience, and once among the -trees we ran as if the Furies themselves were in -pursuit. Well now did I understand, though I dare say -I cannot convey, the qualms of Chanton’s mind when -he spoke to me of these creatures. Their very humanity -was what made them so terrible, the fact that they -were of the same race as ourselves, but of a type so -abysmally degraded that the most brutal and inhuman -of men would have seemed angelic in comparison.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>The music of the small band was over before he had -finished the narrative, and the chattering groups round -the tea-table had dispersed. He paused a moment.</p> - -<p>“There was a horror of the spirit,” he said, “which -I experienced then, from which, I verily believe, I -have never entirely recovered. I saw then how -terrible a living thing could be, and how terrible, -in consequence, was life itself. In us all I suppose -lurks some inherited germ of that ineffable bestiality, -and who knows whether, sterile as it has apparently -become in the course of centuries, it might not -fructify again. When I saw that creature sun itself, -I looked into the abyss out of which we have crawled. -And these creatures are trying to crawl out of it -now, if they exist any longer. Certainly for the last -twenty years there has been no record of their being -seen, until we come to this story of the footprint -seen by the climbers on Everest. If that is authentic, -if the party did not mistake the footprint of some bear, -or what not, for a human tread, it seems as if still -this bestranded remnant of mankind is in existence.”</p> - -<p>Now, Ingram, had told his story well; but sitting -in this warm and civilised room, the horror which -he had clearly felt had not communicated itself to -me in any very vivid manner. Intellectually, I -agreed, I could appreciate his horror, but certainly -my spirit felt no shudder of interior comprehension.</p> - -<p>“But it is odd,” I said, “that your keen interest -in physiology did not disperse your qualms. You -were looking, so I take it, at some form of man more -remote probably than the earliest human remains. -Did not something inside you say ‘This is of absorbing -significance’?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>He shook his head.</p> - -<p>“No: I only wanted to get away,” said he. -“It was not, as I have told you, the terror of what -according to Chanton’s story, might await us if we -were captured; it was sheer horror at the creature -itself. I quaked at it.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The snowstorm and the gale increased in violence -that night, and I slept uneasily, plucked again and -again from slumber by the fierce battling of the wind -that shook my windows as if with an imperious -demand for admittance. It came in billowy gusts, -with strange noises intermingled with it as for a -moment it abated, with flutings and moanings that -rose to shrieks as the fury of it returned. These -noises, no doubt, mingled themselves with my -drowsed and sleepy consciousness, and once I tore -myself out of nightmare, imagining that the creatures -of the Horror-horn had gained footing on my balcony -and were rattling at the window-bolts. But before -morning the gale had died away, and I awoke to see -the snow falling dense and fast in a windless air. -For three days it continued, without intermission, -and with its cessation there came a frost such as I -have never felt before. Fifty degrees were registered -one night, and more the next, and what the cold -must have been on the cliffs of the Ungeheuerhorn -I cannot imagine. Sufficient, so I thought, to have -made an end altogether of its secret inhabitants: -my cousin, on that day twenty years ago, had missed -an opportunity for study which would probably -never fall again either to him or another.</p> - - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>I received one morning a letter from a friend -saying that he had arrived at the neighbouring -winter resort of St. Luigi, and proposing that I -should come over for a morning’s skating and lunch -afterwards. The place was not more than a couple -of miles off, if one took the path over the low, pine-clad -foot-hills above which lay the steep woods -below the first rocky slopes of the Ungeheuerhorn; -and accordingly, with a knapsack containing skates -on my back, I went on skis over the wooded slopes -and down by an easy descent again on to St. Luigi. -The day was overcast, clouds entirely obscured the -higher peaks though the sun was visible, pale and -unluminous, through the mists. But as the morning -went on, it gained the upper hand, and I slid down -into St. Luigi beneath a sparkling firmament. We -skated and lunched, and then, since it looked as if -thick weather was coming up again, I set out early -about three o’clock for my return journey.</p> - -<p>Hardly had I got into the woods when the clouds -gathered thick above, and streamers and skeins of -them began to descend among the pines through -which my path threaded its way. In ten minutes -more their opacity had so increased that I could -hardly see a couple of yards in front of me. Very -soon I became aware that I must have got off the -path, for snow-cowled shrubs lay directly in my way, -and, casting back to find it again, I got altogether -confused as to direction. But, though progress was -difficult, I knew I had only to keep on the ascent, -and presently I should come to the brow of these -low foot-hills, and descend into the open valley -where Alhubel stood. So on I went, stumbling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -and sliding over obstacles, and unable, owing to the -thickness of the snow, to take off my skis, for I -should have sunk over the knees at each step. Still -the ascent continued, and looking at my watch I -saw that I had already been near an hour on my way -from St. Luigi, a period more than sufficient to -complete my whole journey. But still I stuck to -my idea that though I had certainly strayed far -from my proper route a few minutes more must -surely see me over the top of the upward way, and -I should find the ground declining into the next -valley. About now, too, I noticed that the mists were -growing suffused with rose-colour, and, though the inference -was that it must be close on sunset, there was -consolation in the fact that they were there and might -lift at any moment and disclose to me my whereabouts. -But the fact that night would soon be on me made it -needful to bar my mind against that despair of -loneliness which so eats out the heart of a man who -is lost in woods or on mountain-side, that, though -still there is plenty of vigour in his limbs, his nervous -force is sapped, and he can do no more than lie down -and abandon himself to whatever fate may await -him.... And then I heard that which made the -thought of loneliness seem bliss indeed, for there -was a worse fate than loneliness. What I heard -resembled the howl of a wolf, and it came from not -far in front of me where the ridge—was it a ridge?—still -rose higher in vestment of pines.</p> - -<p>From behind me came a sudden puff of wind, -which shook the frozen snow from the drooping -pine-branches, and swept away the mists as a broom -sweeps the dust from the floor. Radiant above<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -me were the unclouded skies, already charged with -the red of the sunset, and in front I saw that I had -come to the very edge of the wood through which I -had wandered so long. But it was no valley into -which I had penetrated, for there right ahead of me -rose the steep slope of boulders and rocks soaring -upwards to the foot of the Ungeheuerhorn. What, -then, was that cry of a wolf which had made my heart -stand still? I saw.</p> - -<p>Not twenty yards from me was a fallen tree, and -leaning against the trunk of it was one of the denizens -of the Horror-Horn, and it was a woman. She was -enveloped in a thick growth of hair grey and tufted, -and from her head it streamed down over her shoulders -and her bosom, from which hung withered and -pendulous breasts. And looking on her face I comprehended -not with my mind alone, but with a -shudder of my spirit, what Ingram had felt. Never -had nightmare fashioned so terrible a countenance; -the beauty of sun and stars and of the beasts of the -field and the kindly race of men could not atone for -so hellish an incarnation of the spirit of life. A -fathomless bestiality modelled the slavering mouth -and the narrow eyes; I looked into the abyss itself -and knew that out of that abyss on the edge of which -I leaned the generations of men had climbed. What -if that ledge crumbled in front of me and pitched me -headlong into its nethermost depths?...</p> - -<p>In one hand she held by the horns a chamois -that kicked and struggled. A blow from its hindleg -caught her withered thigh, and with a grunt of anger -she seized the leg in her other hand, and, as a man -may pull from its sheath a stem of meadow-grass,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -she plucked it off the body, leaving the torn skin -hanging round the gaping wound. Then putting -the red, bleeding member to her mouth she sucked -at it as a child sucks a stick of sweetmeat. Through -flesh and gristle her short, brown teeth penetrated, -and she licked her lips with a sound of purring. -Then dropping the leg by her side, she looked again -at the body of the prey now quivering in its death-convulsion, -and with finger and thumb gouged -out one of its eyes. She snapped her teeth on it, -and it cracked like a soft-shelled nut.</p> - -<p>It must have been but a few seconds that I stood -watching her, in some indescribable catalepsy of -terror, while through my brain there pealed the panic-command -of my mind to my stricken limbs “Begone, -begone, while there is time.” Then, recovering -the power of my joints and muscles, I tried to slip -behind a tree and hide myself from this apparition. -But the woman—shall I say?—must have caught -my stir of movement, for she raised her eyes from -her living feast and saw me. She craned forward -her neck, she dropped her prey, and half rising began -to move towards me. As she did this, she opened -her mouth, and gave forth a howl such as I had -heard a moment before. It was answered by -another, but faintly and distantly.</p> - -<p>Sliding and slipping, with the toes of my skis -tripping in the obstacles below the snow, I plunged -forward down the hill between the pine-trunks. -The low sun already sinking behind some rampart -of mountain in the west reddened the snow and the -pines with its ultimate rays. My knapsack with the -skates in it swung to and fro on my back, one ski-stick<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -had already been twitched out of my hand by a fallen -branch of pine, but not a second’s pause could I -allow myself to recover it. I gave no glance behind, -and I knew not at what pace my pursuer was on -my track, or indeed whether any pursued at all, -for my whole mind and energy, now working at full -power again under the stress of my panic, was devoted -to getting away down the hill and out of the wood -as swiftly as my limbs could bear me. For a little -while I heard nothing but the hissing snow of my -headlong passage, and the rustle of the covered -undergrowth beneath my feet, and then, from close -at hand behind me, once more the wolf-howl sounded -and I heard the plunging of footsteps other than -my own.</p> - -<p>The strap of my knapsack had shifted, and as my -skates swung to and fro on my back it chafed and -pressed on my throat, hindering free passage of air, -of which, God knew, my labouring lungs were in -dire need, and without pausing I slipped it free from -my neck, and held it in the hand from which my -ski-stick had been jerked. I seemed to go a little -more easily for this adjustment, and now, not so far -distant, I could see below me the path from which -I had strayed. If only I could reach that, the -smoother going would surely enable me to out-distance -my pursuer, who even on the rougher ground -was but slowly overhauling me, and at the sight of -that riband stretching unimpeded downhill, a ray -of hope pierced the black panic of my soul. With -that came the desire, keen and insistent, to see who -or what it was that was on my tracks, and I spared -a backward glance. It was she, the hag whom I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -had seen at her gruesome meal; her long grey hair -flew out behind her, her mouth chattered and gibbered, -her fingers made grabbing movements, as if already -they closed on me.</p> - -<p>But the path was now at hand, and the nearness -of it I suppose made me incautious. A hump of -snow-covered bush lay in my path, and, thinking I -could jump over it, I tripped and fell, smothering -myself in snow. I heard a maniac noise, half scream, -half laugh, from close behind, and before I could -recover myself the grabbing fingers were at my neck, -as if a steel vice had closed there. But my right -hand in which I held my knapsack of skates was -free, and with a blind back-handed movement I -whirled it behind me at the full length of its strap, -and knew that my desperate blow had found its -billet somewhere. Even before I could look round -I felt the grip on my neck relax, and something -subsided into the very bush which had entangled me. -I recovered my feet and turned.</p> - -<p>There she lay, twitching and quivering. The heel of -one of my skates piercing the thin alpaca of the knapsack -had hit her full on the temple, from which the -blood was pouring, but a hundred yards away I could -see another such figure coming downwards on my -tracks, leaping and bounding. At that panic rose again -within me, and I sped off down the white smooth -path that led to the lights of the village already -beckoning. Never once did I pause in my headlong -going: there was no safety until I was back among -the haunts of men. I flung myself against the door -of the hotel, and screamed for admittance, though -I had but to turn the handle and enter; and once<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -more as when Ingram had told his tale, there was the -sound of the band, and the chatter of voices, and -there, too, was he himself, who looked up and then -rose swiftly to his feet as I made my clattering -entrance.</p> - -<p>“I have seen them too,” I cried. “Look at my -knapsack. Is there not blood on it? It is the blood -of one of them, a woman, a hag, who tore off the -leg of a chamois as I looked, and pursued me through -the accursed wood. I——”</p> - -<p>Whether it was I who spun round, or the room -which seemed to spin round me, I knew not, but I -heard myself falling, collapsed on the floor, and the -next time that I was conscious at all I was in bed. -There was Ingram there, who told me that I was -quite safe, and another man, a stranger, who pricked -my arm with the nozzle of a syringe, and reassured -me....</p> - -<p>A day or two later I gave a coherent account of -my adventure, and three or four men, armed with -guns, went over my traces. They found the bush -in which I had stumbled, with a pool of blood which -had soaked into the snow, and, still following my -ski-tracks, they came on the body of a chamois, -from which had been torn one of its hindlegs and -one eye-socket was empty. That is all the corroboration -of my story that I can give the reader, and -for myself I imagine that the creature which pursued -me was either not killed by my blow or that her -fellows removed her body.... Anyhow, it is open -to the incredulous to prowl about the caves of the -Ungeheuerhorn, and see if anything occurs that may -convince them.</p> - - - - - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">Machaon</h2></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph1">Machaon</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">I was</span> returning at the close of the short winter day -from my visit to St. James’s Hospital, where my old -servant Parkes, who had been in my service for -twenty years, was lying. I had sent him there three -days before, not for treatment, but for observation, -and this afternoon I had gone up to London, to hear -the doctor’s report on the case. He told me that -Parkes was suffering from an internal tumour, the -nature of which could not be diagnosed for certain, -but all the symptoms pointed directly to its being -cancerous. That, however, must not be regarded -as proved; it could only be proved by an exploratory -operation to reveal the nature and the extent of the -growth, which must then, if possible, be excised. -It might involve, so my old friend Godfrey Symes -told me, certain tissues and would be found to be -inoperable, but he hoped this would not be the case, -and that it would be possible to remove it: removal -gave the only chance of recovery. It was fortunate -that the patient had been sent for examination in -an early stage, for thus the chances of success were -much greater than if the growth had been one of -long standing. Parkes was not, however, in a fit -state to stand the operation at once; a recuperative -week or ten days in bed was advisable. In these -circumstances Symes recommended that he should -not be told at once what lay in front of him.</p> - -<p>“I can see that he is a nervous fellow,” he said, -“and to lie in bed thinking of what he has got to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -face will probably undo all the good that lying in -bed will bring to him. You don’t get used to the -idea of being cut open; the more you think about -it, the more intolerable it becomes. If that sort of -adventure faced me, I should infinitely prefer not -to be told about it until they came to give me the -ansthetic. Naturally, he will have to consent to -the operation, but I shouldn’t tell him anything -about it till the day before. He’s not married, I -think, is he?”</p> - -<p>“No: he’s alone in the world,” said I. “He’s -been with me twenty years.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I remember Parkes almost as long as I -remember you. But that’s all I can recommend. -Of course, if the pain became severe, it might be better -to operate sooner, but at present he suffers hardly -at all, and he sleeps well, so the nurse tells me.”</p> - -<p>“And there’s nothing else that you can try for -it?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“I’ll try anything you like, but it will be perfectly -useless. I’ll let him have any quack nostrum you -and he wish, as long as it doesn’t injure his health, -or make you put off the operation. There are X-rays -and ultra-violet rays, and violet leaves and radium; -there are fresh cures for cancer discovered every day, -and what’s the result? They only make people -put off the operation till it’s no longer possible to -operate. Naturally, I will welcome any further -opinion you want.”</p> - -<p>Now Godfrey Symes is easily the first authority -on this subject, and has a far higher percentage of -cures to his credit than anyone else.</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t want any fresh opinion,” said I.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>“Very well, I’ll have him carefully watched. By -the way, can’t you stop in town and dine with me? -There are one or two people coming, and among -them a perfectly mad spiritualist who has more -messages from the other world than I ever get on -my telephone. Trunk-calls, eh? I wonder where -the exchange is. Do come! You like cranks, -I know!”</p> - -<p>“I can’t, I’m afraid,” said I. “I’ve a couple of -guests coming to stay with me to-day down in the -country. They are both cranks: one’s a medium.”</p> - -<p>He laughed.</p> - -<p>“Well, I can only offer you one crank, and you’ve -got two,” he said. “I must get back to the wards. -I’ll write to you in about a week’s time or so, unless -there’s any urgency which I don’t foresee, and I -should suggest your coming up to tell Parkes. -Good-bye.”</p> - -<p>I caught my train at Charing Cross with about -three seconds to spare, and we slid clanking out over -the bridge through the cold, dense air. Snow had -been falling intermittently since morning, and when -we got out of the grime and fog of London, it was -lying thickly on field and hedgerow, retarding by -its reflection of such light as lingered the oncoming -of darkness, and giving to the landscape an aloof -and lonely austerity. All day I had felt that drowsiness -which accompanies snowfall, and sometimes, -half losing myself in a doze, my mind crept, like a -thing crawling about in the dark, over what Godfrey -Symes had told me. For all these years Parkes, -as much friend as servant, had given me his faithfulness -and devotion, and now, in return for that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -all that apparently I could do was to tell him of his -plight. It was clear, from what the surgeon had said, -that he expected a serious disclosure, and I knew -from the experience of two friends of mine who had -been in his condition what might be expected of this -“exploratory operation.” Exactly similar had been -these cases; there was clear evidence of an internal -growth possibly not malignant, and in each case the -same dismal sequence had followed. The growth -had been removed, and within a couple of months -there had been a recrudescence of it. Indeed, -surgery had proved no more than a pruning-knife, -which had stimulated that which the surgeon had -hoped to extirpate into swifter activity. And that -apparently was the best chance that Symes held out: -the rest of the treatments were but rubbish or -quackery....</p> - -<p>My mind crawled away towards another subject: -probably the two visitors whom I expected, Charles -Hope and the medium whom he was bringing with -him, were in the same train as I, and I ran over in -my mind all that he had told me of Mrs. Forrest. -It was certainly an odd story he had brought me two -days before. Mrs. Forrest was a medium of considerable -reputation in psychical circles, and had -produced some very extraordinary book-tests which, -by all accounts, seemed inexplicable, except on a -spiritualistic hypothesis, and no imputation of trickery -had, at any rate as yet, come near her. When in -trance, she spoke and wrote, as is invariably the case -with mediums, under the direction of a certain -“control”—that is to say, a spiritual and discarnate -intelligence which for the time was in possession of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -her. But lately there had been signs that a fresh -control had inspired her, the nature of whom, his -name, and his identity was at present unknown. -And then came the following queer incident.</p> - -<p>Last week only when in trance, and apparently -under the direction of this new control, she began -describing in considerable detail a certain house -where the control said that he had work to do. At -first the description aroused no association in Charles -Hope’s mind, but as it went on, it suddenly struck -him that Mrs. Forrest was speaking of my house in -Tilling. She gave its general features, its position -in a small town on a hill, its walled-in garden, and -then went on to speak with great minuteness of a -rather peculiar feature in the house. She described -a big room built out in the garden a few yards away -from the house itself at right-angles to its front, -and approached by half a dozen stone steps. There -was a railing, so she said, on each side of them, and -into the railing were twisted, like snake coils, the -stems of a tree which bore pale mauve flowers. This -was all a correct description of my garden room -and the wistaria which writhes in and out of the -railings which line the steps. She then went on to -speak of the interior of the room. At one end was a -fireplace, at the other a big bow-window looking -out on to the street and the front of the house, and -there were two other windows opposite each other, -in one of which was a table, while the other, looking -out on to the garden, was shadowed by the tree that -twisted itself about the railings. Book-cases lined -the walls, and there was a big sofa at right-angles to -the fire....</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>Now all this, though it was a perfectly accurate -description of a place that, as far as could be ascertained, -Mrs. Forrest had never seen, might conceivably -have been derived from Charles Hope’s mind, since he -knew the room well, having often stayed with me. -But the medium added a detail which could not -conceivably have been thus derived, for Charles -believed it to be incorrect. She said that there was -a big piano near the bow-window, while he was sure -that there was not. But oddly enough I had hired -a piano only a week or so ago, and it stood in the -place that she mentioned. The “control” then -repeated that there was work for him to do in that -house. There was some situation or complication -there in which he could help, and he could “get -through” better (that is, make a clearer communication) -if the medium could hold a sance there. Charles -Hope then told the control that he believed he knew -the house that he had been speaking of, and promised -to do his best. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Forrest came -out of trance, and, as usual, had no recollection of -what had passed.</p> - -<p>So Charles came to me with the story exactly as -I have given it here, and though I could not think -of any situation or complication in which an unknown -control of a medium I had never seen could be of -assistance, the whole thing (and in especial that -detail about the piano) was so odd that I asked him -to bring the medium down for a sitting or a series -of sittings. The day of their arrival was arranged, -but when three days ago Parkes had to go into -hospital, I was inclined to put them off. But a -neighbour away for a week obligingly lent me a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> -parlour-maid, and I let the engagement stand. With -regard to the situation in which the control would -be of assistance, I can but assure the reader that -as far as I thought about it at all, I only wondered -whether it was concerned with a book on which I -was engaged, which dealt (if I could ever succeed -in writing it) with psychical affairs. But at present -I could not get on with it at all. I had made half -a dozen beginnings which had all gone into the -waste-paper basket.</p> - -<p>My guests proved not to have come by the same -train as I, but arrived shortly before dinner-time, -and after Mrs. Forrest had gone to her room, I had -a few words with Charles, who told me exactly how -the situation now stood.</p> - -<p>“I know your caution and your captiousness in -these affairs,” he said, “so I have told Mrs. Forrest -nothing about the description she gave of this house, -or of the reason why I asked her to come here. I -said only, as we settled, that you were a great friend -of mine and immensely interested in psychical -affairs, but a country-mouse whom it was difficult -to get up to town. But you would be delighted -if she would come down for a few days and give some -sittings here.”</p> - -<p>“And does she recognise the house, do you think?” -I asked.</p> - -<p>“No sign of it. As I told you, when she comes out -of trance she never seems to have the faintest recollection -of what she has said or written. We shall have -a sance, I hope, to-night after dinner.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, if she will,” said I. “I thought we -had better hold it in the garden-room, for that was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -the place that was so minutely described. It’s quite -warm there, central-heating and a fire, and it’s only -half a dozen yards from the house. I’ve had the -snow swept from the steps.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Forrest turned out to be a very intelligent -woman, well spiced with humour, gifted with a sane -appreciation of the comforts of life, and most agreeably -furnished with the small change of talk. She -was inclined to be stout, but carried herself with -briskness, and neither in body nor mind did she -suggest that she was one who held communication -with the unseen: there was nothing wan or occult -about her. Her general outlook on life appeared to -be rather materialistic than otherwise, and she was -very interesting on the topic when, about half-way -through dinner, the subject of her mediumship came -on the conversational board.</p> - -<p>“My gifts, such as they are,” she said, “have -nothing to do with this person who sits eating and -drinking and talking to you. She, as Mr. Hope may -have told you, is quite expunged before the subconscious -part of me—that is the latest notion, is it not?—gets -into touch with discarnate intelligences. Until -that happens, the door is shut, and when it is over, -the door is shut again, and I have no recollection of -what I have said or written. The control uses my -hand and my voice, but that is all. I know no -more about it than a piano on which a tune has been -played.”</p> - -<p>“And there is a new control who has lately been -using you?” I asked.</p> - -<p>She laughed.</p> - -<p>“You must ask Mr. Hope about that,” she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -“I know nothing whatever of it. He tells me it -is so, and he tells me—don’t you, Mr. Hope?—that -he hasn’t any idea who or what the new control is. -I look forward to its development; my idea is that -the control has to get used to me, as in learning a -new instrument. I assure you I am as eager as anyone -that he should gain facility in communication -through me. I hope, indeed, that we are to have -a sance to-night.”</p> - -<p>The talk veered again, and I learned that Mrs. -Forrest had never been in Tilling before, and was -enchanted with the snowy moonlit glance she had -had of its narrow streets and ancient residences. -She liked, too, the atmosphere of the house: it -seemed tranquil and kindly; especially so was the -little drawing-room where we had assembled before -dinner.</p> - -<p>I glanced at Charles.</p> - -<p>“I had thought of proposing that we should sit -in the garden-room,” I said, “if you don’t mind -half a dozen steps in the open. It adjoins the house.”</p> - -<p>“Just as you wish,” she said, “though I think -we have excellent conditions in here without going -there.”</p> - -<p>This confirmed her statement that she had no -idea after she had come out of trance what she had -said, for otherwise she must have recognised at the -mention of the garden-room her own description of -it, and when soon after dinner we adjourned there, -it was clear that, unless she was acting an inexplicable -part, the sight of it twanged no chord of memory. -There we made the very simple arrangements to -which she was accustomed.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>As the procedure in such sittings is possibly unfamiliar -to the reader, I will describe quite shortly -what our arrangements were. We had no idea what -form these manifestations—if there were any—might -take, and therefore we, Charles and I, were prepared -to record them on the spot. We three sat round a -small table about a couple of yards from the fire, -which was burning brightly; Mrs. Forrest seated -herself in a big armchair. Exactly in front of her -on the table were a pencil and a block of paper in -case, as often happened, the manifestation took the -form of automatic script—writing, that is, while in -a state of trance. Charles and I sat on each side -of her, also provided with pencil and paper in order -to take down what she said if and when (as lawyers -say) the control took possession of her. In case -materialised spirits appeared, a phenomenon not as -yet seen at her sances, our idea was to jot down as -quickly as possible whatever we saw or thought we -saw. Should there be rappings or movements of -furniture, we were to make similar notes of our -impressions. The lamp was then turned down, so -that just a ring of flame encircled the wick, but the -firelight was of sufficient brightness, as we tested -before the sance began, to enable us to write and -to see what we had written. The red glow of it -illuminated the room, and it was settled that Charles -should note by his watch the time at which anything -occurred. Occasionally, throughout the sance a -bubble of coal-gas caught fire, and then the whole -room started into strong light. I had given orders -that my servants should not interrupt the sitting -at all, unless somebody rang the bell from the garden-room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -In that case it was to be answered. Finally, -before the sance began, we bolted all the windows -on the inside and locked the door. We took no -other precautions against trickery, though, as a matter -of fact, Mrs. Forrest suggested that she should be -tied into her chair. But in the firelight any movement -of hers would be so visible that we did not -adopt this precaution. Charles and I had settled -to read to each other the notes we made during the -sitting, and cut out anything that both of us had -not recorded. The accounts, therefore, of this -sitting and of that which followed next day are -founded on our joint evidence. The sitting began.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Forrest was leaning back at ease with her -eyes open and her hands on the arms of her chair. -Then her eyes closed and a violent trembling seized -her. That passed, and shortly afterwards her head -fell forward and her breathing became very rapid. -Presently that quieted to normal pace again, and she -began to speak at first in a scarcely audible whisper -and then in a high shrill voice, quite unlike her usual -tones.</p> - -<p>I do not think that in all England there was a -more disappointed man than I during the next -half-hour. “Starlight,” it appeared, was in control, -and Starlight was a personage of platitudes. She -had been a nun in the time of Henry VII, and her -work was to help those who had lately passed over. -She was very busy and very happy, and was in the -third sphere where they had a great deal of beautiful -music. We must all be good, said Starlight, and -it didn’t matter much whether we were clever or -not. Love was the great thing; we had to love<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -each other and help each other, and death was no -more than the gate of life, and everything would be -tremendously jolly.... Starlight, in fact, might -be better described as clap-trap, and I began thinking -about Parkes....</p> - -<p>And then I ceased to think about Parkes, for the -shrill moralities of Starlight ceased, and Mrs. Forrest’s -voice changed again. The stale facility of her -utterance stopped and she began to speak, quite -unintelligibly, in a voice of low baritone range. -Charles leaned across the table and whispered to me.</p> - -<p>“That’s the new control,” he said.</p> - -<p>The voice that was speaking stumbled and hesitated: -it was like that of a man trying to express -himself in some language which he knew very -imperfectly. Sometimes it stopped altogether, and -in one of these pauses I asked:</p> - -<p>“Can you tell us your name?”</p> - -<p>There was no reply, but presently I saw Mrs. -Forrest’s hand reach out for the pencil. Charles -put it into her fingers and placed the writing-pad -more handily for her. I watched the letters, in -capitals, being traced. They were made hesitatingly, -but were perfectly legible. “Swallow,” she wrote, -and again “Swallow,” and stopped.</p> - -<p>“The bird?” I asked.</p> - -<p>The voice spoke in answer; now I could hear the -words, uttered in that low baritone voice.</p> - -<p>“No, not a bird,” it said. “Not a bird, but it -flies.”</p> - -<p>I was utterly at sea; my mind could form no -conjecture whatever as to what was meant. And -then the pencil began writing again. “Swallow,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> -swallow,” and then with a sudden briskness of -movement, as if the guiding intelligence had got over -some difficulty, it wrote “Swallow-tail.”</p> - -<p>This seemed more abstrusely senseless than ever. -The only connection with swallow-tail in my mind -was a swallow-tailed coat, but whoever heard of a -swallow-tailed coat flying?</p> - -<p>“I’ve got it,” said Charles. “Swallow-tail -butterfly. Is it that?”</p> - -<p>There came three sudden raps on the table, loud -and startling. These raps, I may explain, in the -usual code mean “Yes.” As if to confirm it the -pencil began to write again, and spelled out -“Swallow-tail butterfly.”</p> - -<p>“Is that your name?” I asked.</p> - -<p>There was one rap, which signifies “No,” followed -by three, which means “Yes.” I had not the slightest -idea of what it all signified (indeed it seemed to -signify nothing at all), but the sitting had become -extraordinarily interesting if only for its very unexpectedness. -The control was trying to establish -himself by three methods simultaneously—by the -voice, by the automatic writing, and by rapping. -But how a swallow-tail butterfly could assist in some -situation which was now existing in my house was -utterly beyond me.... Then an idea struck me: -the swallow-tail butterfly no doubt had a scientific -name, and that we could easily ascertain, for I knew -that there was on my shelves a copy of Newman’s -<i>Butterflies and Moths of Great Britain</i>, a sumptuous -volume bound in morocco, which I had won as an -entomological prize at school. A moment’s search -gave me the book, and by the firelight I turned up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -the description of this butterfly in the index. Its -scientific name was <i>Papilio Machaon</i>.</p> - -<p>“Is Machaon your name?” I asked.</p> - -<p>The voice came clear now.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I am Machaon,” it said.</p> - -<p>With that came the end of the sance, which -had lasted not more than an hour. Whatever the -power was that had made Mrs. Forrest speak in -that male voice and struggle, through that roundabout -method of “swallow, swallow-tail, Machaon,” to -establish its identity, it now began to fail. Mrs. -Forrest’s pencil made a few illegible scribbles, she -whispered a few inaudible words, and presently -with a stretch and a sigh she came out of trance. -We told her that the name of the control was established, -but apparently Machaon meant nothing to -her. She was much exhausted, and very soon I -took her across to the house to go to bed, and presently -rejoined Charles.</p> - -<p>“Who was Machaon, anyhow?” he asked. “He -sounds classical: more in your line than mine.”</p> - -<p>I remembered enough Greek mythology to supply -elementary facts, while I hunted for a particular -book about Athens.</p> - -<p>“Machaon was the son of Asclepios,” I said, -“and Asclepios was the Greek god of healing. He had -precincts, hydropathic establishments, where people -went to be cured. The Romans called him Aesculapius.”</p> - -<p>“What can he do for you then?” asked Charles. -“You’re fairly fit, aren’t you?”</p> - -<p>Not till he spoke did a light dawn on me. Though -I had been thinking so much of Parkes that day, I -had not consciously made the connection.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>“But Parkes isn’t,” said I. “Is that possible?”</p> - -<p>“By Jove!” said he.</p> - -<p>I found my book, and turned to the accounts of -the precinct of Asclepios in Athens.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Asclepios had two sons,” I said—“Machaon -and Podaleirios. In Homeric times he wasn’t a -god, but only a physician, and his sons were physicians -too. The myth of his godhead is rather a late -one——”</p> - -<p>I shut the book.</p> - -<p>“Best not to read any more,” I said. “If we -know all about Asclepios, we shall possibly be -suggesting things to the medium’s mind. Let’s see -what Machaon can tell us about himself, and we can -verify it afterwards.”</p> - -<p>It was therefore with no further knowledge than -this on the subject of Machaon that we proposed -to hold another sance the next day. All morning -the bitter air had been laden with snow, and now the -street in front of my house, a by-way at the best -in the slender traffic of the town, lay white and -untrodden, save on the pavement where a few -passengers had gone by. Mrs. Forrest had not -appeared at breakfast, and from then till lunch-time -I sat in the bow-window of the garden-room, for -the warmth of the central heating, of which a stack -of pipes was there installed, and for securing the -utmost benefit of light that penetrated this cowl of -snow-laden sky, busy with belated letters. The -drowsiness that accompanies snowfall weighed heavily -on my faculties, but as far as I can assert anything, -I can assert that I did not sleep. From one letter I -went on to another, and then for the sixth or seventh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> -time I tried to open my story. It promised better -now than before, and searching for a word that would -not come to my pen, I happened to look up along the -street which lay in front of me. I expected nothing: -I was thinking of nothing but my work; probably -I had looked up like that a dozen times before, and -had seen the empty street, with snow lying thickly -on the roadway.</p> - -<p>But now the roadway was not untenanted. Someone -was walking down the middle of it, and his -aspect, incredible though it seemed, was not startling. -Why I was not startled I have no idea: I can only -say that the vision appeared perfectly natural. The -figure was that of a young man, whose hair, black -and curly, lay crisply over his forehead. A large -white cloak reaching down to his knees enveloped -him, and he had thrown the end of it over his shoulder. -Below his knees his legs and feet were bare, so too -was the arm up to the elbow, with which he pressed -his cloak to him, and there he was walking briskly -down the snowy street. As he came directly below -the window where I sat, he raised his head and looked -at me directly, and smiled. And now I saw his -face: there was the low brow, the straight nose, -the curved and sunny mouth, the short chin, and I -thought to myself that this was none other than -the Hermes of Praxiteles, he whose statue at Olympia -makes all those who look on it grow young again. -There, anyhow, was a boyish Greek god, stepping -blithely and with gay, incomparable grace along the -street, and raising his face to smile at this stolid, -middle-aged man who blankly regarded him. Then -with the certainty of one returning home, he mounted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -the steps outside the front door, and seemed to pass -into and through it. Certainly he was no longer -in the street, and, so real and solid-seeming had he -been to my vision, that I jumped up, ran across the -few steps of garden, and went into the house, and -I should not have been amazed if I had found him -standing in the hall. But there was no one there, -and I opened the front door: the snow lay smooth -and untrodden down the centre of the road where -he had walked and on my doorstep. And at that -moment the memory of the sance the evening -before, about which up till now I had somehow felt -distrustful and suspicious, passed into the realm -of sober fact, for had not Machaon just now entered -my house, with a smile as of recognition on some -friendly mission?</p> - -<p>We sat again that afternoon by daylight, and now, -I must suppose, the control was more actively and -powerfully present, for hardly had Mrs. Forrest -passed into trance than the voice began, louder than -it had been the night before, and far more distinct. -He—Machaon I must call him—seemed to be anxious -to establish his identity beyond all doubt, like some -newcomer presenting his credentials, and he began -to speak of the precinct of Asclepios in Athens. -Often he hesitated for a word in English, often he -put in a word in Greek, and as he spoke, fragments of -things I had learned when an archological student -in Athens came back into my mind, and I knew -that he was accurately describing the portico and -the temple and the well. All this I toss to the sceptic -to growl and worry over and tear to bits; for certainly -it seems possible that my mind, holding these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -facts in its subconsciousness, was suggesting them -to the medium’s mind, who thereupon spoke of them -and, conveying them back to me, made me aware -that I had known them.... My forgotten knowledge -of these things and of the Greek language -came flooding back on me, as he told us, now half -in Greek, and half in English, of the patients who -came to consult the god, how they washed in the -sacred well for purification, and lay down to sleep -in the portico. They often dreamed, and in the -interpretation of their dreams, which they told to -the priest next day, lay the indication of the cure. -Or sometimes the god healed more directly, and -accompanied by the sacred snake walked among the -sleepers and by his touch made them whole. His -temple was hung with <i>ex-votos</i>, the gifts of those -whom he had cured. And at Epidaurus, where -was another shrine of his, there were great mural -tablets recording the same....</p> - -<p>Then the voice stopped, and as if to prove identity -by another means, the medium drew the pencil -and paper to her, and in Greek characters, unknown -apparently to her, she traced the words “Machaon, -son of Asclepios....”</p> - -<p>There was a pause, and I asked a direct question, -which now had been long simmering in my mind.</p> - -<p>“Have you come to help me about Parkes?” -I asked. “Can you tell me what will cure him?”</p> - -<p>The pencil began to move again, tracing out -characters in Greek. It wrote φέγγος ξ, and repeated -it. I did not at once guess what it meant, and asked -for an explanation. There was no answer, and -presently the medium stirred, stretched herself and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -sighed, and came out of trance. She took up the paper -on which she had written.</p> - -<p>“Did that come through?” she asked. “And -what does it mean? I don’t even know the -characters....”</p> - -<p>Then suddenly the possible significance of φέγγος ξ -flashed on me, and I marvelled at my slowness. -φέγγος, a beam of light, a ray, and the letter ξ, the -equivalent of the English <i>x</i>. That had come in -direct answer to my question as to what would cure -Parkes, and it was without hesitation or delay that -I wrote to Symes. I reminded him that he had said -that he had no objection to any possible remedy, -provided it was not harmful, being tried on his -patient, and I asked him to treat him with X-rays. -The whole sequence of events had been so frankly -amazing, that I believe the veriest sceptic would -not have done otherwise than I did.</p> - -<p>Our sittings continued, but after this day we had -no further evidence of this second control. It -looked as if the intelligence (even the most incredulous -will allow me, for the sake of convenience, to call that -intelligence Machaon) that had described this room, -and told Mrs. Forrest that he had work to do here, -had finished his task. Machaon had said, or so my -interpretation was, that X-rays would cure Parkes. -In justification of this view it is proper to quote from -a letter which I got from Symes a week later.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>“There is no need for you to come up to break -to Parkes that an operation lies in front of him. In -answer to your request, and without a grain of faith -in its success, I treated him with X-rays, which I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -assured you were useless. To-day, to speak quite -frankly, I don’t know what to think, for the growth -has been steadily diminishing in size and hardness, -and it is perfectly evident that it is being absorbed -and is disappearing.</p> - -<p>“The treatment through which I put Parkes is -that of ——. Here in this hospital we have had -patients to whom it brought no shadow of benefit. -Often it had been continued on these deluded -wretches till any operation which might possibly -have been successful was out of the question owing to -the encroachment of the growth. But from the -first dose of the X-rays, Parkes began to get better, -the growth was first arrested, and then diminished.</p> - -<p>“I am trying to put the whole thing before you -with as much impartiality as I can command. So, -on the other side, you must remember that Parkes’s -was never a proved case of cancer. I told you that -it could not be proved till the exploratory operation -took place. All the symptoms pointed to cancer—you -see, I am trying to save my own face—but my -diagnosis, though confirmed by ——, may have been -wrong. If he only had what we call a benign tumour, -the case is not so extraordinary; there have been -plenty of cases when a benign tumour has disappeared -by absorption or what not. It is unusual, but by -no means unknown. For instance....</p> - -<p>“But Parkes’s case was quite different. I certainly -believe he had a cancerous growth, and thought -that an operation was inevitable if his life was to -be saved. Even then, the most I hoped for was an -alleviation of pain, as the disease progressed, and a -year or two more, at the most, of life. Instead, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -apply another remedy, at your suggestion, and if -he goes on as he has been doing, the growth will -be a nodule in another week or two, and I should -expect it to disappear altogether. Taking everything -into consideration, if you asked me the question -whether this X-ray treatment was the cause of the -cure, I should be obliged to say ‘Yes.’ I don’t -believe in such a treatment, but I believe it is curing -him. I suppose that it was suggested to you by a -fraudulent, spiritualistic medium in a feigned trance, -who was inspired by Aesculapius or some exploded -heathen deity, for I remember you said you were -going down into the country for some spiritual -business....</p> - -<p>“Well, Parkes is getting better, and I am so old-fashioned -a fellow that I would sooner a patient of -mine got better by incredible methods, than died -under my skilful knife.... Of course, we trained -people know nothing, but we have to act according -to the best chances of our ignorance. I entirely -believed that the knife was the only means of saving -the man, and now, when I stand confuted, the only -thing that I can save is my honesty, which I hereby -have done. Let me know, at your leisure, whether -you just thought you would, on your own idea, like -me to try X-rays, or whether some faked voice from -the grave suggested it.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indent">“Ever yours,</span></p> - -<p class="right">“Godfrey Symes.</p> - -<p>“P.S.—If it was some beastly voice from the grave, -you might tell me in confidence who the medium -was. I want to be fair....”</p></blockquote> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>That is the story; the reader will explain it according -to his temperament. And as I have told Parkes, -who is now back with me again, to look into the -garden-room before post-time and take a registered -packet to the office, it is time that I got it ready for -him. So here is the completed packet in manuscript, -to be sent to the printer’s. From my window I shall -see him go briskly along the street down which -Machaon walked on a snowy morning.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">Negotium Perambulans....</h2></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph1">Negotium Perambulans....</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> casual tourist in West Cornwall may just possibly -have noticed, as he bowled along over the bare high -plateau between Penzance and the Land’s End, a -dilapidated signpost pointing down a steep lane and -bearing on its battered finger the faded inscription -“Polearn 2 miles,” but probably very few have had -the curiosity to traverse those two miles in order to -see a place to which their guide-books award so -cursory a notice. It is described there, in a couple -of unattractive lines, as a small fishing village with -a church of no particular interest except for certain -carved and painted wooden panels (originally belonging -to an earlier edifice) which form an altar-rail. -But the church at St. Creed (the tourist is reminded) -has a similar decoration far superior in point of -preservation and interest, and thus even the ecclesiastically -disposed are not lured to Polearn. So -meagre a bait is scarce worth swallowing, and a -glance at the very steep lane which in dry weather -presents a carpet of sharp-pointed stones, and after -rain a muddy watercourse, will almost certainly decide -him not to expose his motor or his bicycle to risks -like these in so sparsely populated a district. Hardly -a house has met his eye since he left Penzance, and -the possible trundling of a punctured bicycle for half -a dozen weary miles seems a high price to pay for -the sight of a few painted panels.</p> - -<p>Polearn, therefore, even in the high noon of the -tourist season, is little liable to invasion, and for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -rest of the year I do not suppose that a couple of -folk a day traverse those two miles (long ones at that) -of steep and stony gradient. I am not forgetting -the postman in this exiguous estimate, for the days -are few when, leaving his pony and cart at the top -of the hill, he goes as far as the village, since but a -few hundred yards down the lane there stands a -large white box, like a sea-trunk, by the side of the -road, with a slit for letters and a locked door. Should -he have in his wallet a registered letter or be the -bearer of a parcel too large for insertion in the square -lips of the sea-trunk, he must needs trudge down -the hill and deliver the troublesome missive, leaving -it in person on the owner, and receiving some small -reward of coin or refreshment for his kindness. But -such occasions are rare, and his general routine is -to take out of the box such letters as may have been -deposited there, and insert in their place such letters -as he has brought. These will be called for, perhaps -that day or perhaps the next, by an emissary from -the Polearn post-office. As for the fishermen of -the place, who, in their export trade, constitute the -chief link of movement between Polearn and the -outside world, they would not dream of taking their -catch up the steep lane and so, with six miles farther -of travel, to the market at Penzance. The sea route -is shorter and easier, and they deliver their wares -to the pier-head. Thus, though the sole industry -of Polearn is sea-fishing, you will get no fish there -unless you have bespoken your requirements to one -of the fishermen. Back come the trawlers as empty -as a haunted house, while their spoils are in the -fish-train that is speeding to London.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>Such isolation of a little community, continued, -as it has been, for centuries, produces isolation in -the individual as well, and nowhere will you find -greater independence of character than among the -people of Polearn. But they are linked together, -so it has always seemed to me, by some mysterious -comprehension: it is as if they had all been initiated -into some ancient rite, inspired and framed by forces -visible and invisible. The winter storms that batter -the coast, the vernal spell of the spring, the hot, -still summers, the season of rains and autumnal -decay, have made a spell which, line by line, has been -communicated to them, concerning the powers, -evil and good, that rule the world, and manifest -themselves in ways benignant or terrible....</p> - -<p>I came to Polearn first at the age of ten, a small -boy, weak and sickly, and threatened with pulmonary -trouble. My father’s business kept him in London, -while for me abundance of fresh air and a mild -climate were considered essential conditions if I -was to grow to manhood. His sister had married -the vicar of Polearn, Richard Bolitho, himself native -to the place, and so it came about that I spent three -years, as a paying guest, with my relations. Richard -Bolitho owned a fine house in the place, which he -inhabited in preference to the vicarage, which he -let to a young artist, John Evans, on whom the spell -of Polearn had fallen, for from year’s beginning to -year’s end he never left it. There was a solid roofed -shelter, open on one side to the air, built for me in -the garden, and here I lived and slept, passing -scarcely one hour out of the twenty-four behind -walls and windows. I was out on the bay with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -fisher-folk, or wandering along the gorse-clad cliffs -that climbed steeply to right and left of the deep -combe where the village lay, or pottering about on -the pier-head, or bird’s-nesting in the bushes with -the boys of the village. Except on Sunday and for -the few daily hours of my lessons, I might do what -I pleased so long as I remained in the open air. -About the lessons there was nothing formidable; -my uncle conducted me through flowering bypaths -among the thickets of arithmetic, and made pleasant -excursions into the elements of Latin grammar, and -above all, he made me daily give him an account, in -clear and grammatical sentences, of what had been -occupying my mind or my movements. Should I -select to tell him about a walk along the cliffs, my -speech must be orderly, not vague, slip-shod notes -of what I had observed. In this way, too, he trained -my observation, for he would bid me tell him what -flowers were in bloom, and what birds hovered fishing -over the sea or were building in the bushes. For -that I owe him a perennial gratitude, for to observe -and to express my thoughts in the clear spoken word -became my life’s profession.</p> - -<p>But far more formidable than my weekday tasks -was the prescribed routine for Sunday. Some dark -embers compounded of Calvinism and mysticism -smouldered in my uncle’s soul, and made it a -day of terror. His sermon in the morning scorched -us with a foretaste of the eternal fires reserved for -unrepentant sinners, and he was hardly less terrifying -at the children’s service in the afternoon. Well -do I remember his exposition of the doctrine of -guardian angels. A child, he said, might think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -himself secure in such angelic care, but let him -beware of committing any of those numerous offences -which would cause his guardian to turn his face from -him, for as sure as there were angels to protect us, -there were also evil and awful presences which were -ready to pounce; and on them he dwelt with peculiar -gusto. Well, too, do I remember in the morning -sermon his commentary on the carved panels of the -altar-rails to which I have already alluded. There -was the angel of the Annunciation there, and the -angel of the Resurrection, but not less was there -the witch of Endor, and, on the fourth panel, a scene -that concerned me most of all. This fourth panel -(he came down from his pulpit to trace its time-worn -features) represented the lych-gate of the church-yard -at Polearn itself, and indeed the resemblance when -thus pointed out was remarkable. In the entry -stood the figure of a robed priest holding up a Cross, -with which he faced a terrible creature like a gigantic -slug, that reared itself up in front of him. That, so -ran my uncle’s interpretation, was some evil agency, -such as he had spoken about to us children, of almost -infinite malignity and power, which could alone be -combated by firm faith and a pure heart. Below -ran the legend “<i>Negotium perambulans in tenebris</i>” -from the ninety-first Psalm. We should find it -translated there, “the pestilence that walketh in -darkness,” which but feebly rendered the Latin. It -was more deadly to the soul than any pestilence -that can only kill the body: it was the Thing, the -Creature, the Business that trafficked in the outer -Darkness, a minister of God’s wrath on the -unrighteous....</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>I could see, as he spoke, the looks which the -congregation exchanged with each other, and knew -that his words were evoking a surmise, a remembrance. -Nods and whispers passed between them, they -understood to what he alluded, and with the inquisitiveness -of boyhood I could not rest till I had wormed -the story out of my friends among the fisher-boys, -as, next morning, we sat basking and naked in the -sun after our bathe. One knew one bit of it, one -another, but it pieced together into a truly alarming -legend. In bald outline it was as follows:</p> - -<p>A church far more ancient than that in which my -uncle terrified us every Sunday had once stood not -three hundred yards away, on the shelf of level ground -below the quarry from which its stones were hewn. -The owner of the land had pulled this down, and -erected for himself a house on the same site out of -these materials, keeping, in a very ecstasy of wickedness, -the altar, and on this he dined and played dice -afterwards. But as he grew old some black melancholy -seized him, and he would have lights burning -there all night, for he had deadly fear of the darkness. -On one winter evening there sprang up such a gale -as was never before known, which broke in the -windows of the room where he had supped, and -extinguished the lamps. Yells of terror brought in -his servants, who found him lying on the floor with -the blood streaming from his throat. As they -entered some huge black shadow seemed to move -away from him, crawled across the floor and up the -wall and out of the broken window.</p> - -<p>“There he lay a-dying,” said the last of my informants, -“and him that had been a great burly man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -was withered to a bag o’ skin, for the critter had -drained all the blood from him. His last breath was -a scream, and he hollered out the same words as -parson read off the screen.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Negotium perambulans in tenebris</i>,” I suggested -eagerly.</p> - -<p>“Thereabouts. Latin anyhow.”</p> - -<p>“And after that?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Nobody would go near the place, and the old -house rotted and fell in ruins till three years ago, -when along comes Mr. Dooliss from Penzance, and -built the half of it up again. But he don’t care much -about such critters, nor about Latin neither. He -takes his bottle of whisky a day and gets drunk’s -a lord in the evening. Eh, I’m gwine home to my -dinner.”</p> - -<p>Whatever the authenticity of the legend, I had -certainly heard the truth about Mr. Dooliss from -Penzance, who from that day became an object of -keen curiosity on my part, the more so because the -quarry-house adjoined my uncle’s garden. The -Thing that walked in the dark failed to stir my -imagination, and already I was so used to sleeping -alone in my shelter that the night had no terrors -for me. But it would be intensely exciting to wake -at some timeless hour and hear Mr. Dooliss yelling, -and conjecture that the Thing had got him.</p> - -<p>But by degrees the whole story faded from my -mind, overscored by the more vivid interests of the -day, and, for the last two years of my out-door life -in the vicarage garden, I seldom thought about Mr. -Dooliss and the possible fate that might await him -for his temerity in living in the place where that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -Thing of darkness had done business. Occasionally -I saw him over the garden fence, a great yellow lump -of a man, with slow and staggering gait, but never -did I set eyes on him outside his gate, either in the -village street or down on the beach. He interfered -with none, and no one interfered with him. If he -wanted to run the risk of being the prey of the -legendary nocturnal monster, or quietly drink himself -to death, it was his affair. My uncle, so I gathered, -had made several attempts to see him when first -he came to live at Polearn, but Mr. Dooliss appeared -to have no use for parsons, but said he was not at -home and never returned the call.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>After three years of sun, wind, and rain, I had -completely outgrown my early symptoms and had -become a tough, strapping youngster of thirteen. -I was sent to Eton and Cambridge, and in due course -ate my dinners and became a barrister. In twenty -years from that time I was earning a yearly income -of five figures, and had already laid by in sound -securities a sum that brought me dividends which -would, for one of my simple tastes and frugal habits, -supply me with all the material comforts I needed -on this side of the grave. The great prizes of my -profession were already within my reach, but I had -no ambition beckoning me on, nor did I want a wife -and children, being, I must suppose, a natural celibate. -In fact there was only one ambition which through -these busy years had held the lure of blue and far-off -hills to me, and that was to get back to Polearn, -and live once more isolated from the world with -the sea and the gorse-clad hills for play-fellows,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -and the secrets that lurked there for exploration. -The spell of it had been woven about my heart, -and I can truly say that there had hardly passed a -day in all those years in which the thought of it -and the desire for it had been wholly absent from -my mind. Though I had been in frequent communication -with my uncle there during his lifetime, -and, after his death, with his widow who still lived -there, I had never been back to it since I embarked -on my profession, for I knew that if I went -there, it would be a wrench beyond my power to -tear myself away again. But I had made up my -mind that when once I had provided for my own -independence, I would go back there not to leave -it again. And yet I did leave it again, and now -nothing in the world would induce me to turn down -the lane from the road that leads from Penzance to -the Land’s End, and see the sides of the combe rise -steep above the roofs of the village and hear the gulls -chiding as they fish in the bay. One of the things -invisible, of the dark powers, leaped into light, and -I saw it with my eyes.</p> - -<p>The house where I had spent those three years of -boyhood had been left for life to my aunt, and when -I made known to her my intention of coming back -to Polearn, she suggested that, till I found a suitable -house or found her proposal unsuitable, I should -come to live with her.</p> - -<p>“The house is too big for a lone old woman,” -she wrote, “and I have often thought of quitting -and taking a little cottage sufficient for me and my -requirements. But come and share it, my dear, -and if you find me troublesome, you or I can go.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -You may want solitude—most people in Polearn do—and -will leave me. Or else I will leave you: one -of the main reasons of my stopping here all these -years was a feeling that I must not let the old house -starve. Houses starve, you know, if they are not -lived in. They die a lingering death; the spirit -in them grows weaker and weaker, and at last fades -out of them. Isn’t this nonsense to your London -notions?...”</p> - -<p>Naturally I accepted with warmth this tentative -arrangement, and on an evening in June found -myself at the head of the lane leading down to -Polearn, and once more I descended into the steep -valley between the hills. Time had stood still -apparently for the combe, the dilapidated signpost -(or its successor) pointed a rickety finger down the -lane, and a few hundred yards farther on was the -white box for the exchange of letters. Point after -remembered point met my eye, and what I saw -was not shrunk, as is often the case with the revisited -scenes of childhood, into a smaller scale. There stood -the post-office, and there the church and close beside -it the vicarage, and beyond, the tall shrubberies -which separated the house for which I was bound -from the road, and beyond that again the grey roofs -of the quarry-house damp and shining with the -moist evening wind from the sea. All was exactly -as I remembered it, and, above all, that sense of -seclusion and isolation. Somewhere above the tree-tops -climbed the lane which joined the main road -to Penzance, but all that had become immeasurably -distant. The years that had passed since last I -turned in at the well-known gate faded like a frosty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -breath, and vanished in this warm, soft air. There -were law-courts somewhere in memory’s dull book -which, if I cared to turn the pages, would tell me -that I had made a name and a great income there. -But the dull book was closed now, for I was back in -Polearn, and the spell was woven around me again.</p> - -<p>And if Polearn was unchanged, so too was Aunt -Hester, who met me at the door. Dainty and -china-white she had always been, and the years -had not aged but only refined her. As we sat and -talked after dinner she spoke of all that had happened -in Polearn in that score of years, and yet somehow -the changes of which she spoke seemed but to confirm -the immutability of it all. As the recollection of -names came back to me, I asked her about the -quarry-house and Mr. Dooliss, and her face gloomed -a little as with the shadow of a cloud on a spring day.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mr. Dooliss,” she said, “poor Mr. Dooliss, -how well I remember him, though it must be ten -years and more since he died. I never wrote to you -about it, for it was all very dreadful, my dear, and I -did not want to darken your memories of Polearn. -Your uncle always thought that something of the -sort might happen if he went on in his wicked, -drunken ways, and worse than that, and though -nobody knew exactly what took place, it was the sort -of thing that might have been anticipated.”</p> - -<p>“But what more or less happened, Aunt Hester?” -I asked.</p> - -<p>“Well, of course I can’t tell you everything, for -no one knew it. But he was a very sinful man, and -the scandal about him at Newlyn was shocking. -And then he lived, too, in the quarry-house.... I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -wonder if by any chance you remember a sermon -of your uncle’s when he got out of the pulpit and -explained that panel in the altar-rails, the one, I -mean, with the horrible creature rearing itself up -outside the lych-gate?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I remember perfectly,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Ah. It made an impression on you, I suppose, -and so it did on all who heard him, and that impression -got stamped and branded on us all when the catastrophe -occurred. Somehow Mr. Dooliss got to hear -about your uncle’s sermon, and in some drunken -fit he broke into the church and smashed the panel -to atoms. He seems to have thought that there -was some magic in it, and that if he destroyed that -he would get rid of the terrible fate that was threatening -him. For I must tell you that before he committed -that dreadful sacrilege he had been a haunted man: -he hated and feared darkness, for he thought that -the creature on the panel was on his track, but that -as long as he kept lights burning it could not touch -him. But the panel, to his disordered mind, was -the root of his terror, and so, as I said, he broke into -the church and attempted—you will see why I said -‘attempted’—to destroy it. It certainly was found -in splinters next morning, when your uncle went into -church for matins, and knowing Mr. Dooliss’s fear -of the panel, he went across to the quarry-house -afterwards and taxed him with its destruction. -The man never denied it; he boasted of what he -had done. There he sat, though it was early morning, -drinking his whisky.</p> - -<p>“‘I’ve settled your Thing for you,’ he said, ‘and -your sermon too. A fig for such superstitions.’</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>“Your uncle left him without answering his -blasphemy, meaning to go straight into Penzance -and give information to the police about this outrage -to the church, but on his way back from the quarry-house -he went into the church again, in order to be -able to give details about the damage, and there -in the screen was the panel, untouched and uninjured. -And yet he had himself seen it smashed, and Mr. -Dooliss had confessed that the destruction of it -was his work. But there it was, and whether the -power of God had mended it or some other power, -who knows?”</p> - -<p>This was Polearn indeed, and it was the spirit of -Polearn that made me accept all Aunt Hester was -telling me as attested fact. It had happened like -that. She went on in her quiet voice.</p> - -<p>“Your uncle recognised that some power beyond -police was at work, and he did not go to Penzance -or give information about the outrage, for the -evidence of it had vanished.”</p> - -<p>A sudden spate of scepticism swept over me.</p> - -<p>“There must have been some mistake,” I said. -“It hadn’t been broken....”</p> - -<p>She smiled.</p> - -<p>“Yes, my dear, but you have been in London -so long,” she said. “Let me, anyhow, tell you the -rest of my story. That night, for some reason, I -could not sleep. It was very hot and airless; I -dare say you will think that the sultry conditions -accounted for my wakefulness. Once and again, -as I went to the window to see if I could not admit -more air, I could see from it the quarry-house, and -I noticed the first time that I left my bed that it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> -was blazing with lights. But the second time I -saw that it was all in darkness, and as I wondered -at that, I heard a terrible scream, and the moment -afterwards the steps of someone coming at full speed -down the road outside the gate. He yelled as he -ran; ‘Light, light!’ he called out. ‘Give me light, -or it will catch me!’ It was very terrible to hear -that, and I went to rouse my husband, who was -sleeping in the dressing-room across the passage. -He wasted no time, but by now the whole village -was aroused by the screams, and when he got down -to the pier he found that all was over. The tide was -low, and on the rocks at its foot was lying the body -of Mr. Dooliss. He must have cut some artery -when he fell on those sharp edges of stone, for he -had bled to death, they thought, and though he was -a big burly man, his corpse was but skin and bones. -Yet there was no pool of blood round him, such as -you would have expected. Just skin and bones -as if every drop of blood in his body had been sucked -out of him!”</p> - -<p>She leaned forward.</p> - -<p>“You and I, my dear, know what happened,” -she said, “or at least can guess. God has His -instruments of vengeance on those who bring wickedness -into places that have been holy. Dark and -mysterious are His ways.”</p> - -<p>Now what I should have thought of such a story -if it had been told me in London I can easily imagine. -There was such an obvious explanation: the man -in question had been a drunkard, what wonder if -the demons of delirium pursued him? But here in -Polearn it was different.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>“And who is in the quarry-house now?” I asked. -“Years ago the fisher-boys told me the story of the -man who first built it and of his horrible end. And -now again it has happened. Surely no one has -ventured to inhabit it once more?”</p> - -<p>I saw in her face, even before I asked that question, -that somebody had done so.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is lived in again,” said she, “for there -is no end to the blindness.... I don’t know if -you remember him. He was tenant of the vicarage -many years ago.”</p> - -<p>“John Evans,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Yes. Such a nice fellow he was too. Your -uncle was pleased to get so good a tenant. And -now——”</p> - -<p>She rose.</p> - -<p>“Aunt Hester, you shouldn’t leave your sentences -unfinished,” I said.</p> - -<p>She shook her head.</p> - -<p>“My dear, that sentence will finish itself,” she -said. “But what a time of night! I must go to -bed, and you too, or they will think we have to keep -lights burning here through the dark hours.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Before getting into bed I drew my curtains wide -and opened all the windows to the warm tide of the -sea air that flowed softly in. Looking out into the -garden I could see in the moonlight the roof of the -shelter, in which for three years I had lived, gleaming -with dew. That, as much as anything, brought -back the old days to which I had now returned, and -they seemed of one piece with the present, as if no -gap of more than twenty years sundered them. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -two flowed into one like globules of mercury uniting -into a softly shining globe, of mysterious lights and -reflections. Then, raising my eyes a little, I saw -against the black hill-side the windows of the -quarry-house still alight.</p> - -<p>Morning, as is so often the case, brought no -shattering of my illusion. As I began to regain -consciousness, I fancied that I was a boy again waking -up in the shelter in the garden, and though, as I -grew more widely awake, I smiled at the impression, -that on which it was based I found to be indeed -true. It was sufficient now as then to be here, to -wander again on the cliffs, and hear the popping of -the ripened seed-pods on the gorse-bushes; to stray -along the shore to the bathing-cove, to float and drift -and swim in the warm tide, and bask on the sand, -and watch the gulls fishing, to lounge on the pier-head -with the fisher-folk, to see in their eyes and hear -in their quiet speech the evidence of secret things -not so much known to them as part of their instincts -and their very being. There were powers and -presences about me; the white poplars that stood -by the stream that babbled down the valley knew -of them, and showed a glimpse of their knowledge -sometimes, like the gleam of their white underleaves; -the very cobbles that paved the street were soaked -in it.... All that I wanted was to lie there and -grow soaked in it too; unconsciously, as a boy, I -had done that, but now the process must be conscious. -I must know what stir of forces, fruitful and mysterious, -seethed along the hill-side at noon, and -sparkled at night on the sea. They could be known, -they could even be controlled by those who were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -masters of the spell, but never could they be spoken -of, for they were dwellers in the innermost, grafted -into the eternal life of the world. There were dark -secrets as well as these clear, kindly powers, and -to these no doubt belonged the <i>negotium perambulans -in tenebris</i> which, though of deadly malignity, might -be regarded not only as evil, but as the avenger of -sacrilegious and impious deeds.... All this was -part of the spell of Polearn, of which the seeds had -long lain dormant in me. But now they were -sprouting, and who knew what strange flower would -unfold on their stems?</p> - -<p>It was not long before I came across John Evans. -One morning, as I lay on the beach, there came -shambling across the sand a man stout and middle-aged -with the face of Silenus. He paused as he drew -near and regarded me from narrow eyes.</p> - -<p>“Why, you’re the little chap that used to live -in the parson’s garden,” he said. “Don’t you -recognise me?”</p> - -<p>I saw who it was when he spoke: his voice, I -think, instructed me, and recognising it, I could -see the features of the strong, alert young man in -this gross caricature.</p> - -<p>“Yes, you’re John Evans,” I said. “You used -to be very kind to me: you used to draw pictures -for me.”</p> - -<p>“So I did, and I’ll draw you some more. Been -bathing? That’s a risky performance. You never -know what lives in the sea, nor what lives on the -land for that matter. Not that I heed them. I stick -to work and whisky. God! I’ve learned to paint -since I saw you, and drink too for that matter. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -live in the quarry-house, you know, and it’s a powerful -thirsty place. Come and have a look at my things -if you’re passing. Staying with your aunt, are you? -I could do a wonderful portrait of her. Interesting -face; she knows a lot. People who live at Polearn -get to know a lot, though I don’t take much stock -in that sort of knowledge myself.”</p> - -<p>I do not know when I have been at once so repelled -and interested. Behind the mere grossness of his -face there lurked something which, while it appalled, -yet fascinated me. His thick lisping speech had -the same quality. And his paintings, what would -they be like?...</p> - -<p>“I was just going home,” I said. “I’ll gladly -come in, if you’ll allow me.”</p> - -<p>He took me through the untended and overgrown -garden into the house which I had never yet entered. -A great grey cat was sunning itself in the window, -and an old woman was laying lunch in a corner of -the cool hall into which the door opened. It was -built of stone, and the carved mouldings let into the -walls, the fragments of gargoyles and sculptured -images, bore testimony to the truth of its having -been built out of the demolished church. In one -corner was an oblong and carved wooden table -littered with a painter’s apparatus and stacks of -canvases leaned against the walls.</p> - -<p>He jerked his thumb towards a head of an angel -that was built into the mantelpiece and giggled.</p> - -<p>“Quite a sanctified air,” he said, “so we tone -it down for the purposes of ordinary life by a different -sort of art. Have a drink? No? Well, turn over -some of my pictures while I put myself to rights.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>He was justified in his own estimate of his skill: -he could paint (and apparently he could paint anything), -but never have I seen pictures so inexplicably -hellish. There were exquisite studies of trees, and -you knew that something lurked in the flickering -shadows. There was a drawing of his cat sunning -itself in the window, even as I had just now seen it, -and yet it was no cat but some beast of awful malignity. -There was a boy stretched naked on the sands, not -human, but some evil thing which had come out of -the sea. Above all there were pictures of his garden -overgrown and jungle-like, and you knew that in -the bushes were presences ready to spring out on -you....</p> - -<p>“Well, do you like my style?” he said as he -came up, glass in hand. (The tumbler of spirits -that he held had not been diluted.) “I try to paint -the essence of what I see, not the mere husk and skin -of it, but its nature, where it comes from and what -gave it birth. There’s much in common between a -cat and a fuchsia-bush if you look at them closely -enough. Everything came out of the slime of the -pit, and it’s all going back there. I should like to -do a picture of you some day. I’d hold the mirror -up to Nature, as that old lunatic said.”</p> - -<p>After this first meeting I saw him occasionally -throughout the months of that wonderful summer. -Often he kept to his house and to his painting for -days together, and then perhaps some evening I -would find him lounging on the pier, always alone, -and every time we met thus the repulsion and interest -grew, for every time he seemed to have gone farther -along a path of secret knowledge towards some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> -evil shrine where complete initiation awaited him.... -And then suddenly the end came.</p> - -<p>I had met him thus one evening on the cliffs while -the October sunset still burned in the sky, but over -it with amazing rapidity there spread from the west -a great blackness of cloud such as I have never seen -for denseness. The light was sucked from the sky, -the dusk fell in ever thicker layers. He suddenly -became conscious of this.</p> - -<p>“I must get back as quick as I can,” he said. -“It will be dark in a few minutes, and my servant is -out. The lamps will not be lit.”</p> - -<p>He stepped out with extraordinary briskness for -one who shambled and could scarcely lift his feet, -and soon broke out into a stumbling run. In the -gathering darkness I could see that his face was -moist with the dew of some unspoken terror.</p> - -<p>“You must come with me,” he panted, “for so -we shall get the lights burning the sooner. I cannot -do without light.”</p> - -<p>I had to exert myself to the full to keep up with -him, for terror winged him, and even so I fell behind, -so that when I came to the garden gate, he was -already half-way up the path to the house. I saw -him enter, leaving the door wide, and found him -fumbling with matches. But his hand so trembled -that he could not transfer the light to the wick of -the lamp.</p> - -<p>“But what’s the hurry about?” I asked.</p> - -<p>Suddenly his eyes focused themselves on the -open door behind me, and he jumped from his seat -beside the table which had once been the altar of -God, with a gasp and a scream.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>“No, no!” he cried. “Keep it off!...”</p> - -<p>I turned and saw what he had seen. The Thing -had entered and now was swiftly sliding across the -floor towards him, like some gigantic caterpillar. -A stale phosphorescent light came from it, for though -the dusk had grown to blackness outside, I could -see it quite distinctly in the awful light of its own -presence. From it too there came an odour of -corruption and decay, as from slime that has long lain -below water. It seemed to have no head, but on the -front of it was an orifice of puckered skin which -opened and shut and slavered at the edges. It was -hairless, and slug-like in shape and in texture. As it -advanced its fore-part reared itself from the ground, -like a snake about to strike, and it fastened on -him....</p> - -<p>At that sight, and with the yells of his agony in -my ears, the panic which had struck me relaxed into -a hopeless courage, and with palsied, impotent hands -I tried to lay hold of the Thing. But I could not: -though something material was there, it was impossible -to grasp it; my hands sunk in it as in thick -mud. It was like wrestling with a nightmare.</p> - -<p>I think that but a few seconds elapsed before all -was over. The screams of the wretched man sank -to moans and mutterings as the Thing fell on him: -he panted once or twice and was still. For a moment -longer there came gurglings and sucking noises, -and then it slid out even as it had entered. I lit -the lamp which he had fumbled with, and there on -the floor he lay, no more than a rind of skin in loose -folds over projecting bones.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">At the Farmhouse</h2></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph1">At the Farmhouse</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> dusk of a November day was falling fast when -John Aylsford came out of his lodging in the cobbled -street and started to walk briskly along the road -which led eastwards by the shore of the bay. He -had been at work while the daylight served him, -and now, when the gathering darkness weaned him -from his easel, he was accustomed to go out for air -and exercise and cover half a dozen miles before he -returned to his solitary supper.</p> - -<p>To-night there were but few folk abroad, and those -scudded along before the strong south-westerly gale -which had roared and raged all day, or, leaning -forward, beat their way against it. No fishing-boats -had put forth on that maddened sea, but had lain -moored behind the quay-wall, tossing uneasily with -the backwash of the great breakers that swept by -the pier-head. The tide was low now, and they -rested on the sandy beach, black blots against the -smooth wet surface which sombrely reflected the -last flames in the west. The sun had gone down -in a wrack of broken and flying clouds, angry and -menacing with promise of a wild night to come.</p> - -<p>For many days past, at this hour John Aylsford -had started eastwards for his tramp along the rough -coast road by the bay. The last high tide had swept -shingle and sand over sections of it, and fragments of -seaweed, driven by the wind, bowled along the -ruts. The heavy boom of the breakers sounded -sullenly in the dusk, and white towers of foam -appearing and disappearing showed how high they -leaped over the reefs of rock beyond the headland.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> -For half a mile or so, slanting himself against the -gale he pursued this road, then turned up a narrow -muddy lane sunk deep between the banks on either -side of it. It ran steeply uphill, dipped down again, -and joined the main road inland. Having arrived -at the junction, John Aylsford went eastwards no -more, but turned his steps to the west, arriving, -half an hour after he had set out, on the top of the -hill above the village he had quitted, though five -minutes’ ascent would have taken him from his -lodgings to the spot where he now stood looking down -on the scattered lights below him. The wind had blown -all wayfarers indoors, and now in front of him the -road that crossed this high and desolate table-land, -sprinkled here and there with lonely cottages and -solitary farms, lay empty and greyly glimmering in the -wind-swept darkness, not more than faintly visible.</p> - -<p>Many times during this past month had John -Aylsford made this long detour, starting eastwards -from the village and coming back by a wide circuit, -and now, as on these other occasions, he paused in -the black shelter of the hedge through which the -wind hissed and whistled, crouching there in the -shadow as if to make sure that none had followed -him, and that the road in front lay void of passengers, -for he had no mind to be observed by any on these -journeyings. And as he paused he let his hate blaze -up, warming him for the work the accomplishment -of which alone could enable him to recapture any -peace or profit from life. To-night he was determined -to release himself from the millstone which -for so many years had hung round his neck, drowning -him in bitter waters. From long brooding over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -the idea of the deed, he had quite ceased to feel any -horror of it. The death of that drunken slut was -not a matter for qualms or uneasiness; the world -would be well rid of her, and he more than well.</p> - -<p>No spark of tenderness for the handsome fisher-girl -who once had been his model and for twenty years -had been his wife pierced the blackness of his purpose. -Just here it was that he had seen her first when -on a summer holiday he had lodged with a couple -of friends in the farmhouse towards which his way -now lay. She was coming up the hill with the late -sunset gilding her face, and, breathing quickly from -the ascent, had leaned on the wall close by with a -smile and a glance for the young man. She had -sat to him, and the autumn brought the sequel to -the summer in his marriage. He had bought from -her uncle the little farmhouse where he had lodged, -adding to its modest accommodation a studio and -a bedroom above it, and there he had seen the flicker -of what had never been love, die out, and over the -cold ashes of its embers the poisonous lichen of hatred -spread fast. Early in their married life she had -taken to drink, and had sunk into a degradation -of soul and body that seemed bottomless, dragging -him with her, down and down, in the grip of a force -that was hardly human in its malignity.</p> - -<p>Often during the wretched years that followed -he had tried to leave her; he had offered to settle -the farm on her and make adequate provision for -her, but she had clung to the possession of him, -not, it would seem, from any affection for him, -but for a reason exactly opposite, namely, that -her hatred of him fed and glutted itself on the sight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -of his ruin. It was as if, in obedience to some hellish -power, she set herself to spoil his life, his powers, -his possibilities, by tying him to herself. And by -the aid of that power, so sometimes he had thought, -she enforced her will on him, for, plan as he might -to cut the whole dreadful business and leave the wreck -behind him, he had never been able to consolidate -his resolve into action. There, but a few miles away, -was the station from which ran the train that would -bear him out of this ancient western kingdom, where -the beliefs in spells and superstitions grew rank as -the herbage in that soft enervating air, and set him -in the dry hard light of cities. The way lay open, -but he could not take it; something unseen and -potent, of grim inflexibility, held him back....</p> - -<p>He had passed no one on his way here, and satisfied -now that in the darkness he could proceed without -fear of being recognised if a chance wayfarer came -from the direction in which he was going, he left -the shelter of the hedge, and struck out into the -stormy sea of that stupendous gale. Even as a man -in the grip of imminent death sees his past life spread -itself out in front of him for his final survey before -the book is closed, so now, on the brink of the new -life from which the deed on which he was determined -alone separated him, John Aylsford, as he battled -his advance through this great tempest, turned over -page after page of his own wretched chronicles, -feeling already strangely detached from them; it -was as if he read the sordid and enslaved annals -of another, wondering at them, half-pitying, half-despising -him who had allowed himself to be bound -so long in this ruinous noose.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>Yes; it had been just that, a noose drawn ever -tighter round his neck, while he choked and struggled -all unavailingly. But there was another noose which -should very soon now be drawn rapidly and finally -tight, and the drawing of that in his own strong -hands would free him. As he dwelt on that for a -moment, his fingers stroked and patted the hank -of whipcord that lay white and tough in his pocket. -A noose, a knot drawn quickly taut, and he would -have paid her back with justice and swifter mercy -for the long strangling which he had suffered.</p> - -<p>Voluntarily and eagerly at the beginning had he -allowed her to slip the noose about him, for Ellen -Trenair’s beauty in those days, so long past and so -everlastingly regretted, had been enough to ensnare -a man. He had been warned at the time, by hint -and half-spoken suggestion, that it was ill for a man -to mate with a girl of that dark and ill-famed family, -or for a woman to wed a boy in whose veins ran the -blood of Jonas Trenair, once Methodist preacher, -who learned on one All-Hallows’ Eve a darker gospel -than he had ever preached before. What had happened -to the girls who had married into that dwindling -family, now all but extinct? One, before her -marriage was a year old, had gone off her head, and -now, a withered and ancient crone, mowed and -gibbered about the streets of the village, picking -garbage from the gutter and munching it in her -toothless jaws. Another, Ellen’s own mother, had -been found hanging from the banister of her stairs, -stark and grim. Then there was young Frank -Pencarris, who had wed Ellen’s sister. He had sunk -into an awful melancholy, and sat tracing on sheets of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -paper the visions that beset his eyes, headless shapes, -and foaming mouths, and the images of the spawn of -hell.... John Aylsford, in those early days, had -laughed to scorn these old-wife tales of spells and -sorceries: they belonged to ages long past, whereas -fair Ellen Trenair was of the lovely present, and had -lit desire in his heart which she alone could assuage. -He had no use, in the brightness of her eye, for such -shadows and superstitions; her beams dispelled them.</p> - -<p>Bitter and black as midnight had his enlightenment -been, darkening through dubious dusks till -the mirk of the pit itself enveloped him. His -laughter at the notion that in this twentieth century -spells and sorceries could survive, grew silent on his -lips. He had seen the cattle of a neighbour who -had offended one whom it was wiser not to cross, -dwindle and pine, though there were rich pastures -for their grazing, till the rib-bones stuck out like -the timbers of stranded wrecks. He had seen the -spring on another farm run dry at lambing-time -because the owner, sceptic like himself, had refused -that bounty, which all prudent folk paid to the wizard -of Mareuth, who, like Ellen, was of the blood of Jonas -Trenair. From scorn and laughter he had wavered -to an uneasy wonder, and from wonder his mind -had passed to the conviction that there were powers -occult and terrible which strove in darkness and -prevailed, secrets and spells that could send disease -on man and beast, dark incantations, known to few, -which could maim and cripple, and of these few his -wife was one. His reason revolted, but some conviction, -deeper than reason, held its own. To such a -view it seemed that the deed he contemplated was no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> -crime, but rather an act of obedience to the ordinance -“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” And the -sense of detachment was over that, even as over the -memories that oozed up in his mind. Somebody—not -he—who had planned everything very carefully was in -the next hour going to put an end to his bondage.</p> - -<p>So the years had passed, he floundering ever deeper -in the slough into which he was plunged, out of which -while she lived he could never emerge. For the last -year, she, wearying of his perpetual presence at the -farm, had allowed him to take a lodging in the village. -She did not loose her hold over him, for the days -were few on which she did not come with demands -for a handful of shillings to procure her the raw -spirits which alone could slake her thirst. Sometimes -as he sat at work there in the north room looking -on to the small garden-yard, she would come lurching -up the path, with her bloated crimson face set on -the withered neck, and tap at his window with fingers -shrivelled like bird’s claws. Body and limbs were -no more than bones over which the wrinkled skin -was stretched, but her face bulged monstrously with -layers of fat. He would give her whatever he had -about him, and if it was not enough, she would plant -herself there, grinning at him and wheedling him, -or with screams and curses threatening him with -such fate as he had known to overtake those who -crossed her will. But usually he gave her enough -to satisfy her for that day and perhaps the next, -for thus she would the more quickly drink herself -to death. Yet death seemed long in coming....</p> - -<p>He remembered well how first the notion of killing -her came into his head, just a little seed, small as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -that of mustard, which lay long in barrenness. Only -the bare idea of it was there, like an abstract proposition. -Then imperceptibly in the fruitful darkness -of his mind, it must have begun to sprout, for presently -a tendril, still soft and white, prodded out into the -daylight. He almost pushed it back again, for fear -that she, by some divining art, should probe his -purpose. But when next she came for supplies, -he saw no gleam of surmise in her red-rimmed eyes, -and she took her money and went her way, and his -purpose put forth another leaf, and the stem of it -grew sappy. All autumn through it had flourished, -and grown tree-like, and fresh ideas, fresh details, -fresh precautions, flocked there like building birds -and made it gay with singing. He sat under the -shadow of it and listened with brightening hopes to -their song; never had there been such peerless -melody. They knew their tunes now, there was no -need for any further rehearsal.</p> - -<p>He began to wonder how soon he would be back -on the road again, with face turned from this buffeting -wind, and on his way home. His business would -not take him long; the central deed of it would -be over in a couple of minutes, and he did not anticipate -delay about the setting to work on it, for by -seven o’clock of the evening, as well he knew, she -was usually snoring in the oblivion of complete -drunkenness, and even if she was not as far gone as -that, she would certainly be incapable of any serious -resistance. After that, a quarter of an hour more -would finish the job, and he would leave the house -secure already from any chance of detection. Night -after night during these last ten days he had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -up here, peering from the darkness into the lighted -room where she sat, then listening for her step on -the stairs as she stumbled up to bed, or hearing her -snorings as she slept in her chair below. The out-house, -he knew, was well stocked with paraffin; -he needed no further apparatus than the whipcord -and the matches he carried with him. Then back -he would go along the exact route by which he had -come, re-entering the village again from the eastwards, -in which direction he had set out.</p> - -<p>This walk of his was now a known and established -habit; half the village during the last week or two had -seen him every evening set forth along the coast road, -for a tramp in the dusk when the light failed for his -painting, and had seen him come back again as they -hung about and smoked in the warm dusk, a couple -of hours later. None knew of his detour to the main -road which took him westwards again above the -village and so to the stretch of bleak upland along -which now he fought his way against the gale. -Always round about the hour of eight he had entered -the village again from the other side, and had stopped -and chatted with the loiterers. To-night, no later -than was usual, he would come up the cobbled road -again, and give “good night” to any who lingered -there outside the public-house. In this wild wind -it was not likely that there would be such, and if so, -no matter; he had been seen already setting forth -on his usual walk by the coast of the bay, and if -none outside saw him return, none could see the -true chart of his walk. By eight he should be back -to his supper, there would be a soused herring for -him, and a cut of cheese, and the kettle would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -singing on the hob for his hot whisky-toddy. He -would have a keen edge for the enjoyment of them -to-night; he would drink long healths to the damned -and the dead. Not till to-morrow, probably, would -the news of what had happened reach him, for the -farmhouse lay lonely and sheltered by the wood of -firs. However high might mount the beacon of -its blazing, it would scarcely, screened by the tall -trees, light up the western sky, and be seen from the -village nestling below the steep hill-crest.</p> - -<p>By now John Aylsford had come to the fir wood -which bordered the road on the left, and, as he -passed into its shelter, cut off from him the violence -of the gale. All its branches were astir with the -sound of some vexed, overhead sea, and the trunks -that upheld them creaked and groaned in the fury -of the tempest. Somewhere behind the thick scud -of flying cloud the moon must have risen, for the road -glimmered more visibly, and the tossing blackness -of the branches was clear enough against the grey -tumult overhead. Behind the tempest she rode in -serene skies, and in the murderous clarity of his mind -he likened himself to her. Just for half an hour more -he would still grope and scheme and achieve in this -hurly-burly, and then, like a balloon released, soar -through the clouds and find serenity. A couple of -hundred yards now would take him round the corner -of the wood; from there the miry lane led from -the high-road to the farm.</p> - -<p>He hastened rather than retarded his going as -he drew near, for the wood, though it roared with -the gale, began to whisper to him of memories. -Often in that summer before his marriage had he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -strayed out at dusk into it, certain that before he -had gone many paces he would see a shadow flitting -towards him through the firs, or hear the crack of -dry twigs in the stillness. Here was their tryst; -she would come up from the village with the excuse -of bringing fish to the farmhouse, after the boats -had come in, and deserting the high-road make a -short cut through the wood. Like some distant -blink of lightning the memory of those evenings -quivered distantly on his mind, and he quickened -his step. The years that followed had killed and -buried those recollections, but who knew what stirring -of corpses and dry bones might not yet come to them -if he lingered there? He fingered the whipcord -in his pocket, and launched out, beyond the trees, -into the full fury of the gale.</p> - -<p>The farmhouse was near now and in full view, -a black blot against the clouds. A beam of light -shone from an uncurtained window on the ground-floor, -and the rest was dark. Even thus had he -seen it for many nights past, and well knew what -sight would greet him as he stole up nearer. And -even so it was to-night, for there she sat in the -studio he had built, betwixt table and fireplace -with the bottle near her, and her withered hands -stretched out to the blaze, and the huge bloated -face swaying on her shoulders. Beside her to-night -were the wrecked remains of a chair, and the first -sight that he caught of her was to show her feeding -the fire with the broken pieces of it. It had been -too troublesome to bring fresh logs from the store -of wood; to break up a chair was the easier task.</p> - -<p>She stirred and sat more upright, then reached<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -out for the bottle that stood beside her, and drank -from the mouth of it. She drank and licked her lips -and drank again, and staggered to her feet, tripping -on the edge of the hearthrug. For the moment -that seemed to anger her, and with clenched teeth -and pointing finger she mumbled at it; then once -more she drank, and lurching forward, took the -lamp from the table. With it in her hand she -shuffled to the door, and the room was left to the -flickering firelight. A moment afterwards, the bedroom -window above sprang into light, an oblong of -bright illumination.</p> - -<p>As soon as that appeared he crept round the house -to the door. He gently turned the handle of it, -and found it unlocked. Inside was a small passage -entrance, on the left of which ascended the stairs -to the bedroom above the studio. All was silent -there, but from where he stood he could see that the -door into the bedroom was open, for a shaft of light -from the lamp she had carried up with her was shed -on to the landing there.... Everything was -smoothing itself out to render his course most easy. -Even the gale was his friend, for it would be bellows -for the fire. He slipped off his shoes, leaving them -on the mat, and drew the whipcord from his pocket. -He made a noose in it, and began to ascend the stairs. -They were well-built of seasoned oak, and no creak -betrayed his advancing footfall.</p> - -<p>At the top he paused, listening for any stir of -movement within, but there was nothing to be heard -but the sound of heavy breathing from the bed that -lay to the left of the door and out of sight. She -had thrown herself down there, he guessed, without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -undressing, leaving the lamp to burn itself out. He -could see it through the open door already beginning -to flicker; on the wall behind it were a couple of -water-colours, pictures of his own, one of the little -walled garden by the farm, the other of the pinewood -of their tryst. Well he remembered painting them: -she would sit by him as he worked with prattle and -singing. He looked at them now quite detachedly; -they seemed to him wonderfully good, and he envied the -artist that fresh, clean skill. Perhaps he would take -them down presently and carry them away with him.</p> - -<p>Very softly now he advanced into the room, -and looking round the corner of the door, he saw -her, sprawling and fully dressed on the broad bed. -She lay on her back, eyes closed and mouth open, her -dull grey hair spread over the pillow. Evidently she -had not made the bed that day, for she lay stretched -on the crumpled back-turned blankets. A hair-brush -was on the floor beside her; it seemed to have fallen -from her hand. He moved quickly towards her.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He put on his shoes again when he came to the -foot of the stairs, carrying the lamp with him and -the two pictures which he had taken down from -the wall, and went into the studio. He set the lamp -on the table and drew down the blinds, and his -eye fell on the half-empty whisky bottle from which -he had seen her drinking. Though his hand was -quite steady and his mind composed and tranquil, -there was yet at the back of it some impression that -was slowly developing, and a good dose of spirits -would no doubt expunge that. He drank half a -tumbler of it raw and undiluted, and though it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -seemed no more than water in his mouth, he soon -felt that it was doing its work and sponging away -from his mind the picture that had been outlining -itself there. In a couple of minutes he was quite -himself again, and could afford to wonder and laugh -at the illusion, for it was no less than that, which -had been gaining on him. For though he could -distinctly remember drawing the noose tight, and -seeing the face grow black, and struggling with the -convulsive movements of those withered limbs that -soon lay quiet again, there had sprung up in his mind -some unaccountable impression that what he had -left there huddled on the bed was not just the bundle -of withered limbs and strangled neck, but the body -of a young girl, smooth of skin and golden of hair, -with mouth that smiled drowsily. She had been -asleep when he came in, and now was half-awake, -and was stirring and stretching herself. In what -dim region of his mind that image had formed itself, -he had no idea; all he cared about now was that -his drink had shattered it again, and he could proceed -with order and method to make all secure. Just -one drop more first: how lucky it was that this -morning he had been liberal with his money when -she came to the village, for he would have been -sorry to have gone without that fillip to his nerves.</p> - -<p>He looked at his watch, and saw to his satisfaction -that it was still only a little after seven o’clock. -Half an hour’s walking, with this gale to speed his -steps, would easily carry him from door to door, -round the detour which approached the village -from the east, and a quarter of an hour, so he reckoned, -would be sufficient to accomplish thoroughly what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -remained to be done here. He must not hurry -and thus overlook some precaution needful for his -safety, though, on the other hand, he would be glad -to be gone from the house as soon as might be, and -he proceeded to set about his work without delay. -There was brushwood and fire-kindling to be brought -in from the wood-shed in the yard, and he made -three journeys, returning each time with his arms -full, before he had brought in what he judged to be -sufficient. Most of this he piled in a loose heap in -the studio; with the rest he ascended once more to -the bedroom above and made a heap of it there in -the middle of the floor. He took the curtains down -from the windows, for they would make a fine wick for -the paraffin, and stuffed them into the pile. Before -he left, he looked once more at what lay on the bed, -and marvelled at the illusion which the whisky had -dispelled, and as he looked, the sense that he was free -mounted and bubbled in his head. The thing seemed -scarcely human at all; it was a monster from which -he had delivered himself, and now, with the thought -of that to warm him, he was no longer eager to get -through with his work and be gone, for it was all part -of that act of riddance which he had accomplished, -and he gloried in it. Soon, when all was ready, he -would come back once more and soak the fuel and set -light to it, and purge with fire the corruption that lay -humped on the bed.</p> - -<p>The fury of the gale had increased with nightfall, -and as he went downstairs again he heard the rattle -of loosened tiles on the roof, and the crash as they -shattered themselves on the cobbles of the yard. -At that a sudden misgiving made his breath to catch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -in his throat, as he pictured to himself some maniac -blast falling on the house and crashing in the walls -that now trembled and shuddered. Supposing the -whole house fell, even if he escaped with his life -from the toppling ruin, what would his life be worth? -There would be search made in the fallen dbris to -find the body of her who lay strangled with the -whipcord round her neck, and he pictured to himself -the slow, relentless march of justice. He had bought -whipcord only yesterday at a shop in the village, -insisting on its strength and toughness ... would -it be wiser now, this moment, to untie the noose -and take it back with him or add it to his brushwood?... -He paused on the staircase, pondering that; -but his flesh quaked at the thought, and master of -himself though he had been during those few struggling -minutes, he distrusted his power of making himself -handle once more that which could struggle no longer. -But even as he tried to screw his courage to the -point, the violence of the squall passed, and the -shuddering house braced itself again. He need not -fear that; the gale was his friend that would blow -on the flames, not his enemy. The blasts that -trumpeted overhead were the voices of the allies -who had come to aid him.</p> - -<p>All was arranged then upstairs for the pouring -of the paraffin and the lighting of the pyre; it remained -but to make similar dispositions in the studio. -He would stay to feed the flames till they raged -beyond all power of extinction; and now he began -to plan the line of his retreat. There were two doors -in the studio: one by the fireplace which opened -on to the little garden; the other gave into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -passage entrance from which mounted the stairs -and so to the door through which he had come into -the house. He decided to use the garden-door for -his exit; but when he came to open it, he found that -the key was stiff in the rusty lock, and did not yield -to his efforts. There was no use in wasting time -over that; it made no difference through which -door he finally emerged, and he began piling up his -heap of wood at that end of the room. The lamp -was burning low; but the fire, which only so few -minutes ago she had fed with a broken chair, shone -brightly, and a flaming ember from it would serve -to set light to his conflagration. There was a straw -mat in front of it, which would make fine kindling, -and with these two fires, one in the bedroom upstairs -and the other here, there would be no mistake about -the incineration of the house and all that it contained. -His own crime, if crime it was, would perish, too, and -all evidence thereof, victim and whipcord, and the -very walls of the house of sin and hate. It was a -great deed and a fine adventure, and as the liquor -he had drunk began to circulate more buoyantly -through his veins, he gloried at the thought of the -approaching consummation. He would slip out of -the sordid tragedy of his past life, as from a discarded -garment that he threw into the bonfire he -would soon kindle.</p> - -<p>All was ready now for the soaking of the fuel he had -piled with the paraffin, and he went out to the shed in -the yard where the barrel stood. A big tin ewer stood -beside it, which he filled and carried indoors. That -would be sufficient for the soaking of the pile upstairs, -and fetching the smoky and flickering lamp from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> -the studio, he went up again, and like a careful -gardener watering some bed of choice blossoms, he -sprinkled and poured till his ewer was empty. He -gave but one glance to the bed behind him, where -the huddled thing lay so quietly, and as he turned, -lamp in hand, to go down again, the draught that came -in through the window against which the gale blew, -extinguished it. A little blue flame of burning -vapour rose in the chimney and went out; so, having -no further use for it, he pitched it on to the pile of -soaked material. As he left the room he thought -he heard some small stir of movement behind him, -but he told himself that it was but something slipping -in the heap he had built there.</p> - -<p>Again he went out into the storm. The clouds -that scudded overhead were thinner now, though -the gale blew not less fiercely, and the blurred, watery -moonlight was brighter. Once for a moment, as -he approached the shed, he caught sight of the full -orb plunging madly among the streaming vapours; -then she was hidden again behind the wrack. Close -in front of him were the fir trees of the wood where -those sweet trysts had been held, and once again -the vision of her as she had been broke into his -mind and the queer conviction that it was no withered -and bloated hag, who lay on the bed upstairs but -the fair, comely limbs and the golden head. It -was even more vivid now, and he made haste to get -back to the studio, where he would find the trusty -medicine that had dispelled that vision before. He -would have to make two journeys at least with his -tin ewer before he transported enough oil to feed -the larger pyre below, and so, to save time, he took<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -the barrel off its stand, and rolled it along the path -and into the house. He paused at the foot of the -stairs, listening to hear if anything stirred, but all -was silent. Whatever had slipped up there was -steady again; from outside only came the squeal -and bellow of the wind.</p> - -<p>The studio was brightly but fitfully lit by the -flames on the hearth; at one moment a noonday -blazed there, the next but the last smoulder of some -red sunset. It was easier to decant from the barrel -into his ewer than carry the heavy keg and sprinkle -from it, and once and once again he filled and emptied -it. One more application would be sufficient, and -after that he could let what remained trickle out on -to the floor. But by some awkward movement -he managed to spill a splash of it down the front of -his trousers: he must be sure, therefore (how quickly -his brain responded with counsels of precautions), -to have some accident with his lamp when he came -in to his supper, which should account for this little -misadventure. Or, probably, the wind through -which he would presently be walking would dry it -before he reached the village.</p> - -<p>So, for the last time with matches ready in his -hand, he mounted the stairs to set light to the fuel -piled in the room above. His second dose of whisky -sang in his head, and he said to himself, smiling at -the humour of the notion, “She always liked a fire -in her bedroom; she shall have it now.” That -seemed a very comical idea, and it dwelt in his head -as he struck the match which should light it for her. -Then, still grinning, he gave one glance to the bed, -and the smile died on his face, and the wild cymbals<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -of panic crashed in his brain. The bed was empty; -no huddled shape lay there.</p> - -<p>Distraught with terror, he thrust the match into -the soaked pile and the flame flared up. Perhaps -the body had rolled off the bed. It must, in any -case, be here somewhere, and when once the room -was alight there would be nothing more to fear. -High rose the smoky flame, and banging the door, -he leaped down the stairs to set light to the pile -below and be gone from the house. Yet, whatever -monstrous miracle his eye had assured him of, it -could not be that she still lived and had left the -place where she lay, for she had ceased to breathe -when the noose was tight round her neck, and her -fight for life and air had long been stilled. But, -if by some hideous witchcraft, she was not dead, it -would soon be over now with her in the stupefaction of -the smoke and the scorching flames. Let be; the door -was shut and she within, for him it remained to be -finished with the business, and flee from the house of -terror, lest he leave the sanity of his soul behind him.</p> - -<p>The red glare from the hearth in the studio lit -his steps down the passage from the stairway, and -already he could hear from above the dry crack and -snap from the fire that prospered there. As he -shuffled in, he held his hands to his head, as if pressing -the brain back into its cool case, from which it seemed -eager to fly out into the welter of storm and fire and -hideous imagination. If he could only control himself -for a few moments more, all would be done and he -would escape from this disordered haunted place into -the night and the gale, leaving behind him the blaze -that would burn away all perilous stuff. Again<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> -the flames broke out in the embers on the hearth, -bravely burning, and he took from the heart of the -glare a fragment on which the fire was bursting -into yellow flowers. He heeded not the scorching -of his hand, for it was but for a moment that he held -it, and then plunged it into the pile that dripped -with the oil he had poured on it. A tower of flame -mounted, licking the rafters of the low ceiling, then -died away as if suffocated by its own smoke, but -crept onwards, nosing its way along till it reached -the straw mat, which blazed fiercely. That blaze -kindled the courage in him; whatever trick his -imagination had played on him just now, he had -nothing to fear except his own terror, which now -he mastered again, for nothing real could ever escape -from the conflagration, and it was only the real that -he feared. Spells and witchcrafts and superstitions, -such as for the last twenty years had battened on -him, were all enclosed in that tight-drawn noose.</p> - -<p>It was time to be gone, for all was safe now, and -the room was growing to oven-heat. But as he picked -his way across the floor over which runnels of flames -from the split barrel were beginning to spread this -way and that, he heard from above the sound of a -door unlatched, and footsteps light and firm tapped -on the stairs. For one second the sheer catalepsy -of panic seized him, but he recovered his control, -and with hands that groped through the thick smoke -he found the door. At that moment the fire shot up -in a blaze of blinding flame, and there in the doorway -stood Ellen. It was no withered body and bloated -face that confronted him, but she with whom he had -trysted in the wood, with the bloom of eternal youth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -upon her, and the smooth soft hand, on which was -her wedding-ring, pointed at him.</p> - -<p>It was in vain that he called on himself to rush -forward out of that torrid and suffocating air. The -front door was open, he had but to pass her and -speed forth safe into the night. But no power -from his will reached his limbs; his will screamed -to him, “Go, go! Push by her: it is but a phantom -which you fear!” but muscle and sinew were in -mutiny, and step by step he retreated before that -pointing finger and the radiant shape that advanced on -him. The flames that flickered over the floor had discovered -the paraffin he had spilt, and leaped up his leg.</p> - -<p>Just one spot in his brain retained lucidity from -the encompassing terror. Somewhere behind that -barrier of fire there was the second door into the -garden. He had but cursorily attempted to unlock -its rusty wards; now, surely, the knowledge that -there alone was escape would give strength to his -hand. He leaped backwards through the flames, -still with eyes fixed on her who ever advanced in -time with his retreat, and turning, wrestled and -strove with the key. Something snapped in his -hand, and there still in the keyhole was the bare shaft.</p> - -<p>Holding his breath, for the heat scorched his throat, -he groped towards where he knew was the window -through which he had first seen her that night. The -flames licked fiercely round it, but there, beneath -his hand, was the hasp, and he threw it open. At -that the wind poured in as through the nozzle of -a plied bellows, and Death rose high and bright -around him. Through the flames, as he sank to the -floor, a face radiant with revenge smiled on him.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">Inscrutable Decrees</h2></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph1">Inscrutable Decrees</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">I had</span> found nothing momentous in the more august -pages of <i>The Times</i> that morning, and so, just because -I was lazy and unwilling to embark on a host of -businesses that were waiting for me, I turned to the -first page and, beginning with the seventh column, -pondered profoundly over “Situations Vacant,” and -hoped that the “Gentlewoman fond of games,” -who desired the position of governess, would find -the very thing to suit her. I glanced at the notices -of lectures to be delivered under the auspices of -various learned societies, and was thankful that I -had not got to give or to listen to any of them. I -debated over “Business Opportunities”; I vainly -tried to conjecture clues to mysterious “Personal” -paragraphs, and, still pursuing my sideways, crab-fashion -course, came to “Deaths Continued.”</p> - -<p>There, with a shock of arrest, I saw that Sybil -Rorke, widow of the late Sir Ernest Rorke, had -died at Torquay, suddenly, at the age of thirty-two. -It seemed strange that there should be only this -bare announcement concerning a woman who at -one time had been so well-known and dazzling a -figure; and turning to the obituary notices, I found -that my inattentive skimming had overlooked a -paragraph there of appreciation and regret. She -had died during her sleep, and it was announced -that an inquest would be held. My laziness then -had been of some use, for Archie Rorke, distant -cousin but successor to Sir Ernest’s estates and title,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -was arriving that evening to spend a few country -days with me, and I was glad to have known this -before he came. How it would affect him, or whether, -indeed, it would affect him at all, I had no idea.</p> - -<p>What a mysterious affair it had been! No one, -I supposed, knew the history of it except he, now -that Lady Rorke was dead. If anyone knew, it -should have been myself, and yet Archie, my oldest -friend, whose best man I was to have been, had -never opened his lips to a syllable of explanation. -I knew, in fact, no whit more than the whole world -knew, namely, that a year after Sir Ernest Rorke’s -death the engagement of his widow to the new -baronet, Sir Archibald Rorke, was made public, -and that within a fortnight of the date fixed for the -wedding it was laconically announced that the -marriage would not take place. When, on seeing -that, I rang Archie up on the telephone, I was told -that he had already left London, and he wrote to -me a few days later from Lincote—the place in -Hampshire, which he had inherited from his cousin—saying -that he had nothing to tell me about the -breaking off of his engagement beyond the fact that -it was true. The whole—he had written a word and -carefully erased it—episode was now an excised leaf -from his life. He was proposing to stay down at -Lincote alone for a month or so, and would then -turn on to the new page.</p> - -<p>Lady Rorke, so I heard, had also left London -immediately and passed the summer in Italy. Then -she took a furnished house in Torquay, where she -lived for the remainder of the year which intervened -between the breaking off of her engagement and her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -death. She cut herself completely off from all her -friends—and no woman, surely, ever commanded a -larger host of them—saw nobody, seldom went outside -her house and garden, and observed the same unbroken -silence as did Archie about what had happened. -And now, with all her youth and charm and beauty, -she had gone down dumb into the Great Silence.</p> - -<p>With the prospect of seeing Archie that evening -it was no wonder that the thought of Lady Rorke -ran all day in my head like a tune heard long ago -which now recalled itself to my mind in scattered -staves of melody. Meetings and talks with her, -phrase by phrase, reconstructed themselves, and as -these memories grew definite and complete I found -that, even as before, when I was actually experiencing -them, there lurked underneath the gay rhythms and -joyousness something <i>macabre</i> and mysterious. To-day -that was accentuated, whereas before when I -listened for it, trying to isolate it from the rest and -so perhaps dispel it, it was always overscored by -some triumphant crescendo: her presence diverted -eye and ear alike. Yet such a simile halts; perhaps, -still in simile, I shall more accurately define this -underlying “something” by saying that her presence -was like some gorgeous rose-bush, full of flowers, -and sun, and sweetness; then, even as one admired -and applauded and inhaled, one saw that among -its buds and blossoms there emerged the spikes of -some other plant, bitter and poisonous, but growing -from the same soil as the rose, and intertwined with -it. But immediately a fresh glory met your eye, -a fresh fragrance enchanted you.</p> - -<p>As I rummaged among my memories of her,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -certain scenes which significantly illustrated this -curiously vivid impression stirred and made themselves -manifest to me, and now they were not broken -in upon by her presence. One such occurred on -the first evening that I ever met her, which was in -the summer before the death of her husband. The -moment that she entered the room where we were -waiting before dinner for her arrival, the stale, -sultry air of a June evening grew fresh and effervescent; -never have I come across so radiant and -infectious a vitality. She was tall and big, with -the splendour of the Juno-type, and though she was -then close on thirty, the iridescence of girlhood was -still hers. Without effort she Pied-pipered a rather -stodgy party to dance to her flutings, she caused -everyone to become silly and pleased and full of -laughter. At her bidding we indulged in ridiculous -games, dumb-crambo, and what not, and after that -the carpet was rolled up and we capered to the strains -of a gramophone. And then the incident occurred.</p> - -<p>I was standing with her, for a breath of air, on the -balcony outside the drawing-room windows which -faced the park. She had just made a great curtsey -to a slip of the moon that rose above the trees and -had borrowed a shilling of me in order to turn it.</p> - -<p>“No, I can’t swear that I believe in moon-luck,” -she said, “but after all it does no harm, and, in case -it’s true, you can’t afford to make an enemy of her. -Ah, what’s that?”</p> - -<p>A thrush, attracted by the lights inside, had flown -between us, dashed itself against the window, and -now lay fluttering on the ground at our feet. Instantly -she was all pity and tenderness. She picked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -up the bird, examined it, and found that its wing -was broken.</p> - -<p>“Ah, poor thing!” she said. “Look, its wing-bone -is snapped; the end protrudes. And how -terrified it is! What are we to do?”</p> - -<p>It was clear that the kindest thing to do would -be to put the bird out of its pain, but when I suggested -that, she took a step back from me, and covered -it with her other hand. Her eyes gleamed, her -mouth smiled, and I saw the tip of her tongue swiftly -pass over her lips as if licking them.</p> - -<p>“No, that would be a terrible thing to do,” she -said. “I shall take it home with me ever so carefully, -and watch over it. I am afraid it is badly -hurt. But it may live.”</p> - -<p>Suddenly—perhaps it was that swift licking of -her lips that suggested the thought to me—I felt -instinctively that she was not so much pitiful as -pleased. She stood there with eyes fixed on it, as -it feebly struggled in her hands.</p> - -<p>And then her face clouded; over its brightness -there came a look of displeasure, of annoyance.</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid it is dying,” she said. “Its poor -frightened eyes are closing.”</p> - -<p>The bird fluttered once more, then its legs stretched -themselves stiffly out, and it lay still. She tossed -it out of her hands on to the paved balcony, with -a little shrug of her shoulders.</p> - -<p>“What a fuss over a bird,” she said. “It was -silly of it to fly against the glass. But I have too -soft a heart; I cannot bear that the poor creatures -should die. Let us go in and have one more romp. -Oh, here is your shilling; I hope it will have brought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> -me good luck. And then I must get home. My -husband—do you know him?—always sits up till -I get back, and he will scold me for being so late!”</p> - -<p>There, then, was my first meeting with her, and -there, too, were the spikes of the poisonous plant -pushing up among the magnificence of her roses. -And yet, so I thought to myself then, and so I think -to myself now, I perhaps was utterly wrong about -it all, in thus attributing to her a secret glee of which -she was wholly incapable. So, with a certain effort -I wiped the impression I had received off my mind, -determining to consider myself quite mistaken. -But, involuntarily, my mind as if to justify itself -in having delineated such a picture, proceeded to -delineate another.</p> - -<p>Very shortly after that first meeting I received -from her a charming note, asking me to dine with -her on a date not far distant. I telephoned a -delighted acceptance, for, indeed, I wanted then, -even as I did this morning, to convince myself that -I was wholly in error concerning my interpretation -of that incident concerning the thrush. Though I -hold that no man has the right to accept the hospitality -offered by one he does not like, in all points -except one I admired and liked Lady Rorke immensely -and wished to get rid of that one. So I gratefully -accepted, and then hurried out on a dismal and -overdue visit to the dentist’s. In the waiting-room -was a girl of about twelve, with a hand nursing a -rueful face, and from time to time she stifled a sob -of pain or apprehension. I was just wondering -whether it would be a breach of waiting-room -etiquette to attempt to administer comfort or supply<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> -diversion, when the door opened and in came Lady -Rorke. She laughed delightfully when she saw me.</p> - -<p>“Hurrah! You’re another occupant of the condemned -cell,” she said, “and very soon we shall -both be sent for to the scaffold. I can’t describe -to you what a coward I am about it. Why haven’t -we got beaks like birds?——”</p> - -<p>Her glance fell on the forlorn little figure by the -window, with the rueful face and the wet eyes.</p> - -<p>“Why, here’s another of us,” she said. “And have -they sent you to the dentist’s all alone, my dear?”</p> - -<p>“Y—yes.”</p> - -<p>“How horrid of them!” said Lady Rorke. -“They’ve sent me alone, too, and I think it’s most -unfeeling. But you shan’t be alone, anyhow, I’ll -come in with you, and sit by you, if you like that, -and box the man’s ears for him if he hurts you. -Or shall you and I set on him, as soon as we’ve got -him by himself, and take out all his teeth one after -the other? Just to teach him to be a dentist.”</p> - -<p>A faint smile began the break through the clouds.</p> - -<p>“Oh, will you come in with me?” she asked. -“I shan’t mind nearly so much, then. It’s—it’s -got to come out, you know, and I mayn’t have gas.”</p> - -<p>Just the same gleam of a smile as I had seen on -Lady Rorke’s face once before quivered there now, -a light not of pity, surely.</p> - -<p>“Ah, but it won’t ache any more after that,” -she said, “and after all, it is so soon over. You’ll -just open your mouth as if you were going to put -the largest of all strawberries into it, and you’ll -hold tight on to my hand, and the dentist takes up -something which you needn’t look at——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>There was a want of tact in the vividness of this -picture, and the child began to sob again.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t, don’t!” she cried.</p> - -<p>Again the door opened, and she clung to Lady -Rorke.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know it’s for me!” she wailed.</p> - -<p>Lady Rorke bent over her, scanning her terrified -face.</p> - -<p>“Come along, my dear,” she said, “and it will -be over in no time. You’ll be back here again before -this gentleman can count a hundred, and he’ll have -all his troubles in front of him still.”</p> - -<p>Again this morning I tried to expunge from that -picture, so trivial and yet so vivid to me, the sinister -something which seemed to connect it with the -incident about the thrush, and, leaving it, my mind -strayed on over other reminiscences of Lady Rorke. -Before the season was over I had got to know her -well, and the better I knew her the more I marvelled -at that many-petalled vitality, which never ceased -unfolding itself. She entertained largely, and had -that crowning gift of a good hostess, namely, that -she enjoyed her own parties quite enormously. She -was a very fine horsewoman, and after being up till -dawn at some dance, she would be in the Row by -half-past eight on a peculiarly vicious mare to whom -she seemed to pay only the most cursory attention. -She had a good knowledge of music, she dressed -amazingly, she was charming to her meagre little -husband, playing piquet with him by the hour -(which was the only thing, apart from herself, that -he cared about), and if in this modern democratic -London there could be said to be a queen, there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> -is no doubt who that season would have worn the -crown. Less publicly, she was a great student of -the psychical and occult, and I remembered hearing -that she was herself possessed of very remarkable -mediumistic gifts. But to me that was a matter of -hearsay, for I never was present at any sance of hers.</p> - -<p>Yet through the triumphant music of her pageant, -there sounded, to my ears at least, fragments of a -very ugly tune. It was not only in these two instances -of its emergence that I heard it, it was chiefly -and most persistently audible in her treatment of -Archie Rorke, her husband’s cousin. Everyone -knew, for none could help knowing, that he was -desperately in love with her, and it is impossible to -imagine that she alone was ignorant of it. It is, -no doubt, the instinct of many women to fan a -passion which they do not share, and which they have -no intention of indulging, just as the male instinct -is to gratify a passion that he does not really feel, -but there are limits to mercilessness. She was not -“cruel to be kind”; she was kind to be demoniacally -cruel. She had him always by her; she gave him -those little touches and comrade-like licences which -meant nothing to her, but crazed him with thirst; -she held the glass close to his lips and then tilted it -up and showed it him empty. The more charitable -explanation was that she, perhaps, knew that her -husband could not live long, and that she intended -to marry Archie, and such, so it subsequently -appeared, her intentions were. But when I saw -her feeding him with husks and putting an empty -glass to his lips, nothing, to my mind, could account -for her treatment of him except a rapture of cruelty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -at the sight of his aching. And somehow, awfully -and aptly, that seemed to fit in with the affair of -the thrush, and the meeting with the forlorn child -in the dentist’s waiting-room. Yet ever, through -that gruesome twilight, there blazed forth her -charm and her beauty and the beam of her joyous -vitality, and I would cudgel myself for my nasty -interpretations.</p> - -<p>It was early in the spring of next year that I was -spending a week-end with her and her husband at -Lincote. She had suggested my coming down on -Saturday morning before the party assembled later -in the day, and at lunch I was alone with her husband -and her. Sir Ernest was very silent; he looked ill -and haggard, and, in fact, hardly spoke a word except -when suddenly he turned to the butler and said, -“Has anything been heard of the child yet?” He -was told that there was no news, and subsided into -silence again. I thought that some queer shadow -as of suspense or anxiety crossed Lady Rorke’s -face at the question; but on the answer, it cleared -off again, and, as if to sweep the subject wholly -away, she asked me if I could tolerate a saunter -with her through the woods till her guests arrived.</p> - -<p>Out she came like some splendid Diana of the -Forests, and like the goddess’s was the swift, swinging -pace of her saunter. Spring all round was riotous -in blossom and bird-song; it was just that ecstatic -moment of the year when the hounds of spring have -run winter to death, and as we gained the high ridge -of down above the woods she stopped and threw -her arms wide.</p> - -<p>“Oh, the sense of spring!” she cried. “The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> -daffodils, and the west wind, and the shadows of -the clouds. How I wish I could take the whole lot -into my arms and hug them. Miracles are flowering -every moment now in the country, while the only -miracle in London is the mud. What sunshine, -what air! Drink them in, for they are the one -divine medicine. One wants that medicine sometimes, -for there are sad things and terrible things all -round us, pain and anguish, and decay. Yet I -suppose that even those call out the splendour of -fortitude or endurance. Even when one looks on -a struggle which one knows is hopeless, it warms the -heart to see it.”</p> - -<p>The gleam that shone from her paled, her arms -dropped, and she moved on. Then, soft of voice -and soft of eye, she spoke again.</p> - -<p>“Such a sad thing happened here two days ago,” -she said. “A small girl—now what was her name? -Yes—Ellen Davenport—brought a note from the -village up to the house. I was out, so she left it, -and started, it is supposed, to go back home. She -has not been seen since. Descriptions of her were -circulated in all the villages for miles round; but, -as you heard at lunch, there has been no news of -her, and the copses and coverts in the park have -been searched, but with no result. And yet out of -that comes splendour. I went to see her mother -yesterday, bowed down with grief, but she won’t -give up hope. ‘If it is God’s will,’ she said to me, -‘we shall find my Ellen alive; and if we find her -dead, it will be God’s will, too.’”</p> - -<p>She paused.</p> - -<p>“But I didn’t ask you down here to moan over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> -tragedies,” she said. “I wanted you after all your -weeks in town to come and have a spring-cleaning. -Doesn’t the wind take the dust out of you, like one -of those sucking-machines which you put on to -carpets? And the sun! Make a sponge of yourself -and soak it up till you’re dripping with it.”</p> - -<p>For a couple of miles, at the least, we kept along -this high ridge of down, and the larks were springing -from the grass, vocal with song uncongealed, as they -aspired and sank again, dropping at last dumb and -spent with rapture. Then we descended steeply, -through the woods and glades of the park, past -thickets of catkinned sallows, and of willows with -soft moleskin buttons, and in the hollows the daffodils -were dancing, and the herbs of the springtime were -pushing up through the brittle withered stuff of the -winter. Then, passing along the one street of the -red-tiled village, in which my companion pointed -me out the house where the poor vanished girl had -lived, we turned homewards across the grass and -joined the road again at the bottom of the great -lake that lies below the terraced gardens of the -house.</p> - -<p>This lake was artificial, made a hundred years -ago by the erection of a huge dam across the dip -of the valley, so that the stream which flowed down -it was thereby confined and must needs form this -sheet of water before it found outlet again through -the sluices. At the centre the dam is some twenty-five -feet in height, and by the side of the road which -crosses it clumps of rhododendrons lean out over -the deep water. The margin on the side towards -the lake is reinforced with concrete, now mossy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> -and overgrown with herbage, and the face of it, -burrows down to the level of the bottom of the -dam through four fathoms of dusky water. The -lake was high and the overflow poured sonorously -through the sluices, and the sun in the west made -broken rainbows in the foam of its outpouring.</p> - -<p>As we paused there a moment, my companion -seemed the incarnation of the sights and sounds -that went to the spell of the spring; singing larks -and dancing daffodils, west wind and rain-bowed foam -and, no less, the dark, deep water, were all distilled -into her radiant vitality.</p> - -<p>“And now for the house again,” she said, going -briskly up the steep slope. “Is it inhospitable of -me to wish that no one was coming except, of course, -our delightful Archie? A houseful brings London -into the country, and we shall talk scandal and stir -up mud instead of watching miracles.”</p> - -<p>Another faint memory of her lingered somewhere -in the dusk, and I groped for it, as one gropes in -slime for the roots of a water-plant, and pulled it -out. A notorious murderer had been guillotined -that morning in France, and in some Sunday paper -next day there was a brutal, brilliant, inexcusable -little sketch of his being led out between guards for -the final scene at dawn outside the prison at Versailles. -And, as I wrote my name in Lady Rorke’s -visitors’ book on Monday morning, I spilt a blot of -ink on the page and hastily had recourse to the -blotting-pad on her writing-table in order to minimize -the disfigurement. Inside it was this unpardonable -picture, cut out and put away, and I thought of the -thrush and the dentist’s waiting-room——</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>A month afterwards her husband died, after three -weeks of intolerable torment. The doctor insisted -on his having two trained nurses, but Lady Rorke -never left him. She was present at the painful -dressings of the wound from the operation that only -prolonged the misery of his existence, and even slept -on the sofa of the room where he lay.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Archie Rorke arrived that evening. He let me -know at once that he had seen the announcement -of Lady Rorke’s death, and said no more about it -till later, when he and I were left alone over the fire -in the smoking-room. He looked round to see that -the door was shut behind the last bedgoer of my -little party, and then turned to me.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got to tell you something,” he said. “It’ll -take half an hour, so to-morrow will do if you want -to be off.”</p> - -<p>“But I don’t,” said I.</p> - -<p>He pulled himself together from his sprawling -sunkenness in his chair.</p> - -<p>“Very well,” he said. “What I want to tell -you is the story of the breaking-off of my engagement -with Sybil. I have often wanted to do so before, -but while she was alive, as you will presently see, I -could tell nobody. I shall ask you, when you know -everything, whether you think I could have done -otherwise. And please do not interrupt me till I -have finished, unless there is something you don’t -understand, for it won’t be very easy to get through -with it. But I think I can make it intelligible.”</p> - -<p>He was silent a moment, and I saw his face working -and twitching.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>“I must tell somebody,” he said, “and I choose -you, unless you mind it awfully. But I simply can’t -bear it alone any more.”</p> - -<p>“Go on, then, old boy,” I said. “I’m glad you -chose me, do you know. And I won’t interrupt.”</p> - -<p>Archie spoke.</p> - -<p>“A week or two only before our marriage was to -have taken place,” he said, “I went down to Lincote -for a couple of days. I had had the house done up -and re-decorated, and now the work was finished -and I wanted to see that all was in order. Nothing -could be worthy of Sybil, but—well, you can guess, -more or less, what my feelings were.</p> - -<p>“For a week before there had been very heavy -rains, and the lake—you know it—below the garden -was very high, higher than I had ever seen it: the -water poured over the road across the dam which -leads to the village. Under the weight and press -of it a great crack had appeared in the concrete -with which it is faced, and there was danger of the -dam being carried away. If that happened the -whole lake would have been suddenly released and -no end of damage might have been done. It was -therefore necessary to draw off the water as fast as -possible to relieve the pressure and repair the crack. -This was done by means of big siphons. For two -days we had them working, but the crack seemed -to extend right to the foundations of the dam, and -before it could be repaired all the water in the lake -would have to be drawn off. I was just leaving for -town, when the foreman came up to the house to -tell me that they had found something there. In the -ooze and mud at the base of the dam, twenty-five<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> -feet below water-level, they had come upon the body -of a young girl.”</p> - -<p>He gripped the arms of his chair tight. Little -did he know that I was horribly aware of what he -was going to tell me next.</p> - -<p>“About a month before my cousin Ernest’s death,” -he said, “a mysterious affair happened in the village. -A girl named Ellen Davenport had disappeared. -She came up one afternoon to the house with a note, -and was never seen again, dead or alive. Her disappearance -was now explained. A chain of beads -round the neck and various fragments of clothing -established, beyond any doubt, the identity of what -they had found at the bottom of the lake. I waited -for the inquest, telegraphing to Sybil that business -had detained me, and then returned to town, not -intending to tell her what that business was, for -our marriage was close at hand and it was not a -topic one would choose. She was very superstitious, -you know, and I thought that it would shock her. -That she would feel it to be unlucky and ill-omened. -So I said nothing to her.</p> - -<p>“Sybil had extraordinary mediumistic powers. -She did not often exercise them and she never would -give a sance to any one she did not know extremely -well, for she believed that people brought with them -the spiritual influences with which they were surrounded, -and that there was the possibility of very -evil intelligences being set free. But she had sat -several times with me, and I had witnessed some -very remarkable manifestations. Her procedure was -to put herself, by abstraction of her mind, into a -state of trance, and spirits of the dead who were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> -connected with the sitters could then communicate -through her. On one occasion my mother, whom -she had never seen, and who died many years ago, -spoke through her and told me certain facts which -Sybil could not have known, and which I did not -know. But an old friend of my mother’s, still -alive, told me that they were correct. They were -of an exceedingly private nature. Sybil also, so -she told me, could produce materialisations, but up -till now I had never seen any. A remarkable thing -about her mediumship was that she would sometimes -regain consciousness from her trance while still -these communications were being made, and she -knew what was going on. She could hear herself -speak and be mentally aware of what she was saying. -On the occasion, for instance, of which I have told -you, when my mother spoke to me she was in this -state. The same thing occurred at the sitting of -which I shall now speak.</p> - -<p>“That night, on my return to London, she and -I dined alone. I felt a very strong desire, for which -I could not account, that she should hold a sitting—just -herself and me—and she consented. We sat -in her room, with a shaded lamp, but there was -sufficient illumination for me to see her quite distinctly, -for her face was towards the light. There -was a small table in front of us covered with a dark -cloth. She sat close to it, in a high chair, composed -herself, and almost immediately went into trance. -Her head fell forward and by her slow breathing and -her absolute immobility I knew she was unconscious. -For a long time we sat there in silence, and I began -to think that we should get no manifestations at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> -all, and that the sitting, as sometimes was the case, -would be a failure; but then I saw that something -was happening.”</p> - -<p>His hands, with which he gripped the arms of his -chair, were trembling. Twice he tried to speak, -but it was not till the third attempt that he mastered -himself.</p> - -<p>“There was forming a mist above the table,” -he said. “It was slightly luminous and it spread -upwards, pillar-shaped, in height between two and -three feet. Then I saw that below the outlying -skeins of it something was materialising. It moulded -itself into human shape, rising waist-high from the -table, and presently shoulders and arms and neck -and head were visible, and features began to outline -themselves. For some time it remained vague and -fluid, swaying backwards and forwards a little; -then very quickly it solidified, and there, close in -front of me, was the half-figure of a young girl. -The eyes were still closed, but now they opened. -Round her neck was a chain of beads just such as -I had seen laid by the body that had been found -in the lake. And then I spoke to her, asking her -who she was, though I already knew.</p> - -<p>“Her answer was no more than a whisper, but -quite distinct.</p> - -<p>“‘Ellen Davenport,’ she said.</p> - -<p>“A disordered terror seized me. Yet perhaps -this little white figure, with its wide-gazing eyes, -was some hallucination, something that had no -objective existence at all. All day the thought of -the poor kiddie whose remains I had seen taken -out of the ooze at the bottom of the lake had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> -vivid in my mind, and I tried to think that what I -saw was no more than some strange projection of -my thought. And yet I felt it was not so; it was -independent of myself. And why was it made -manifest, and on what errand had it come? I -had pressed Sybil to give me this sance, and God -knows what I would have given not to have done -so! For one thing I was thankful, namely, that she -was in unconscious trance. Perhaps the phantom -would fade again before she came out of it.</p> - -<p>“And then I heard a stir of movement from the -chair where she sat, and, turning, I saw that she had -raised her head. Her eyes were open and on her -face such a mask of terror as I have never known -human being could wear. Recognition was there, -too; I saw that Sybil knew who the phantom was.</p> - -<p>“The figure that palely gleamed above the table -turned its head towards her, and once more the -white lips opened.</p> - -<p>“‘Yes, I am Ellen Davenport,’ she said.</p> - -<p>“The whisper grew louder.</p> - -<p>“‘You might have saved me,’ she said, ‘or you -might have tried to save me; but you watched me -struggling till I sank.’</p> - -<p>“And then the apparition vanished. It did not -die away; it was there clear and distinct one moment, -at the next it was gone. Sybil and I were sitting -alone in her room with the low-burning lamp, and -the silence sang in my ears.</p> - -<p>“I got up and turned on the switch that kindled -the electric lights, and knew that something within -me had grown cold and that something had snapped. -She still sat where she was, not looking at me at all,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> -but blankly in front of her. She said no word of -denial in answer to the terrible accusation that had -been uttered. And I think I was glad of that, for -there are times when it is not only futility to deny, -but blasphemy. For my part, I could neither look -at her nor speak to her. I remember holding out -my hands to the empty grate, as if there had been a -fire burning there. And standing there I heard her -rise, and drearily wondered what she would say -and knew how useless it would be. And then I -heard the whisper of her dress on the carpet and the -noise of the door opening and shutting, and when -I turned I found that I was alone in the room. -Presently I let myself out of the house.”</p> - -<p>There was a long pause, but I did not break it, -for I felt he had not quite finished.</p> - -<p>“I had loved her with my whole heart,” he said, -“and she knew it. Perhaps that was why I never -attempted to see her again and why she did not -attempt to see me. That little white figure would -always have been with us, for she could not deny -the reality of it and the truth of that which it had -spoken. That’s my story, then. You needn’t even -tell me if you think I could have done differently, -for I knew I couldn’t. And she couldn’t.”</p> - -<p>He rose.</p> - -<p>“I see there is to be an inquest,” he said. “I -hope they will find that she killed herself. It will -mean, won’t it, that her remorse was unbearable. -And that’s atonement.”</p> - -<p>He moved towards the door.</p> - -<p>“Inscrutable decrees,” he said.</p> - - - - - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">The Gardener</h2></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph1">The Gardener</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Two</span> friends of mine, Hugh Grainger and his wife, -had taken for a month of Christmas holiday the -house in which we were to witness such strange -manifestations, and when I received an invitation -from them to spend a fortnight there I returned them -an enthusiastic affirmative. Well already did I know -that pleasant heathery country-side, and most intimate -was my acquaintance with the subtle hazards -of its most charming golf-links. Golf, I was given to -understand, was to occupy the solid day for Hugh -and me, so that Margaret should never be obliged -to set her hand to the implements with which the -game, so detestable to her, was conducted....</p> - -<p>I arrived there while yet the daylight lingered, -and as my hosts were out, I took a ramble round -the place. The house and garden stood on a plateau -facing south; below it were a couple of acres of -pasture that sloped down to a vagrant stream crossed -by a foot-bridge, by the side of which stood a thatched -cottage with a vegetable patch surrounding it. A -path ran close past this across the pasture from a -wicket-gate in the garden, conducted you over the -foot-bridge, and, so my remembered sense of geography -told me, must constitute a short cut to the -links that lay not half a mile beyond. The cottage -itself was clearly on the land of the little estate, -and I at once supposed it to be the gardener’s house. -What went against so obvious and simple a theory -was that it appeared to be untenanted. No wreath<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -of smoke, though the evening was chilly, curled from -its chimneys, and, coming closer, I fancied it had -that air of “waiting” about it which we so often -conjure into unused habitations. There it stood, -with no sign of life whatever about it, though ready, -as its apparently perfect state of repair seemed to -warrant, for fresh tenants to put the breath of life -into it again. Its little garden, too, though the -palings were neat and newly painted, told the same -tale; the beds were untended and unweeded, and -in the flower-border by the front door was a row of -chrysanthemums, which had withered on their stems. -But all this was but the impression of a moment, -and I did not pause as I passed it, but crossed the -foot-bridge and went on up the heathery slope that -lay beyond. My geography was not at fault, for -presently I saw the club-house just in front of me. -Hugh no doubt would be just about coming in from -his afternoon round, and so we would walk back -together. On reaching the club-house, however, -the steward told me that not five minutes before -Mrs. Grainger had called in her car for her husband, -and I therefore retraced my steps by the path along -which I had already come. But I made a detour, -as a golfer will, to walk up the fairway of the seventeenth -and eighteenth holes just for the pleasure of -recognition, and looked respectfully at the yawning -sandpit which so inexorably guards the eighteenth -green, wondering in what circumstances I should -visit it next, whether with a step complacent and -superior, knowing that my ball reposed safely on -the green beyond, or with the heavy footfall of one -who knows that laborious delving lies before him.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>The light of the winter evening had faded fast, -and when I crossed the foot-bridge on my return -the dusk had gathered. To my right, just beside -the path, lay the cottage, the whitewashed walls -of which gleamed whitely in the gloaming; and -as I turned my glance back from it to the rather -narrow plank which bridged the stream I thought -I caught out of the tail of my eye some light from -one of its windows, which thus disproved my theory -that it was untenanted. But when I looked directly -at it again I saw that I was mistaken: some reflection -in the glass of the red lines of sunset in the west must -have deceived me, for in the inclement twilight it -looked more desolate than ever. Yet I lingered -by the wicket gate in its low palings, for though all -exterior evidence bore witness to its emptiness, some -inexplicable feeling assured me, quite irrationally, -that this was not so, and that there was somebody -there. Certainly there was nobody visible, but, -so this absurd idea informed me, he might be at the -back of the cottage concealed from me by the intervening -structure, and, still oddly, still unreasonably, -it became a matter of importance to my mind to -ascertain whether this was so or not, so clearly had -my perceptions told me that the place was empty, -and so firmly had some conviction assured me that -it was tenanted. To cover my inquisitiveness, in -case there was someone there, I could inquire whether -this path was a short cut to the house at which I was -staying, and, rather rebelling at what I was doing, -I went through the small garden, and rapped at the -door. There was no answer, and, after waiting for -a response to a second summons, and having tried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> -the door and found it locked, I made the circuit of -the house. Of course there was no one there, and -I told myself that I was just like a man who looks -under his bed for a burglar and would be beyond -measure astonished if he found one.</p> - -<p>My hosts were at the house when I arrived, and -we spent a cheerful two hours before dinner in such -desultory and eager conversation as is proper between -friends who have not met for some time. Between -Hugh Grainger and his wife it is always impossible -to light on a subject which does not vividly interest -one or other of them, and golf, politics, the needs of -Russia, cooking, ghosts, the possible victory over -Mount Everest, and the income tax were among the -topics which we passionately discussed. With all -these plates spinning, it was easy to whip up any -one of them, and the subject of spooks generally -was lighted upon again and again.</p> - -<p>“Margaret is on the high road to madness,” -remarked Hugh on one of these occasions, “for she -has begun using planchette. If you use planchette -for six months, I am told, most careful doctors will -conscientiously certify you as insane. She’s got five -months more before she goes to Bedlam.”</p> - -<p>“Does it work?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it says most interesting things,” said -Margaret. “It says things that never entered my -head. We’ll try it to-night.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, not to-night,” said Hugh. “Let’s have an -evening off.”</p> - -<p>Margaret disregarded this.</p> - -<p>“It’s no use asking planchette questions,” she -went on, “because there is in your mind some sort<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -of answer to them. If I ask whether it will be fine -to-morrow, for instance, it is probably I—though -indeed I don’t mean to push—who makes the pencil -say ‘yes.’”</p> - -<p>“And then it usually rains,” remarked Hugh.</p> - -<p>“Not always: don’t interrupt. The interesting -thing is to let the pencil write what it chooses. Very -often it only makes loops and curves—though they -may mean something—and every now and then a -word comes, of the significance of which I have -no idea whatever, so I clearly couldn’t have suggested -it. Yesterday evening, for instance, it wrote -‘gardener’ over and over again. Now what did -that mean? The gardener here is a Methodist with -a chin-beard. Could it have meant him? Oh, it’s -time to dress. Please don’t be late, my cook is so -sensitive about soup.”</p> - -<p>We rose, and some connection of ideas about -“gardener” linked itself up in my mind.</p> - -<p>“By the way, what’s that cottage in the field by -the foot-bridge?” I asked. “Is that the gardener’s -cottage?”</p> - -<p>“It used to be,” said Hugh. “But the chin-beard -doesn’t live there: in fact nobody lives there. It’s -empty. If I was owner here, I should put the chin-beard -into it, and take the rent off his wages. Some -people have no idea of economy. Why did you ask?”</p> - -<p>I saw Margaret was looking at me rather attentively.</p> - -<p>“Curiosity,” I said. “Idle curiosity.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe it was,” said she.</p> - -<p>“But it was,” I said. “It was idle curiosity -to know whether the house was inhabited. As I -passed it, going down to the club-house, I felt sure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> -it was empty, but coming back I felt so sure that there -was someone there that I rapped at the door, and -indeed walked round it.”</p> - -<p>Hugh had preceded us upstairs, as she lingered -a little.</p> - -<p>“And there was no one there?” she asked. -“It’s odd: I had just the same feeling as you about -it.”</p> - -<p>“That explains planchette writing ‘gardener’ -over and over again,” said I. “You had the -gardener’s cottage on your mind.”</p> - -<p>“How ingenious!” said Margaret. “Hurry up -and dress.”</p> - -<p>A gleam of strong moonlight between my drawn -curtains when I went up to bed that night led me -to look out. My room faced the garden and the -fields which I had traversed that afternoon, and all -was vividly illuminated by the full moon. The -thatched cottage with its white walls close by the -stream was very distinct, and once more, I suppose, -the reflection of the light on the glass of one of its -windows made it appear that the room was lit within. -It struck me as odd that twice that day this illusion -should have been presented to me, but now a yet -odder thing happened. Even as I looked the light -was extinguished.</p> - -<p>The morning did not at all bear out the fine promise -of the clear night, for when I woke the wind was -squealing, and sheets of rain from the south-west -were dashed against my panes. Golf was wholly -out of the question, and, though the violence of the -storm abated a little in the afternoon, the rain -dripped with a steady sullenness. But I wearied of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> -indoors, and, since the two others entirely refused -to set foot outside, I went forth mackintoshed to -get a breath of air. By way of an object in my -tramp, I took the road to the links in preference to -the muddy short cut through the fields, with the -intention of engaging a couple of caddies for Hugh -and myself next morning, and lingered awhile over -illustrated papers in the smoking-room. I must -have read for longer than I knew, for a sudden beam -of sunset light suddenly illuminated my page, and -looking up, I saw that the rain had ceased, and that -evening was fast coming on. So instead of taking -the long detour by the road again, I set forth homewards -by the path across the fields. That gleam -of sunset was the last of the day, and once again, -just as twenty-four hours ago, I crossed the foot-bridge -in the gloaming. Till that moment, as far as I was -aware, I had not thought at all about the cottage -there, but now in a flash the light I had seen there -last night, suddenly extinguished, recalled itself to -my mind, and at the same moment I felt that invincible -conviction that the cottage was tenanted. -Simultaneously in these swift processes of thought -I looked towards it, and saw standing by the door -the figure of a man. In the dusk I could distinguish -nothing of his face, if indeed it was turned to me, -and only got the impression of a tallish fellow, thickly -built. He opened the door, from which there came -a dim light as of a lamp, entered, and shut it after him.</p> - -<p>So then my conviction was right. Yet I had been -distinctly told that the cottage was empty: who, -then, was he that entered as if returning home? -Once more, this time with a certain qualm of fear,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> -I rapped on the door, intending to put some trivial -question; and rapped again, this time more drastically, -so that there could be no question that my -summons was unheard. But still I got no reply, and -finally I tried the handle of the door. It was locked. -Then, with difficulty mastering an increasing terror, -I made the circuit of the cottage, peering into each -unshuttered window. All was dark within, though -but two minutes ago I had seen the gleam of light -escape from the opened door.</p> - -<p>Just because some chain of conjecture was beginning -to form itself in my mind, I made no allusion -to this odd adventure, and after dinner Margaret, -amid protests from Hugh, got out the planchette -which had persisted in writing “gardener.” My -surmise was, of course, utterly fantastic, but I wanted -to convey no suggestion of any sort to Margaret.... -For a long time the pencil skated over her paper -making loops and curves and peaks like a temperature -chart, and she had begun to yawn and weary over -her experiment before any coherent word emerged. -And then, in the oddest way, her head nodded -forward and she seemed to have fallen asleep.</p> - -<p>Hugh looked up from his book and spoke in a -whisper to me.</p> - -<p>“She fell asleep the other night over it,” he said.</p> - -<p>Margaret’s eyes were closed, and she breathed -the long, quiet breaths of slumber, and then her hand -began to move with a curious firmness. Right across -the big sheet of paper went a level line of writing, -and at the end her hand stopped with a jerk, and -she woke.</p> - -<p>She looked at the paper.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>“Hullo,” she said. “Ah, one of you has been -playing a trick on me!”</p> - -<p>We assured her that this was not so, and she -read what she had written.</p> - -<p>“Gardener, gardener,” it ran. “I am the gardener. -I want to come in. I can’t find her here.”</p> - -<p>“O Lord, that gardener again!” said Hugh.</p> - -<p>Looking up from the paper, I saw Margaret’s eyes -fixed on mine, and even before she spoke I knew -what her thought was.</p> - -<p>“Did you come home by the empty cottage?” -she asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes: why?”</p> - -<p>“Still empty?” she said in a low voice. “Or—or -anything else?”</p> - -<p>I did not want to tell her just what I had seen—or -what, at any rate, I thought I had seen. If there -was going to be anything odd, anything worth -observation, it was far better that our respective -impressions should not fortify each other.</p> - -<p>“I tapped again, and there was no answer,” -I said.</p> - -<p>Presently there was a move to bed: Margaret -initiated it, and after she had gone upstairs Hugh -and I went to the front door to interrogate the -weather. Once more the moon shone in a clear -sky, and we strolled out along the flagged path that -fronted the house. Suddenly Hugh turned quickly -and pointed to the angle of the house.</p> - -<p>“Who on earth is that?” he said. “Look! -There! He has gone round the corner.”</p> - -<p>I had but the glimpse of a tallish man of heavy -build.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>“Didn’t you see him?” asked Hugh. “I’ll -just go round the house, and find him; I don’t want -anyone prowling round us at night. Wait here, -will you, and if he comes round the other corner -ask him what his business is.”</p> - -<p>Hugh had left me, in our stroll, close by the front -door which was open, and there I waited until he -should have made his circuit. He had hardly -disappeared when I heard, quite distinctly, a rather -quick but heavy footfall coming along the paved -walk towards me from the opposite direction. But -there was absolutely no one to be seen who made this -sound of rapid walking. Closer and closer to me -came the steps of the invisible one, and then with a -shudder of horror I felt somebody unseen push by -me as I stood on the threshold. That shudder was -not merely of the spirit, for the touch of him was -that of ice on my hand. I tried to seize this impalpable -intruder, but he slipped from me, and next -moment I heard his steps on the parquet of the floor -inside. Some door within opened and shut, and I -heard no more of him. Next moment Hugh came -running round the corner of the house from which -the sound of steps had approached.</p> - -<p>“But where is he?” he asked. “He was not -twenty yards in front of me—a big, tall fellow.”</p> - -<p>“I saw nobody,” I said. “I heard his step along -the walk, but there was nothing to be seen.”</p> - -<p>“And then?” asked Hugh.</p> - -<p>“Whatever it was seemed to brush by me, and -go into the house,” said I.</p> - -<p>There had certainly been no sound of steps on -the bare oak stairs, and we searched room after room<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> -through the ground floor of the house. The dining-room -door and that of the smoking-room were locked, -that into the drawing-room was open, and the only -other door which could have furnished the impression -of an opening and a shutting was that into the kitchen -and servants’ quarters. Here again our quest was -fruitless; through pantry and scullery and boot-room -and servants’ hall we searched, but all was empty -and quiet. Finally we came to the kitchen, which -too was empty. But by the fire there was set a -rocking-chair, and this was oscillating to and fro -as if someone, lately sitting there, had just quitted -it. There it stood gently rocking, and this seemed -to convey the sense of a presence, invisible now, -more than even the sight of him who surely had been -sitting there could have done. I remember wanting -to steady it and stop it, and yet my hand refused -to go forth to it.</p> - -<p>What we had seen, and in especial what we had -not seen, would have been sufficient to furnish most -people with a broken night, and assuredly I was -not among the strong-minded exceptions. Long I -lay wide-eyed and open-eared, and when at last I -dozed I was plucked from the borderland of sleep -by the sound, muffled but unmistakable, of someone -moving about the house. It occurred to me that -the steps might be those of Hugh conducting a lonely -exploration, but even while I wondered a tap came -at the door of communication between our rooms, -and, in answer to my response, it appeared that he -had come to see whether it was I thus uneasily wandering. -Even as we spoke the step passed my door, -and the stairs leading to the floor above creaked to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> -its ascent. Next moment it sounded directly above -our heads in some attics in the roof.</p> - -<p>“Those are not the servants’ bedrooms,” said -Hugh. “No one sleeps there. Let us look once -more: it must be somebody.”</p> - -<p>With lit candles we made our stealthy way upstairs, -and just when we were at the top of the flight, Hugh, -a step ahead of me, uttered a sharp exclamation.</p> - -<p>“But something is passing by me!” he said, -and he clutched at the empty air. Even as he spoke, -I experienced the same sensation, and the moment -afterwards the stairs below us creaked again, as the -unseen passed down.</p> - -<p>All night long that sound of steps moved about -the passages, as if someone was searching the house, -and as I lay and listened that message which had -come through the pencil of the planchette to -Margaret’s fingers occurred to me. “I want to come -in. I cannot find her here.”... Indeed someone -had come in, and was sedulous in his search. He -was the gardener, it would seem. But what gardener -was this invisible seeker, and for whom did he seek?</p> - -<p>Even as when some bodily pain ceases it is difficult -to recall with any vividness what the pain was -like, so next morning, as I dressed, I found myself -vainly trying to recapture the horror of the spirit -which had accompanied these nocturnal adventures. -I remembered that something within me had sickened -as I watched the movements of the rocking-chair the -night before and as I heard the steps along the paved -way outside, and by that invisible pressure against -me knew that someone had entered the house. But -now in the sane and tranquil morning, and all day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> -under the serene winter sun, I could not realise what -it had been. The presence, like the bodily pain, -had to be there for the realisation of it, and all day -it was absent. Hugh felt the same; he was even -disposed to be humorous on the subject.</p> - -<p>“Well, he’s had a good look,” he said, “whoever -he is, and whomever he was looking for. By the -way, not a word to Margaret, please. She heard -nothing of these perambulations, nor of the entry of—of -whatever it was. Not gardener, anyhow: who -ever heard of a gardener spending his time walking -about the house? If there were steps all over the -potato-patch, I might have been with you.”</p> - -<p>Margaret had arranged to drive over to have tea -with some friends of hers that afternoon, and in -consequence Hugh and I refreshed ourselves at the -club-house after our game, and it was already dusk -when for the third day in succession I passed homewards -by the whitewashed cottage. But to-night -I had no sense of it being subtly occupied; it stood -mournfully desolate, as is the way of untenanted -houses, and no light nor semblance of such gleamed -from its windows. Hugh, to whom I had told the odd -impressions I had received there, gave them a reception -as flippant as that which he had accorded to the -memories of the night, and he was still being humorous -about them when we came to the door of the house.</p> - -<p>“A psychic disturbance, old boy,” he said. “Like -a cold in the head. Hullo, the door’s locked.”</p> - -<p>He rang and rapped, and from inside came the -noise of a turned key and withdrawn bolts.</p> - -<p>“What’s the door locked for?” he asked his -servant who opened it.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>The man shifted from one foot to the other.</p> - -<p>“The bell rang half an hour ago, sir,” he said, -“and when I came to answer it there was a man -standing outside, and——”</p> - -<p>“Well?” asked Hugh.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t like the looks of him, sir,” he said, -“and I asked him his business. He didn’t say -anything, and then he must have gone pretty smartly -away, for I never saw him go.”</p> - -<p>“Where did he seem to go?” asked Hugh, -glancing at me.</p> - -<p>“I can’t rightly say, sir. He didn’t seem to go -at all. Something seemed to brush by me.”</p> - -<p>“That’ll do,” said Hugh rather sharply.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Margaret had not come in from her visit, but -when soon after the crunch of the motor wheels was -heard Hugh reiterated his wish that nothing should -be said to her about the impression which now, -apparently, a third person shared with us. She -came in with a flush of excitement on her face.</p> - -<p>“Never laugh at my planchette again,” she said. -“I’ve heard the most extraordinary story from Maud -Ashfield—horrible, but so frightfully interesting.”</p> - -<p>“Out with it,” said Hugh.</p> - -<p>“Well, there was a gardener here,” she said. -“He used to live at that little cottage by the foot-bridge, -and when the family were up in London he -and his wife used to be caretakers and live here.”</p> - -<p>Hugh’s glance and mine met: then he turned -away. I knew, as certainly as if I was in his mind, -that his thoughts were identical with my own.</p> - -<p>“He married a wife much younger than himself,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -continued Margaret, “and gradually he became -frightfully jealous of her. And one day in a fit of -passion he strangled her with his own hands. A -little while after someone came to the cottage, and -found him sobbing over her, trying to restore her. -They went for the police, but before they came he -had cut his own throat. Isn’t it all horrible? But -surely it’s rather curious that the planchette said -Gardener. ‘I am the gardener. I want to come in. -I can’t find her here.’ You see I knew nothing -about it. I shall do planchette again to-night. -Oh dear me, the post goes in half an hour, and I -have a whole budget to send. But respect my -planchette for the future, Hughie.”</p> - -<p>We talked the situation out when she had gone, -but Hugh, unwillingly convinced and yet unwilling -to admit that something more than coincidence lay -behind that “planchette nonsense,” still insisted -that Margaret should be told nothing of what we had -heard and seen in the house last night, and of the -strange visitor who again this evening, so we must -conclude, had made his entry.</p> - -<p>“She’ll be frightened,” he said, “and she’ll begin -imagining things. As for the planchette, as likely -as not it will do nothing but scribble and make loops. -What’s that? Yes: come in!”</p> - -<p>There had come from somewhere in the room one -sharp, peremptory rap. I did not think it came from -the door, but Hugh, when no response replied to his -words of admittance, jumped up and opened it. He -took a few steps into the hall outside, and returned.</p> - -<p>“Didn’t you hear it?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Certainly. No one there?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>“Not a soul.”</p> - -<p>Hugh came back to the fireplace and rather irritably -threw a cigarette which he had just lit into the -fender.</p> - -<p>“That was rather a nasty jar,” he observed; -“and if you ask me whether I feel comfortable, I -can tell you I never felt less comfortable in my life. -I’m frightened, if you want to know, and I believe -you are too.”</p> - -<p>I hadn’t the smallest intention of denying this, -and he went on.</p> - -<p>“We’ve got to keep a hand on ourselves,” he said. -“There’s nothing so infectious as fear, and Margaret -mustn’t catch it from us. But there’s something -more than our fear, you know. Something has got -into the house and we’re up against it. I never -believed in such things before. Let’s face it for a -minute. <i>What</i> is it anyhow?”</p> - -<p>“If you want to know what I think it is,” said I, -“I believe it to be the spirit of the man who strangled -his wife and then cut his throat. But I don’t see -how it can hurt us. We’re afraid of our own fear -really.”</p> - -<p>“But we’re up against it,” said Hugh. “And -what will it do? Good Lord, if I only knew what -it would do I shouldn’t mind. It’s the not knowing.... -Well, it’s time to dress.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Margaret was in her highest spirits at dinner. -Knowing nothing of the manifestations of that -presence which had taken place in the last twenty-four -hours, she thought it absorbingly interesting that -her planchette should have “guessed” (so ran her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> -phrase) about the gardener, and from that topic she -flitted to an equally interesting form of patience -for three which her friend had showed her, promising -to initiate us into it after dinner. This she did, and, -not knowing that we both above all things wanted -to keep planchette at a distance, she was delighted -with the success of her game. But suddenly she -observed that the evening was burning rapidly away, -and swept the cards together at the conclusion of a -hand.</p> - -<p>“Now just half an hour of planchette,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, mayn’t we play one more hand?” asked -Hugh. “It’s the best game I’ve seen for years. -Planchette will be dismally slow after this.”</p> - -<p>“Darling, if the gardener will only communicate -again, it won’t be slow,” said she.</p> - -<p>“But it is such drivel,” said Hugh.</p> - -<p>“How rude you are! Read your book, then.”</p> - -<p>Margaret had already got out her machine and a -sheet of paper, when Hugh rose.</p> - -<p>“Please don’t do it to-night, Margaret,” he said.</p> - -<p>“But why? You needn’t attend.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I ask you not to, anyhow,” said he.</p> - -<p>Margaret looked at him closely.</p> - -<p>“Hughie, you’ve got something on your mind,” -she said. “Out with it. I believe you’re nervous. -You think there is something queer about. What -is it?”</p> - -<p>I could see Hugh hesitating as to whether to tell -her or not, and I gathered that he chose the chance -of her planchette inanely scribbling.</p> - -<p>“Go on, then,” he said.</p> - -<p>Margaret hesitated: she clearly did not want to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> -vex Hugh, but his insistence must have seemed to -her most unreasonable.</p> - -<p>“Well, just ten minutes,” she said, “and I promise -not to think of gardeners.”</p> - -<p>She had hardly laid her hand on the board when her -head fell forward, and the machine began moving. -I was sitting close to her, and as it rolled steadily -along the paper the writing became visible.</p> - -<p>“I have come in,” it ran, “but still I can’t find -her. Are you hiding her? I will search the room -where you are.”</p> - -<p>What else was written but still concealed underneath -the planchette I did not know, for at that -moment a current of icy air swept round the room, -and at the door, this time unmistakably, came a -loud, peremptory knock. Hugh sprang to his feet.</p> - -<p>“Margaret, wake up,” he said, “something is -coming!”</p> - -<p>The door opened, and there moved in the figure of -a man. He stood just within the door, his head -bent forward, and he turned it from side to side, -peering, it would seem, with eyes staring and infinitely -sad, into every corner of the room.</p> - -<p>“Margaret, Margaret,” cried Hugh again.</p> - -<p>But Margaret’s eyes were open too; they were -fixed on this dreadful visitor.</p> - -<p>“Be quiet, Hughie,” she said below her breath, -rising as she spoke. The ghost was now looking -directly at her. Once the lips above the thick, -rust-coloured beard moved, but no sound came forth, -the mouth only moved and slavered. He raised his -head, and, horror upon horror, I saw that one side -of his neck was laid open in a red, glistening gash....</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>For how long that pause continued, when we all -three stood stiff and frozen in some deadly inhibition -to move or speak, I have no idea: I suppose that -at the utmost it was a dozen seconds. Then the -spectre turned, and went out as it had come. We -heard his steps pass along the parqueted floor; -there was the sound of bolts withdrawn from the front -door, and with a crash that shook the house it -slammed to.</p> - -<p>“It’s all over,” said Margaret. “God have mercy -on him!”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Now the reader may put precisely what construction -he pleases on this visitation from the dead. -He need not, indeed, consider it to have been a -visitation from the dead at all, but say that there -had been impressed on the scene, where this murder -and suicide happened, some sort of emotional record, -which in certain circumstances could translate itself -into images visible and invisible. Waves of ether, -or what not, may conceivably retain the impress of -such scenes; they may be held, so to speak, in -solution, ready to be precipitated. Or he may hold -that the spirit of the dead man indeed made itself -manifest, revisiting in some sort of spiritual penance -and remorse the place where his crime was committed. -Naturally, no materialist will entertain such an explanation -for an instant, but then there is no one so -obstinately unreasonable as the materialist. Beyond -doubt a dreadful deed was done there, and Margaret’s -last utterance is not inapplicable.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">Mr. Tilly’s Sance</h2></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph1">Mr. Tilly’s Sance</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Tilly</span> had only the briefest moment for reflection, -when, as he slipped and fell on the greasy wood -pavement at Hyde Park Corner, which he was -crossing at a smart trot, he saw the huge traction-engine -with its grooved ponderous wheels towering -high above him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” he said petulantly, -“it will certainly crush me quite flat, and I shan’t -be able to be at Mrs. Cumberbatch’s sance! Most -provoking! A-ow!”</p> - -<p>The words were hardly out of his mouth, when -the first half of his horrid anticipations was thoroughly -fulfilled. The heavy wheels passed over him from -head to foot and flattened him completely out. Then -the driver (too late) reversed his engine and passed -over him again, and finally lost his head, whistled -loudly and stopped. The policeman on duty at the -corner turned quite faint at the sight of the catastrophe, -but presently recovered sufficiently to hold -up the traffic, and ran to see what on earth could be -done. It was all so much “up” with Mr. Tilly -that the only thing possible was to get the hysterical -engine-driver to move clear. Then the ambulance -from the hospital was sent for, and Mr. Tilly’s remains, -detached with great difficulty from the road (so firmly -had they been pressed into it), were reverently carried -away into the mortuary....</p> - -<p>Mr. Tilly during this had experienced one moment’s -excruciating pain, resembling the severest neuralgia<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> -as his head was ground beneath the wheel, but almost -before he realised it, the pain was past, and he found -himself, still rather dazed, floating or standing (he -did not know which) in the middle of the road. -There had been no break in his consciousness; he -perfectly recollected slipping, and wondered how he -had managed to save himself. He saw the arrested -traffic, the policeman with white wan face making -suggestions to the gibbering engine-driver, and he -received the very puzzling impression that the -traction engine was all mixed up with him. He had -a sensation of red-hot coals and boiling water and -rivets all around him, but yet no feeling of scalding -or burning or confinement. He was, on the contrary, -extremely comfortable, and had the most pleasant -consciousness of buoyancy and freedom. Then the -engine puffed and the wheels went round, and -immediately, to his immense surprise, he perceived -his own crushed remains, flat as a biscuit, lying on -the roadway. He identified them for certain by -his clothes, which he had put on for the first time -that morning, and one patent leather boot which -had escaped demolition.</p> - -<p>“But what on earth has happened?” he said. -“Here am I, and yet that poor pressed flower of -arms and legs is me—or rather I—also. And how -terribly upset the driver looks. Why, I do believe -that I’ve been run over! It did hurt for a moment, -now I come to think of it.... My good man, -where are you shoving to? Don’t you see me?”</p> - -<p>He addressed these two questions to the policeman, -who appeared to walk right through him. But the -man took no notice, and calmly came out on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> -other side: it was quite evident that he did not see -him, or apprehend him in any way.</p> - -<p>Mr. Tilly was still feeling rather at sea amid these -unusual occurrences, and there began to steal into -his mind a glimpse of the fact which was so obvious -to the crowd which formed an interested but respectful -ring round his body. Men stood with bared heads; -women screamed and looked away and looked back -again.</p> - -<p>“I really believe I’m dead,” said he. “That’s -the only hypothesis which will cover the facts. But -I must feel more certain of it before I do anything. -Ah! Here they come with the ambulance to look -at me. I must be terribly hurt, and yet I don’t feel -hurt. I should feel hurt surely if I was hurt. I -must be dead.”</p> - -<p>Certainly it seemed the only thing for him to be, -but he was far from realising it yet. A lane had -been made through the crowd for the stretcher-bearers, -and he found himself wincing when they -began to detach him from the road.</p> - -<p>“Oh, do take care!” he said. “That’s the -sciatic nerve protruding there surely, isn’t it? A-ow! -No, it didn’t hurt after all. My new clothes, too: -I put them on to-day for the first time. What bad -luck! Now you’re holding my leg upside down. -Of course all my money comes out of my trouser -pocket. And there’s my ticket for the sance; I -must have that: I may use it after all.”</p> - -<p>He tweaked it out of the fingers of the man who -had picked it up, and laughed to see the expression -of amazement on his face as the card suddenly -vanished. That gave him something fresh to think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> -about, and he pondered for a moment over some -touch of association set up by it.</p> - -<p>“I have it,” he thought. “It is clear that the -moment I came into connection with that card, -it became invisible. I’m invisible myself (of course -to the grosser sense), and everything I hold becomes -invisible. Most interesting! That accounts for the -sudden appearances of small objects at a sance. -The spirit has been holding them, and as long as he -holds them they are invisible. Then he lets go, -and there’s the flower or the spirit-photograph on -the table. It accounts, too, for the sudden disappearances -of such objects. The spirit has taken -them, though the scoffers say that the medium has -secreted them about his person. It is true that when -searched he sometimes appears to have done so; -but, after all, that may be a joke on the part of the -spirit. Now, what am I to do with myself.... Let -me see, there’s the clock. It’s just half-past ten. -All this has happened in a few minutes, for it was a -quarter past when I left my house. Half-past ten -now: what does that mean exactly? I used to -know what it meant, but now it seems nonsense. -Ten what? Hours, is it? What’s an hour?”</p> - -<p>This was very puzzling. He felt that he used to -know what an hour and a minute meant, but the -perception of that, naturally enough, had ceased -with his emergence from time and space into eternity. -The conception of time was like some memory which, -refusing to record itself on the consciousness, lies -perdu in some dark corner of the brain, laughing -at the efforts of the owner to ferret it out. While -he still interrogated his mind over this lapsed perception,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> -he found that space as well as time, had similarly -grown obsolete for him, for he caught sight of his -friend Miss Ida Soulsby, whom he knew was to be -present at the sance for which he was bound, hurrying -with bird-like steps down the pavement opposite. -Forgetting for the moment that he was a disembodied -spirit, he made the effort of will which in his past -human existence would have set his legs in pursuit -of her, and found that the effort of will alone was -enough to place him at her side.</p> - -<p>“My dear Miss Soulsby,” he said, “I was on my -way to Mrs. Cumberbatch’s house when I was knocked -down and killed. It was far from unpleasant, a -moment’s headache——”</p> - -<p>So far his natural volubility had carried him before -he recollected that he was invisible and inaudible -to those still closed in by the muddy vesture of decay, -and stopped short. But though it was clear that -what he said was inaudible to Miss Soulsby’s rather -large intelligent-looking ears, it seemed that some -consciousness of his presence was conveyed to her -finer sense, for she looked suddenly startled, a flush -rose to her face, and he heard her murmur, “Very -odd. I wonder why I received so vivid an impression -of dear Teddy.”</p> - -<p>That gave Mr. Tilly a pleasant shock. He had -long admired the lady, and here she was alluding -to him in her supposed privacy as “dear Teddy.” -That was followed by a momentary regret that he -had been killed: he would have liked to have been -possessed of this information before, and have -pursued the primrose path of dalliance down which -it seemed to lead. (His intentions, of course, would,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> -as always, have been strictly honourable: the path -of dalliance would have conducted them both, if -she consented, to the altar, where the primroses -would have been exchanged for orange blossom.) -But his regret was quite short-lived; though the -altar seemed inaccessible, the primrose path might -still be open, for many of the spiritualistic circle in -which he lived were on most affectionate terms with -their spiritual guides and friends who, like himself, -had passed over. From a human point of view -these innocent and even elevating flirtations had -always seemed to him rather bloodless; but now, -looking on them from the far side, he saw how charming -they were, for they gave him the sense of still -having a place and an identity in the world he had -just quitted. He pressed Miss Ida’s hand (or rather -put himself into the spiritual condition of so doing), -and could vaguely feel that it had some hint of warmth -and solidity about it. This was gratifying, for it -showed that though he had passed out of the material -plane, he could still be in touch with it. Still more -gratifying was it to observe that a pleased and secret -smile overspread Miss Ida’s fine features as he gave -this token of his presence: perhaps she only smiled -at her own thoughts, but in any case it was he who -had inspired them. Encouraged by this, he indulged -in a slightly more intimate token of affection, and -permitted himself a respectful salute, and saw that -he had gone too far, for she said to herself, “Hush, -hush!” and quickened her pace, as if to leave these -amorous thoughts behind.</p> - -<p>He felt that he was beginning to adjust himself -to the new conditions in which he would now live,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> -or, at any rate, was getting some sort of inkling as -to what they were. Time existed no more for him, -nor yet did space, since the wish to be at Miss Ida’s -side had instantly transported him there, and with -a view to testing this further he wished himself back -in his flat. As swiftly as the change of scene in a -cinematograph show he found himself there, and -perceived that the news of his death must have -reached his servants, for his cook and parlour-maid -with excited faces, were talking over the event.</p> - -<p>“Poor little gentleman,” said his cook. “It -seems a shame it does. He never hurt a fly, and to -think of one of those great engines laying him out flat. -I hope they’ll take him to the cemetery from the -hospital: I never could bear a corpse in the house.”</p> - -<p>The great strapping parlour-maid tossed her -head.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m not sure that it doesn’t serve him -right,” she observed. “Always messing about with -spirits he was, and the knockings and concertinas -was awful sometimes when I’ve been laying out supper -in the dining-room. Now perhaps he’ll come himself -and visit the rest of the loonies. But I’m sorry all -the same. A less troublesome little gentleman -never stepped. Always pleasant, too, and wages -paid to the day.”</p> - -<p>These regretful comments and encomiums were -something of a shock to Mr. Tilly. He had imagined -that his excellent servants regarded him with a -respectful affection, as befitted some sort of demigod, -and the rle of the poor little gentleman was not at -all to his mind. This revelation of their true estimate -of him, although what they thought of him could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> -no longer have the smallest significance, irritated -him profoundly.</p> - -<p>“I never heard such impertinence,” he said (so he -thought) quite out loud, and still intensely earth-bound, -was astonished to see that they had no -perception whatever of his presence. He raised his -voice, replete with extreme irony, and addressed -his cook.</p> - -<p>“You may reserve your criticism on my character -for your saucepans,” he said. “They will no doubt -appreciate them. As regards the arrangements for -my funeral, I have already provided for them in my -will, and do not propose to consult your convenience. -At present——”</p> - -<p>“Lor’!” said Mrs. Inglis, “I declare I can almost -hear his voice, poor little fellow. Husky it was, -as if he would do better by clearing his throat. I -suppose I’d best be making a black bow to my cap. -His lawyers and what not will be here presently.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Tilly had no sympathy with this suggestion. -He was immensely conscious of being quite alive, -and the idea of his servants behaving as if he were -dead, especially after the way in which they had -spoken about him, was very vexing. He wanted -to give them some striking evidence of his presence -and his activity, and he banged his hand angrily -on the dining-room table, from which the breakfast -equipage had not yet been cleared. Three tremendous -blows he gave it, and was rejoiced to see that his -parlour-maid looked startled. Mrs. Inglis’s face -remained perfectly placid.</p> - -<p>“Why, if I didn’t hear a sort of rapping sound,” -said Miss Talton. “Where did it come from?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>“Nonsense! You’ve the jumps, dear,” said Mrs. -Inglis, picking up a remaining rasher of bacon on -a fork, and putting it into her capacious mouth.</p> - -<p>Mr. Tilly was delighted at making any impression -at all on either of these impercipient females.</p> - -<p>“Talton!” he called at the top of his voice.</p> - -<p>“Why, what’s that?” said Talton. “Almost -hear his voice, do you say, Mrs. Inglis? I declare -I did hear his voice then.”</p> - -<p>“A pack o’ nonsense, dear,” said Mrs. Inglis -placidly. “That’s a prime bit of bacon, and there’s -a good cut of it left. Why, you’re all of a tremble! -It’s your imagination.”</p> - -<p>Suddenly it struck Mr. Tilly that he might be -employing himself much better than, with such -extreme exertion, managing to convey so slight a -hint of his presence to his parlour-maid, and that the -sance at the house of the medium, Mrs. Cumberbatch, -would afford him much easier opportunities of getting -through to the earth-plane again. He gave a couple -more thumps to the table and, wishing himself at -Mrs. Cumberbatch’s, nearly a mile away, scarcely -heard the faint scream of Talton at the sound -of his blows before he found himself in West Norfolk -Street.</p> - -<p>He knew the house well, and went straight to -the drawing-room, which was the scene of the sances -he had so often and so eagerly attended. Mrs. -Cumberbatch, who had a long spoon-shaped face, -had already pulled down the blinds, leaving the -room in total darkness except for the glimmer of -the night-light which, under a shade of ruby-glass, -stood on the chimney-piece in front of the coloured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> -photograph of Cardinal Newman. Round the table -were seated Miss Ida Soulsby, Mr. and Mrs. Meriott -(who paid their guineas at least twice a week in order -to consult their spiritual guide Abibel and received -mysterious advice about their indigestion and investments), -and Sir John Plaice, who was much interested -in learning the details of his previous incarnation -as a Chaldean priest, completed the circle. His -guide, who revealed to him his sacerdotal career, -was playfully called Mespot. Naturally many other -spirits visited them, for Miss Soulsby had no less -than three guides in her spiritual household, Sapphire, -Semiramis, and Sweet William, while Napoleon and -Plato were not infrequent guests. Cardinal Newman, -too, was a great favourite, and they encouraged his -presence by the singing in unison of “Lead, kindly -Light”: he could hardly ever resist that....</p> - -<p>Mr. Tilly observed with pleasure that there was -a vacant seat by the table which no doubt had -been placed there for him. As he entered, Mrs. -Cumberbatch peered at her watch.</p> - -<p>“Eleven o’clock already,” she said, “and Mr. -Tilly is not here yet. I wonder what can have kept -him. What shall we do, dear friends? Abibel -gets very impatient sometimes if we keep him -waiting.”</p> - -<p>Mr. and Mrs. Meriott were getting impatient too, -for he terribly wanted to ask about Mexican oils, -and she had a very vexing heartburn.</p> - -<p>“And Mespot doesn’t like waiting either,” said -Sir John, jealous for the prestige of his protector, -“not to mention Sweet William.”</p> - -<p>Miss Soulsby gave a little silvery laugh.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>“Oh, but my Sweet William’s so good and kind,” -she said; “besides, I have a feeling, quite a psychic -feeling, Mrs. Cumberbatch, that Mr. Tilly is very -close.”</p> - -<p>“So I am,” said Mr. Tilly.</p> - -<p>“Indeed, as I walked here,” continued Miss -Soulsby, “I felt that Mr. Tilly was somewhere quite -close to me. Dear me, what’s that?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Tilly was so delighted at being sensed, that -he could not resist giving a tremendous rap on the -table, in a sort of pleased applause. Mrs. Cumberbatch -heard it too.</p> - -<p>“I’m sure that’s Abibel come to tell us that he is -ready,” she said. “I know Abibel’s knock. A little -patience, Abibel. Let’s give Mr. Tilly three minutes -more and then begin. Perhaps, if we put up the -blinds, Abibel will understand we haven’t begun.”</p> - -<p>This was done, and Miss Soulsby glided to the -window, in order to make known Mr. Tilly’s approach, -for he always came along the opposite pavement -and crossed over by the little island in the river of -traffic. There was evidently some lately published -news, for the readers of early editions were busy, -and she caught sight of one of the advertisement-boards -bearing in large letters the announcement -of a terrible accident at Hyde Park Corner. She -drew in her breath with a hissing sound and turned -away, unwilling to have her psychic tranquillity -upset by the intrusion of painful incidents. But -Mr. Tilly, who had followed her to the window and -saw what she had seen, could hardly restrain a spiritual -whoop of exultation.</p> - -<p>“Why, it’s all about me!” he said. “Such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> -large letters, too. Very gratifying. Subsequent -editions will no doubt contain my name.”</p> - -<p>He gave another loud rap to call attention to -himself, and Mrs. Cumberbatch, sitting down in -her antique chair which had once belonged to Madame -Blavatsky, again heard.</p> - -<p>“Well, if that isn’t Abibel again,” she said. “Be -quiet, naughty. Perhaps we had better begin.”</p> - -<p>She recited the usual invocation to guides and -angels, and leaned back in her chair. Presently -she began to twitch and mutter, and shortly afterwards -with several loud snorts, relapsed into cataleptic -immobility. There she lay, stiff as a poker, -a port of call, so to speak, for any voyaging intelligence. -With pleased anticipation Mr. Tilly awaited -their coming. How gratifying if Napoleon, with -whom he had so often talked, recognised him and said, -“Pleased to see you, Mr. Tilly. I perceive you have -joined us....” The room was dark except for -the ruby-shaded lamp in front of Cardinal Newman, -but to Mr. Tilly’s emancipated perceptions the withdrawal -of mere material light made no difference, -and he idly wondered why it was generally supposed -that disembodied spirits like himself produced their -most powerful effects in the dark. He could not -imagine the reason for that, and, what puzzled him -still more, there was not to his spiritual perception -any sign of those colleagues of his (for so he might -now call them) who usually attended Mrs. Cumberbatch’s -sances in such gratifying numbers. Though -she had been moaning and muttering a long time -now, Mr. Tilly was in no way conscious of the presence -of Abibel and Sweet William and Sapphire and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> -Napoleon. “They ought to be here by now,” he -said to himself.</p> - -<p>But while he still wondered at their absence, he -saw to his amazed disgust that the medium’s hand, -now covered with a black glove, and thus invisible -to ordinary human vision in the darkness, was groping -about the table and clearly searching for the megaphone-trumpet -which lay there. He found that he -could read her mind with the same ease, though far -less satisfaction, as he had read Miss Ida’s half an -hour ago, and knew that she was intending to apply -the trumpet to her own mouth and pretend to be -Abibel or Semiramis or somebody, whereas she -affirmed that she never touched the trumpet herself. -Much shocked at this, he snatched up the trumpet -himself, and observed that she was not in trance at -all, for she opened her sharp black eyes, which always -reminded him of buttons covered with American -cloth, and gave a great gasp.</p> - -<p>“Why, Mr. Tilly!” she said. “On the spiritual -plane too!”</p> - -<p>The rest of the circle was now singing “Lead, -kindly Light” in order to encourage Cardinal -Newman, and this conversation was conducted under -cover of the hoarse crooning voices. But Mr. Tilly -had the feeling that though Mrs. Cumberbatch saw -and heard him as clearly as he saw her, he was quite -imperceptible to the others.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I’ve been killed,” he said, “and I want to -get into touch with the material world. That’s -why I came here. But I want to get into touch -with other spirits too, and surely Abibel or Mespot -ought to be here by this time.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>He received no answer, and her eyes fell before -his like those of a detected charlatan. A terrible -suspicion invaded his mind.</p> - -<p>“What? Are you a fraud, Mrs. Cumberbatch?” -he asked. “Oh, for shame! Think of all the -guineas I have paid you.”</p> - -<p>“You shall have them all back,” said Mrs. -Cumberbatch. “But don’t tell of me.”</p> - -<p>She began to whimper, and he remembered that -she often made that sort of sniffling noise when Abibel -was taking possession of her.</p> - -<p>“That usually means that Abibel is coming,” he -said, with withering sarcasm. “Come along, Abibel: -we’re waiting.”</p> - -<p>“Give me the trumpet,” whispered the -miserable medium. “Oh, please give me the -trumpet!”</p> - -<p>“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Tilly -indignantly. “I would sooner use it myself.”</p> - -<p>She gave a sob of relief.</p> - -<p>“Oh do, Mr. Tilly!” she said. “What a wonderful -idea! It will be most interesting to everybody -to hear you talk just after you’ve been killed and -before they know. It would be the making of me! -And I’m not a fraud, at least not altogether. I do -have spiritual perceptions sometimes; spirits do -communicate through me. And when they won’t -come through it’s a dreadful temptation to a poor -woman to—to supplement them by human agency. -And how could I be seeing and hearing you now, -and be able to talk to you—so pleasantly, I’m sure—if -I hadn’t super-normal powers? You’ve been -killed, so you assure me, and yet I can see and hear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> -you quite plainly. Where did it happen, may I ask, -if it’s not a painful subject?”</p> - -<p>“Hyde Park Corner, half an hour ago,” said Mr. -Tilly. “No, it only hurt for a moment, thanks. -But about your other suggestion——”</p> - -<p>While the third verse of “Lead, kindly Light” -was going on, Mr. Tilly applied his mind to this -difficult situation. It was quite true that if Mrs. -Cumberbatch had no power of communication with -the unseen she could not possibly have seen him. -But she evidently had, and had heard him too, for -their conversation had certainly been conducted on -the spirit-plane, with perfect lucidity. Naturally, -now that he was a genuine spirit, he did not want to -be mixed up in fraudulent mediumship, for he felt -that such a thing would seriously compromise him -on the other side, where, probably, it was widely -known that Mrs. Cumberbatch was a person to be -avoided. But, on the other hand, having so soon -found a medium through whom he could communicate -with his friends, it was hard to take a high moral -view, and say that he would have nothing whatever -to do with her.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know if I trust you,” he said. “I -shouldn’t have a moment’s peace if I thought that -you would be sending all sorts of bogus messages -from me to the circle, which I wasn’t responsible for -at all. You’ve done it with Abibel and Mespot. -How can I know that when I don’t choose to communicate -through you, you won’t make up all sorts -of piffle on your own account?”</p> - -<p>She positively squirmed in her chair.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ll turn over a new leaf,” she said. “I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> -will leave all that sort of thing behind me. And I -am a medium. Look at me! Aren’t I more real -to you than any of the others? Don’t I belong to -your plane in a way that none of the others do? -I may be occasionally fraudulent, and I can no more -get Napoleon here than I can fly, but I’m genuine -as well. Oh, Mr. Tilly, be indulgent to us poor -human creatures! It isn’t so long since you were -one of us yourself.”</p> - -<p>The mention of Napoleon, with the information -that Mrs. Cumberbatch had never been controlled -by that great creature, wounded Mr. Tilly again. -Often in this darkened room he had held long colloquies -with him, and Napoleon had given him most -interesting details of his life on St. Helena, which, -so Mr. Tilly had found, were often borne out by -Lord Rosebery’s pleasant volume <i>The Last Phase</i>. -But now the whole thing wore a more sinister aspect, and -suspicion as solid as certainty bumped against his mind.</p> - -<p>“Confess!” he said. “Where did you get all -that Napoleon talk from? You told us you had -never read Lord Rosebery’s book, and allowed us -to look through your library to see that it wasn’t -there. Be honest for once, Mrs. Cumberbatch.”</p> - -<p>She suppressed a sob.</p> - -<p>“I will,” she said. “The book was there all the -time. I put it into an old cover called ‘Elegant -Extracts....’ But I’m not wholly a fraud. We’re -talking together, you a spirit and I a mortal female. -They can’t hear us talk. But only look at me, and -you’ll see.... You can talk to them through me, -if you’ll only be so kind. I don’t often get in touch -with a genuine spirit like yourself.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>Mr. Tilly glanced at the other sitters and then -back to the medium, who, to keep the others interested, -was making weird gurgling noises like an -undervitalised siphon. Certainly she was far clearer to -him than were the others, and her argument that -she was able to see and hear him had great weight. -And then a new and curious perception came to -him. Her mind seemed spread out before him like -a pool of slightly muddy water, and he figured himself -as standing on a header-board above it, perfectly -able, if he chose, to immerse himself in it. The -objection to so doing was its muddiness, its materiality; -the reason for so doing was that he felt that -then he would be able to be heard by the others, -possibly to be seen by them, certainly to come into -touch with them. As it was, the loudest bangs on -the table were only faintly perceptible.</p> - -<p>“I’m beginning to understand,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mr. Tilly! Just jump in like a kind good -spirit,” she said. “Make your own test-conditions. -Put your hand over my mouth to make sure that -I’m not speaking, and keep hold of the trumpet.”</p> - -<p>“And you’ll promise not to cheat any more?” -he asked.</p> - -<p>“Never!”</p> - -<p>He made up his mind.</p> - -<p>“All right then,” he said, and, so to speak, dived -into her mind.</p> - -<p>He experienced the oddest sensation. It was -like passing out of some fine, sunny air into the -stuffiest of unventilated rooms. Space and time -closed over him again: his head swam, his eyes were -heavy. Then, with the trumpet in one hand, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> -laid the other firmly over her mouth. Looking -round, he saw that the room seemed almost completely -dark, but that the outline of the figures -sitting round the table had vastly gained in solidity.</p> - -<p>“Here I am!” he said briskly.</p> - -<p>Miss Soulsby gave a startled exclamation.</p> - -<p>“That’s Mr. Tilly’s voice!” she whispered.</p> - -<p>“Why, of course it is,” said Mr. Tilly. “I’ve -just passed over at Hyde Park Corner under a -traction engine....”</p> - -<p>He felt the dead weight of the medium’s mind, her -conventional conceptions, her mild, unreal piety -pressing in on him from all sides, stifling and confusing -him. Whatever he said had to pass through muddy -water....</p> - -<p>“There’s a wonderful feeling of joy and lightness,” -he said. “I can’t tell you of the sunshine and -happiness. We’re all very busy and active, helping -others. And it’s such a pleasure, dear friends, to -be able to get into touch with you all again. Death -is not death: it is the gate of life....”</p> - -<p>He broke off suddenly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I can’t stand this,” he said to the medium. -“You make me talk such twaddle. Do get your -stupid mind out of the way. Can’t we do anything -in which you won’t interfere with me so much?”</p> - -<p>“Can you give us some spirit lights round the -room?” suggested Mrs. Cumberbatch in a sleepy -voice. “You have come through beautifully, Mr. -Tilly. It’s too dear of you!”</p> - -<p>“You’re sure you haven’t arranged some phosphorescent -patches already?” asked Mr. Tilly -suspiciously.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>“Yes, there are one or two near the chimney-piece,” -said Mrs. Cumberbatch, “but none anywhere else. -Dear Mr. Tilly, I swear there are not. Just give us -a nice star with long rays on the ceiling!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Tilly was the most good-natured of men, -always willing to help an unattractive female in -distress, and whispering to her, “I shall require the -phosphorescent patches to be given into my hands -after the sance,” he proceeded, by the mere effort -of his imagination, to light a beautiful big star with -red and violet rays on the ceiling. Of course it -was not nearly as brilliant as his own conception of -it, for its light had to pass through the opacity of -the medium’s mind, but it was still a most striking -object, and elicited gasps of applause from the company. -To enhance the effect of it he intoned a few -very pretty lines about a star by Adelaide Anne -Procter, whose poems had always seemed to him to -emanate from the topmost peak of Parnassus.</p> - -<p>“Oh, thank you, Mr. Tilly!” whispered the -medium. “It was lovely! Would a photograph of -it be permitted on some future occasion, if you would -be so kind as to reproduce it again?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mr. Tilly irritably. -“I want to get out. I’m very hot and uncomfortable. -And it’s all so cheap.”</p> - -<p>“Cheap?” ejaculated Mrs. Cumberbatch. “Why, -there’s not a medium in London whose future wouldn’t -be made by a real genuine star like that, say, twice -a week.”</p> - -<p>“But I wasn’t run over in order that I might -make the fortune of mediums,” said Mr. Tilly. -“I want to go: it’s all rather degrading. And I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> -want to see something of my new world. I don’t -know what it’s like yet.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but, Mr. Tilly,” said she. “You told us -lovely things about it, how busy and happy you -were.”</p> - -<p>“No, I didn’t. It was you who said that, at least -it was you who put it into my head.”</p> - -<p>Even as he wished, he found himself emerging -from the dull waters of Mrs. Cumberbatch’s mind.</p> - -<p>“There’s the whole new world waiting for me,” -he said. “I must go and see it. I’ll come back -and tell you, for it must be full of marvellous -revelations....”</p> - -<p>Suddenly he felt the hopelessness of it. There -was that thick fluid of materiality to pierce, and, -as it dripped off him again, he began to see that -nothing of that fine rare quality of life which he had just -begun to experience, could penetrate these opacities. -That was why, perhaps, all that thus came across -from the spirit-world, was so stupid, so banal. They, -of whom he now was one, could tap on furniture, -could light stars, could abound with commonplace, -could read as in a book the mind of medium or sitters, -but nothing more. They had to pass into the region -of gross perceptions, in order to be seen of blind -eyes and be heard of deaf ears.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Cumberbatch stirred.</p> - -<p>“The power is failing,” she said, in a deep voice, -which Mr. Tilly felt was meant to imitate his own. -“I must leave you now, dear friends——”</p> - -<p>He felt much exasperated.</p> - -<p>“The power isn’t failing,” he shouted. “It -wasn’t I who said that.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>But he had emerged too far, and perceived that -nobody except the medium heard him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t be vexed, Mr. Tilly,” she said. “That’s -only a formula. But you’re leaving us very soon. -Not time for just one materialisation? They are -more convincing than anything to most inquirers.”</p> - -<p>“Not one,” said he. “You don’t understand -how stifling it is even to speak through you and -make stars. But I’ll come back as soon as I find -there’s anything new that I can get through to you. -What’s the use of my repeating all that stale stuff -about being busy and happy? They’ve been told -that often enough already. Besides, I have got to -see if it’s true. Good-bye: don’t cheat any more.”</p> - -<p>He dropped his card of admittance to the sance -on the table and heard murmurs of excitement as -he floated off.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The news of the wonderful star, and the presence -of Mr. Tilly at the sance within half an hour of his -death, which at the time was unknown to any of -the sitters, spread swiftly through spiritualistic -circles. The Psychical Research Society sent investigators -to take independent evidence from all those -present, but were inclined to attribute the occurrence -to a subtle mixture of thought-transference and -unconscious visual impression, when they heard that -Miss Soulsby had, a few minutes previously, seen -a news-board in the street outside recording the -accident at Hyde Park Corner. This explanation -was rather elaborate, for it postulated that Miss -Soulsby, thinking of Mr. Tilly’s non-arrival, had -combined that with the accident at Hyde Park<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> -Corner, and had probably (though unconsciously) -seen the name of the victim on another news-board -and had transferred the whole by telepathy to the -mind of the medium. As for the star on the ceiling, -though they could not account for it, they certainly -found remains of phosphorescent paint on the panels -of the wall above the chimney-piece, and came to -the conclusion that the star had been produced by -some similar contrivance. So they rejected the whole -thing, which was a pity, since, for once, the phenomena -were absolutely genuine.</p> - -<p>Miss Soulsby continued to be a constant attendant -at Mrs. Cumberbatch’s sance, but never experienced -the presence of Mr. Tilly again. On that the reader -may put any interpretation he pleases. It looks to -me somewhat as if he had found something else -to do.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">Mrs. Amworth</h2></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph1">Mrs. Amworth</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> village of Maxley, where, last summer and -autumn, these strange events took place, lies on a -heathery and pine-clad upland of Sussex. In all -England you could not find a sweeter and saner -situation. Should the wind blow from the south, -it comes laden with the spices of the sea; to the -east high downs protect it from the inclemencies of -March; and from the west and north the breezes -which reach it travel over miles of aromatic forest -and heather. The village itself is insignificant -enough in point of population, but rich in amenities -and beauty. Half-way down the single street, with -its broad road and spacious areas of grass on each -side, stands the little Norman Church and the antique -graveyard long disused: for the rest there are a -dozen small, sedate Georgian houses, red-bricked -and long-windowed, each with a square of flower-garden -in front, and an ampler strip behind; a -score of shops, and a couple of score of thatched -cottages belonging to labourers on neighbouring -estates, complete the entire cluster of its peaceful -habitations. The general peace, however, is sadly -broken on Saturdays and Sundays, for we lie on one -of the main roads between London and Brighton -and our quiet street becomes a race-course for flying -motor-cars and bicycles. A notice just outside the -village begging them to go slowly only seems to -encourage them to accelerate their speed, for the -road lies open and straight, and there is really no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> -reason why they should do otherwise. By way of -protest, therefore, the ladies of Maxley cover their -noses and mouths with their handkerchiefs as they -see a motor-car approaching, though, as the street -is asphalted, they need not really take these precautions -against dust. But late on Sunday night -the horde of scorchers has passed, and we settle -down again to five days of cheerful and leisurely -seclusion. Railway strikes which agitate the country -so much leave us undisturbed because most of the -inhabitants of Maxley never leave it at all.</p> - -<p>I am the fortunate possessor of one of these small -Georgian houses, and consider myself no less fortunate -in having so interesting and stimulating a neighbour -as Francis Urcombe, who, the most confirmed of -Maxleyites, has not slept away from his house, which -stands just opposite to mine in the village street, -for nearly two years, at which date, though still in -middle life, he resigned his Physiological Professorship -at Cambridge University and devoted himself to the -study of those occult and curious phenomena which -seem equally to concern the physical and the psychical -sides of human nature. Indeed his retirement was -not unconnected with his passion for the strange -uncharted places that lie on the confines and -borders of science, the existence of which is so stoutly -denied by the more materialistic minds, for he advocated -that all medical students should be obliged -to pass some sort of examination in mesmerism, and -that one of the tripos papers should be designed to -test their knowledge in such subjects as appearances -at time of death, haunted houses, vampirism, -automatic writing, and possession.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>“Of course they wouldn’t listen to me,” ran his -account of the matter, “for there is nothing that -these seats of learning are so frightened of as knowledge, -and the road to knowledge lies in the study of -things like these. The functions of the human -frame are, broadly speaking, known. They are a -country, anyhow, that has been charted and mapped -out. But outside that lie huge tracts of undiscovered -country, which certainly exist, and the real pioneers -of knowledge are those who, at the cost of being -derided as credulous and superstitious, want to push -on into those misty and probably perilous places. -I felt that I could be of more use by setting out -without compass or knapsack into the mists than -by sitting in a cage like a canary and chirping about -what was known. Besides, teaching is very bad -for a man who knows himself only to be a -learner: you only need to be a self-conceited ass to -teach.”</p> - -<p>Here, then, in Francis Urcombe, was a delightful -neighbour to one who, like myself, has an uneasy -and burning curiosity about what he called the -“misty and perilous places”; and this last spring -we had a further and most welcome addition to our -pleasant little community, in the person of Mrs. -Amworth, widow of an Indian civil servant. Her -husband had been a judge in the North-West Provinces, -and after his death at Peshawar she came back to -England, and after a year in London found herself -starving for the ampler air and sunshine of the country -to take the place of the fogs and griminess of town. -She had, too, a special reason for settling in Maxley, -since her ancestors up till a hundred years ago had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> -long been native to the place, and in the old church-yard, -now disused, are many grave-stones bearing -her maiden name of Chaston. Big and energetic, -her vigorous and genial personality speedily woke -Maxley up to a higher degree of sociality than it -had ever known. Most of us were bachelors or -spinsters or elderly folk not much inclined to exert -ourselves in the expense and effort of hospitality, -and hitherto the gaiety of a small tea-party, with -bridge afterwards and goloshes (when it was wet) -to trip home in again for a solitary dinner, was about -the climax of our festivities. But Mrs. Amworth -showed us a more gregarious way, and set an example -of luncheon-parties and little dinners, which we began -to follow. On other nights when no such hospitality -was on foot, a lone man like myself found it pleasant -to know that a call on the telephone to Mrs. Amworth’s -house not a hundred yards off, and an inquiry as to -whether I might come over after dinner for a game -of piquet before bed-time, would probably evoke a -response of welcome. There she would be, with a -comrade-like eagerness for companionship, and there -was a glass of port and a cup of coffee and a cigarette -and a game of piquet. She played the piano, too, -in a free and exuberant manner, and had a charming -voice and sang to her own accompaniment; and as -the days grew long and the light lingered late, we -played our game in her garden, which in the course -of a few months she had turned from being a nursery -for slugs and snails into a glowing patch of luxuriant -blossoming. She was always cheery and jolly; she -was interested in everything, and in music, in gardening, -in games of all sorts was a competent performer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> -Everybody (with one exception) liked her, everybody -felt her to bring with her the tonic of a sunny day. -That one exception was Francis Urcombe; he, -though he confessed he did not like her, acknowledged -that he was vastly interested in her. This always -seemed strange to me, for pleasant and jovial as she -was, I could see nothing in her that could call forth -conjecture or intrigued surmise, so healthy and -unmysterious a figure did she present. But of the -genuineness of Urcombe’s interest there could be no -doubt; one could see him watching and scrutinising -her. In matter of age, she frankly volunteered the -information that she was forty-five; but her briskness, -her activity, her unravaged skin, her coal-black -hair, made it difficult to believe that she was not -adopting an unusual device, and adding ten years -on to her age instead of subtracting them.</p> - -<p>Often, also, as our quite unsentimental friendship -ripened, Mrs. Amworth would ring me up and propose -her advent. If I was busy writing, I was to give her, -so we definitely bargained, a frank negative, and -in answer I could hear her jolly laugh and her wishes -for a successful evening of work. Sometimes, before -her proposal arrived, Urcombe would already have -stepped across from his house opposite for a smoke -and a chat, and he, hearing who my intending visitor -was, always urged me to beg her to come. She and -I should play our piquet, said he, and he would look -on, if we did not object, and learn something of the -game. But I doubt whether he paid much attention -to it, for nothing could be clearer than that, under -that penthouse of forehead and thick eyebrows, -his attention was fixed not on the cards, but on one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> -of the players. But he seemed to enjoy an hour -spent thus, and often, until one particular evening -in July, he would watch her with the air of a man -who has some deep problem in front of him. She, -enthusiastically keen about our game, seemed not -to notice his scrutiny. Then came that evening, -when, as I see in the light of subsequent events, -began the first twitching of the veil that hid the secret -horror from my eyes. I did not know it then, though -I noticed that thereafter, if she rang up to propose -coming round, she always asked not only if I was at -leisure, but whether Mr. Urcombe was with me. -If so, she said, she would not spoil the chat of two -old bachelors, and laughingly wished me good -night.</p> - -<p>Urcombe, on this occasion, had been with me for -some half-hour before Mrs. Amworth’s appearance, -and had been talking to me about the medival -beliefs concerning vampirism, one of those borderland -subjects which he declared had not been -sufficiently studied before it had been consigned -by the medical profession to the dust-heap of exploded -superstitions. There he sat, grim and eager, tracing, -with that pellucid clearness which had made him in -his Cambridge days so admirable a lecturer, the -history of those mysterious visitations. In them all -there were the same general features: one of those -ghoulish spirits took up its abode in a living man or -woman, conferring supernatural powers of bat-like -flight and glutting itself with nocturnal blood-feasts. -When its host died it continued to dwell in the corpse, -which remained undecayed. By day it rested, by -night it left the grave and went on its awful errands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> -No European country in the Middle Ages seemed to -have escaped them; earlier yet, parallels were to be -found, in Roman and Greek and in Jewish history.</p> - -<p>“It’s a large order to set all that evidence aside -as being moonshine,” he said. “Hundreds of totally -independent witnesses in many ages have testified -to the occurrence of these phenomena, and there’s -no explanation known to me which covers all the -facts. And if you feel inclined to say ‘Why, then, -if these are facts, do we not come across them now?’ -there are two answers I can make you. One is that -there were diseases known in the Middle Ages, such -as the black death, which were certainly existent -then and which have become extinct since, but for -that reason we do not assert that such diseases never -existed. Just as the black death visited England -and decimated the population of Norfolk, so here in -this very district about three hundred years ago -there was certainly an outbreak of vampirism, and -Maxley was the centre of it. My second answer is -even more convincing, for I tell you that vampirism -is by no means extinct now. An outbreak of it -certainly occurred in India a year or two ago.”</p> - -<p>At that moment I heard my knocker plied in the -cheerful and peremptory manner in which Mrs. -Amworth is accustomed to announce her arrival, -and I went to the door to open it.</p> - -<p>“Come in at once,” I said, “and save me from -having my blood curdled. Mr. Urcombe has been -trying to alarm me.”</p> - -<p>Instantly her vital, voluminous presence seemed -to fill the room.</p> - -<p>“Ah, but how lovely!” she said. “I delight in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> -having my blood curdled. Go on with your ghost-story, -Mr. Urcombe. I adore ghost-stories.”</p> - -<p>I saw that, as his habit was, he was intently -observing her.</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t a ghost-story exactly,” said he. “I -was only telling our host how vampirism was not -extinct yet. I was saying that there was an outbreak -of it in India only a few years ago.”</p> - -<p>There was a more than perceptible pause, and I -saw that, if Urcombe was observing her, she on her -side was observing him with fixed eye and parted -mouth. Then her jolly laugh invaded that rather -tense silence.</p> - -<p>“Oh, what a shame!” she said. “You’re not -going to curdle my blood at all. Where did you -pick up such a tale, Mr. Urcombe? I have lived -for years in India and never heard a rumour of such -a thing. Some story-teller in the bazaars must have -invented it: they are famous at that.”</p> - -<p>I could see that Urcombe was on the point of -saying something further, but checked himself.</p> - -<p>“Ah! very likely that was it,” he said.</p> - -<p>But something had disturbed our usual peaceful -sociability that night, and something had damped -Mrs. Amworth’s usual high spirits. She had no -gusto for her piquet, and left after a couple of games. -Urcombe had been silent too, indeed he hardly spoke -again till she departed.</p> - -<p>“That was unfortunate,” he said, “for the outbreak -of—of a very mysterious disease, let us call -it, took place at Peshawar, where she and her husband -were. And——”</p> - -<p>“Well?” I asked.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>“He was one of the victims of it,” said he. -“Naturally I had quite forgotten that when I -spoke.”</p> - -<p>The summer was unreasonably hot and rainless, -and Maxley suffered much from drought, and also -from a plague of big black night-flying gnats, the -bite of which was very irritating and virulent. They -came sailing in of an evening, settling on one’s skin -so quietly that one perceived nothing till the sharp -stab announced that one had been bitten. They -did not bite the hands or face, but chose always -the neck and throat for their feeding-ground, and -most of us, as the poison spread, assumed a temporary -goitre. Then about the middle of August appeared -the first of those mysterious cases of illness which -our local doctor attributed to the long-continued -heat coupled with the bite of these venomous insects. -The patient was a boy of sixteen or seventeen, the -son of Mrs. Amworth’s gardener, and the symptoms -were an anmic pallor and a languid prostration, -accompanied by great drowsiness and an abnormal -appetite. He had, too, on his throat two small -punctures where, so Dr. Ross conjectured, one of -these great gnats had bitten him. But the odd thing -was that there was no swelling or inflammation -round the place where he had been bitten. The -heat at this time had begun to abate, but the cooler -weather failed to restore him, and the boy, in spite -of the quantity of good food which he so ravenously -swallowed, wasted away to a skin-clad skeleton.</p> - -<p>I met Dr. Ross in the street one afternoon about -this time, and in answer to my inquiries about his -patient he said that he was afraid the boy was dying.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> -The case, he confessed, completely puzzled him: -some obscure form of pernicious anmia was all he -could suggest. But he wondered whether Mr. -Urcombe would consent to see the boy, on the chance -of his being able to throw some new light on the case, -and since Urcombe was dining with me that night, -I proposed to Dr. Ross to join us. He could not do -this, but said he would look in later. When he came, -Urcombe at once consented to put his skill at the -other’s disposal, and together they went off at once. -Being thus shorn of my sociable evening, I telephoned -to Mrs. Amworth to know if I might inflict myself -on her for an hour. Her answer was a welcoming -affirmative, and between piquet and music the hour -lengthened itself into two. She spoke of the boy -who was lying so desperately and mysteriously ill, -and told me that she had often been to see him, -taking him nourishing and delicate food. But -to-day—and her kind eyes moistened as she spoke—she -was afraid she had paid her last visit. Knowing -the antipathy between her and Urcombe, I did not -tell her that he had been called into consultation; -and when I returned home she accompanied me to -my door, for the sake of a breath of night air, and -in order to borrow a magazine which contained an -article on gardening which she wished to read.</p> - -<p>“Ah, this delicious night air,” she said, luxuriously -sniffing in the coolness. “Night air and gardening -are the great tonics. There is nothing so stimulating -as bare contact with rich mother earth. You are -never so fresh as when you have been grubbing in -the soil—black hands, black nails, and boots covered -with mud.” She gave her great jovial laugh.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>“I’m a glutton for air and earth,” she said. -“Positively I look forward to death, for then I shall -be buried and have the kind earth all round me. -No leaden caskets for me—I have given explicit -directions. But what shall I do about air? Well, -I suppose one can’t have everything. The magazine? -A thousand thanks, I will faithfully return -it. Good night: garden and keep your windows -open, and you won’t have anmia.”</p> - -<p>“I always sleep with my windows open,” said I.</p> - -<p>I went straight up to my bedroom, of which one -of the windows looks out over the street, and as I -undressed I thought I heard voices talking outside -not far away. But I paid no particular attention, -put out my lights, and falling asleep plunged into -the depths of a most horrible dream, distortedly -suggested no doubt, by my last words with Mrs. -Amworth. I dreamed that I woke, and found that -both my bedroom windows were shut. Half-suffocating -I dreamed that I sprang out of bed, and went -across to open them. The blind over the first was -drawn down, and pulling it up I saw, with the -indescribable horror of incipient nightmare, Mrs. -Amworth’s face suspended close to the pane in the -darkness outside, nodding and smiling at me. Pulling -down the blind again to keep that terror out, I rushed -to the second window on the other side of the room, -and there again was Mrs. Amworth’s face. Then -the panic came upon me in full blast; here was I -suffocating in the airless room, and whichever window -I opened Mrs. Amworth’s face would float in, like -those noiseless black gnats that bit before one was -aware. The nightmare rose to screaming point,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> -and with strangled yells I awoke to find my room -cool and quiet with both windows open and blinds -up and a half-moon high in its course, casting an -oblong of tranquil light on the floor. But even -when I was awake the horror persisted, and I lay -tossing and turning. I must have slept long before -the nightmare seized me, for now it was nearly day, -and soon in the east the drowsy eyelids of morning -began to lift.</p> - -<p>I was scarcely downstairs next morning—for -after the dawn I slept late—when Urcombe rang up -to know if he might see me immediately. He came -in, grim and preoccupied, and I noticed that he was -pulling on a pipe that was not even filled.</p> - -<p>“I want your help,” he said, “and so I must tell -you first of all what happened last night. I went round -with the little doctor to see his patient, and found -him just alive, but scarcely more. I instantly -diagnosed in my own mind what this anmia, unaccountable -by any other explanation, meant. The -boy is the prey of a vampire.”</p> - -<p>He put his empty pipe on the breakfast-table, -by which I had just sat down, and folded his arms, -looking at me steadily from under his overhanging -brows.</p> - -<p>“Now about last night,” he said. “I insisted -that he should be moved from his father’s cottage -into my house. As we were carrying him on a -stretcher, whom should we meet but Mrs. Amworth? -She expressed shocked surprise that we were moving -him. Now why do you think she did that?”</p> - -<p>With a start of horror, as I remembered my dream -that night before, I felt an idea come into my mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> -so preposterous and unthinkable that I instantly -turned it out again.</p> - -<p>“I haven’t the smallest idea,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Then listen, while I tell you about what happened -later. I put out all light in the room where the boy -lay, and watched. One window was a little open, -for I had forgotten to close it, and about midnight -I heard something outside, trying apparently to push -it farther open. I guessed who it was—yes, it was -full twenty feet from the ground—and I peeped round -the corner of the blind. Just outside was the face -of Mrs. Amworth and her hand was on the frame -of the window. Very softly I crept close, and then -banged the window down, and I think I just caught -the tip of one of her fingers.”</p> - -<p>“But it’s impossible,” I cried. “How could she -be floating in the air like that? And what had she -come for? Don’t tell me such——”</p> - -<p>Once more, with closer grip, the remembrance of -my nightmare seized me.</p> - -<p>“I am telling you what I saw,” said he. “And -all night long, until it was nearly day, she was -fluttering outside, like some terrible bat, trying to -gain admittance. Now put together various things -I have told you.”</p> - -<p>He began checking them off on his fingers.</p> - -<p>“Number one,” he said: “there was an outbreak -of disease similar to that which this boy is suffering -from at Peshawar, and her husband died of it. Number -two: Mrs. Amworth protested against my moving -the boy to my house. Number three: she, or the -demon that inhabits her body, a creature powerful -and deadly, tries to gain admittance. And add this,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> -too: in medival times there was an epidemic of -vampirism here at Maxley. The vampire, so the -accounts run, was found to be Elizabeth Chaston -... I see you remember Mrs. Amworth’s maiden -name. Finally, the boy is stronger this morning. -He would certainly not have been alive if he had -been visited again. And what do you make of it?”</p> - -<p>There was a long silence, during which I found -this incredible horror assuming the hues of reality.</p> - -<p>“I have something to add,” I said, “which may -or may not bear on it. You say that the—the -spectre went away shortly before dawn.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>I told him of my dream, and he smiled grimly.</p> - -<p>“Yes, you did well to awake,” he said. “That -warning came from your subconscious self, which -never wholly slumbers, and cried out to you of -deadly danger. For two reasons, then, you must -help me: one to save others, the second to save -yourself.”</p> - -<p>“What do you want me to do?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“I want you first of all to help me in watching -this boy, and ensuring that she does not come near -him. Eventually I want you to help me in tracking -the thing down, in exposing and destroying it. It -is not human: it is an incarnate fiend. What steps -we shall have to take I don’t yet know.”</p> - -<p>It was now eleven of the forenoon, and presently -I went across to his house for a twelve-hour vigil -while he slept, to come on duty again that night, -so that for the next twenty-four hours either Urcombe -or myself was always in the room where the boy, now -getting stronger every hour, was lying. The day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> -following was Saturday and a morning of brilliant, -pellucid weather, and already when I went across -to his house to resume my duty the stream of motors -down to Brighton had begun. Simultaneously I -saw Urcombe with a cheerful face, which boded good -news of his patient, coming out of his house, and -Mrs. Amworth, with a gesture of salutation to me -and a basket in her hand, walking up the broad strip -of grass which bordered the road. There we all three -met. I noticed (and saw that Urcombe noticed it -too) that one finger of her left hand was bandaged.</p> - -<p>“Good morning to you both,” said she. “And -I hear your patient is doing well, Mr. Urcombe. -I have come to bring him a bowl of jelly, and to sit -with him for an hour. He and I are great friends. -I am overjoyed at his recovery.”</p> - -<p>Urcombe paused a moment, as if making up his -mind, and then shot out a pointing finger at her.</p> - -<p>“I forbid that,” he said. “You shall not sit with -him or see him. And you know the reason as well -as I do.”</p> - -<p>I have never seen so horrible a change pass over -a human face as that which now blanched hers to -the colour of a grey mist. She put up her hand as -if to shield herself from that pointing finger, which -drew the sign of the cross in the air, and shrank -back cowering on to the road. There was a wild -hoot from a horn, a grinding of brakes, a shout—too -late—from a passing car, and one long scream -suddenly cut short. Her body rebounded from the -roadway after the first wheel had gone over it, and -the second followed. It lay there, quivering and -twitching, and was still.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>She was buried three days afterwards in the -cemetery outside Maxley, in accordance with the -wishes she had told me that she had devised about -her interment, and the shock which her sudden and -awful death had caused to the little community began -by degrees to pass off. To two people only, Urcombe -and myself, the horror of it was mitigated from the first -by the nature of the relief that her death brought; -but, naturally enough, we kept our own counsel, -and no hint of what greater horror had been thus -averted was ever let slip. But, oddly enough, so -it seemed to me, he was still not satisfied about -something in connection with her, and would give no -answer to my questions on the subject. Then as the -days of a tranquil mellow September and the October -that followed began to drop away like the leaves of -the yellowing trees, his uneasiness relaxed. But -before the entry of November the seeming tranquillity -broke into hurricane.</p> - -<p>I had been dining one night at the far end of the -village, and about eleven o’clock was walking home -again. The moon was of an unusual brilliance, -rendering all that it shone on as distinct as in some -etching. I had just come opposite the house which -Mrs. Amworth had occupied, where there was a -board up telling that it was to let, when I heard the -click of her front gate, and next moment I saw, with -a sudden chill and quaking of my very spirit, that -she stood there. Her profile, vividly illuminated, -was turned to me, and I could not be mistaken in -my identification of her. She appeared not to see -me (indeed the shadow of the yew hedge in front of -her garden enveloped me in its blackness) and she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> -went swiftly across the road, and entered the gate -of the house directly opposite. There I lost sight -of her completely.</p> - -<p>My breath was coming in short pants as if I had -been running—and now indeed I ran, with fearful -backward glances, along the hundred yards that -separated me from my house and Urcombe’s. It -was to his that my flying steps took me, and next -minute I was within.</p> - -<p>“What have you come to tell me?” he asked. -“Or shall I guess?”</p> - -<p>“You can’t guess,” said I.</p> - -<p>“No; it’s no guess. She has come back and you -have seen her. Tell me about it.”</p> - -<p>I gave him my story.</p> - -<p>“That’s Major Pearsall’s house,” he said. “Come -back with me there at once.”</p> - -<p>“But what can we do?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“I’ve no idea. That’s what we have got to find out.”</p> - -<p>A minute later, we were opposite the house. When -I had passed it before, it was all dark; now lights -gleamed from a couple of windows upstairs. Even -as we faced it, the front door opened, and next -moment Major Pearsall emerged from the gate. -He saw us and stopped.</p> - -<p>“I’m on my way to Dr. Ross,” he said quickly. -“My wife has been taken suddenly ill. She had -been in bed an hour when I came upstairs, and I -found her white as a ghost and utterly exhausted. -She had been to sleep, it seemed—— but you will -excuse me.”</p> - -<p>“One moment, Major,” said Urcombe. “Was -there any mark on her throat?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>“How did you guess that?” said he. “There -was: one of those beastly gnats must have bitten -her twice there. She was streaming with blood.”</p> - -<p>“And there’s someone with her?” asked Urcombe.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I roused her maid.”</p> - -<p>He went off, and Urcombe turned to me. “I -know now what we have to do,” he said. “Change -your clothes, and I’ll join you at your house.”</p> - -<p>“What is it?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you on our way. We’re going to the -cemetery.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He carried a pick, a shovel, and a screwdriver -when he rejoined me, and wore round his shoulders -a long coil of rope. As we walked, he gave me the -outlines of the ghastly hour that lay before us.</p> - -<p>“What I have to tell you,” he said, “will seem -to you now too fantastic for credence, but before -dawn we shall see whether it outstrips reality. -By a most fortunate happening, you saw the -spectre, the astral body, whatever you choose to -call it, of Mrs. Amworth, going on its grisly business, -and therefore, beyond doubt, the vampire -spirit which abode in her during life animates her -again in death. That is not exceptional—indeed, -all these weeks since her death I have been expecting -it. If I am right, we shall find her body undecayed -and untouched by corruption.”</p> - -<p>“But she has been dead nearly two months,” -said I.</p> - -<p>“If she had been dead two years it would still be -so, if the vampire has possession of her. So remember: -whatever you see done, it will be done not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> -to her, who in the natural course would now be -feeding the grasses above her grave, but to a spirit -of untold evil and malignancy, which gives a phantom -life to her body.”</p> - -<p>“But what shall I see done?” said I.</p> - -<p>“I will tell you. We know that now, at this -moment, the vampire clad in her mortal semblance -is out; dining out. But it must get back before -dawn, and it will pass into the material form that -lies in her grave. We must wait for that, and then -with your help I shall dig up her body. If I am right, -you will look on her as she was in life, with the full -vigour of the dreadful nutriment she has received -pulsing in her veins. And then, when dawn has -come, and the vampire cannot leave the lair of her -body, I shall strike her with this”—and he pointed -to his pick—“through the heart, and she, who comes -to life again only with the animation the fiend gives -her, she and her hellish partner will be dead -indeed. Then we must bury her again, delivered at -last.”</p> - -<p>We had come to the cemetery, and in the brightness -of the moonshine there was no difficulty in identifying -her grave. It lay some twenty yards from the small -chapel, in the porch of which, obscured by shadow, -we concealed ourselves. From there we had a clear -and open sight of the grave, and now we must wait -till its infernal visitor returned home. The night -was warm and windless, yet even if a freezing wind -had been raging I think I should have felt nothing -of it, so intense was my preoccupation as to what -the night and dawn would bring. There was a bell -in the turret of the chapel, that struck the quarters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> -of the hour, and it amazed me to find how swiftly -the chimes succeeded one another.</p> - -<p>The moon had long set, but a twilight of stars -shone in a clear sky, when five o’clock of the morning -sounded from the turret. A few minutes more -passed, and then I felt Urcombe’s hand softly nudging -me; and looking out in the direction of his pointing -finger, I saw that the form of a woman, tall and large -in build, was approaching from the right. Noiselessly, -with a motion more of gliding and floating than -walking, she moved across the cemetery to the -grave which was the centre of our observation. She -moved round it as if to be certain of its identity, -and for a moment stood directly facing us. In the -greyness to which now my eyes had grown accustomed, -I could easily see her face, and recognise its features.</p> - -<p>She drew her hand across her mouth as if wiping -it, and broke into a chuckle of such laughter as made -my hair stir on my head. Then she leaped on to the -grave, holding her hands high above her head, and -inch by inch disappeared into the earth. Urcombe’s -hand was laid on my arm, in an injunction to keep -still, but now he removed it.</p> - -<p>“Come,” he said.</p> - -<p>With pick and shovel and rope we went to the -grave. The earth was light and sandy, and soon -after six struck we had delved down to the coffin lid. -With his pick he loosened the earth round it, and, -adjusting the rope through the handles by which -it had been lowered, we tried to raise it. This was -a long and laborious business, and the light had begun -to herald day in the east before we had it out, and -lying by the side of the grave. With his screwdriver<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> -he loosed the fastenings of the lid, and slid it aside, -and standing there we looked on the face of Mrs. -Amworth. The eyes, once closed in death, were -open, the cheeks were flushed with colour, the red, -full-lipped mouth seemed to smile.</p> - -<p>“One blow and it is all over,” he said. “You -need not look.”</p> - -<p>Even as he spoke he took up the pick again, and, -laying the point of it on her left breast, measured -his distance. And though I knew what was coming -I could not look away....</p> - -<p>He grasped the pick in both hands, raised it an -inch or two for the taking of his aim, and then with -full force brought it down on her breast. A fountain -of blood, though she had been dead so long, spouted -high in the air, falling with the thud of a heavy -splash over the shroud, and simultaneously from -those red lips came one long, appalling cry, swelling -up like some hooting siren, and dying away again. -With that, instantaneous as a lightning flash, came -the touch of corruption on her face, the colour of it -faded to ash, the plump cheeks fell in, the mouth -dropped.</p> - -<p>“Thank God, that’s over,” said he, and without -pause slipped the coffin lid back into its place.</p> - -<p>Day was coming fast now, and, working like men -possessed, we lowered the coffin into its place again, -and shovelled the earth over it.... The birds -were busy with their earliest pipings as we went -back to Maxley.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">In the Tube</h2></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph1">In the Tube</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">“It’s</span> a convention,” said Anthony Carling cheerfully, -“and not a very convincing one. Time, indeed! -There’s no such thing as Time really; it has no -actual existence. Time is nothing more than an -infinitesimal point in eternity, just as space is an -infinitesimal point in infinity. At the most, Time -is a sort of tunnel through which we are accustomed -to believe that we are travelling. There’s a roar -in our ears and a darkness in our eyes which makes -it seem real to us. But before we came into the -tunnel we existed for ever in an infinite sunlight, -and after we have got through it we shall exist in an -infinite sunlight again. So why should we bother -ourselves about the confusion and noise and darkness -which only encompass us for a moment?”</p> - -<p>For a firm-rooted believer in such immeasurable -ideas as these, which he punctuated with brisk -application of the poker to the brave sparkle and -glow of the fire, Anthony has a very pleasant appreciation -of the measurable and the finite, and nobody -with whom I have acquaintance has so keen a zest -for life and its enjoyments as he. He had given us -this evening an admirable dinner, had passed round -a port beyond praise, and had illuminated the jolly -hours with the light of his infectious optimism. Now -the small company had melted away, and I was -left with him over the fire in his study. Outside -the tattoo of wind-driven sleet was audible on the -window-panes, over-scoring now and again the flap<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> -of the flames on the open hearth, and the thought -of the chilly blasts and the snow-covered pavement -in Brompton Square, across which, to skidding -taxicabs, the last of his other guests had scurried, -made my position, resident here till to-morrow -morning, the more delicately delightful. Above all -there was this stimulating and suggestive companion, -who, whether he talked of the great abstractions -which were so intensely real and practical to him, -or of the very remarkable experiences which he had -encountered among these conventions of time and -space, was equally fascinating to the listener.</p> - -<p>“I adore life,” he said. “I find it the most -entrancing plaything. It’s a delightful game, and, -as you know very well, the only conceivable way to -play a game is to treat it extremely seriously. If you -say to yourself, ‘It’s only a game,’ you cease to take -the slightest interest in it. You have to know that -it’s only a game, and behave as if it was the one -object of existence. I should like it to go on for -many years yet. But all the time one has to be -living on the true plane as well, which is eternity -and infinity. If you come to think of it, the one -thing which the human mind cannot grasp is the -finite, not the infinite, the temporary, not the eternal.”</p> - -<p>“That sounds rather paradoxical,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Only because you’ve made a habit of thinking -about things that seem bounded and limited. Look -it in the face for a minute. Try to imagine finite -Time and Space, and you find you can’t. Go back -a million years, and multiply that million of years -by another million, and you find that you can’t -conceive of a beginning. What happened before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> -that beginning? Another beginning and another -beginning? And before that? Look at it like that, -and you find that the only solution comprehensible -to you is the existence of an eternity, something -that never began and will never end. It’s the same -about space. Project yourself to the farthest star, -and what comes beyond that? Emptiness? Go -on through the emptiness, and you can’t imagine -it being finite and having an end. It must needs -go on for ever: that’s the only thing you can understand. -There’s no such thing as before or after, or -beginning or end, and what a comfort that is! I -should fidget myself to death if there wasn’t the -huge soft cushion of eternity to lean one’s head -against. Some people say—I believe I’ve heard you -say it yourself—that the idea of eternity is so tiring; -you feel that you want to stop. But that’s because -you are thinking of eternity in terms of Time, and -mumbling in your brain, ‘And after that, and after -that?’ Don’t you grasp the idea that in eternity -there isn’t any ‘after,’ any more than there is any -‘before’? It’s all one. Eternity isn’t a quantity: -it’s a quality.”</p> - -<p>Sometimes, when Anthony talks in this manner, -I seem to get a glimpse of that which to his mind is -so transparently clear and solidly real, at other times -(not having a brain that readily envisages abstractions) -I feel as though he was pushing me over a -precipice, and my intellectual faculties grasp wildly -at anything tangible or comprehensible. This was -the case now, and I hastily interrupted.</p> - -<p>“But there is a ‘before’ and ‘after,’” I said. -“A few hours ago you gave us an admirable dinner,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> -and after that—yes, after—we played bridge. And -now you are going to explain things a little more -clearly to me, and after that I shall go to bed——”</p> - -<p>He laughed.</p> - -<p>“You shall do exactly as you like,” he said, -“and you shan’t be a slave to Time either to-night -or to-morrow morning. We won’t even mention -an hour for breakfast, but you shall have it in eternity -whenever you awake. And as I see it is not midnight -yet, we’ll slip the bonds of Time, and talk quite -infinitely. I will stop the clock, if that will assist -you in getting rid of your illusion, and then I’ll tell -you a story, which to my mind, shows how unreal -so-called realities are; or, at any rate, how fallacious -are our senses as judges of what is real and what -is not.”</p> - -<p>“Something occult, something spookish?” I -asked, pricking up my ears, for Anthony has the -strangest clairvoyances and visions of things unseen -by the normal eye.</p> - -<p>“I suppose you might call some of it occult,” -he said, “though there’s a certain amount of rather -grim reality mixed up in it.”</p> - -<p>“Go on; excellent mixture,” said I.</p> - -<p>He threw a fresh log on the fire.</p> - -<p>“It’s a longish story,” he said. “You may stop -me as soon as you’ve had enough. But there will -come a point for which I claim your consideration. -You, who cling to your ‘before’ and ‘after,’ has it -ever occurred to you how difficult it is to say <i>when</i> -an incident takes place? Say that a man commits -some crime of violence, can we not, with a good deal -of truth, say that he really commits that crime when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> -he definitely plans and determines upon it, dwelling -on it with gusto? The actual commission of it, -I think we can reasonably argue, is the mere material -sequel of his resolve: he is guilty of it when he makes -that determination. When, therefore, in the term -of ‘before’ and ‘after,’ does the crime truly take -place? There is also in my story a further point -for your consideration. For it seems certain that -the spirit of a man, after the death of his body, is -obliged to re-enact such a crime, with a view, I -suppose we may guess, to his remorse and his eventual -redemption. Those who have second sight have -seen such re-enactments. Perhaps he may have -done his deed blindly in this life; but then his spirit -re-commits it with its spiritual eyes open, and able -to comprehend its enormity. So, shall we view the -man’s original determination and the material commission -of his crime only as preludes to the real -commission of it, when with eyes unsealed he does it -and repents of it?... That all sounds very -obscure when I speak in the abstract, but I think -you will see what I mean, if you follow my tale. -Comfortable? Got everything you want? Here -goes, then.”</p> - -<p>He leaned back in his chair, concentrating his -mind, and then spoke:</p> - -<p>“The story that I am about to tell you,” he said, -“had its beginning a month ago, when you were -away in Switzerland. It reached its conclusion, -so I imagine, last night. I do not, at any rate, -expect to experience any more of it. Well, a month -ago I was returning late on a very wet night from -dining out. There was not a taxi to be had, and I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> -hurried through the pouring rain to the tube-station -at Piccadilly Circus, and thought myself very lucky -to catch the last train in this direction. The carriage -into which I stepped was quite empty except for -one other passenger, who sat next the door immediately -opposite to me. I had never, to my knowledge, -seen him before, but I found my attention vividly -fixed on him, as if he somehow concerned me. He -was a man of middle age, in dress-clothes, and his -face wore an expression of intense thought, as if in -his mind he was pondering some very significant -matter, and his hand which was resting on his knee -clenched and unclenched itself. Suddenly he looked -up and stared me in the face, and I saw there suspicion -and fear, as if I had surprised him in some secret deed.</p> - -<p>“At that moment we stopped at Dover Street, -and the conductor threw open the doors, announced -the station and added, ‘Change here for Hyde Park -Corner and Gloucester Road.’ That was all right -for me since it meant that the train would stop at -Brompton Road, which was my destination. It -was all right apparently, too, for my companion, -for he certainly did not get out, and after a moment’s -stop, during which no one else got in, we went on. -I saw him, I must insist, after the doors were closed -and the train had started. But when I looked again, -as we rattled on, I saw that there was no one there. -I was quite alone in the carriage.</p> - -<p>“Now you may think that I had had one of those -swift momentary dreams which flash in and out of -the mind in the space of a second, but I did not believe -it was so myself, for I felt that I had experienced -some sort of premonition or clairvoyant vision. A<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> -man, the semblance of whom, astral body or whatever -you may choose to call it, I had just seen, would -sometime sit in that seat opposite to me, pondering -and planning.”</p> - -<p>“But why?” I asked. “Why should it have -been the astral body of a living man which you -thought you had seen? Why not the ghost of a -dead one?”</p> - -<p>“Because of my own sensations. The sight of -the spirit of someone dead, which has occurred to -me two or three times in my life, has always been -accompanied by a physical shrinking and fear, and -by the sensation of cold and of loneliness. I believed, -at any rate, that I had seen a phantom of the living, -and that impression was confirmed, I might say -proved, the next day. For I met the man himself. -And the next night, as you shall hear, I met the -phantom again. We will take them in order.</p> - -<p>“I was lunching, then, the next day with my -neighbour Mrs. Stanley: there was a small party, -and when I arrived we waited but for the final guest. -He entered while I was talking to some friend, and -presently at my elbow I heard Mrs. Stanley’s voice—</p> - -<p>“‘Let me introduce you to Sir Henry Payle,’ -she said.</p> - -<p>“I turned and saw my <i>vis--vis</i> of the night before. -It was quite unmistakably he, and as we shook -hands he looked at me I thought with vague and -puzzled recognition.</p> - -<p>“‘Haven’t we met before, Mr. Carling?’ he said. -‘I seem to recollect——’</p> - -<p>“For the moment I forgot the strange manner -of his disappearance from the carriage, and thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> -that it had been the man himself whom I had seen -last night.</p> - -<p>“‘Surely, and not so long ago,’ I said. ‘For -we sat opposite each other in the last tube-train -from Piccadilly Circus yesterday night.’</p> - -<p>“He still looked at me, frowning, puzzled, and -shook his head.</p> - -<p>“‘That can hardly be,’ he said. ‘I only came -up from the country this morning.’</p> - -<p>“Now this interested me profoundly, for the -astral body, we are told, abides in some half-conscious -region of the mind or spirit, and has recollections -of what has happened to it, which it can convey only -very vaguely and dimly to the conscious mind. All -lunch-time I could see his eyes again and again -directed to me with the same puzzled and perplexed -air, and as I was taking my departure he came up -to me.</p> - -<p>“‘I shall recollect some day,’ he said, ‘where we -met before, and I hope we may meet again. Was -it not——?’—and he stopped. ‘No: it has gone -from me,’ he added.”</p> - -<p>The log that Anthony had thrown on the fire was -burning bravely now, and its high-flickering flame -lit up his face.</p> - -<p>“Now, I don’t know whether you believe in coincidences -as chance things,” he said, “but if you do, -get rid of the notion. Or if you can’t at once, call -it a coincidence that that very night I again caught -the last train on the tube going westwards. This -time, so far from my being a solitary passenger, -there was a considerable crowd waiting at Dover -Street, where I entered, and just as the noise of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> -approaching train began to reverberate in the tunnel -I caught sight of Sir Henry Payle standing near -the opening from which the train would presently -emerge, apart from the rest of the crowd. And I -thought to myself how odd it was that I should have -seen the phantom of him at this very hour last night -and the man himself now, and I began walking -towards him with the idea of saying, ‘Anyhow, it -is in the tube that we meet to-night.’... And -then a terrible and awful thing happened. Just -as the train emerged from the tunnel he jumped -down on to the line in front of it, and the train swept -along over him up the platform.</p> - -<p>“For a moment I was stricken with horror at the -sight, and I remember covering my eyes against the -dreadful tragedy. But then I perceived that, though -it had taken place in full sight of those who were -waiting, no one seemed to have seen it except myself. -The driver, looking out from his window, had not -applied his brakes, there was no jolt from the advancing -train, no scream, no cry, and the rest of the -passengers began boarding the train with perfect -nonchalance. I must have staggered, for I felt -sick and faint with what I had seen, and some kindly -soul put his arm round me and supported me into -the train. He was a doctor, he told me, and asked -if I was in pain, or what ailed me. I told him what -I thought I had seen, and he assured me that no such -accident had taken place.</p> - -<p>“It was clear then to my own mind that I had seen -the second act, so to speak, in this psychical drama, -and I pondered next morning over the problem as -to what I should do. Already I had glanced at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> -morning paper, which, as I knew would be the case, -contained no mention whatever of what I had seen. -The thing had certainly not happened, but I knew -in myself that it would happen. The flimsy veil of -Time had been withdrawn from my eyes, and I had -seen into what you would call the future. In terms -of Time of course it was the future, but from my point -of view the thing was just as much in the past as it -was in the future. It existed, and waited only for -its material fulfilment. The more I thought about -it, the more I saw that I could do nothing.”</p> - -<p>I interrupted his narrative.</p> - -<p>“You did nothing?” I exclaimed. “Surely -you might have taken some step in order to try to -avert the tragedy.”</p> - -<p>He shook his head.</p> - -<p>“What step precisely?” he said. “Was I to go -to Sir Henry and tell him that once more I had seen -him in the tube in the act of committing suicide? -Look at it like this. Either what I had seen was pure -illusion, pure imagination, in which case it had no -existence or significance at all, or it was actual and -real, and essentially it had happened. Or take it, -though not very logically, somewhere between the -two. Say that the idea of suicide, for some cause of -which I knew nothing, had occurred to him or would -occur. Should I not, if that was the case, be doing -a very dangerous thing, by making such a suggestion -to him? Might not the fact of my telling him what -I had seen put the idea into his mind, or, if it was -already there, confirm it and strengthen it? ‘It’s -a ticklish matter to play with souls,’ as Browning -says.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>“But it seems so inhuman not to interfere in any -way,” said I, “not to make any attempt.”</p> - -<p>“What interference?” asked he. “What -attempt?”</p> - -<p>The human instinct in me still seemed to cry -aloud at the thought of doing nothing to avert such -a tragedy, but it seemed to be beating itself against -something austere and inexorable. And cudgel my -brain as I would, I could not combat the sense of -what he had said. I had no answer for him, and -he went on.</p> - -<p>“You must recollect, too,” he said, “that I believed -then and believe now that the thing had happened. -The cause of it, whatever that was, had begun to -work, and the effect, in this material sphere, was -inevitable. That is what I alluded to when, at the -beginning of my story, I asked you to consider how -difficult it was to say when an action took place. -You still hold that this particular action, this suicide -of Sir Henry, had not yet taken place, because he -had not yet thrown himself under the advancing -train. To me that seems a materialistic view. I -hold that in all but the endorsement of it, so to -speak, it had taken place. I fancy that Sir Henry, -for instance, now free from the material dusks, -knows that himself.”</p> - -<p>Exactly as he spoke there swept through the warm -lit room a current of ice-cold air, ruffling my hair -as it passed me, and making the wood flames on the -hearth to dwindle and flare. I looked round to see -if the door at my back had opened, but nothing -stirred there, and over the closed window the curtains -were fully drawn. As it reached Anthony, he sat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> -up quickly in his chair and directed his glance this -way and that about the room.</p> - -<p>“Did you feel that?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes: a sudden draught,” I said. “Ice-cold.”</p> - -<p>“Anything else?” he asked. “Any other -sensation?”</p> - -<p>I paused before I answered, for at the moment -there occurred to me Anthony’s differentiation of -the effects produced on the beholder by a phantasm -of the living and the apparition of the dead. It -was the latter which accurately described my sensations -now, a certain physical shrinking, a fear, a -feeling of desolation. But yet I had seen nothing. -“I felt rather creepy,” I said.</p> - -<p>As I spoke I drew my chair rather closer to the -fire, and sent a swift and, I confess, a somewhat -apprehensive scrutiny round the walls of the brightly -lit room. I noticed at the same time that Anthony -was peering across to the chimney-piece, on which, -just below a sconce holding two electric lights, stood -the clock which at the beginning of our talk he had -offered to stop. The hands I noticed pointed to -twenty-five minutes to one.</p> - -<p>“But you saw nothing?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Nothing whatever,” I said. “Why should I? -What was there to see? Or did you——”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think so,” he said.</p> - -<p>Somehow this answer got on my nerves, for the -queer feeling which had accompanied that cold -current of air had not left me. If anything it had -become more acute.</p> - -<p>“But surely you know whether you saw anything -or not?” I said.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>“One can’t always be certain,” said he. “I say -that I don’t think I saw anything. But I’m not -sure, either, whether the story I am telling you was -quite concluded last night. I think there may be -a further incident. If you prefer it, I will leave the -rest of it, as far as I know it, unfinished till to-morrow -morning, and you can go off to bed now.”</p> - -<p>His complete calmness and tranquillity reassured -me.</p> - -<p>“But why should I do that?” I asked.</p> - -<p>Again he looked round on the bright walls.</p> - -<p>“Well, I think something entered the room just -now,” he said, “and it may develop. If you don’t -like the notion, you had better go. Of course there’s -nothing to be alarmed at; whatever it is, it can’t -hurt us. But it is close on the hour when on two -successive nights I saw what I have already told -you, and an apparition usually occurs at the same -time. Why that is so, I cannot say, but certainly -it looks as if a spirit that is earth-bound is still subject -to certain conventions, the conventions of time -for instance. I think that personally I shall see -something before long, but most likely you won’t. -You’re not such a sufferer as I from these—these -delusions——”</p> - -<p>I was frightened and knew it, but I was also -intensely interested, and some perverse pride wriggled -within me at his last words. Why, so I asked myself, -shouldn’t I see whatever was to be seen?...</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to go in the least,” I said. “I -want to hear the rest of your story.”</p> - -<p>“Where was I, then? Ah, yes: you were -wondering why I didn’t do something after I saw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> -the train move up to the platform, and I said that -there was nothing to be done. If you think it over, -I fancy you will agree with me.... A couple of -days passed, and on the third morning I saw in the -paper that there had come fulfilment to my vision. -Sir Henry Payle, who had been waiting on the platform -of Dover Street Station for the last train to -South Kensington, had thrown himself in front of -it as it came into the station. The train had been -pulled up in a couple of yards, but a wheel had passed -over his chest, crushing it in and instantly killing him.</p> - -<p>“An inquest was held, and there emerged at it -one of those dark stories which, on occasions like -these, sometimes fall like a midnight shadow across -a life that the world perhaps had thought prosperous. -He had long been on bad terms with his wife, from -whom he had lived apart, and it appeared that not -long before this he had fallen desperately in love -with another woman. The night before his suicide -he had appeared very late at his wife’s house, and -had a long and angry scene with her in which he -entreated her to divorce him, threatening otherwise -to make her life a hell to her. She refused, and in -an ungovernable fit of passion he attempted to -strangle her. There was a struggle, and the noise -of it caused her manservant to come up, who succeeded -in over-mastering him. Lady Payle threatened to -proceed against him for assault with the intention to -murder her. With this hanging over his head, the -next night, as I have already told you, he committed -suicide.”</p> - -<p>He glanced at the clock again, and I saw that -the hands now pointed to ten minutes to one. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> -fire was beginning to burn low and the room surely -was growing strangely cold.</p> - -<p>“That’s not quite all,” said Anthony, again -looking round. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer -to hear it to-morrow?”</p> - -<p>The mixture of shame and pride and curiosity -again prevailed.</p> - -<p>“No: tell me the rest of it at once,” I said.</p> - -<p>Before speaking, he peered suddenly at some point -behind my chair, shading his eyes. I followed his -glance, and knew what he meant by saying that -sometimes one could not be sure whether one saw -something or not. But was that an outlined shadow -that intervened between me and the wall? It was -difficult to focus; I did not know whether it was -near the wall or near my chair. It seemed to clear -away, anyhow, as I looked more closely at it.</p> - -<p>“You see nothing?” asked Anthony.</p> - -<p>“No: I don’t think so,” said I. “And you?”</p> - -<p>“I think I do,” he said, and his eyes followed -something which was invisible to mine. They came -to rest between him and the chimney-piece. Looking -steadily there, he spoke again.</p> - -<p>“All this happened some weeks ago,” he said, -“when you were out in Switzerland, and since then, -up till last night, I saw nothing further. But all the -time I was expecting something further. I felt that, -as far as I was concerned, it was not all over yet, -and last night, with the intention of assisting any -communication to come through to me from—from -beyond, I went into the Dover Street tube-station at a -few minutes before one o’clock, the hour at which -both the assault and the suicide had taken place.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> -The platform when I arrived on it was absolutely -empty, or appeared to be so, but presently, just as -I began to hear the roar of the approaching train, -I saw there was the figure of a man standing some -twenty yards from me, looking into the tunnel. -He had not come down with me in the lift, and the -moment before he had not been there. He began -moving towards me, and then I saw who it was, -and I felt a stir of wind icy-cold coming towards me -as he approached. It was not the draught that -heralds the approach of a train, for it came from the -opposite direction. He came close up to me, and I -saw there was recognition in his eyes. He raised his -face towards me and I saw his lips move, but, perhaps -in the increasing noise from the tunnel, I heard nothing -come from them. He put out his hand, as if entreating -me to do something, and with a cowardice from -which I cannot forgive myself, I shrank from him, -for I knew, by the sign that I have told you, that this -was one from the dead, and my flesh quaked before -him, drowning for the moment all pity and all desire -to help him, if that was possible. Certainly he had -something which he wanted of me, but I recoiled -from him. And by now the train was emerging -from the tunnel, and next moment, with a dreadful -gesture of despair, he threw himself in front of it.”</p> - -<p>As he finished speaking he got up quickly from -his chair, still looking fixedly in front of him. I -saw his pupils dilate, and his mouth worked.</p> - -<p>“It is coming,” he said. “I am to be given a -chance of atoning for my cowardice. There is -nothing to be afraid of: I must remember that -myself....”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>As he spoke there came from the panelling above -the chimney-piece one loud shattering crack, and -the cold wind again circled about my head. I found -myself shrinking back in my chair with my hands -held in front of me as instinctively I screened myself -against something which I knew was there but which -I could not see. Every sense told me that there was -a presence in the room other than mine and Anthony’s, -and the horror of it was that I could not see it. Any -vision, however terrible, would, I felt, be more tolerable -than this clear certain knowledge that close to -me was this invisible thing. And yet what horror -might not be disclosed of the face of the dead and -the crushed chest.... But all I could see, as I -shuddered in this cold wind, was the familiar walls -of the room, and Anthony standing in front of me -stiff and firm, making, as I knew, a call on his courage. -His eyes were focused on something quite close to -him, and some semblance of a smile quivered on his -mouth. And then he spoke again.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know you,” he said. “And you want -something of me. Tell me, then, what it is.”</p> - -<p>There was absolute silence, but what was silence -to my ears could not have been so to his, for once -or twice he nodded, and once he said, “Yes: I see. -I will do it.” And with the knowledge that, even as -there was someone here whom I could not see, so -there was speech going on which I could not hear, -this terror of the dead and of the unknown rose in -me with the sense of powerlessness to move that -accompanies nightmare. I could not stir, I could not -speak. I could only strain my ears for the inaudible -and my eyes for the unseen, while the cold wind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> -from the very valley of the shadow of death streamed -over me. It was not that the presence of death -itself was terrible; it was that from its tranquillity -and serene keeping there had been driven some -unquiet soul unable to rest in peace for whatever -ultimate awakening rouses the countless generations -of those who have passed away, driven, no less, -from whatever activities are theirs, back into the -material world from which it should have been -delivered. Never, until the gulf between the living -and the dead was thus bridged, had it seemed so -immense and so unnatural. It is possible that the -dead may have communication with the living, -and it was not that exactly that so terrified me, -for such communication, as we know it, comes -voluntarily from them. But here was something -icy-cold and crime-laden, that was chased back from -the peace that would not pacify it.</p> - -<p>And then, most horrible of all, there came a change -in these unseen conditions. Anthony was silent -now, and from looking straight and fixedly in front -of him, he began to glance sideways to where I sat -and back again, and with that I felt that the unseen -presence had turned its attention from him to me. -And now, too, gradually and by awful degrees I -began to see....</p> - -<p>There came an outline of shadow across the -chimney-piece and the panels above it. It took -shape: it fashioned itself into the outline of a man. -Within the shape of the shadow details began to -form themselves, and I saw wavering in the air, like -something concealed by haze, the semblance of a -face, stricken and tragic, and burdened with such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> -a weight of woe as no human face had ever worn. -Next, the shoulders outlined themselves, and a stain -livid and red spread out below them, and suddenly -the vision leaped into clearness. There he stood, -the chest crushed in and drowned in the red stain, -from which broken ribs, like the bones of a wrecked -ship, protruded. The mournful, terrible eyes were -fixed on me, and it was from them, so I knew, that -the bitter wind proceeded....</p> - -<p>Then, quick as the switching off of a lamp, the -spectre vanished, and the bitter wind was still, and -opposite to me stood Anthony, in a quiet, bright-lit -room. There was no sense of an unseen presence -any more; he and I were then alone, with an interrupted -conversation still dangling between us in -the warm air. I came round to that, as one comes -round after an ansthetic. It all swam into sight -again, unreal at first, and gradually assuming the -texture of actuality.</p> - -<p>“You were talking to somebody, not to me,” -I said. “Who was it? What was it?”</p> - -<p>He passed the back of his hand over his forehead, -which glistened in the light.</p> - -<p>“A soul in hell,” he said.</p> - -<p>Now it is hard ever to recall mere physical sensations, -when they have passed. If you have been -cold and are warmed, it is difficult to remember what -cold was like: if you have been hot and have got -cool, it is difficult to realise what the oppression of -heat really meant. Just so, with the passing of that -presence, I found myself unable to recapture the -sense of the terror with which, a few moments ago -only, it had invaded and inspired me.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>“A soul in hell?” I said. “What are you -talking about?”</p> - -<p>He moved about the room for a minute or so, -and then came and sat on the arm of my chair.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what you saw,” he said, “or what -you felt, but there has never in all my life happened -to me anything more real than what these last few -minutes have brought. I have talked to a soul in -the hell of remorse, which is the only possible hell. -He knew, from what happened last night, that he -could perhaps establish communication through me -with the world he had quitted, and he sought me -and found me. I am charged with a mission to a -woman I have never seen, a message from the -contrite.... You can guess who it is....”</p> - -<p>He got up with a sudden briskness.</p> - -<p>“Let’s verify it anyhow,” he said. “He gave -me the street and the number. Ah, there’s the -telephone book! Would it be a coincidence merely -if I found that at No. 20 in Chasemore Street, South -Kensington, there lived a Lady Payle?”</p> - -<p>He turned over the leaves of the bulky volume.</p> - -<p>“Yes, that’s right,” he said.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">Roderick’s Story</h2></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph1">Roderick’s Story</p> - - -<p><span class="smcap">My</span> powers of persuasion at first seemed quite -ineffectual; I could not induce my friend Roderick -Cardew to strike his melancholy tent in Chelsea, -and (leaving it struck) steal away like the Arabs -and spend this month of spring with me at my newly -acquired house at Tilling to observe the spell of -April’s wand making magic in the country. I seemed -to have brought out all the arguments of which I -was master; he had been very ill, and his doctor -recommended a clearer air with as mild a climate -as he could conveniently attain; he loved the great -stretches of drained marsh-land which lay spread -like a pool of verdure round the little town; he had -not seen my new home which made a breach in the -functions of hospitality, and he really could not be -expected to object to his host, who, after all, was -one of his oldest friends. Besides (to leave no -stone unturned) as he regained his strength he could -begin to play golf again, and it entailed, as he well -remembered, a very mild exertion for him to keep -me in my proper position in such a pursuit.</p> - -<p>At last there was some sign of yielding.</p> - -<p>“Yes. I should like to see the marsh and the -big sky once more,” he said.</p> - -<p>A rather sinister interpretation of his words -“once more,” made a sudden flashed signal of alarm -in my mind. It was utterly fanciful, no doubt, but -that had better be extinguished first.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>“Once more?” I asked. “What does that -mean?”</p> - -<p>“I always say ‘once more,’” he said. “It’s -greedy to ask for too much.”</p> - -<p>The very fact that he fenced so ingeniously deepened -my suspicion.</p> - -<p>“That won’t do,” I said. “Tell me, Roddie.”</p> - -<p>He was silent a moment.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t intend to,” he said, “for there can be -no use in it. But if you insist, as apparently you -mean to do, I may as well give in. It’s what you -think; ‘once more’ will very likely be the most. -But you mustn’t fuss about it; I’m not going to. -No proper person fusses about death; that’s a train -which we are all sure to catch. It always waits for -you.”</p> - -<p>I have noticed that when one learns tidings of -that sort, one feels, almost immediately, that one -has known them a long time. I felt so now.</p> - -<p>“Go on,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s about all there is. I’ve had sentence -of death passed upon me, and it will probably be -carried out, I’m delighted to say, in the French -fashion. In France, you know, they don’t tell you -when you are to be executed till a few minutes before. -It is likely that I shall have even less than that, -so my doctor informs me. A second or two will be -all I shall get. Congratulate me, please.”</p> - -<p>I thought it over for a moment.</p> - -<p>“Yes, heartily,” I said. “I want to know a -little more though.”</p> - -<p>“Well, my heart’s all wrong, quite unmendably -so. Heart-disease! Doesn’t it sound romantic?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> -In mid-Victorian romance, heroes and heroines alone -die of heart-disease. But that’s by the way. The -fact is that I may die at any time without a moment’s -warning. I shall give a couple of gasps, so he told -me when I insisted on knowing details, and that’ll -be all. Now, perhaps, you understand why I was -unwilling to come and stay with you. I don’t want -to die in your house; I think it’s dreadfully bad -manners to die in other people’s houses. I long -to see Tilling again, but I think I shall go to an hotel. -Hotels are fair game, for the management over-charges -those who live there to compensate themselves -for those who die there. But it would be rude of -me to die in your house; it might entail a lot of -bother for you, and I couldn’t apologize——”</p> - -<p>“But I don’t mind your dying in my house,” -I said. “At least you see what I mean——”</p> - -<p>He laughed.</p> - -<p>“I do, indeed,” he said. “And you couldn’t give -a warmer assurance of friendship. But I couldn’t -come and stay with you in my present plight without -telling you what it was, and yet I didn’t mean to -tell you. But there we are now. Think again; -reconsider your decision.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t,” I said. “Come and die in my house -by all means, if you’ve got to. I would much sooner -you lived there: your dying will, in any case, annoy -me immensely. But it would annoy me even more -to know that you had done it in some beastly -hotel among plush and looking-glasses. You shall -have any bedroom you like. And I want you dreadfully -to see my house, which is adorable.... O -Roddie, what a bore it all is!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>It was impossible to speak or to think differently. -I knew well how trivial a matter death was to my -friend, and I was not sure that at heart I did not agree -with him. We were quite at one, too, in that we -had so often gossiped about death with cheerful -conjecture and interested surmise based on the steady -assurance that something of new and delightful -import was to follow, since neither of us happened -to be of that melancholy cast of mind that can envisage -annihilation. I had promised, in case I was the first -to embark on the great adventure, to do my best to -“get through,” and give him some irrefutable proof -of the continuance of my existence, just by way of -endorsement of our belief, and he had given a similar -pledge, for it appeared to us both, that, whatever the -conditions of the future might turn out to be, it -would be impossible when lately translated there, -not to be still greatly concerned with what the present -world still held for us in ties of love and affection. -I laughed now to remember how he had once imagined -himself begging to be excused for a few minutes, -directly after death, and saying to St. Peter: “May -I keep your Holiness waiting for a minute before -you finally lock me into Heaven or Hell with those -beautiful keys? I won’t be a minute, but I do want -so much to be a ghost, and appear to a friend of mine -who is on the look-out for such a visit. If I find I -can’t make myself visible I will come back at once.... -Oh, <i>thank</i> you, your Holiness.”</p> - -<p>So we agreed that I should run the risk of his -dying in my house, and promised not to make any -reproaches posthumously (as far as he was concerned) -in case he did so. He on his side promised not to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> -die if he could possibly help it, and next week or so -he would come down to me in the heart of the country -that he loved, and see April at work.</p> - -<p>“And I haven’t told you anything about my house -yet,” I said. “It’s right at the top of the hill, -square and Georgian and red-bricked. A panelled -hall, dining-room and panelled sitting-room downstairs, -and more panelled rooms upstairs. And -there’s a garden with a lawn, and a high brick wall -round it, and there is a big garden room, full of books, -with a bow-window looking down the cobbled street. -Which bedroom will you have? Do you like looking -on to the garden or on to the street? You may -even have my room if you like.”</p> - -<p>He looked at me a moment with eager attention. -“I’ll have the square panelled bedroom that looks -out on to the garden, please,” he said. “It’s the -second door on the right when you stand at the top -of the stairs.”</p> - -<p>“But how do you know?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Because I’ve been in the house before, once -only, three years ago,” he said. “Margaret Alton -took it furnished and lived there for a year or so. She -died there, and I was with her. And if I had known -that this was your house, I should never have -dreamed of hesitating whether I should accept your -invitation. I should have thrown my good manners -about not dying in other people’s houses to the -winds. But the moment you began to describe the -garden and garden-room I knew what house it was. -I have always longed to go there again. When -may I come, please? Next week is too far ahead. -You’re off there this afternoon, aren’t you?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>I rose: the clock warned me that it was time for -me to go to the station.</p> - -<p>“Yes. Come this afternoon,” I suggested. -“Come with me.”</p> - -<p>“I wish I could, but I take that to mean that it -will suit you if I come to-morrow. For I certainly -will. Good Lord! To think of your having got -just that house! It ought to be a wonderfully -happy one, for I saw—— But I’ll tell you about -that perhaps when I’m there. But don’t ask me -to: I’ll tell you if and when I can, as the lawyers -say. Are you really off?”</p> - -<p>I was really off, for I had no time to spare, but -before I got to the door he spoke again.</p> - -<p>“Of course, the room I have chosen was <i>the</i> room,” -he said, and there was no need for me to ask what -he meant by <i>the</i> room.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I knew no more than the barest and most public -outline of that affair, distant now by the space of -many years, but, so I conceived, ever green in -Roderick’s heart, and, as my train threaded its way -through the gleams of this translucent spring evening, -I retraced this outline as far as I knew it. It was -the one thing of which Roderick never spoke (even -now he was not sure that he could manage to tell me -the end of it), and I had to rummage in my memory -for the reconstruction of the half-obliterated lines.</p> - -<p>Margaret—her maiden-name would not be conjured -back into memory—had been an extremely beautiful -girl when Roderick first met her, and, not without -encouragement, he had fallen head over ears in love -with her. All seemed to be going well with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> -wooing, he had the air of a happy lover, when there -appeared on the scene that handsome and outrageous -fellow, Richard Alton. He was the heir to his -uncle’s barony and his really vast estates, and the -girl, when he proceeded to lay siege, very soon -capitulated. She may have fallen in love with him, -for he was an attractive scamp, but the verdict at -the time was that it was her ambition, not her heart, -that she indulged. In any case, there was the end -of Roderick’s wooing, and before the year was out -she had married the other.</p> - -<p>I remembered seeing her once or twice in London -about this time, splendid and brilliant, of a beauty -that dazzled, with the world very much at her feet. -She bore him two sons; she succeeded to a great -position; and then with the granting of her heart’s -desire, the leanness withal followed. Her husband’s -infidelities were numerous and notorious; he treated -her with a subtle cruelty that just kept on the right -side of the law, and, finally, seeking his freedom, he -deserted her, and openly lived with another woman. -Whether it was pride that kept her from divorcing -him, or whether she still loved him (if she had ever -done so) and was ready to take him back, or whether -it was out of revenge that she refused to have done -with him legally, was an affair of which I knew -nothing. Calamity followed on calamity; first one -and then the other of her sons was killed in the -European War, and I remembered having heard that -she was the victim of some malignant and disfiguring -disease, which caused her to lead a hermit life, seeing -nobody. It was now three years or so since she -had died.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>Such, with the addition that she had died in my -house, and that Roderick had been with her, was -the sum of my meagre knowledge, which might or -might not, so he had intimated, be supplemented by -him. He arrived next day, having motored down -from London for the avoidance of fatigue, and -certainly as we sat after dinner that night in the -garden-room, he had avoided it very successfully, for -never had I seen him more animated.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I have been so right to come here,” he -said, “for I feel steeped in tranquillity and content. -There’s such a tremendous sense of Margaret’s -presence here, and I never knew how much I wanted -it. Perhaps that is purely subjective, but what -does that matter so long as I feel it? How a scene -soaks into the place where it has been enacted; -my room, which you know was her room, is alive -with her. I want nothing better than to be here, -prowling and purring over the memory of the last -time, which was the only one, that I was here. Yes, -just that; and I know how odd you must think it. -But it’s true, it was here that I saw her die, and -instead of shunning the place, I bathe myself in -it. For it was one of the happiest hours of my life.”</p> - -<p>“Because——” I began.</p> - -<p>“No; not because it gave her release, if that’s -in your mind,” he said. “It’s because I saw——”</p> - -<p>He broke off, and remembering his stipulation -that I should ask him nothing, but that he would -tell me “if and when” he could, I put no question -to him. His eyes were dancing with the sparkle -of fire that burned on the hearth, for though April -was here, the evenings were still chilly, and it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> -not the fire that gave them their light, but a -joyousness that was as bright as glee, and as deep as -happiness.</p> - -<p>“No, I’m not going on with that now,” he said, -“though I expect I shall before my days are out. -At present I shall leave you wondering why a place -that should hold such mournful memories for me, is -such a well-spring. And as I am not for telling you -about me, let me enquire about you. Bring yourself -up to date; what have you been doing, and much -more important, what have you been thinking -about?”</p> - -<p>“My doings have chiefly been confined to settling -into this house,” I said. “I’ve been pulling and -pushing furniture into places where it wouldn’t go, -and cursing it.”</p> - -<p>He looked round the room.</p> - -<p>“It doesn’t seem to bear you any grudge,” he said. -“It looks contented. And what else?”</p> - -<p>“In the intervals, when I couldn’t push and curse -any more,” I said, “I’ve been writing a few spook -stories. All about the borderland, which I love as -much as you do.”</p> - -<p>He laughed outright.</p> - -<p>“Do you, indeed?” he said. “Then it’s no use -my saying that it is quite impossible. But I should -like to know your views on the borderland.”</p> - -<p>I pointed to a sheaf of typewritten stuff that -littered my table.</p> - -<p>“Them’s my sentiments,” I said, “and quite at -your service.”</p> - -<p>“Good; then I’ll take them to bed with me when -I go, if you’ll allow me. I’ve always thought that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> -you had a pretty notion of the creepy, but the mistake -that you make is to imagine that creepiness -is characteristic of the borderland. No doubt there -are creepy things there, but so there are everywhere, -and a thunder-storm is far more terrifying than an -apparition. And when you get really close to the -borderland, you see how enchanting it is, and how -vastly more enchanting the other side must be. I -got right on to the borderland once, here in this -house, as I shall probably tell you, and I never saw -so happy and kindly a place. And without doubt -I shall soon be careering across it in my own person. -That’ll be, as we’ve often determined, wildly interesting, -and it will have the solemnity of a first night -at a new play about it. There’ll be the curtain close -in front of you, and presently it will be raised, and -you will see something you never saw before. How -well, on the whole, the secret has been kept, though -from time to time little bits of information, little -scraps of dialogue, little descriptions of scenery -have leaked out. Enthrallingly interesting; one -wonders how they will come into the great new -drama.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean the sort of thing that mediums -tell us?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Of course I don’t. I hate the sloshy—really -there’s no other word for it, and why should there -be, since that word fits so admirably—the sloshy -utterances of the ordinary high-class, beyond-suspicion -medium at half a guinea a sitting, who asks if there’s -anybody present who once knew a Charles, or if not -Charles, Thomas or William. Naturally somebody -has known a Charles, Thomas or William who has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> -passed over, and is the son, brother, father or cousin -of a lady in black. So when she claims Thomas, -he tells her that he is very busy and happy, helping -people.... O Lord, what rot! I went to one -such sance a month ago, just before I was taken ill, -and the medium said that Margaret wanted to get -into touch with somebody. Two of us claimed -Margaret, but Margaret chose me and said she was -the spirit of my wife. Wife, you know! You must -allow that this was a very unfortunate shot. When -I said that I was unmarried, Margaret said that she -was my mother, whose name was Charlotte. Oh -dear, oh dear! Well, I shall go to bed with joy, -bringing your spooks with me....”</p> - -<p>“Sheaves,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Yes, but aren’t they the sheaves? Isn’t one’s -gleaning of sheaves in this world what they call -spooks? That is, the knowledge of what one takes -across?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand one word,” said I.</p> - -<p>“But you must understand. All the knowledge—worth -anything—which you or I have collected -here, is the beginning of the other life. We toil and -moil, and make our gleanings and our harvestings, -and all our decent efforts help us to realize what -the real harvest is. Surely we shall take with us -exactly that which we have reaped....”</p> - -<p>After he had gone up to bed I sat trying to correct -the errors of a typist, but still between me and the -pages there dwelt that haunting sense of all that we -did here being only the grist for what was to come. -Our achievements were rewarded, so he seemed to -say, by a glimpse. And those glimpses—so I tried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> -to follow him—were the hints that had leaked out -of the drama for which the curtain was twitching. -Was that it?</p> - -<p>Roderick came down to breakfast next morning, -superlatively frank and happy.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t read a single line of your stories,” he -said. “When I got into my bedroom I was so -immeasurably content that I couldn’t risk getting -interested in anything else. I lay awake a long -time, pinching myself in order to prolong my sheer -happiness, but the flesh was weak, and at last, from -sheer happiness, I slept and probably snored. Did -you hear me? I hope not. And then sheer happiness -dictated my dreams, though I don’t know what they -were, and the moment I was called I got up, because -... because I didn’t want to miss anything. Now, -to be practical again, what are you doing this -morning?”</p> - -<p>“I was intending to play golf,” I said, “unless——”</p> - -<p>“There isn’t an ‘unless,’ if you mean Me. My -plan made itself for me, and I intend—this is my plan—to -drive out with you, and sit in the hollow by the -fourth tee, and read your stories there. There’s -a great south-westerly wind, like a celestial housemaid, -scouring the skies, and I shall be completely -sheltered there, and in the intervals of my reading, -I shall pleasantly observe the unsuccessful efforts -of the golfers to carry the big bunker. I can’t -personally play golf any more, but I shall enjoy -seeing other people attempting to do it.”</p> - -<p>“And no prowling or purring?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Not this morning. That’s all right: it’s there. -It’s so much all right that I want to be active in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> -other directions. Sitting in a windless hollow is -about the range of my activities. I say that for fear -that you should.”</p> - -<p>I found a match when we arrived at the club-house, -and Roderick strolled away to the goal of his observations. -Half an hour afterwards I found him -watching with criminally ecstatic joy the soaring -drives that, in the teeth of the great wind, were -arrested and blown back into the unholiest bunker -in all the world or the low clever balls that never -rose to the height of the shored-up cliff of sand. -The couple in front of my partner and me were -sarcastic dogs, and bade us wait only till they had -delved themselves over the ridge, and then we might -follow as soon as we chose. After violent deeds -in the bunker they climbed over the big dune, thirty -yards beyond which lay the green on which they -would now be putting.</p> - -<p>As soon as they had disappeared, Roderick snatched -my driver from my hand.</p> - -<p>“I can’t bear it,” he said. “I must hit a ball -again. Tee it low, caddie.... No, no tee at all.”</p> - -<p>He hit a superb shot, just high enough to carry -the ridge, and not so high that it caught the opposing -wind and was stopped towards the end of its flight. -He gave a loud croak of laughter.</p> - -<p>“That’ll teach them not to insult my friend,” -he said. “It must have been pitched right among -their careful puttings. And now I shall read his -ghost-stories.”</p> - -<p>I have recorded this athletic incident because -better than any analysis of his attitude towards life -and death it conveys just what that attitude was.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> -He knew perfectly well that any swift exertion might -be fatal to him, but he wanted to hit a golf ball again -as sweetly and as hard as it could be hit. He had -done it: he had scored off death. And as I went -on my way I felt perfectly confident that if, with -that brisk free effort, he had fallen dead on the tee, -he would have thought it well worth while, provided -only that he had made that irreproachable shot. -While alive, he proposed to partake in the pleasures -of life, amongst which he had always reckoned that -of hitting golf balls, not caring, though he liked to -be alive, whether the immediate consequence was -death, just because he did not in the least object -to being dead. The choice was of such little consequence.... -The history of that I was to know -that evening.</p> - -<p>The stories which Roderick had taken to read -were designed to be of an uncomfortable type: one -concerned a vampire, one an elemental, the third -the reincarnation of a certain execrable personage, -and as we sat in the garden-room after tea, he with -these pages on his knees, I had the pleasure of seeing -him give hasty glances round, as he read, as if to -assure himself that there was nothing unusual in -the dimmer corners of the room.... I liked that; -he was doing as I intended that a reader should.</p> - -<p>Before long he came to the last page.</p> - -<p>“And are you intending to make a book of them?” -he asked. “What are the other stories like?”</p> - -<p>“Worse,” said I, with the complacency of the -horror-monger.</p> - -<p>“Then—did you ask for criticism? I shall give -it in any case—you will make a book that not only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> -is inartistic, all shadows and no light, but a false -book. Fiction can be false, you know, inherently -false. You play godfather to your stories, you see: -you tell them in the first person, those at least that -I have read, and that, though it need not be supposed -that those experiences were actually yours, yet gives -a sort of guarantee that you believe the borderland -of which you write to be entirely terrible. But it -isn’t: there are probably terrors there—I think for -instance that I believe in elemental spirits, of some -ghastly kind—but I am sure that I believe that the -borderland, for the most part, is almost inconceivably -delightful. I’ve got the best of reasons for -believing that.”</p> - -<p>“I’m willing to be convinced,” said I.</p> - -<p>Again, as he looked at the fire, his eye sparkled, -not with the reflected flame, but with the brightness -of some interior vision.</p> - -<p>“Well, there’s an hour yet before dinner,” he said, -“and my story won’t take half of that. It’s about -my previous experience of this house; what I saw, -in fact, in the room which I now occupy. It was -because of that, naturally, that I wanted the same -room again. Here goes, then.</p> - -<p>“For the twenty years of Margaret’s married life,” -he said, “I never saw her except quite accidentally -and casually. Casually, like that, I had seen her at -theatres and what not with her two boys whom thus -I knew by sight. But I had never spoken to either -of them, nor, after her marriage, to their mother. -I knew, as all the world knew, that she had a terrible -life, but circumstances being what they were, I could -not bring myself to her notice, the more so because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> -she made no sign or gesture of wanting me. But I -am sure that no day passed on which I did not long -to be able to show her that my love and sympathy -were hers. Only, so I thought, I had to know that -she wanted them.</p> - -<p>“I heard, of course, of the death of her sons. -They were both killed in France within a few days -of each other; one was eighteen, the other nineteen. -I wrote to her then formally, so long had we been -strangers, and she answered formally. After that, -she took this house, where she lived alone. A year -later, I was told that she had now for some months -been suffering from a malignant and disfiguring -disease.</p> - -<p>“I was in London, strolling down Piccadilly -when my companion mentioned it, and I at once -became aware that I must go to see her, not to-morrow -or soon, but now. It is difficult to describe the quality -of that conviction, or tell you how instinctive and -over-mastering it was. There are some things which -you can’t help doing, not exactly because you desire -to do them, but because they must be done. If, -for instance, you are in the middle of the road, and -see a motor coming towards you at top-speed, you -have to step to the side of the road, unless you -deliberately choose to commit suicide. It was just -like that; unless I intended to commit a sort of -spiritual suicide there was no choice.</p> - -<p>“A few hours later I was at your door here, asked -to see her, and was told that she was desperately -ill and could see nobody. But I got her maid to -take the message that I was here, and presently -her nurse came down to tell me that she would see me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> -I should find Margaret, she said, wearing a veil so -as to conceal from me the dreadful ravages which the -disease had inflicted on her face, and the scars of -the two operations which she had undergone. Very -likely she would not speak to me, for she had great -difficulty in speaking at all, and in any case I was -not to stay for more than a few minutes. Probably -she could not live many hours: I had only just come -in time. And at that moment I wished I had done -anything rather than come here, for though instinct -had driven me here, yet instinct now recoiled with -unspeakable horror. The flesh wars against the -spirit, you know, and under its stress I now suggested -that it was better perhaps that I should not see her.... -But the nurse merely said again that Margaret -wished to see me, and guessing perhaps the cause of -my unwillingness, ‘Her face will be quite invisible,’ -she added. ‘There will be nothing to shock you.’</p> - -<p>“I went in alone: Margaret was propped up in -bed with pillows, so that she sat nearly upright, and -over her head was a dark veil through which I could -see nothing whatever. Her right hand lay on the -coverlet, and as I seated myself by her bedside, -where the nurse had put a chair for me, Margaret -advanced her hand towards me, shyly, hesitatingly, -as if not sure that I would take it. But it was a sign, -a gesture.”</p> - -<p>He paused, his face beaming and radiant with -the light of that memory.</p> - -<p>“I am speaking of things unspeakable,” he said. -“I can no more convey to you all that meant than -by a mere enumeration of colours can I steep your -soul in the feeling of a sunset.... So there I sat,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> -with her hand covered and clasped in mine. I had -been told that very likely she would not speak, and -for myself there was no word in the world which -would not be dross in the gold of that silence.</p> - -<p>“And then from behind her veil there came a -whisper.</p> - -<p>“‘I couldn’t die without seeing you,’ she said. -‘I was sure you would come. I’ve one thing to say -to you. I loved you, and I tried to choke my love. -And for years, my dear, I have been reaping the -harvest of what I did. I tried to kill love, but it -was so much stronger than I. And now the harvest -is gathered. I have suffered cruelly, you know, -but I bless every pang of it. I needed it all....’</p> - -<p>“Only a few minutes before, I had quaked at the -thought of seeing her. But now I could not suffer -that the veil should cover her face.</p> - -<p>“‘Put up your veil, darling,’ I said. ‘I must -see you.’</p> - -<p>“‘No, no,’ she whispered. ‘I should horrify -you. I am terrible.’</p> - -<p>“‘You can’t be terrible to me,’ I said. ‘I am -going to lift it.’</p> - -<p>“I raised her veil. And what did I see? I -might have known, I think: I might have guessed -that at this moment, supreme and perfect, I should -see with vision.</p> - -<p>“There was no scar or ravage of disease or disfigurement -there. She was far lovelier than she had -ever been, and on her face there shone the dawn of -the everlasting day. She had shed all that was -perishable and subject to decay, and her immortal -spirit was manifested to me, purged and punished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> -if you will, but humble and holy. There was granted -to my frail mortal sight the power of seeing truly; -it was permitted to me to be with her beyond the -bounds of mortality....</p> - -<p>“And then, even as I was lost in an amazement -of love and wonder, I saw we were not alone in the -room. Two boys, whom I recognized, were standing -at the other side of the bed, looking at her. It seemed -utterly natural that they should be there.</p> - -<p>“‘We’ve been allowed to come for you, mother -darling,’ said one. ‘Get up.’</p> - -<p>“She turned her face to them.</p> - -<p>“‘Ah, my dears,’ she said. ‘How lovely of you. -But just one moment.’</p> - -<p>“She bent over towards me and kissed me.</p> - -<p>“‘Thank you for coming, Roderick,’ she said. -‘Good-bye, just for a little while.’</p> - -<p>“At that my power of sight—my power of true -sight—failed. Her head fell back on the pillows -and turned over on one side. For one second, before -I let the veil drop over it again, I had a glimpse of -her face, marred and cruelly mutilated. I saw that, -I say, but never then nor afterwards could I remember -it. It was like a terrible dream, which utterly fades -on the awaking. Then her hand, which had been -clasping mine, in that moment of her farewell -slackened its hold, and dropped on to the bed. She -had just moved away, somewhere out of sight, with -her two boys to look after her.”</p> - -<p>He paused.</p> - -<p>“That’s all,” he said. “And do you wonder that -I chose that room? How I hope that she will come -for me.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>My room was next to Roderick’s, the head of his -bed being just opposite the head of mine on the other -side of the wall. That night I had undressed, lain -down, and had just put out my light, when I heard a -sharp tap just above me. I thought it was some -fortuitous noise, as of a picture swinging in a draught, -but the moment after it was repeated, and it struck -me that it was perhaps a summons from Roderick -who wanted something. Still quite unalarmed, I -got out of bed, and, candle in hand, went to his door. -I knocked, but receiving no answer, opened it an -inch or two.</p> - -<p>“Did you want anything?” I asked, and, again -receiving no answer, I went in.</p> - -<p>His lights were burning, and he was sitting up in -bed. He did not appear to see me or be conscious -of my presence, and his eyes were fixed on some -point a few feet away in front of him. His mouth -smiled, and in his eyes was just such a joy as I had -seen there when he told me his story. Then, leaning -on his arm, he moved as if to rise.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Margaret, my dear....” he cried.</p> - -<p>He drew a couple of short breaths, and fell back.</p> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="center">PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE PITMAN PRESS, BATH</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div class="transnote"> -<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> - - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> - -<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p> - -<p>The Greek on pages 100 and 101, φέγγος ξ, transliterates as <i>phengos x</i>.</p> -</div> - -<p> </p> -<hr class="full" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE***</p> -<p>******* This file should be named 60339-h.htm or 60339-h.zip *******</p> -<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/0/3/3/60339">http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/3/3/60339</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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