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diff --git a/642-h/642-h.htm b/642-h/642-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..010d8c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/642-h/642-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1924 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Altar of the Dead, by Henry James</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 30%; } + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Altar of the Dead, by Henry James + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Altar of the Dead + + +Author: Henry James + + + +Release Date: November 9, 2010 [eBook #642] +[This file was first posted on September 10, 1996] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ALTAR OF THE DEAD*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1916 Martin Secker edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>THE ALTAR OF<br /> +THE DEAD</h1> +<p style="text-align: center">BY HENRY JAMES</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Graphic" +title= +"Graphic" +src="images/p0.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">LONDON: MARTIN SECKER<br /> +<span class="smcap">number five john street adelphi</span></p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">This edition first published +1916</p> +<p style="text-align: center">The text follows that of the<br /> +Definitive Edition</p> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<p>He had a mortal dislike, poor Stransom, to lean anniversaries, +and loved them still less when they made a pretence of a +figure. Celebrations and suppressions were equally painful +to him, and but one of the former found a place in his +life. He had kept each year in his own fashion the date of +Mary Antrim’s death. It would be more to the point +perhaps to say that this occasion kept <i>him</i>: it kept him at +least effectually from doing anything else. It took hold of +him again and again with a hand of which time had softened but +never loosened the touch. He waked to his feast of memory +as consciously as he would have waked to his marriage-morn. +Marriage had had of old but too little to say to the matter: for +the girl who was to have been his bride there had been no bridal +embrace. She had died of a malignant fever after the +wedding-day had been fixed, and he had lost before fairly tasting +it an affection that promised to fill his life to the brim.</p> +<p>Of that benediction, however, it would have been false to say +this life could really be emptied: it was still ruled by a pale +ghost, still ordered by a sovereign presence. He had not +been a man of numerous passions, and even in all these years no +sense had grown stronger with him than the sense of being +bereft. He had needed no priest and no altar to make him +for ever widowed. He had done many things in the +world—he had done almost all but one: he had never, never +forgotten. He had tried to put into his existence whatever +else might take up room in it, but had failed to make it more +than a house of which the mistress was eternally absent. +She was most absent of all on the recurrent December day that his +tenacity set apart. He had no arranged observance of it, +but his nerves made it all their own. They drove him forth +without mercy, and the goal of his pilgrimage was far. She +had been buried in a London suburb, a part then of Nature’s +breast, but which he had seen lose one after another every +feature of freshness. It was in truth during the moments he +stood there that his eyes beheld the place least. They +looked at another image, they opened to another light. Was +it a credible future? Was it an incredible past? +Whatever the answer it was an immense escape from the actual.</p> +<p>It’s true that if there weren’t other dates than +this there were other memories; and by the time George Stransom +was fifty-five such memories had greatly multiplied. There +were other ghosts in his life than the ghost of Mary +Antrim. He had perhaps not had more losses than most men, +but he had counted his losses more; he hadn’t seen death +more closely, but had in a manner felt it more deeply. He +had formed little by little the habit of numbering his Dead: it +had come to him early in life that there was something one had to +do for them. They were there in their simplified +intensified essence, their conscious absence and expressive +patience, as personally there as if they had only been stricken +dumb. When all sense of them failed, all sound of them +ceased, it was as if their purgatory were really still on earth: +they asked so little that they got, poor things, even less, and +died again, died every day, of the hard usage of life. They +had no organised service, no reserved place, no honour, no +shelter, no safety. Even ungenerous people provided for the +living, but even those who were called most generous did nothing +for the others. So on George Stransom’s part had +grown up with the years a resolve that he at least would do +something, do it, that is, for his own—would perform the +great charity without reproach. Every man <i>had</i> his +own, and every man had, to meet this charity, the ample resources +of the soul.</p> +<p>It was doubtless the voice of Mary Antrim that spoke for them +best; as the years at any rate went by he found himself in +regular communion with these postponed pensioners, those whom +indeed he always called in his thoughts the Others. He +spared them the moments, he organised the charity. Quite +how it had risen he probably never could have told you, but what +came to pass was that an altar, such as was after all within +everybody’s compass, lighted with perpetual candles and +dedicated to these secret rites, reared itself in his spiritual +spaces. He had wondered of old, in some embarrassment, +whether he had a religion; being very sure, and not a little +content, that he hadn’t at all events the religion some of +the people he had known wanted him to have. Gradually this +question was straightened out for him: it became clear to him +that the religion instilled by his earliest consciousness had +been simply the religion of the Dead. It suited his +inclination, it satisfied his spirit, it gave employment to his +piety. It answered his love of great offices, of a solemn +and splendid ritual; for no shrine could be more bedecked and no +ceremonial more stately than those to which his worship was +attached. He had no imagination about these things but that +they were accessible to any one who should feel the need of +them. The poorest could build such temples of the +spirit—could make them blaze with candles and smoke with +incense, make them flush with pictures and flowers. The +cost, in the common phrase, of keeping them up fell wholly on the +generous heart.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> +<p>He had this year, on the eve of his anniversary, as happened, +an emotion not unconnected with that range of feeling. +Walking home at the close of a busy day he was arrested in the +London street by the particular effect of a shop-front that +lighted the dull brown air with its mercenary grin and before +which several persons were gathered. It was the window of a +jeweller whose diamonds and sapphires seemed to laugh, in flashes +like high notes of sound, with the mere joy of knowing how much +more they were “worth” than most of the dingy +pedestrians staring at them from the other side of the +pane. Stransom lingered long enough to suspend, in a +vision, a string of pearls about the white neck of Mary Antrim, +and then was kept an instant longer by the sound of a voice he +knew. Next him was a mumbling old woman, and beyond the old +woman a gentleman with a lady on his arm. It was from him, +from Paul Creston, the voice had proceeded: he was talking with +the lady of some precious object in the window. Stransom +had no sooner recognised him than the old woman turned away; but +just with this growth of opportunity came a felt strangeness that +stayed him in the very act of laying his hand on his +friend’s arm. It lasted but the instant, only that +space sufficed for the flash of a wild question. Was +<i>not</i> Mrs. Creston dead?—the ambiguity met him there +in the short drop of her husband’s voice, the drop +conjugal, if it ever was, and in the way the two figures leaned +to each other. Creston, making a step to look at something +else, came nearer, glanced at him, started and +exclaimed—behaviour the effect of which was at first only +to leave Stransom staring, staring back across the months at the +different face, the wholly other face, the poor man had shown him +last, the blurred ravaged mask bent over the open grave by which +they had stood together. That son of affliction +wasn’t in mourning now; he detached his arm from his +companion’s to grasp the hand of the older friend. He +coloured as well as smiled in the strong light of the shop when +Stransom raised a tentative hat to the lady. Stransom had +just time to see she was pretty before he found himself gaping at +a fact more portentous. “My dear fellow, let me make +you acquainted with my wife.”</p> +<p>Creston had blushed and stammered over it, but in half a +minute, at the rate we live in polite society, it had practically +become, for our friend, the mere memory of a shock. They +stood there and laughed and talked; Stransom had instantly +whisked the shock out of the way, to keep it for private +consumption. He felt himself grimace, he heard himself +exaggerate the proper, but was conscious of turning not a little +faint. That new woman, that hired performer, Mrs. +Creston? Mrs. Creston had been more living for him than any +woman but one. This lady had a face that shone as publicly +as the jeweller’s window, and in the happy candour with +which she wore her monstrous character was an effect of gross +immodesty. The character of Paul Creston’s wife thus +attributed to her was monstrous for reasons Stransom could judge +his friend to know perfectly that he knew. The happy pair +had just arrived from America, and Stransom hadn’t needed +to be told this to guess the nationality of the lady. +Somehow it deepened the foolish air that her husband’s +confused cordiality was unable to conceal. Stransom +recalled that he had heard of poor Creston’s having, while +his bereavement was still fresh, crossed the sea for what people +in such predicaments call a little change. He had found the +little change indeed, he had brought the little change back; it +was the little change that stood there and that, do what he +would, he couldn’t, while he showed those high front teeth +of his, look other than a conscious ass about. They were +going into the shop, Mrs. Creston said, and she begged Mr. +Stransom to come with them and help to decide. He thanked +her, opening his watch and pleading an engagement for which he +was already late, and they parted while she shrieked into the +fog, “Mind now you come to see me right away!” +Creston had had the delicacy not to suggest that, and Stransom +hoped it hurt him somewhere to hear her scream it to all the +echoes.</p> +<p>He felt quite determined, as he walked away, never in his life +to go near her. She was perhaps a human being, but Creston +oughtn’t to have shown her without precautions, +oughtn’t indeed to have shown her at all. His +precautions should have been those of a forger or a murderer, and +the people at home would never have mentioned extradition. +This was a wife for foreign service or purely external use; a +decent consideration would have spared her the injury of +comparisons. Such was the first flush of George +Stransom’s reaction; but as he sat alone that +night—there were particular hours he always passed +alone—the harshness dropped from it and left only the +pity. <i>He</i> could spend an evening with Kate Creston, +if the man to whom she had given everything couldn’t. +He had known her twenty years, and she was the only woman for +whom he might perhaps have been unfaithful. She was all +cleverness and sympathy and charm; her house had been the very +easiest in all the world and her friendship the very +firmest. Without accidents he had loved her, without +accidents every one had loved her: she had made the passions +about her as regular as the moon makes the tides. She had +been also of course far too good for her husband, but he never +suspected it, and in nothing had she been more admirable than in +the exquisite art with which she tried to keep every one else +(keeping Creston was no trouble) from finding it out. Here +was a man to whom she had devoted her life and for whom she had +given it up—dying to bring into the world a child of his +bed; and she had had only to submit to her fate to have, ere the +grass was green on her grave, no more existence for him than a +domestic servant he had replaced. The frivolity, the +indecency of it made Stransom’s eyes fill; and he had that +evening a sturdy sense that he alone, in a world without +delicacy, had a right to hold up his head. While he smoked, +after dinner, he had a book in his lap, but he had no eyes for +his page: his eyes, in the swarming void of things, seemed to +have caught Kate Creston’s, and it was into their sad +silences he looked. It was to him her sentient spirit had +turned, knowing it to be of her he would think. He thought +for a long time of how the closed eyes of dead women could still +live—how they could open again, in a quiet lamplit room, +long after they had looked their last. They had looks that +survived—had them as great poets had quoted lines.</p> +<p>The newspaper lay by his chair—the thing that came in +the afternoon and the servants thought one wanted; without sense +for what was in it he had mechanically unfolded and then dropped +it. Before he went to bed he took it up, and this time, at +the top of a paragraph, he was caught by five words that made him +start. He stood staring, before the fire, at the +“Death of Sir Acton Hague, K.C.B.,” the man who ten +years earlier had been the nearest of his friends and whose +deposition from this eminence had practically left it without an +occupant. He had seen him after their rupture, but +hadn’t now seen him for years. Standing there before +the fire he turned cold as he read what had befallen him. +Promoted a short time previous to the governorship of the +Westward Islands, Acton Hague had died, in the bleak honour of +this exile, of an illness consequent on the bite of a poisonous +snake. His career was compressed by the newspaper into a +dozen lines, the perusal of which excited on George +Stransom’s part no warmer feeling than one of relief at the +absence of any mention of their quarrel, an incident accidentally +tainted at the time, thanks to their joint immersion in large +affairs, with a horrible publicity. Public indeed was the +wrong Stransom had, to his own sense, suffered, the insult he had +blankly taken from the only man with whom he had ever been +intimate; the friend, almost adored, of his University years, the +subject, later, of his passionate loyalty: so public that he had +never spoken of it to a human creature, so public that he had +completely overlooked it. It had made the difference for +him that friendship too was all over, but it had only made just +that one. The shock of interests had been private, +intensely so; but the action taken by Hague had been in the face +of men. To-day it all seemed to have occurred merely to the +end that George Stransom should think of him as +“Hague” and measure exactly how much he himself could +resemble a stone. He went cold, suddenly and horribly cold, +to bed.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<p>The next day, in the afternoon, in the great grey suburb, he +knew his long walk had tired him. In the dreadful cemetery +alone he had been on his feet an hour. Instinctively, +coming back, they had taken him a devious course, and it was a +desert in which no circling cabman hovered over possible +prey. He paused on a corner and measured the dreariness; +then he made out through the gathered dusk that he was in one of +those tracts of London which are less gloomy by night than by +day, because, in the former case of the civil gift of +light. By day there was nothing, but by night there were +lamps, and George Stransom was in a mood that made lamps good in +themselves. It wasn’t that they could show him +anything, it was only that they could burn clear. To his +surprise, however, after a while, they did show him something: +the arch of a high doorway approached by a low terrace of steps, +in the depth of which—it formed a dim vestibule—the +raising of a curtain at the moment he passed gave him a glimpse +of an avenue of gloom with a glow of tapers at the end. He +stopped and looked up, recognising the place as a church. +The thought quickly came to him that since he was tired he might +rest there; so that after a moment he had in turn pushed up the +leathern curtain and gone in. It was a temple of the old +persuasion, and there had evidently been a function—perhaps +a service for the dead; the high altar was still a blaze of +candles. This was an exhibition he always liked, and he +dropped into a seat with relief. More than it had ever yet +come home to him it struck him as good there should be +churches.</p> +<p>This one was almost empty and the other altars were dim; a +verger shuffled about, an old woman coughed, but it seemed to +Stransom there was hospitality in the thick sweet air. Was +it only the savour of the incense or was it something of larger +intention? He had at any rate quitted the great grey suburb +and come nearer to the warm centre. He presently ceased to +feel intrusive, gaining at last even a sense of community with +the only worshipper in his neighbourhood, the sombre presence of +a woman, in mourning unrelieved, whose back was all he could see +of her and who had sunk deep into prayer at no great distance +from him. He wished he could sink, like her, to the very +bottom, be as motionless, as rapt in prostration. After a +few moments he shifted his seat; it was almost indelicate to be +so aware of her. But Stransom subsequently quite lost +himself, floating away on the sea of light. If occasions +like this had been more frequent in his life he would have had +more present the great original type, set up in a myriad temples, +of the unapproachable shrine he had erected in his mind. +That shrine had begun in vague likeness to church pomps, but the +echo had ended by growing more distinct than the sound. The +sound now rang out, the type blazed at him with all its fires and +with a mystery of radiance in which endless meanings could +glow. The thing became as he sat there his appropriate +altar and each starry candle an appropriate vow. He +numbered them, named them, grouped them—it was the silent +roll-call of his Dead. They made together a brightness vast +and intense, a brightness in which the mere chapel of his +thoughts grew so dim that as it faded away he asked himself if he +shouldn’t find his real comfort in some material act, some +outward worship.</p> +<p>This idea took possession of him while, at a distance, the +black-robed lady continued prostrate; he was quietly thrilled +with his conception, which at last brought him to his feet in the +sudden excitement of a plan. He wandered softly through the +aisles, pausing in the different chapels, all save one applied to +a special devotion. It was in this clear recess, lampless +and unapplied, that he stood longest—the length of time it +took him fully to grasp the conception of gilding it with his +bounty. He should snatch it from no other rites and +associate it with nothing profane; he would simply take it as it +should be given up to him and make it a masterpiece of splendour +and a mountain of fire. Tended sacredly all the year, with +the sanctifying church round it, it would always be ready for his +offices. There would be difficulties, but from the first +they presented themselves only as difficulties surmounted. +Even for a person so little affiliated the thing would be a +matter of arrangement. He saw it all in advance, and how +bright in especial the place would become to him in the +intermissions of toil and the dusk of afternoons; how rich in +assurance at all times, but especially in the indifferent +world. Before withdrawing he drew nearer again to the spot +where he had first sat down, and in the movement he met the lady +whom he had seen praying and who was now on her way to the +door. She passed him quickly, and he had only a glimpse of +her pale face and her unconscious, almost sightless eyes. +For that instant she looked faded and handsome.</p> +<p>This was the origin of the rites more public, yet certainly +esoteric, that he at last found himself able to establish. +It took a long time, it took a year, and both the process and the +result would have been—for any who knew—a vivid +picture of his good faith. No one did know, in +fact—no one but the bland ecclesiastics whose acquaintance +he had promptly sought, whose objections he had softly +overridden, whose curiosity and sympathy he had artfully charmed, +whose assent to his eccentric munificence he had eventually won, +and who had asked for concessions in exchange for +indulgences. Stransom had of course at an early stage of +his enquiry been referred to the Bishop, and the Bishop had been +delightfully human, the Bishop had been almost amused. +Success was within sight, at any rate from the moment the +attitude of those whom it concerned became liberal in response to +liberality. The altar and the sacred shell that half +encircled it, consecrated to an ostensible and customary worship, +were to be splendidly maintained; all that Stransom reserved to +himself was the number of his lights and the free enjoyment of +his intention. When the intention had taken complete effect +the enjoyment became even greater than he had ventured to +hope. He liked to think of this effect when far from it, +liked to convince himself of it yet again when near. He was +not often indeed so near as that a visit to it hadn’t +perforce something of the patience of a pilgrimage; but the time +he gave to his devotion came to seem to him more a contribution +to his other interests than a betrayal of them. Even a +loaded life might be easier when one had added a new necessity to +it.</p> +<p>How much easier was probably never guessed by those who simply +knew there were hours when he disappeared and for many of whom +there was a vulgar reading of what they used to call his +plunges. These plunges were into depths quieter than the +deep sea-caves, and the habit had at the end of a year or two +become the one it would have cost him most to relinquish. +Now they had really, his Dead, something that was indefensibly +theirs; and he liked to think that they might in cases be the +Dead of others, as well as that the Dead of others might be +invoked there under the protection of what he had done. +Whoever bent a knee on the carpet he had laid down appeared to +him to act in the spirit of his intention. Each of his +lights had a name for him, and from time to time a new light was +kindled. This was what he had fundamentally agreed for, +that there should always be room for them all. What those +who passed or lingered saw was simply the most resplendent of the +altars called suddenly into vivid usefulness, with a quiet +elderly man, for whom it evidently had a fascination, often +seated there in a maze or a doze; but half the satisfaction of +the spot for this mysterious and fitful worshipper was that he +found the years of his life there, and the ties, the affections, +the struggles, the submissions, the conquests, if there had been +such, a record of that adventurous journey in which the +beginnings and the endings of human relations are the lettered +mile-stones. He had in general little taste for the past as +a part of his own history; at other times and in other places it +mostly seemed to him pitiful to consider and impossible to +repair; but on these occasions he accepted it with something of +that positive gladness with which one adjusts one’s self to +an ache that begins to succumb to treatment. To the +treatment of time the malady of life begins at a given moment to +succumb; and these were doubtless the hours at which that truth +most came home to him. The day was written for him there on +which he had first become acquainted with death, and the +successive phases of the acquaintance were marked each with a +flame.</p> +<p>The flames were gathering thick at present, for Stransom had +entered that dark defile of our earthly descent in which some one +dies every day. It was only yesterday that Kate Creston had +flashed out her white fire; yet already there were younger stars +ablaze on the tips of the tapers. Various persons in whom +his interest had not been intense drew closer to him by entering +this company. He went over it, head by head, till he felt +like the shepherd of a huddled flock, with all a shepherd’s +vision of differences imperceptible. He knew his candles +apart, up to the colour of the flame, and would still have known +them had their positions all been changed. To other +imaginations they might stand for other things—that they +should stand for something to be hushed before was all he +desired; but he was intensely conscious of the personal note of +each and of the distinguishable way it contributed to the +concert. There were hours at which he almost caught himself +wishing that certain of his friends would now die, that he might +establish with them in this manner a connexion more charming +than, as it happened, it was possible to enjoy with them in +life. In regard to those from whom one was separated by the +long curves of the globe such a connexion could only be an +improvement: it brought them instantly within reach. Of +course there were gaps in the constellation, for Stransom knew he +could only pretend to act for his own, and it wasn’t every +figure passing before his eyes into the great obscure that was +entitled to a memorial. There was a strange sanctification +in death, but some characters were more sanctified by being +forgotten than by being remembered. The greatest blank in +the shining page was the memory of Acton Hague, of which he +inveterately tried to rid himself. For Acton Hague no flame +could ever rise on any altar of his.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> +<p>Every year, the day he walked back from the great graveyard, +he went to church as he had done the day his idea was born. +It was on this occasion, as it happened, after a year had passed, +that he began to observe his altar to be haunted by a worshipper +at least as frequent as himself. Others of the faithful, +and in the rest of the church, came and went, appealing +sometimes, when they disappeared, to a vague or to a particular +recognition; but this unfailing presence was always to be +observed when he arrived and still in possession when he +departed. He was surprised, the first time, at the +promptitude with which it assumed an identity for him—the +identity of the lady whom two years before, on his anniversary, +he had seen so intensely bowed, and of whose tragic face he had +had so flitting a vision. Given the time that had passed, +his recollection of her was fresh enough to make him +wonder. Of himself she had of course no impression, or +rather had had none at first: the time came when her manner of +transacting her business suggested her having gradually guessed +his call to be of the same order. She used his altar for +her own purpose—he could only hope that sad and solitary as +she always struck him, she used it for her own Dead. There +were interruptions, infidelities, all on his part, calls to other +associations and duties; but as the months went on he found her +whenever he returned, and he ended by taking pleasure in the +thought that he had given her almost the contentment he had given +himself. They worshipped side by side so often that there +were moments when he wished he might be sure, so straight did +their prospect stretch away of growing old together in their +rites. She was younger than he, but she looked as if her +Dead were at least as numerous as his candles. She had no +colour, no sound, no fault, and another of the things about which +he had made up his mind was that she had no fortune. Always +black-robed, she must have had a succession of sorrows. +People weren’t poor, after all, whom so many losses could +overtake; they were positively rich when they had had so much to +give up. But the air of this devoted and indifferent woman, +who always made, in any attitude, a beautiful accidental line, +conveyed somehow to Stransom that she had known more kinds of +trouble than one.</p> +<p>He had a great love of music and little time for the joy of +it; but occasionally, when workaday noises were muffled by +Saturday afternoons, it used to come back to him that there were +glories. There were moreover friends who reminded him of +this and side by side with whom he found himself sitting out +concerts. On one of these winter afternoons, in St. +James’s Hall, he became aware after he had seated himself +that the lady he had so often seen at church was in the place +next him and was evidently alone, as he also this time happened +to be. She was at first too absorbed in the consideration +of the programme to heed him, but when she at last glanced at him +he took advantage of the movement to speak to her, greeting her +with the remark that he felt as if he already knew her. She +smiled as she said “Oh yes, I recognise you”; yet in +spite of this admission of long acquaintance it was the first he +had seen of her smile. The effect of it was suddenly to +contribute more to that acquaintance than all the previous +meetings had done. He hadn’t “taken in,” +he said to himself, that she was so pretty. Later, that +evening—it was while he rolled along in a hansom on his way +to dine out—he added that he hadn’t taken in that she +was so interesting. The next morning in the midst of his +work he quite suddenly and irrelevantly reflected that his +impression of her, beginning so far back, was like a winding +river that had at last reached the sea.</p> +<p>His work in fact was blurred a little all that day by the +sense of what had now passed between them. It wasn’t +much, but it had just made the difference. They had +listened together to Beethoven and Schumann; they had talked in +the pauses, and at the end, when at the door, to which they moved +together, he had asked her if he could help her in the matter of +getting away. She had thanked him and put up her umbrella, +slipping into the crowd without an allusion to their meeting yet +again and leaving him to remember at leisure that not a word had +been exchanged about the usual scene of that coincidence. +This omission struck him now as natural and then again as +perverse. She mightn’t in the least have allowed his +warrant for speaking to her, and yet if she hadn’t he would +have judged her an underbred woman. It was odd that when +nothing had really ever brought them together he should have been +able successfully to assume they were in a manner old +friends—that this negative quantity was somehow more than +they could express. His success, it was true, had been +qualified by her quick escape, so that there grew up in him an +absurd desire to put it to some better test. Save in so far +as some other poor chance might help him, such a test could be +only to meet her afresh at church. Left to himself he would +have gone to church the very next afternoon, just for the +curiosity of seeing if he should find her there. But he +wasn’t left to himself, a fact he discovered quite at the +last, after he had virtually made up his mind to go. The +influence that kept him away really revealed to him how little to +himself his Dead <i>ever</i> left him. He went only for +<i>them</i>—for nothing else in the world.</p> +<p>The force of this revulsion kept him away ten days: he hated +to connect the place with anything but his offices or to give a +glimpse of the curiosity that had been on the point of moving +him. It was absurd to weave a tangle about a matter so +simple as a custom of devotion that might with ease have been +daily or hourly; yet the tangle got itself woven. He was +sorry, he was disappointed: it was as if a long happy spell had +been broken and he had lost a familiar security. At the +last, however, he asked himself if he was to stay away for ever +from the fear of this muddle about motives. After an +interval neither longer nor shorter than usual he re-entered the +church with a clear conviction that he should scarcely heed the +presence or the absence of the lady of the concert. This +indifference didn’t prevent his at once noting that for the +only time since he had first seen her she wasn’t on the +spot. He had now no scruple about giving her time to +arrive, but she didn’t arrive, and when he went away still +missing her he was profanely and consentingly sorry. If her +absence made the tangle more intricate, that was all her own +doing. By the end of another year it was very intricate +indeed; but by that time he didn’t in the least care, and +it was only his cultivated consciousness that had given him +scruples. Three times in three months he had gone to church +without finding her, and he felt he hadn’t needed these +occasions to show him his suspense had dropped. Yet it was, +incongruously, not indifference, but a refinement of delicacy +that had kept him from asking the sacristan, who would of course +immediately have recognised his description of her, whether she +had been seen at other hours. His delicacy had kept him +from asking any question about her at any time, and it was +exactly the same virtue that had left him so free to be decently +civil to her at the concert.</p> +<p>This happy advantage now served him anew, enabling him when +she finally met his eyes—it was after a fourth +trial—to predetermine quite fixedly his awaiting her +retreat. He joined her in the street as soon as she had +moved, asking her if he might accompany her a certain +distance. With her placid permission he went as far as a +house in the neighbourhood at which she had business: she let him +know it was not where she lived. She lived, as she said, in +a mere slum, with an old aunt, a person in connexion with whom +she spoke of the engrossment of humdrum duties and regular +occupations. She wasn’t, the mourning niece, in her +first youth, and her vanished freshness had left something behind +that, for Stransom, represented the proof it had been tragically +sacrificed. Whatever she gave him the assurance of she gave +without references. She might have been a divorced +duchess—she might have been an old maid who taught the +harp.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> +<p>They fell at last into the way of walking together almost +every time they met, though for a long time still they never met +but at church. He couldn’t ask her to come and see +him, and as if she hadn’t a proper place to receive him she +never invited her friend. As much as himself she knew the +world of London, but from an undiscussed instinct of privacy they +haunted the region not mapped on the social chart. On the +return she always made him leave her at the same corner. +She looked with him, as a pretext for a pause, at the depressed +things in suburban shop-fronts; and there was never a word he had +said to her that she hadn’t beautifully understood. +For long ages he never knew her name, any more than she had ever +pronounced his own; but it was not their names that mattered, it +was only their perfect practice and their common need.</p> +<p>These things made their whole relation so impersonal that they +hadn’t the rules or reasons people found in ordinary +friendships. They didn’t care for the things it was +supposed necessary to care for in the intercourse of the +world. They ended one day—they never knew which of +them expressed it first—by throwing out the idea that they +didn’t care for each other. Over this idea they grew +quite intimate; they rallied to it in a way that marked a fresh +start in their confidence. If to feel deeply together about +certain things wholly distinct from themselves didn’t +constitute a safety, where was safety to be looked for? Not +lightly nor often, not without occasion nor without emotion, any +more than in any other reference by serious people to a mystery +of their faith; but when something had happened to warm, as it +were, the air for it, they came as near as they could come to +calling their Dead by name. They felt it was coming very +near to utter their thought at all. The word +“they” expressed enough; it limited the mention, it +had a dignity of its own, and if, in their talk, you had heard +our friends use it, you might have taken them for a pair of +pagans of old alluding decently to the domesticated gods. +They never knew—at least Stransom never knew—how they +had learned to be sure about each other. If it had been +with each a question of what the other was there for, the +certitude had come in some fine way of its own. Any faith, +after all, has the instinct of propagation, and it was as natural +as it was beautiful that they should have taken pleasure on the +spot in the imagination of a following. If the following +was for each but a following of one it had proved in the event +sufficient. Her debt, however, of course was much greater +than his, because while she had only given him a worshipper he +had given her a splendid temple. Once she said she pitied +him for the length of his list—she had counted his candles +almost as often as himself—and this made him wonder what +could have been the length of hers. He had wondered before +at the coincidence of their losses, especially as from time to +time a new candle was set up. On some occasion some +accident led him to express this curiosity, and she answered as +if in surprise that he hadn’t already understood. +“Oh for me, you know, the more there are the +better—there could never be too many. I should like +hundreds and hundreds—I should like thousands; I should +like a great mountain of light.”</p> +<p>Then of course in a flash he understood. “Your +Dead are only One?”</p> +<p>She hung back at this as never yet. “Only +One,” she answered, colouring as if now he knew her guarded +secret. It really made him feel he knew less than before, +so difficult was it for him to reconstitute a life in which a +single experience had so belittled all others. His own +life, round its central hollow, had been packed close +enough. After this she appeared to have regretted her +confession, though at the moment she spoke there had been pride +in her very embarrassment. She declared to him that his own +was the larger, the dearer possession—the portion one would +have chosen if one had been able to choose; she assured him she +could perfectly imagine some of the echoes with which his +silences were peopled. He knew she couldn’t: +one’s relation to what one had loved and hated had been a +relation too distinct from the relations of others. But +this didn’t affect the fact that they were growing old +together in their piety. She was a feature of that piety, +but even at the ripe stage of acquaintance in which they +occasionally arranged to meet at a concert or to go together to +an exhibition she was not a feature of anything else. The +most that happened was that his worship became paramount. +Friend by friend dropped away till at last there were more +emblems on his altar than houses left him to enter. She was +more than any other the friend who remained, but she was unknown +to all the rest. Once when she had discovered, as they +called it, a new star, she used the expression that the chapel at +last was full.</p> +<p>“Oh no,” Stransom replied, “there is a great +thing wanting for that! The chapel will never be full till +a candle is set up before which all the others will pale. +It will be the tallest candle of all.”</p> +<p>Her mild wonder rested on him. “What candle do you +mean?”</p> +<p>“I mean, dear lady, my own.”</p> +<p>He had learned after a long time that she earned money by her +pen, writing under a pseudonym she never disclosed in magazines +he never saw. She knew too well what he couldn’t read +and what she couldn’t write, and she taught him to +cultivate indifference with a success that did much for their +good relations. Her invisible industry was a convenience to +him; it helped his contented thought of her, the thought that +rested in the dignity of her proud obscure life, her little +remunerated art and her little impenetrable home. Lost, +with her decayed relative, in her dim suburban world, she came to +the surface for him in distant places. She was really the +priestess of his altar, and whenever he quitted England he +committed it to her keeping. She proved to him afresh that +women have more of the spirit of religion than men; he felt his +fidelity pale and faint in comparison with hers. He often +said to her that since he had so little time to live he rejoiced +in her having so much; so glad was he to think she would guard +the temple when he should have been called. He had a great +plan for that, which of course he told her too, a bequest of +money to keep it up in undiminished state. Of the +administration of this fund he would appoint her superintendent, +and if the spirit should move her she might kindle a taper even +for him.</p> +<p>“And who will kindle one even for me?” she then +seriously asked.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> +<p>She was always in mourning, yet the day he came back from the +longest absence he had yet made her appearance immediately told +him she had lately had a bereavement. They met on this +occasion as she was leaving the church, so that postponing his +own entrance he instantly offered to turn round and walk away +with her. She considered, then she said: “Go in now, +but come and see me in an hour.” He knew the small +vista of her street, closed at the end and as dreary as an empty +pocket, where the pairs of shabby little houses, semi-detached +but indissolubly united, were like married couples on bad +terms. Often, however, as he had gone to the beginning he +had never gone beyond. Her aunt was dead—that he +immediately guessed, as well as that it made a difference; but +when she had for the first time mentioned her number he found +himself, on her leaving him, not a little agitated by this sudden +liberality. She wasn’t a person with whom, after all, +one got on so very fast: it had taken him months and months to +learn her name, years and years to learn her address. If +she had looked, on this reunion, so much older to him, how in the +world did he look to her? She had reached the period of +life he had long since reached, when, after separations, the +marked clock-face of the friend we meet announces the hour we +have tried to forget. He couldn’t have said what he +expected as, at the end of his waiting, he turned the corner +where for years he had always paused; simply not to pause was a +efficient cause for emotion. It was an event, somehow; and +in all their long acquaintance there had never been an +event. This one grew larger when, five minutes later, in +the faint elegance of her little drawing-room, she quavered out a +greeting that showed the measure she took of it. He had a +strange sense of having come for something in particular; strange +because literally there was nothing particular between them, +nothing save that they were at one on their great point, which +had long ago become a magnificent matter of course. It was +true that after she had said “You can always come now, you +know,” the thing he was there for seemed already to have +happened. He asked her if it was the death of her aunt that +made the difference; to which she replied: “She never knew +I knew you. I wished her not to.” The beautiful +clearness of her candour—her faded beauty was like a summer +twilight—disconnected the words from any image of +deceit. They might have struck him as the record of a deep +dissimulation; but she had always given him a sense of noble +reasons. The vanished aunt was present, as he looked about +him, in the small complacencies of the room, the beaded velvet +and the fluted moreen; and though, as we know, he had the worship +of the Dead, he found himself not definitely regretting this +lady. If she wasn’t in his long list, however, she +was in her niece’s short one, and Stransom presently +observed to the latter that now at least, in the place they +haunted together, she would have another object of devotion.</p> +<p>“Yes, I shall have another. She was very kind to +me. It’s that that’s the difference.”</p> +<p>He judged, wondering a good deal before he made any motion to +leave her, that the difference would somehow be very great and +would consist of still other things than her having let him come +in. It rather chilled him, for they had been happy together +as they were. He extracted from her at any rate an +intimation that she should now have means less limited, that her +aunt’s tiny fortune had come to her, so that there was +henceforth only one to consume what had formerly been made to +suffice for two. This was a joy to Stransom, because it had +hitherto been equally impossible for him either to offer her +presents or contentedly to stay his hand. It was too ugly +to be at her side that way, abounding himself and yet not able to +overflow—a demonstration that would have been signally a +false note. Even her better situation too seemed only to +draw out in a sense the loneliness of her future. It would +merely help her to live more and more for their small ceremonial, +and this at a time when he himself had begun wearily to feel +that, having set it in motion, he might depart. When they +had sat a while in the pale parlour she got up—“This +isn’t my room: let us go into mine.” They had +only to cross the narrow hall, as he found, to pass quite into +another air. When she had closed the door of the second +room, as she called it, he felt at last in real possession of +her. The place had the flush of life—it was +expressive; its dark red walls were articulate with memories and +relics. These were simple things—photographs and +water-colours, scraps of writing framed and ghosts of flowers +embalmed; but a moment sufficed to show him they had a common +meaning. It was here she had lived and worked, and she had +already told him she would make no change of scene. He read +the reference in the objects about her—the general one to +places and times; but after a minute he distinguished among them +a small portrait of a gentleman. At a distance and without +their glasses his eyes were only so caught by it as to feel a +vague curiosity. Presently this impulse carried him nearer, +and in another moment he was staring at the picture in +stupefaction and with the sense that some sound had broken from +him. He was further conscious that he showed his companion +a white face when he turned round on her gasping: “Acton +Hague!”</p> +<p>She matched his great wonder. “Did you know +him?”</p> +<p>“He was the friend of all my youth—of my early +manhood. And <i>you</i> knew him?”</p> +<p>She coloured at this and for a moment her answer failed; her +eyes embraced everything in the place, and a strange irony +reached her lips as she echoed: “Knew him?”</p> +<p>Then Stransom understood, while the room heaved like the cabin +of a ship, that its whole contents cried out with him, that it +was a museum in his honour, that all her later years had been +addressed to him and that the shrine he himself had reared had +been passionately converted to this use. It was all for +Acton Hague that she had kneeled every day at his altar. +What need had there been for a consecrated candle when he was +present in the whole array? The revelation so smote our friend in +the face that he dropped into a seat and sat silent. He had +quickly felt her shaken by the force of his shock, but as she +sank on the sofa beside him and laid her hand on his arm he knew +almost as soon that she mightn’t resent it as much as +she’d have liked.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> +<p>He learned in that instant two things: one being that even in +so long a time she had gathered no knowledge of his great +intimacy and his great quarrel; the other that in spite of this +ignorance, strangely enough, she supplied on the spot a reason +for his stupor. “How extraordinary,” he +presently exclaimed, “that we should never have +known!”</p> +<p>She gave a wan smile which seemed to Stransom stranger even +than the fact itself. “I never, never spoke of +him.”</p> +<p>He looked again about the room. “Why then, if your +life had been so full of him?”</p> +<p>“Mayn’t I put you that question as well? +Hadn’t your life also been full of him?”</p> +<p>“Any one’s, every one’s life who had the +wonderful experience of knowing him. <i>I</i> never spoke +of him,” Stransom added in a moment, “because he did +me—years ago—an unforgettable wrong.” She +was silent, and with the full effect of his presence all about +them it almost startled her guest to hear no protest escape +her. She accepted his words, he turned his eyes to her +again to see in what manner she accepted them. It was with +rising tears and a rare sweetness in the movement of putting out +her hand to take his own. Nothing more wonderful had ever +appeared to him than, in that little chamber of remembrance and +homage, to see her convey with such exquisite mildness that as +from Acton Hague any injury was credible. The clock ticked +in the stillness—Hague had probably given it to +her—and while he let her hold his hand with a tenderness +that was almost an assumption of responsibility for his old pain +as well as his new, Stransom after a minute broke out: +“Good God, how he must have used <i>you</i>!”</p> +<p>She dropped his hand at this, got up and, moving across the +room, made straight a small picture to which, on examining it, he +had given a slight push. Then turning round on him with her +pale gaiety recovered, “I’ve forgiven him!” she +declared.</p> +<p>“I know what you’ve done,” said Stransom +“I know what you’ve done for years.” For +a moment they looked at each other through it all with their long +community of service in their eyes. This short passage +made, to his sense, for the woman before him, an immense, an +absolutely naked confession; which was presently, suddenly +blushing red and changing her place again, what she appeared to +learn he perceived in it. He got up and “How you must +have loved him!” he cried.</p> +<p>“Women aren’t like men. They can love even +where they’ve suffered.”</p> +<p>“Women are wonderful,” said Stransom. +“But I assure you I’ve forgiven him too.”</p> +<p>“If I had known of anything so strange I wouldn’t +have brought you here.”</p> +<p>“So that we might have gone on in our ignorance to the +last?”</p> +<p>“What do you call the last?” she asked, smiling +still.</p> +<p>At this he could smile back at her. “You’ll +see—when it comes.”</p> +<p>She thought of that. “This is better perhaps; but +as we were—it was good.”</p> +<p>He put her the question. “Did it never happen that +he spoke of me?”</p> +<p>Considering more intently she made no answer, and he then knew +he should have been adequately answered by her asking how often +he himself had spoken of their terrible friend. Suddenly a +brighter light broke in her face and an excited idea sprang to +her lips in the appeal: “You <i>have</i> forgiven +him?”</p> +<p>“How, if I hadn’t, could I linger here?”</p> +<p>She visibly winced at the deep but unintended irony of this; +but even while she did so she panted quickly: “Then in the +lights on your altar—?”</p> +<p>“There’s never a light for Acton Hague!”</p> +<p>She stared with a dreadful fall, “But if he’s one +of your Dead?”</p> +<p>“He’s one of the world’s, if you +like—he’s one of yours. But he’s not one +of mine. Mine are only the Dead who died possessed of +me. They’re mine in death because they were mine in +life.”</p> +<p>“<i>He </i>was yours in life then, even if for a while +he ceased to be. If you forgave him you went back to +him. Those whom we’ve once loved—”</p> +<p>“Are those who can hurt us most,” Stransom broke +in.</p> +<p>“Ah it’s not true—you’ve <i>not</i> +forgiven him!” she wailed with a passion that startled +him.</p> +<p>He looked at her as never yet. “What was it he did +to you?”</p> +<p>“Everything!” Then abruptly she put out her +hand in farewell. “Good-bye.”</p> +<p>He turned as cold as he had turned that night he read the +man’s death. “You mean that we meet no +more?”</p> +<p>“Not as we’ve met—not +<i>there</i>!”</p> +<p>He stood aghast at this snap of their great bond, at the +renouncement that rang out in the word she so expressively +sounded. “But what’s changed—for +you?”</p> +<p>She waited in all the sharpness of a trouble that for the +first time since he had known her made her splendidly +stern. “How can you understand now when you +didn’t understand before?”</p> +<p>“I didn’t understand before only because I +didn’t know. Now that I know, I see what I’ve +been living with for years,” Stransom went on very +gently.</p> +<p>She looked at him with a larger allowance, doing this +gentleness justice. “How can I then, on this new +knowledge of my own, ask you to continue to live with +it?”</p> +<p>“I set up my altar, with its multiplied meanings,” +Stransom began; but she quietly interrupted him.</p> +<p>“You set up your altar, and when I wanted one most I +found it magnificently ready. I used it with the gratitude +I’ve always shown you, for I knew it from of old to be +dedicated to Death. I told you long ago that my Dead +weren’t many. Yours were, but all you had done for +them was none too much for <i>my</i> worship! You had +placed a great light for Each—I gathered them together for +One!”</p> +<p>“We had simply different intentions,” he +returned. “That, as you say, I perfectly knew, and I +don’t see why your intention shouldn’t still sustain +you.”</p> +<p>“That’s because you’re generous—you +can imagine and think. But the spell is broken.”</p> +<p>It seemed to poor Stransom, in spite of his resistance, that +it really was, and the prospect stretched grey and void before +him. All he could say, however, was: “I hope +you’ll try before you give up.”</p> +<p>“If I had known you had ever known him I should have +taken for granted he had his candle,” she presently +answered. “What’s changed, as you say, is that +on making the discovery I find he never has had it. That +makes <i>my</i> attitude”—she paused as thinking how +to express it, then said simply—“all +wrong.”</p> +<p>“Come once again,” he pleaded.</p> +<p>“Will you give him his candle?” she asked.</p> +<p>He waited, but only because it would sound ungracious; not +because of a doubt of his feeling. “I can’t do +that!” he declared at last.</p> +<p>“Then good-bye.” And she gave him her hand +again.</p> +<p>He had got his dismissal; besides which, in the agitation of +everything that had opened out to him, he felt the need to +recover himself as he could only do in solitude. Yet he +lingered—lingered to see if she had no compromise to +express, no attenuation to propose. But he only met her +great lamenting eyes, in which indeed he read that she was as +sorry for him as for any one else. This made him say: +“At least, in any case, I may see you here.”</p> +<p>“Oh yes, come if you like. But I don’t think +it will do.”</p> +<p>He looked round the room once more, knowing how little he was +sure it would do. He felt also stricken and more and more +cold, and his chill was like an ague in which he had to make an +effort not to shake. Then he made doleful reply: “I +must try on my side—if you can’t try on +yours.” She came out with him to the hall and into +the doorway, and here he put her the question he held he could +least answer from his own wit. “Why have you never +let me come before?”</p> +<p>“Because my aunt would have seen you, and I should have +had to tell her how I came to know you.”</p> +<p>“And what would have been the objection to +that?”</p> +<p>“It would have entailed other explanations; there would +at any rate have been that danger.”</p> +<p>“Surely she knew you went every day to church,” +Stransom objected.</p> +<p>“She didn’t know what I went for.”</p> +<p>“Of me then she never even heard?”</p> +<p>“You’ll think I was deceitful. But I +didn’t need to be!”</p> +<p>He was now on the lower door-step, and his hostess held the +door half-closed behind him. Through what remained of the +opening he saw her framed face. He made a supreme +appeal. “What <i>did</i> he do to you?”</p> +<p>“It would have come out—<i>she </i>would have told +you. That fear at my heart—that was my +reason!” And she closed the door, shutting him +out.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> +<p>He had ruthlessly abandoned her—that of course was what +he had done. Stransom made it all out in solitude, at +leisure, fitting the unmatched pieces gradually together and +dealing one by one with a hundred obscure points. She had +known Hague only after her present friend’s relations with +him had wholly terminated; obviously indeed a good while after; +and it was natural enough that of his previous life she should +have ascertained only what he had judged good to +communicate. There were passages it was quite conceivable +that even in moments of the tenderest expansion he should have +withheld. Of many facts in the career of a man so in the +eye of the world there was of course a common knowledge; but this +lady lived apart from public affairs, and the only time perfectly +clear to her would have been the time following the dawn of her +own drama. A man in her place would have “looked +up” the past—would even have consulted old +newspapers. It remained remarkable indeed that in her long +contact with the partner of her retrospect no accident had +lighted a train; but there was no arguing about that; the +accident had in fact come: it had simply been that security had +prevailed. She had taken what Hague had given her, and her +blankness in respect of his other connexions was only a touch in +the picture of that plasticity Stransom had supreme reason to +know so great a master could have been trusted to produce.</p> +<p>This picture was for a while all our friend saw: he caught his +breath again and again as it came over him that the woman with +whom he had had for years so fine a point of contact was a woman +whom Acton Hague, of all men in the world, had more or less +fashioned. Such as she sat there to-day she was +ineffaceably stamped with him. Beneficent, blameless as +Stransom held her, he couldn’t rid himself of the sense +that he had been, as who should say, swindled. She had +imposed upon him hugely, though she had known it as little as +he. All this later past came back to him as a time +grotesquely misspent. Such at least were his first +reflexions; after a while he found himself more divided and only, +as the end of it, more troubled. He imagined, recalled, +reconstituted, figured out for himself the truth she had refused +to give him; the effect of which was to make her seem to him only +more saturated with her fate. He felt her spirit, through +the whole strangeness, finer than his own to the very degree in +which she might have been, in which she certainly had been, more +wronged. A women, when wronged, was always more wronged +than a man, and there were conditions when the least she could +have got off with was more than the most he could have to +bear. He was sure this rare creature wouldn’t have +got off with the least. He was awestruck at the thought of +such a surrender—such a prostration. Moulded indeed +she had been by powerful hands, to have converted her injury into +an exaltation so sublime. The fellow had only had to die +for everything that was ugly in him to be washed out in a +torrent. It was vain to try to guess what had taken place, +but nothing could be clearer than that she had ended by accusing +herself. She absolved him at every point, she adored her +very wounds. The passion by which he had profited had +rushed back after its ebb, and now the tide of tenderness, +arrested for ever at flood, was too deep even to fathom. +Stransom sincerely considered that he had forgiven him; but how +little he had achieved the miracle that she had achieved! +His forgiveness was silence, but hers was mere unuttered +sound. The light she had demanded for his altar would have +broken his silence with a blare; whereas all the lights in the +church were for her too great a hush.</p> +<p>She had been right about the difference—she had spoken +the truth about the change: Stransom was soon to know himself as +perversely but sharply jealous. <i>His</i> tide had ebbed, +not flowed; if he had “forgiven” Acton Hague, that +forgiveness was a motive with a broken spring. The very +fact of her appeal for a material sign, a sign that should make +her dead lover equal there with the others, presented the +concession to her friend as too handsome for the case. He +had never thought of himself as hard, but an exorbitant article +might easily render him so. He moved round and round this +one, but only in widening circles—the more he looked at it +the less acceptable it seemed. At the same time he had no +illusion about the effect of his refusal; he perfectly saw how it +would make for a rupture. He left her alone a week, but +when at last he again called this conviction was cruelly +confirmed. In the interval he had kept away from the +church, and he needed no fresh assurance from her to know she +hadn’t entered it. The change was complete enough: it +had broken up her life. Indeed it had broken up his, for +all the fires of his shrine seemed to him suddenly to have been +quenched. A great indifference fell upon him, the weight of +which was in itself a pain; and he never knew what his devotion +had been for him till in that shock it ceased like a dropped +watch. Neither did he know with how large a confidence he +had counted on the final service that had now failed: the mortal +deception was that in this abandonment the whole future gave +way.</p> +<p>These days of her absence proved to him of what she was +capable; all the more that he never dreamed she was vindictive or +even resentful. It was not in anger she had forsaken him; +it was in simple submission to hard reality, to the stern logic +of life. This came home to him when he sat with her again +in the room in which her late aunt’s conversation lingered +like the tone of a cracked piano. She tried to make him +forget how much they were estranged, but in the very presence of +what they had given up it was impossible not to be sorry for +her. He had taken from her so much more than she had taken +from him. He argued with her again, told her she could now +have the altar to herself; but she only shook her head with +pleading sadness, begging him not to waste his breath on the +impossible, the extinct. Couldn’t he see that in +relation to her private need the rites he had established were +practically an elaborate exclusion? She regretted nothing +that had happened; it had all been right so long as she +didn’t know, and it was only that now she knew too much and +that from the moment their eyes were open they would simply have +to conform. It had doubtless been happiness enough for them +to go on together so long. She was gentle, grateful, +resigned; but this was only the form of a deep +immoveability. He saw he should never more cross the +threshold of the second room, and he felt how much this alone +would make a stranger of him and give a conscious stiffness to +his visits. He would have hated to plunge again into that +well of reminders, but he enjoyed quite as little the vacant +alternative.</p> +<p>After he had been with her three or four times it struck him +that to have come at last into her house had had the horrid +effect of diminishing their intimacy. He had known her +better, had liked her in greater freedom, when they merely walked +together or kneeled together. Now they only pretended; +before they had been nobly sincere. They began to try their +walks again, but it proved a lame imitation, for these things, +from the first, beginning or ending, had been connected with +their visits to the church. They had either strolled away +as they came out or gone in to rest on the return. +Stransom, besides, now faltered; he couldn’t walk as of +old. The omission made everything false; it was a dire +mutilation of their lives. Our friend was frank and +monotonous, making no mystery of his remonstrance and no secret +of his predicament. Her response, whatever it was, always +came to the same thing—an implied invitation to him to +judge, if he spoke of predicaments, of how much comfort she had +in hers. For him indeed was no comfort even in complaint, +since every allusion to what had befallen them but made the +author of their trouble more present. Acton Hague was +between them—that was the essence of the matter, and never +so much between them as when they were face to face. Then +Stransom, while still wanting to banish him, had the strangest +sense of striving for an ease that would involve having accepted +him. Deeply disconcerted by what he knew, he was still +worse tormented by really not knowing. Perfectly aware that +it would have been horribly vulgar to abuse his old friend or to +tell his companion the story of their quarrel, it yet vexed him +that her depth of reserve should give him no opening and should +have the effect of a magnanimity greater even than his own.</p> +<p>He challenged himself, denounced himself, asked himself if he +were in love with her that he should care so much what adventures +she had had. He had never for a moment allowed he was in +love with her; therefore nothing could have surprised him more +than to discover he was jealous. What but jealousy could +give a man that sore contentious wish for the detail of what +would make him suffer? Well enough he knew indeed that he +should never have it from the only person who to-day could give +it to him. She let him press her with his sombre eyes, only +smiling at him with an exquisite mercy and breathing equally +little the word that would expose her secret and the word that +would appear to deny his literal right to bitterness. She +told nothing, she judged nothing; she accepted everything but the +possibility of her return to the old symbols. Stransom +divined that for her too they had been vividly individual, had +stood for particular hours or particular +attributes—particular links in her chain. He made it +clear to himself, as he believed, that his difficulty lay in the +fact that the very nature of the plea for his faithless friend +constituted a prohibition; that it happened to have come from +<i>her</i> was precisely the vice that attached to it. To +the voice of impersonal generosity he felt sure he would have +listened; he would have deferred to an advocate who, speaking +from abstract justice, knowing of his denial without having known +Hague, should have had the imagination to say: “Ah, +remember only the best of him; pity him; provide for +him.” To provide for him on the very ground of having +discovered another of his turpitudes was not to pity but to +glorify him. The more Stransom thought the more he made out +that whatever this relation of Hague’s it could only have +been a deception more or less finely practised. Where had +it come into the life that all men saw? Why had one never +heard of it if it had had the frankness of honourable +things? Stransom knew enough of his other ties, of his +obligations and appearances, not to say enough of his general +character, to be sure there had been some infamy. In one +way or another this creature had been coldly sacrificed. +That was why at the last as well as the first he must still leave +him out and out.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> +<p>And yet this was no solution, especially after he had talked +again to his friend of all it had been his plan she should +finally do for him. He had talked in the other days, and +she had responded with a frankness qualified only by a courteous +reluctance, a reluctance that touched him, to linger on the +question of his death. She had then practically accepted +the charge, suffered him to feel he could depend upon her to be +the eventual guardian of his shrine; and it was in the name of +what had so passed between them that he appealed to her not to +forsake him in his age. She listened at present with +shining coldness and all her habitual forbearance to insist on +her terms; her deprecation was even still tenderer, for it +expressed the compassion of her own sense that he was +abandoned. Her terms, however, remained the same, and +scarcely the less audible for not being uttered; though he was +sure that secretly even more than he she felt bereft of the +satisfaction his solemn trust was to have provided her. +They both missed the rich future, but she missed it most, because +after all it was to have been entirely hers; and it was her +acceptance of the loss that gave him the full measure of her +preference for the thought of Acton Hague over any other thought +whatever. He had humour enough to laugh rather grimly when +he said to himself: “Why the deuce does she like him so +much more than she likes me?”—the reasons being +really so conceivable. But even his faculty of analysis +left the irritation standing, and this irritation proved perhaps +the greatest misfortune that had ever overtaken him. There +had been nothing yet that made him so much want to give up. +He had of course by this time well reached the age of +renouncement; but it had not hitherto been vivid to him that it +was time to give up everything.</p> +<p>Practically, at the end of six months, he had renounced the +friendship once so charming and comforting. His privation +had two faces, and the face it had turned to him on the occasion +of his last attempt to cultivate that friendship was the one he +could look at least. This was the privation he inflicted; +the other was the privation he bore. The conditions she +never phrased he used to murmur to himself in solitude: +“One more, one more—only just one.” +Certainly he was going down; he often felt it when he caught +himself, over his work, staring at vacancy and giving voice to +that inanity. There was proof enough besides in his being +so weak and so ill. His irritation took the form of +melancholy, and his melancholy that of the conviction that his +health had quite failed. His altar moreover had ceased to +exist; his chapel, in his dreams, was a great dark cavern. +All the lights had gone out—all his Dead had died +again. He couldn’t exactly see at first how it had +been in the power of his late companion to extinguish them, since +it was neither for her nor by her that they had been called into +being. Then he understood that it was essentially in his +own soul the revival had taken place, and that in the air of this +soul they were now unable to breathe. The candles might +mechanically burn, but each of them had lost its lustre. +The church had become a void; it was his presence, her presence, +their common presence, that had made the indispensable +medium. If anything was wrong everything was—her +silence spoiled the tune.</p> +<p>Then when three months were gone he felt so lonely that he +went back; reflecting that as they had been his best society for +years his Dead perhaps wouldn’t let him forsake them +without doing something more for him. They stood there, as +he had left them, in their tall radiance, the bright cluster that +had already made him, on occasions when he was willing to compare +small things with great, liken them to a group of sea-lights on +the edge of the ocean of life. It was a relief to him, +after a while, as he sat there, to feel they had still a +virtue. He was more and more easily tired, and he always +drove now; the action of his heart was weak and gave him none of +the reassurance conferred by the action of his fancy. None +the less he returned yet again, returned several times, and +finally, during six months, haunted the place with a renewal of +frequency and a strain of impatience. In winter the church +was unwarmed and exposure to cold forbidden him, but the glow of +his shrine was an influence in which he could almost bask. +He sat and wondered to what he had reduced his absent associate +and what she now did with the hours of her absence. There +were other churches, there were other altars, there were other +candles; in one way or another her piety would still operate; he +couldn’t absolutely have deprived her of her rites. +So he argued, but without contentment; for he well enough knew +there was no other such rare semblance of the mountain of light +she had once mentioned to him as the satisfaction of her +need. As this semblance again gradually grew great to him +and his pious practice more regular, he found a sharper and +sharper pang in the imagination of her darkness; for never so +much as in these weeks had his rites been real, never had his +gathered company seemed so to respond and even to invite. +He lost himself in the large lustre, which was more and more what +he had from the first wished it to be—as dazzling as the +vision of heaven in the mind of a child. He wandered in the +fields of light; he passed, among the tall tapers, from tier to +tier, from fire to fire, from name to name, from the white +intensity of one clear emblem, of one saved soul, to +another. It was in the quiet sense of having saved his +souls that his deep strange instinct rejoiced. This was no +dim theological rescue, no boon of a contingent world; they were +saved better than faith or works could save them, saved for the +warm world they had shrunk<i> </i>from dying to, for actuality, +for continuity, for the certainty of human remembrance.</p> +<p>By this time he had survived all his friends; the last +straight flame was three years old, there was no one to add to +the list. Over and over he called his roll, and it appeared +to him compact and complete. Where should he put in +another, where, if there were no other objection, would it stand +in its place in the rank? He reflected, with a want of +sincerity of which he was quite conscious, that it would be +difficult to determine that place. More and more, besides, +face to face with his little legion, over endless histories, +handling the empty shells and playing with the silence—more +and more he could see that he had never introduced an +alien. He had had his great companions, his +indulgences—there were cases in which they had been +immense; but what had his devotion after all been if it +hadn’t been at bottom a respect? He was, however, +himself surprised at his stiffness; by the end of the winter the +responsibility of it was what was uppermost in his +thoughts. The refrain had grown old to them, that plea for +just one more. There came a day when, for simple +exhaustion, if symmetry should demand just one he was ready so +far to meet symmetry. Symmetry was harmony, and the idea of +harmony began to haunt him; he said to himself that harmony was +of course everything. He took, in fancy, his composition to +pieces, redistributing it into other lines, making other +juxtapositions and contrasts. He shifted this and that +candle, he made the spaces different, he effaced the +disfigurement of a possible gap. There were subtle and +complex relations, a scheme of cross-reference, and moments in +which he seemed to catch a glimpse of the void so sensible to the +woman who wandered in exile or sat where he had seen her with the +portrait of Acton Hague. Finally, in this way, he arrived +at a conception of the total, the ideal, which left a clear +opportunity for just another figure. “Just one +more—to round it off; just one more, just one,” +continued to hum in his head. There was a strange confusion +in the thought, for he felt the day to be near when he too should +be one of the Others. What in this event would the Others +matter to him, since they only mattered to the living? Even +as one of the Dead what would his altar matter to him, since his +particular dream of keeping it up had melted away? What had +harmony to do with the case if his lights were all to be +quenched? What he had hoped for was an instituted +thing. He might perpetuate it on some other pretext, but +his special meaning would have dropped. This meaning was to +have lasted with the life of the one other person who understood +it.</p> +<p>In March he had an illness during which he spent a fortnight +in bed, and when he revived a little he was told of two things +that had happened. One was that a lady whose name was not +known to the servants (she left none) had been three times to ask +about him; the other was that in his sleep and on an occasion +when his mind evidently wandered he was heard to murmur again and +again: “Just one more—just one.” As soon +as he found himself able to go out, and before the doctor in +attendance had pronounced him so, he drove to see the lady who +had come to ask about him. She was not at home; but this +gave him the opportunity, before his strength should fall again, +to take his way to the church. He entered it alone; he had +declined, in a happy manner he possessed of being able to decline +effectively, the company of his servant or of a nurse. He +knew now perfectly what these good people thought; they had +discovered his clandestine connexion, the magnet that had drawn +him for so many years, and doubtless attached a significance of +their own to the odd words they had repeated to him. The +nameless lady was the clandestine connexion—a fact nothing +could have made clearer than his indecent haste to rejoin +her. He sank on his knees before his altar while his head +fell over on his hands. His weakness, his life’s +weariness overtook him. It seemed to him he had come for +the great surrender. At first he asked himself how he +should get away; then, with the failing belief in the power, the +very desire to move gradually left him. He had come, as he +always came, to lose himself; the fields of light were still +there to stray in; only this time, in straying, he would never +come back. He had given himself to his Dead, and it was +good: this time his Dead would keep him. He couldn’t +rise from his knees; he believed he should never rise again; all +he could do was to lift his face and fix his eyes on his +lights. They looked unusually, strangely splendid, but the +one that always drew him most had an unprecedented lustre. +It was the central voice of the choir, the glowing heart of the +brightness, and on this occasion it seemed to expand, to spread +great wings of flame. The whole altar flared—dazzling +and blinding; but the source of the vast radiance burned clearer +than the rest, gathering itself into form, and the form was human +beauty and human charity, was the far-off face of Mary +Antrim. She smiled at him from the glory of +heaven—she brought the glory down with her to take +him. He bowed his head in submission and at the same moment +another wave rolled over him. Was it the quickening of joy +to pain? In the midst of his joy at any rate he felt his +buried face grow hot as with some communicated knowledge that had +the force of a reproach. It suddenly made him contrast that +very rapture with the bliss he had refused to another. This +breath of the passion immortal was all that other had asked; the +descent of Mary Antrim opened his spirit with a great +compunctious throb for the descent of Acton Hague. It was +as if Stransom had read what her eyes said to him.</p> +<p>After a moment he looked round in a despair that made him feel +as if the source of life were ebbing. The church had been +empty—he was alone; but he wanted to have something done, +to make a last appeal. This idea gave him strength for an +effort; he rose to his feet with a movement that made him turn, +supporting himself by the back of a bench. Behind him was a +prostrate figure, a figure he had seen before; a woman in deep +mourning, bowed in grief or in prayer. He had seen her in +other days—the first time of his entrance there, and he now +slightly wavered, looking at her again till she seemed aware he +had noticed her. She raised her head and met his eyes: the +partner of his long worship had come back. She looked +across at him an instant with a face wondering and scared; he saw +he had made her afraid. Then quickly rising she came +straight to him with both hands out.</p> +<p>“Then you <i>could</i> come? God sent you!” +he murmured with a happy smile.</p> +<p>“You’re very ill—you shouldn’t be +here,” she urged in anxious reply.</p> +<p>“God sent me too, I think. I was ill when I came, +but the sight of you does wonders.” He held her +hands, which steadied and quickened him. “I’ve +something to tell you.”</p> +<p>“Don’t tell me!” she tenderly pleaded; +“let me tell you. This afternoon, by a miracle, the +sweetest of miracles, the sense of our difference left me. +I was out—I was near, thinking, wandering alone, when, on +the spot, something changed in my heart. It’s my +confession—there it is. To come back, to come back on +the instant—the idea gave me wings. It was as if I +suddenly saw something—as if it all became possible. +I could come for what you yourself came for: that was +enough. So here I am. It’s not for my +own—that’s over. But I’m here for +<i>them</i>.” And breathless, infinitely relieved by +her low precipitate explanation, she looked with eyes that +reflected all its splendour at the magnificence of their +altar.</p> +<p>“They’re here for you,” Stransom said, +“they’re present to-night as they’ve never +been. They speak for you—don’t you +see?—in a passion of light; they sing out like a choir of +angels. Don’t you hear what they say?—they +offer the very thing you asked of me.”</p> +<p>“Don’t talk of it—don’t think of it; +forget it!” She spoke in hushed supplication, and +while the alarm deepened in her eyes she disengaged one of her +hands and passed an arm round him to support him better, to help +him to sink into a seat.</p> +<p>He let himself go, resting on her; he dropped upon the bench +and she fell on her knees beside him, his own arm round her +shoulder. So he remained an instant, staring up at his +shrine. “They say there’s a gap in the +array—they say it’s not full, complete. Just +one more,” he went on, softly—“isn’t that +what you wanted? Yes, one more, one more.”</p> +<p>“Ah no more—no more!” she wailed, as with a +quick new horror of it, under her breath.</p> +<p>“Yes, one more,” he repeated, simply; “just +one!” And with this his head dropped on her shoulder; +she felt that in his weakness he had fainted. But alone +with him in the dusky church a great dread was on her of what +might still happen, for his face had the whiteness of death.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ALTAR OF THE DEAD***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 642-h.htm or 642-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/4/642 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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