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@@ -0,0 +1,1755 @@ +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*** + + +Transcribed from the 1916 Martin Secker edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + THE ALTAR OF + THE DEAD + + + BY HENRY JAMES + +[Picture: Graphic] + + * * * * * + + LONDON: MARTIN SECKER + NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI + + * * * * * + + This edition first published 1916 + + The text follows that of the + Definitive Edition + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +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 _him_: 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. + +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. + +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 _had_ +his own, and every man had, to meet this charity, the ample resources of +the soul. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +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 _not_ 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." + +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. + +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. _He_ 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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +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. + +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. + +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 _ever_ +left him. He went only for _them_--for nothing else in the world. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +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. + +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." + +Then of course in a flash he understood. "Your Dead are only One?" + +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. + +"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." + +Her mild wonder rested on him. "What candle do you mean?" + +"I mean, dear lady, my own." + +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. + +"And who will kindle one even for me?" she then seriously asked. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +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. + +"Yes, I shall have another. She was very kind to me. It's that that's +the difference." + +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!" + +She matched his great wonder. "Did you know him?" + +"He was the friend of all my youth--of my early manhood. And _you_ knew +him?" + +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?" + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +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!" + +She gave a wan smile which seemed to Stransom stranger even than the fact +itself. "I never, never spoke of him." + +He looked again about the room. "Why then, if your life had been so full +of him?" + +"Mayn't I put you that question as well? Hadn't your life also been full +of him?" + +"Any one's, every one's life who had the wonderful experience of knowing +him. _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 +_you_!" + +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. + +"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. + +"Women aren't like men. They can love even where they've suffered." + +"Women are wonderful," said Stransom. "But I assure you I've forgiven +him too." + +"If I had known of anything so strange I wouldn't have brought you here." + +"So that we might have gone on in our ignorance to the last?" + +"What do you call the last?" she asked, smiling still. + +At this he could smile back at her. "You'll see--when it comes." + +She thought of that. "This is better perhaps; but as we were--it was +good." + +He put her the question. "Did it never happen that he spoke of me?" + +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 _have_ +forgiven him?" + +"How, if I hadn't, could I linger here?" + +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--?" + +"There's never a light for Acton Hague!" + +She stared with a dreadful fall, "But if he's one of your Dead?" + +"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." + +"_He _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--" + +"Are those who can hurt us most," Stransom broke in. + +"Ah it's not true--you've _not_ forgiven him!" she wailed with a passion +that startled him. + +He looked at her as never yet. "What was it he did to you?" + +"Everything!" Then abruptly she put out her hand in farewell. +"Good-bye." + +He turned as cold as he had turned that night he read the man's death. +"You mean that we meet no more?" + +"Not as we've met--not _there_!" + +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?" + +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?" + +"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. + +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?" + +"I set up my altar, with its multiplied meanings," Stransom began; but +she quietly interrupted him. + +"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 _my_ worship! You had placed a great light for Each--I +gathered them together for One!" + +"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." + +"That's because you're generous--you can imagine and think. But the +spell is broken." + +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." + +"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 _my_ +attitude"--she paused as thinking how to express it, then said +simply--"all wrong." + +"Come once again," he pleaded. + +"Will you give him his candle?" she asked. + +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. + +"Then good-bye." And she gave him her hand again. + +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." + +"Oh yes, come if you like. But I don't think it will do." + +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?" + +"Because my aunt would have seen you, and I should have had to tell her +how I came to know you." + +"And what would have been the objection to that?" + +"It would have entailed other explanations; there would at any rate have +been that danger." + +"Surely she knew you went every day to church," Stransom objected. + +"She didn't know what I went for." + +"Of me then she never even heard?" + +"You'll think I was deceitful. But I didn't need to be!" + +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 _did_ he do to you?" + +"It would have come out--_she _would have told you. That fear at my +heart--that was my reason!" And she closed the door, shutting him out. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +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. + +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. + +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. _His_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _her_ 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. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +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. + +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. + +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_ _from dying to, for +actuality, for continuity, for the certainty of human remembrance. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Then you _could_ come? God sent you!" he murmured with a happy smile. + +"You're very ill--you shouldn't be here," she urged in anxious reply. + +"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." + +"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 _them_." And breathless, +infinitely relieved by her low precipitate explanation, she looked with +eyes that reflected all its splendour at the magnificence of their altar. + +"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." + +"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. + +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." + +"Ah no more--no more!" she wailed, as with a quick new horror of it, +under her breath. + +"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. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ALTAR OF THE DEAD*** + + +******* This file should be named 642.txt or 642.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. 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