THE TRIUMPH OF NIGHT By Edith Wharton Copyright, 1916, By Charles Scribner's Sons I It was clear that the sleigh from Weymore had not come; and theshivering young traveller from Boston, who had counted on jumping intoit when he left the train at Northridge Junction, found himself standingalone on the open platform, exposed to the full assault of night-falland winter. The blast that swept him came off New Hampshire snow-fields and ice-hungforests. It seemed to have traversed interminable leagues of frozensilence, filling them with the same cold roar and sharpening its edgeagainst the same bitter black-and-white landscape. Dark, searchingand sword-like, it alternately muffled and harried its victim, like abull-fighter now whirling his cloak and now planting his darts. Thisanalogy brought home to the young man the fact that he himself hadno cloak, and that the overcoat in which he had faced the relativelytemperate air of Boston seemed no thicker than a sheet of paper on thebleak heights of Northridge. George Faxon said to himself that the placewas uncommonly well-named. It clung to an exposed ledge over the valleyfrom which the train had lifted him, and the wind combed it with teethof steel that he seemed actually to hear scraping against the woodensides of the station. Other building there was none: the village lay fardown the road, and thither--since the Weymore sleigh had not come--Faxonsaw himself under the necessity of plodding through several feet ofsnow. He understood well enough what had happened: his hostess had forgottenthat he was coming. Young as Faxon was, this sad lucidity of soul hadbeen acquired as the result of long experience, and he knew that thevisitors who can least afford to hire a carriage are almost always thosewhom their hosts forget to send for. Yet to say that Mrs. Culme hadforgotten him was too crude a way of putting it Similar incidents ledhim to think that she had probably told her maid to tell the butler totelephone the coachman to tell one of the grooms (if no one else neededhim) to drive over to Northridge to fetch the new secretary; but ona night like this, what groom who respected his rights would fail toforget the order? Faxon's obvious course was to struggle through the drifts to thevillage, and there rout out a sleigh to convey him to Weymore; but whatif, on his arrival at Mrs. Culme's, no one remembered to ask himwhat this devotion to duty had cost? That, again, was one of thecontingencies he had expensively learned to look out for, and theperspicacity so acquired told him it would be cheaper to spend the nightat the Northridge inn, and advise Mrs. Culme of his presence there bytelephone. He had reached this decision, and was about to entrust hisluggage to a vague man with a lantern, when his hopes were raised by thesound of bells. Two sleighs were just dashing up to the station, and from the foremostthere sprang a young man muffled in furs. "Weymore?--No, these are not the Weymore sleighs. " The voice was that of the youth who had jumped to the platform--a voiceso agreeable that, in spite of the words, it fell consolingly on Faxon'sears. At the same moment the wandering station-lantern, casting atransient light on the speaker, showed his features to be in thepleasantest harmony with his voice. He was very fair and veryyoung--hardly in the twenties, Faxon thought--but his face, though fullof a morning freshness, was a trifle too thin and fine-drawn, as thougha vivid spirit contended in him with a strain of physical weakness. Faxon was perhaps the quicker to notice such delicacies of balancebecause his own temperament hung on lightly quivering nerves, which yet, as he believed, would never quite swing him beyond a normal sensibility. "You expected a sleigh from Weymore?" the newcomer continued, standingbeside Faxon like a slender column of fur. Mrs. Culme's secretary explained his difficulty, and the other brushedit aside with a contemptuous "Oh, _Mrs. Culme!_" that carried bothspeakers a long way toward reciprocal understanding. "But then you must be--" The youth broke off with a smile ofinterrogation. "The new secretary? Yes. But apparently there are no notes to beanswered this evening. " Faxon's laugh deepened the sense of solidaritywhich had so promptly established itself between the two. His friend laughed also. "Mrs. Culme, " he explained, "was lunching at myuncle's to-day, and she said you were due this evening. But seven hoursis a long time for Mrs. Culme to remember anything. " "Well, " said Faxon philosophically, "I suppose that's one of the reasonswhy she needs a secretary. And I've always the inn at Northridge, " heconcluded. "Oh, but you haven't, though! It burned down last week. " "The deuce it did!" said Faxon; but the humour of the situation struckhim before its inconvenience. His life, for years past, had been mainlya succession of resigned adaptations, and he had learned, before dealingpractically with his embarrassments, to extract from most of them asmall tribute of amusement. "Oh, well, there's sure to be somebody in the place who can put me up. " "No one _you_ could put up with. Besides, Northridge is three miles off, and our place--in the opposite direction--is a little nearer. "Through the darkness, Faxon saw his friend sketch a gesture ofself-introduction. "My name's Frank Rainer, and I'm staying with myuncle at Overdale. I've driven over to meet two friends of his, who aredue in a few minutes from New York. If you don't mind waiting till theyarrive I'm sure Overdale can do you better than Northridge. We're onlydown from town for a few days, but the house is always ready for a lotof people. " "But your uncle--?" Faxon could only object, with the odd sense, throughhis embarrassment, that it would be magically dispelled by his invisiblefriend's next words. "Oh, my uncle--you'll see! I answer for _him!_ I daresay you've heard ofhim--John Lavington?" John Lavington! There was a certain irony in asking if one had heard ofJohn Lavington! Even from a post of observation as obscure as that ofMrs. Culme's secretary the rumour of John Lavington's money, of hispictures, his politics, his charities and his hospitality, was asdifficult to escape as the roar of a cataract in a mountain solitude. It might almost have been said that the one place in which one wouldnot have expected to come upon him was in just such a solitude asnow surrounded the speakers--at least in this deepest hour of itsdesertedness. But it was just like Lavington's brilliant ubiquity to putone in the wrong even there. "Oh, yes, I've heard of your uncle. " "Then you _will_ come, won't you? We've only five minutes to wait. "young Rainer urged, in the tone that dispels scruples by ignoring them;and Faxon found himself accepting the invitation as simply as it wasoffered. A delay in the arrival of the New York train lengthened their fiveminutes to fifteen; and as they paced the icy platform Faxon began tosee why it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to accede tohis new acquaintance's suggestion. It was because Frank Rainer wasone of the privileged beings who simplify human intercourse by theatmosphere of confidence and good humour they diffuse. He produced thiseffect, Faxon noted, by the exercise of no gift but his youth, and of noart but his sincerity; and these qualities were revealed in a smile ofsuch sweetness that Faxon felt, as never before, what Nature can achievewhen she deigns to match the face with the mind. He learned that the young man was the ward, and the only nephew, of JohnLavington, with whom he had made his home since the death of his mother, the great man's sister. Mr. Lavington, Rainer said, had been "a regularbrick" to him--"But then he is to every one, you know"--and the youngfellow's situation seemed in fact to be perfectly in keeping with hisperson. Apparently the only shade that had ever rested on him was castby the physical weakness which Faxon had already detected. Young Rainerhad been threatened with tuberculosis, and the disease was so faradvanced that, according to the highest authorities, banishment toArizona or New Mexico was inevitable. "But luckily my uncle didn't packme off, as most people would have done, without getting another opinion. Whose? Oh, an awfully clever chap, a young doctor with a lot of newideas, who simply laughed at my being sent away, and said I'd doperfectly well in New York if I didn't dine out too much, and if Idashed off occasionally to Northridge for a little fresh air. So it'sreally my uncle's doing that I'm not in exile--and I feel no end bettersince the new chap told me I needn't bother. " Young Rainer went on toconfess that he was extremely fond of dining out, dancing and similardistractions; and Faxon, listening to him, was inclined to think thatthe physician who had refused to cut him off altogether from thesepleasures was probably a better psychologist than his seniors. "All the same you ought to be careful, you know. " The sense ofelder-brotherly concern that forced the words from Faxon made him, as hespoke, slip his arm through Frank Rainer 's. The latter met the movement with a responsive pressure. "Oh, I _am_:awfully, awfully. And then my uncle has such an eye on me!" "But if your uncle has such an eye on you, what does he say to yourswallowing knives out here in this Siberian wild?" Rainer raised his fur collar with a careless gesture. "It's not thatthat does it--the cold's good for me. " "And it's not the dinners and dances? What is it, then?" Faxongood-humouredly insisted; to which his companion answered with a laugh:"Well, my uncle says it's being bored; and I rather think he's right!" His laugh ended in a spasm of coughing and a struggle for breath thatmade Faxon, still holding his arm, guide him hastily into the shelter ofthe fireless waitingroom. Young Rainer had dropped down on the bench against the wall and pulledoff one of his fur gloves to grope for a handkerchief. He tossedaside his cap and drew the handkerchief across his forehead, which wasintensely white, and beaded with moisture, though his face retaineda healthy glow. But Faxon's gaze remained fastened to the hand he haduncovered: it was so long, so colourless, so wasted, so much older thanthe brow he passed it over. "It's queer--a healthy face but dying hands, " the secretary mused: hesomehow wished young Rainer had kept on his glove. The whistle of the express drew the young men to their feet, and thenext moment two heavily-furred gentlemen had descended to the platformand were breasting the rigour of the night. Frank Rainer introduced themas Mr. Grisben and Mr. Balch, and Faxon, while their luggage wasbeing lifted into the second sleigh, discerned them, by the rovinglantern-gleam, to be an elderly greyheaded pair, of the averageprosperous business cut. They saluted their host's nephew with friendly familiarity, and Mr. Grisben, who seemed the spokesman of the two, ended his greeting with agenial--"and many many more of them, dear boy!" which suggested to Faxonthat their arrival coincided with an anniversary. But he could not pressthe enquiry, for the seat allotted him was at the coachman's side, whileFrank Rainer joined his uncle's guests inside the sleigh. A swift flight (behind such horses as one could be sure of JohnLavington's having) brought them to tall gateposts, an illuminatedlodge, and an avenue on which the snow had been levelled to thesmoothness of marble. At the end of the avenue the long house loomed up, its principal bulk dark, but one wing sending out a ray of welcome; andthe next moment Faxon was receiving a violent impression of warmth andlight, of hot-house plants, hurrying servants, a vast spectacular oakhall like a stage-setting, and, in its unreal middle distance, a smallfigure, correctly dressed, conventionally featured, and utterly unlikehis rather florid conception of the great John Lavington. The surprise of the contrast remained with him through his hurrieddressing in the large luxurious bedroom to which he had been shown. "I don't see where he comes in, " was the only way he could put it, sodifficult was it to fit the exuberance of Lavington's public personalityinto his host's contracted frame and manner. Mr. Laving ton, to whomFaxon's case had been rapidly explained by young Rainer, had welcomedhim with a sort of dry and stilted cordiality that exactly matchedhis narrow face, his stiff hand, and the whiff of scent on his eveninghandkerchief. "Make yourself at home--at home!" he had repeated, in atone that suggested, on his own part, a complete inability to performthe feat he urged on his visitor. "Any friend of Frank's... Delighted... Make yourself thoroughly at home!" II In spite of the balmy temperature and complicated conveniences ofFaxon's bedroom, the injunction was not easy to obey. It was wonderfulluck to have found a night's shelter under the opulent roof of Overdale, and he tasted the physical satisfaction to the full. But the place, for all its ingenuities of comfort, was oddly cold and unwelcoming. He couldn't have said why, and could only suppose that Mr. Lavington'sintense personality--intensely negative, but intense all the same--must, in some occult way, have penetrated every corner of his dwelling. Perhaps, though, it was merely that Faxon himself was tired and hungry, more deeply chilled than he had known till he came in from the cold, and unutterably sick of all strange houses, and of the prospect ofperpetually treading other people's stairs. "I hope you're not famished?" Rainer's slim figure was in the doorway. "My uncle has a little business to attend to with Mr. Grisben, and wedon't dine for half an hour. Shall I fetch you, or can you find your waydown? Come straight to the dining-room--the second door on the left ofthe long gallery. " He disappeared, leaving a ray of warmth behind him, and Faxon, relieved, lit a cigarette and sat down by the fire. Looking about with less haste, he was struck by a detail that hadescaped him. The room was full of flowers--a mere "bachelor's room, " inthe wing of a house opened only for a few days, in the dead middle ofa New Hampshire winter! Flowers were everywhere, not in senselessprofusion, but placed with the same conscious art that he had remarkedin the grouping of the blossoming shrubs in the hall. A vase of arumsstood on the writing-table, a cluster of strange-hued carnations onthe stand at his elbow, and from bowls of glass and porcelain clumps offreesia-bulbs diffused their melting fragrance. The fact implied acresof glass--but that was the least interesting part of it. The flowersthemselves, their quality, selection and arrangement, attested onsome one's part--and on whose but John Lavington's?--a solicitous andsensitive passion for that particular form of beauty. Well, it simplymade the man, as he had appeared to Faxon, all the harder to understand! The half-hour elapsed, and Faxon, rejoicing at the prospect of food, setout to make his way to the dining-room. He had not noticed the directionhe had followed in going to his room, and was puzzled, when he left it, to find that two staircases, of apparently equal importance, invitedhim. He chose the one to his right, and reached, at its foot, a longgallery such as Rainer had described. The gallery was empty, the doorsdown its length were closed; but Rainer had said: "The second to theleft, " and Faxon, after pausing for some chance enlightenment which didnot come, laid his hand on the second knob to the left. The room he entered was square, with dusky picture-hung walls. In itscentre, about a table lit by veiled lamps, he fancied Mr. Lavington andhis guests to be already seated at dinner; then he perceived that thetable was covered not with viands but with papers, and that he hadblundered into what seemed to be his host's study. As he paused FrankRainer looked up. "Oh, here's Mr. Faxon. Why not ask him--?" Mr. Lavington, from the end of the table, reflected his nephew's smilein a glance of impartial benevolence. "Certainly. Come in, Mr. Faxon. If you won't think it a liberty--" Mr. Grisben, who sat opposite his host, turned his head toward the door. "Of course Mr. Faxon's an American citizen?" Frank Rainer laughed. "That's all right!... Oh, no, not one of yourpin-pointed pens, Uncle Jack! Haven't you got a quill somewhere?" Mr. Balch, who spoke slowly and as if reluctantly, in a muffled voice ofwhich there seemed to be very little left, raised his hand to say: "Onemoment: you acknowledge this to be--?" "My last will and testament?" Rainer's laugh redoubled. "Well, I won'tanswer for the 'last. ' It's the first, anyway. " "It's a mere formula, " Mr. Balch explained. "Well, here goes. " Rainer dipped his quill in the inkstand his unclehad pushed in his direction, and dashed a gallant signature across thedocument. Faxon, understanding what was expected of him, and conjecturing that theyoung man was signing his will on the attainment of his majority, hadplaced himself behind Mr. Grisben, and stood awaiting his turn to affixhis name to the instrument. Rainer, having signed, was about to push thepaper across the table to Mr. Balch; but the latter, again raising hishand, said in his sad imprisoned voice: "The seal--?" "Oh, does there have to be a seal?" Faxon, looking over Mr. Grisben at John Lavington, saw a faint frownbetween his impassive eyes. "Really, Frank!" He seemed, Faxon thought, slightly irritated by his nephew's frivolity. "Who's got a seal?" Frank Rainer continued, glancing about the table. "There doesn't seem to be one here. " Mr. Grisben interposed. "A wafer will do. Lavington, you have a wafer?" Mr. Lavington had recovered his serenity. "There must be some in oneof the drawers. But I'm ashamed to say I don't know where my secretarykeeps these things. He ought to have seen to it that a wafer was sentwith the document. " "Oh, hang it--" Frank Rainer pushed the paper aside: "It's the hand ofGod--and I'm as hungry as a wolf. Let's dine first, Uncle Jack. " "I think I've a seal upstairs, " said Faxon. Mr. Lavington sent him a barely perceptible smile. "So sorry to give youthe trouble--" "Oh, I say, don't send him after it now. Let's wait till after dinner!" Mr. Lavington continued to smile on _his_ guest, and the latter, asif under the faint coercion of the smile, turned from the room andran upstairs. Having taken the seal from his writing-case he came downagain, and once more opened the door of the study. No one was speakingwhen he entered--they were evidently awaiting his return with the muteimpatience of hunger, and he put the seal in Rainer's reach, and stoodwatching while Mr. Grisben struck a match and held it to one of thecandles flanking the inkstand. As the wax descended on the paper Faxonremarked again the strange emaciation, the premature physical weariness, of the hand that held it: he wondered if Mr. Lavington had ever noticedhis nephew's hand, and if it were not poignantly visible to him now. With this thought in his mind, Faxon raised his eyes to look atMr. Lavington. The great man's gaze rested on Frank Rainer with anexpression of untroubled benevolence; and at the same instant Faxon'sattention was attracted by the presence in the room of another person, who must have joined the group while he was upstairs searching for theseal. The new-comer was a man of about Mr. Lavington's age and figure, who stood just behind his chair, and who, at the moment when Faxonfirst saw him, was gazing at young Rainer with an equal intensity ofattention. The likeness between the two men--perhaps increased by thefact that the hooded lamps on the table left the figure behind thechair in shadow--struck Faxon the more because of the contrast in theirexpression. John Lavington, during his nephew's clumsy attempt todrop the wax and apply the seal, continued to fasten on him a lookof half-amused affection; while the man behind the chair, so oddlyreduplicating the lines of his features and figure, turned on the boy aface of pale hostility. The impression was so startling that Faxon forgot what was going onabout him. He was just dimly aware of young Reiner's exclaiming; "Yourturn, Mr. Grisben!" of Mr. Grisben's protesting: "No--no; Mr. Faxonfirst, " and of the pen's being thereupon transferred to his own hand. He received it with a deadly sense of being unable to move, or even tounderstand what was expected of him, till he became conscious of Mr. Grisben's paternally pointing out the precise spot on which he was toleave his autograph. The effort to fix his attention and steady his handprolonged the process of signing, and when he stood up--a strange weightof fatigue on all his limbs--the figure behind Mr. Lavington's chair wasgone. Faxon felt an immediate sense of relief. It was puzzling that the man'sexit should have been so rapid and noiseless, but the door behind Mr. Lavington was screened by a tapestry hanging, and Faxon concluded thatthe unknown looker-on had merely had to raise it to pass out. At anyrate he was gone, and with his withdrawal the strange weight was lifted. Young Rainer was lighting a cigarette, Mr. Balch inscribing his nameat the foot of the document, Mr. Lavington--his eyes no longer on hisnephew--examining a strange white-winged orchid in the vase at hiselbow. Every thing suddenly seemed to have grown natural and simpleagain, and Faxon found himself responding with a smile to the affablegesture with which his host declared: "And now, Mr. Faxon, we'll dine. " III "I wonder how I blundered into the wrong room just now; I thought youtold me to take the second door to the left, " Faxon said to Frank Raineras they followed the older men down the gallery. "So I did; but I probably forgot to tell you which staircase to take. Coming from your bedroom, I ought to have said the fourth door to theright. It's a puzzling house, because my uncle keeps adding to it fromyear to year. He built this room last summer for his modern pictures. " Young Rainer, pausing to open another door, touched an electric buttonwhich sent a circle of light about the walls of a long room hung withcanvases of the French impressionist school. Faxon advanced, attracted by a shimmering Monet, but Rainer laid a handon his arm. "He bought that last week. But come along--I'll show you all this afterdinner. Or _he_ will, rather--he loves it. " "Does he really love things?" Rainer stared, clearly perplexed at the question. "Rather! Flowers andpictures especially! Haven't you noticed the flowers? I suppose youthink his manner's cold; it seems so at first; but he's really awfullykeen about things. " Faxon looked quickly at the speaker. "Has your uncle a brother?" "Brother? No--never had. He and my mother were the only ones. " "Or any relation who--who looks like him? Who might be mistaken forhim?" "Not that I ever heard of. Does he remind you of some one?" "Yes. " "That's queer. We'll ask him if he's got a double. Come on!" But another picture had arrested Faxon, and some minutes elapsed beforehe and his young host reached the dining-room. It was a large room, with the same conventionally handsome furniture and delicately groupedflowers; and Faxon's first glance showed him that only three menwere seated about the dining-table. The man who had stood behind Mr. Lavington's chair was not present, and no seat awaited him. When the young men entered, Mr. Grisben was speaking, and his host, whofaced the door, sat looking down at his untouched soup-plate and turningthe spoon about in his small dry hand. "It's pretty late to call them rumours--they were devilish close tofacts when we left town this morning, " Mr. Grisben was saying, with anunexpected incisiveness of tone. Mr. Lavington laid down his spoon and smiled interrogatively. "Oh, facts--what _are_ facts? Just the way a thing happens to look at a givenminute.... " "You haven't heard anything from town?" Mr. Grisben persisted. "Not a syllable. So you see.... Balch, a little more of that _petitemarmite_. Mr. Faxon... Between Frank and Mr. Grisben, please. " The dinner progressed through a series of complicated courses, ceremoniously dispensed by a prelatical butler attended by threetall footmen, and it was evident that Mr. Lavington took a certainsatisfaction in the pageant. That, Faxon reflected, was probablythe joint in his armour--that and the flowers. He had changed thesubject--not abruptly but firmly--when the young men entered, butFaxon perceived that it still possessed the thoughts of the two elderlyvisitors, and Mr. Balch presently observed, in a voice that seemed tocome from the last survivor down a mine-shaft: "If it _does_ come, itwill be the biggest crash since '93. " Mr. Lavington looked bored but polite. "Wall Street can stand crashesbetter than it could then. It's got a robuster constitution. " "Yes; but--" "Speaking of constitutions, " Mr. Grisben intervened: "Frank, are youtaking care of yourself?" A flush rose to young Rainer's cheeks. "Why, of course! Isn't that what I'm here for?" "You're here about three days in the month, aren't you? And the rest ofthe time it's crowded restaurants and hot ballrooms in town. I thoughtyou were to be shipped off to New Mexico?" "Oh, I've got a new man who says that's rot. " "Well, you don't look as if your new man were right, " said Mr. Grisbenbluntly. Faxon saw the lad's colour fade, and the rings of shadow deepen underhis gay eyes. At the same moment his uncle turned to him with a renewedintensity of attention. There was such solicitude in Mr. Lavington'sgaze that it seemed almost to fling a shield between his nephew and Mr. Grisben's tactless scrutiny. "We think Frank's a good deal better, " he began; "this new doctor--" The butler, coming up, bent to whisper a word in his ear, and thecommunication caused a sudden change in Mr. Lavington's expression. Hisface was naturally so colourless that it seemed not so much to pale asto fade, to dwindle and recede into something blurred and blotted-out. Hehalf rose, sat down again and sent a rigid smile about the table. "Will you excuse me? The telephone. Peters, go on with the dinner. " Withsmall precise steps he walked out of the door which one of the footmenhad thrown open. A momentary silence fell on the group; then Mr. Grisben once moreaddressed himself to Rainer. "You ought to have gone, my boy; you oughtto have gone. " The anxious look returned to the youth's eyes. "My uncle doesn't thinkso, really. " "You're not a baby, to be always governed by your uncle's opinion. Youcame of age to-day, didn't you? Your uncle spoils you.... That's what'sthe matter.... " The thrust evidently went home, for Rainer laughed and looked down witha slight accession of colour. "But the doctor--" "Use your common sense, Frank! You had to try twenty doctors to find oneto tell you what you wanted to be told. " A look of apprehension overshadowed Rainer', gaiety. "Oh, come--Isay!... What would _you_ do?" he stammered. "Pack up and jump on the first train. " Mr. Grisben leaned forward andlaid his hand kindly on the young man's arm. "Look here: my nephew JimGrisben is out there ranching on a big scale. He'll take you in and beglad to have you. You say your new doctor thinks it won't do you anygood; but he doesn't pretend to say it will do you harm, does he? Well, then--give it a trial. It'll take you out of hot theatres and nightrestaurants, anyhow.... And all the rest of it.... Eh, Balch?" "Go!" said Mr. Balch hollowly. "Go _at once_, " he added, as if a closerlook at the youth's face had impressed on him the need of backing up hisfriend. Young Rainer had turned ashy-pale. He tried to stiffen his mouth into asmile. "Do I look as bad as all that?" Mr. Grisben was helping himself to terrapin. "You look like the dayafter an earthquake, " he said. The terrapin had encircled the table, and been deliberately enjoyed byMr. Lavington's three visitors (Rainer, Faxon noticed, left his plateuntouched) before the door was thrown open to re-admit their host. Mr. Lavington advanced with an air of recovered composure. He seatedhimself, picked up his napkin and consulted the gold-monogrammed menu. "No, don't bring back the filet.... Some terrapin; yes.... " He lookedaffably about the table. "Sorry to have deserted you, but the storm hasplayed the deuce with the wires, and I had to wait a long time before Icould get a good connection. It must be blowing up for a blizzard. " "Uncle Jack, " young Rainer broke out, "Mr. Grisben's been lecturing me. " Mr. Lavington was helping himself to terrapin. "Ah--what about?" "He thinks I ought to have given New Mexico a show. " "I want him to go straight out to my nephew at Santa Paz and stay theretill his next birthday. " Mr. Lavington signed to the butler to hand theterrapin to Mr. Grisben, who, as he took a second helping, addressedhimself again to Rainer. "Jim's in New York now, and going back the dayafter tomorrow in Olyphant's private car. I'll ask Olyphant to squeezeyou in if you'll go. And when you've been out there a week or two, inthe saddle all day and sleeping nine hours a night, I suspect you won'tthink much of the doctor who prescribed New York. " Faxon spoke up, he knew not why. "I was out there once: it's a splendidlife. I saw a fellow--oh, a really _bad_ case--who'd been simply madeover by it. " "It _does_ sound jolly, " Rainer laughed, a sudden eagerness in his tone. His uncle looked at him gently. "Perhaps Grisben's right. It's anopportunity--" Faxon glanced up with a start: the figure dimly perceived in the studywas now more visibly and tangibly planted behind Mr. Lavington's chair. "That's right, Frank: you see your uncle approves. And the trip outthere with Olyphant isn't a thing to be missed. So drop a few dozendinners and be at the Grand Central the day after tomorrow at five. " Mr. Grisben's pleasant grey eye sought corroboration of his host, andFaxon, in a cold anguish of suspense, continued to watch him as heturned his glance on Mr. Lavington. One could not look at Lavingtonwithout seeing the presence at his back, and it was clear that, the nextminute, some change in Mr. Grisben's expression must give his watcher aclue. But Mr. Grisben's expression did not change: the gaze he fixed on hishost remained unperturbed, and the clue he gave was the startling one ofnot seeming to see the other figure. Faxon's first impulse was to look away, to look anywhere else, to resortagain to the champagne glass the watchful butler had already brimmed;but some fatal attraction, at war in him with an overwhelming physicalresistance, held his eyes upon the spot they feared. The figure was still standing, more distinctly, and therefore moreresemblingly, at Mr. Lavington's back; and while the latter continuedto gaze affectionately at his nephew, his counterpart, as before, fixedyoung Rainer with eyes of deadly menace. Faxon, with what felt like an actual wrench of the muscles, dragged hisown eyes from the sight to scan the other countenances about the table;but not one revealed the least consciousness of what he saw, and a senseof mortal isolation sank upon him. "It's worth considering, certainly--" he heard Mr. Lavington continue;and as Rainer's face lit up, the face behind his uncle's chair seemed togather into its look all the fierce weariness of old unsatisfied hates. That was the thing that, as the minutes laboured by, Faxon was becomingmost conscious of. The watcher behind the chair was no longer merelymalevolent: he had grown suddenly, unutterably tired. His hatred seemedto well up out of the very depths of balked effort and thwarted hopes, and the fact made him more pitiable, and yet more dire. Faxon's look reverted to Mr. Lavington, as if to surprise in him acorresponding change. At first none was visible: his pinched smile wasscrewed to his blank face like a gas-light to a white-washed wall. Thenthe fixity of the smile became ominous: Faxon saw that its wearer wasafraid to let it go. It was evident that Mr. Lavington was unutterablytired too, and the discovery sent a colder current through Faxon'sveins. Looking down at his untouched plate, he caught the solicitingtwinkle of the champagne glass; but the sight of the wine turned himsick. "Well, we'll go into the details presently, " he heard Mr. Lavington say, still on the question of his nephew's future. "Let's have a cigar first. No--not here, Peters. " He turned his smile on Faxon. "When we've hadcoffee I want to show you my pictures. " "Oh, by the way, Uncle Jack--Mr. Faxon wants to know if you've got adouble?" "A double?" Mr. Lavington, still smiling, continued to address himselfto his guest. "Not that I know of. Have you seen one, Mr. Faxon?" Faxon thought: "My God, if I look up now they'll _both_ be looking atme!" To avoid raising his eyes he made as though to lift the glass tohis lips; but his hand sank inert, and he looked up. Mr. Lavington'sglance was politely bent on him, but with a loosening of the strainabout his heart he saw that the figure behind the chair still kept itsgaze on Rainer. "Do you think you've seen my double, Mr. Faxon?" Would the other face turn if he said yes? Faxon felt a dryness in histhroat. "No, " he answered. "Ah? It's possible I've a dozen. I believe I'm extremely usual-looking, "Mr. Lavington went on conversationally; and still the other face watchedRainer. "It was... A mistake... A confusion of memory.... " Faxon heard himselfstammer. Mr. Lavington pushed back his chair, and as he did so Mr. Grisben suddenly leaned forward. "Lavington! What have, we been thinking of? We haven't drunk Frank'shealth!" Mr. Lavington reseated himself. "My dear boy!... Peters, anotherbottle.... " He turned to his nephew. "After such a sin of omission Idon't presume to propose the toast myself... But Frank knows.... Goahead, Grisben!" The boy shone on his uncle. "No, no, Uncle Jack! Mr. Grisben won't mind. Nobody but _you_--today!" The butler was replenishing the glasses. He filled Mr. Lavington's last, and Mr. Lavington put out his small hand to raise it.... As he did so, Faxon looked away. "Well, then--All the good I've wished you in all the past years.... Iput it into the prayer that the coming ones may be healthy and happy andmany... And _many_, dear boy!" Faxon saw the hands about him reach out for their glasses. Automatically, he reached for his. His eyes were still on the table, andhe repeated to himself with a trembling vehemence: "I won't look up! Iwon't.... I won't.... " His finders clasped the glass and raised it to the level of his lips. He saw the other hands making the same motion. He heard Mr. Grisben'sgenial "Hear! Hear!" and Mr. Batch's hollow echo. He said to himself, as the rim of the glass touched his lips: "I won't look up! I swear Iwon't!--" and he looked. The glass was so full that it required an extraordinary effort to holdit there, brimming and suspended, during the awful interval before hecould trust his hand to lower it again, untouched, to the table. It wasthis merciful preoccupation which saved him, kept him from crying out, from losing his hold, from slipping down into the bottomless blacknessthat gaped for him. As long as the problem of the glass engaged him hefelt able to keep his seat, manage his muscles, fit unnoticeably intothe group; but as the glass touched the table his last link with safetysnapped. He stood up and dashed out of the room. IV In the gallery, the instinct of self-preservation helped him to turnback and sign to young Rainer not to follow. He stammered out somethingabout a touch of dizziness, and joining them presently; and the boynodded sympathetically and drew back. At the foot of the stairs Faxon ran against a servant. "I should like totelephone to Weymore, " he said with dry lips. "Sorry, sir; wires all down. We've been trying the last hour to get NewYork again for Mr. Lavington. " Faxon shot on to his room, burst into it, and bolted the door. Thelamplight lay on furniture, flowers, books; in the ashes a log stillglimmered. He dropped down on the sofa and hid his face. The room wasprofoundly silent, the whole house was still: nothing about him gave ahint of what was going on, darkly and dumbly, in the room he had flownfrom, and with the covering of his eyes oblivion and reassurance seemedto fall on him. But they fell for a moment only; then his lids openedagain to the monstrous vision. There it was, stamped on his pupils, apart of him forever, an indelible horror burnt into his body and brain. But why into his--just his? Why had he alone been chosen to see what hehad seen? What business was it of _his_, in God's name? Any one of theothers, thus enlightened, might have exposed the horror and defeatedit; but _he_, the one weaponless and defenceless spectator, the one whomnone of the others would believe or understand if he attempted to revealwhat he knew--_he_ alone had been singled out as the victim of thisdreadful initiation! Suddenly he sat up, listening: he had heard a step on the stairs. Someone, no doubt, was coming to see how he was--to urge him, if he feltbetter, to go down and join the smokers. Cautiously he opened hisdoor; yes, it was young Rainer's step. Faxon looked down the passage, remembered the other stairway and darted to it. All he wanted was to getout of the house. Not another instant would he breathe its abominableair! What business was it of _his_, in God's name? He reached the opposite end of the lower gallery, and beyond it sawthe hall by which he had entered. It was empty, and on a long table herecognized his coat and cap. He got into his coat, unbolted the door, and plunged into the purifying night. The darkness was deep, and the cold so intense that for an instantit stopped his breathing. Then he perceived that only a thin snow wasfalling, and resolutely he set his face for flight. The trees along theavenue marked his way as he hastened with long strides over the beatensnow. Gradually, while he walked, the tumult in his brain subsided. Theimpulse to fly still drove him forward, but he began feel that he wasflying from a terror of his own creating, and that the most urgentreason for escape was the need of hiding his state, of shunning othereyes till he should regain his balance. He had spent the long hours in the train in fruitless broodings on adiscouraging situation, and he remembered how his bitterness had turnedto exasperation when he found that the Weymore sleigh was not awaitinghim. It was absurd, of course; but, though he had joked with Rainer overMrs. Culme's forgetfulness, to confess it had cost a pang. That was whathis rootless life had brought him to: for lack of a personal stake inthings his sensibility was at the mercy of such trifles.... Yes; that, and the cold and fatigue, the absence of hope and the haunting sense ofstarved aptitudes, all these had brought him to the perilous verge overwhich, once or twice before, his terrified brain had hung. Why else, in the name of any imaginable logic, human or devilish, should he, a stranger, be singled out for this experience? What couldit mean to him, how was he related to it, what bearing had it on hiscase?... Unless, indeed, it was just because he was a stranger--astranger everywhere--because he had no personal life, no warm screen ofprivate egotisms to shield him from exposure, that he had developed thisabnormal sensitiveness to the vicissitudes of others. The thought pulledhim up with a shudder. No! Such a fate was too abominable; all thatwas strong and sound in him rejected it. A thousand times better regardhimself as ill, disorganized, deluded, than as the predestined victim ofsuch warnings! He reached the gates and paused before the darkened lodge. The wind hadrisen and was sweeping the snow into his race. The cold had him in itsgrasp again, and he stood uncertain. Should he put his sanity to thetest and go back? He turned and looked down the dark drive to the house. A single ray shone through the trees, evoking a picture of the lights, the flowers, the faces grouped about that fatal room. He turned andplunged out into the road.... He remembered that, about a mile from Overdale, the coachman had pointedout the road to Northridge; and he began to walk in that direction. Once in the road he had the gale in his face, and the wet snow on hismoustache and eye-lashes instantly hardened to ice. The same ice seemedto be driving a million blades into his throat and lungs, but he pushedon, the vision of the warm room pursuing him. The snow in the road was deep and uneven. He stumbled across ruts andsank into drifts, and the wind drove against him like a granite cliff. Now and then he stopped, gasping, as if an invisible hand had tightenedan iron band about his body; then he started again, stiffening himselfagainst the stealthy penetration of the cold. The snow continued todescend out of a pall of inscrutable darkness, and once or twice hepaused, fearing he had missed the road to Northridge; but, seeing nosign of a turn, he ploughed on. At last, feeling sure that he had walked for more than a mile, he haltedand looked back. The act of turning brought immediate relief, firstbecause it put his back to the wind, and then because, far down theroad, it showed him the gleam of a lantern. A sleigh was coming--asleigh that might perhaps give him a lift to the village! Fortified bythe hope, he began to walk back toward the light. It came forward veryslowly, with unaccountable sigsags and waverings; and even when he waswithin a few yards of it he could catch no sound of sleigh-bells. Thenit paused and became stationary by the roadside, as though carried bya pedestrian who had stopped, exhausted by the cold. The thought madeFaxon hasten on, and a moment later he was stooping over a motionlessfigure huddled against the snow-bank. The lantern had dropped from itsbearer's hand, and Faxon, fearfully raising it, threw its light into theface of Frank Rainer. "Rainer! What on earth are you doing here?" The boy smiled back through his pallour. "What are _you_, I'd like toknow?" he retorted; and, scrambling to his feet with a clutch oh Faxon'sarm, he added gaily: "Well, I've run you down!" Faxon stood confounded, his heart sinking. The lad's face was grey. "What madness--" he began. "Yes, it _is_. What on earth did you do it for?" "I? Do what?... Why I.... I was just taking a walk.... I often walk atnight.... " Frank Rainer burst into a laugh. "On such nights? Then you hadn'tbolted?" "Bolted?" "Because I'd done something to offend you? My uncle thought you had. " Faxon grasped his arm. "Did your uncle send you after me?" "Well, he gave me an awful rowing for not going up to your room withyou when you said you were ill. And when we found you'd gone we werefrightened--and he was awfully upset--so I said I'd catch you.... You're_not_ ill, are you?" "Ill? No. Never better. " Faxon picked up the lantern. "Come; let's goback. It was awfully hot in that diningroom. " "Yes; I hoped it was only that. " They trudged on in silence for a few minutes; then Faxon questioned:"You're not too done up?" "Oh, no. It's a lot easier with the wind behind us. " "All right Don't talk any more. " They pushed ahead, walking, in spite of the light that guided them, more slowly than Faxon had walked alone into the gale. The fact of hiscompanion's stumbling against a drift gave Faxon a pretext for saying:"Take hold of my arm, " and Rainer obeying, gasped out: "I'm blown!" "So am I. Who wouldn't be?" "What a dance you led me! If it hadn't been for one of the servantshappening to see you--" "Yes; all right. And now, won't you kindly shut up?" Rainer laughed and hung on him. "Oh, the cold doesn't hurt me.... " For the first few minutes after Rainer had overtaken him, anxietyfor the lad had been Faxon's only thought. But as each labouring stepcarried them nearer to the spot he had been fleeing, the reasons for hisflight grew more ominous and more insistent. No, he was not ill, he wasnot distraught and deluded--he was the instrument singled out to warnand save; and here he was, irresistibly driven, dragging the victim backto his doom! The intensity of the conviction had almost checked his steps. But whatcould he do or say? At all costs he must get Rainer out of the cold, into the house and into his bed. After that he would act. The snow-fall was thickening, and as they reached a stretch of the roadbetween open fields the wind took them at an angle, lashing their faceswith barbed thongs. Rainer stopped to take breath, and Faxon felt theheavier pressure of his arm. "When we get to the lodge, can't we telephone to the stable for asleigh?" "If they're not all asleep at the lodge. " "Oh, I'll manage. Don't talk!" Faxon ordered; and they plodded on.... At length the lantern ray showed ruts that curved away from the roadunder tree-darkness. Faxon's spirits rose. "There's the gate! We'll be there in fiveminutes. " As he spoke he caught, above the boundary hedge, the gleam of a light atthe farther end of the dark avenue. It was the same light that had shoneon the scene of which every detail was burnt into his brain; and he feltagain its overpowering reality. No--he couldn't let the boy go back! They were at the lodge at last, and Faxon was hammering on the door. Hesaid to himself: "I'll get him inside first, and make them give him ahot drink. Then I'll see--I'll find an argument.... " There was no answer to his knocking, and after an interval Rainer said:"Look here--we'd better go on. " "No!" "I can, perfectly--" "You sha'n't go to the house, I say!" Faxon redoubled his blows, andat length steps sounded on the stairs. Rainer was leaning against thelintel, and as the door opened the light from the hall flashed on hispale face and fixed eyes. Faxon caught him by the arm and drew him in. "It _was_ cold out there. " he sighed; and then, abruptly, as ifinvisible shears at a single stroke had cut every muscle in his body, heswerved, drooped on Faxon's arm, and seemed to sink into nothing at hisfeet. The lodge-keeper and Faxon bent over him, and somehow, between them, lifted him into the kitchen and laid him on a sofa by the stove. The lodge-keeper, stammering: "I'll ring up the house, " dashed out ofthe room. But Faxon heard the words without heeding them: omens matterednothing now, beside this woe fulfilled. He knelt down to undo the furcollar about Rainer's throat, and as he did so he felt a warm moistureon his hands. He held them up, and they were red.... V The palms threaded their endless line along the yellow river. The littlesteamer lay at the wharf, and George Faxon, sitting in the verandah ofthe wooden hotel, idly watched the coolies carrying the freight acrossthe gang-plank. He had been looking at such scenes for two months. Nearly five hadelapsed since he had descended from the train at Northridge and strainedhis eyes for the sleigh that was to take him to Weymore: Weymore, whichhe was never to behold!... Part of the interval--the first part--wasstill a great grey blur. Even now he could not be quite sure how hehad got back to Boston, reached the house of a cousin, and been thencetransferred to a quiet room looking out on snow under bare trees. Helooked out a long time at the same scene, and finally one day a manhe had known at Harvard came to see him and invited him to go out on abusiness trip to the Malay Peninsula. "You've had a bad shake-up, and it'll do you no end of good to get awayfrom things. " When the doctor came the next day it turned out that he knew of the planand approved it. "You ought to be quiet for a year. Just loaf and lookat the landscape, " he advised. Paxon felt the first faint stirrings of curiosity. "What's been the matter with me, anyway?" "Well, over-work, I suppose. You must have been bottling up for a badbreakdown before you started for New Hampshire last December. And theshock of that poor boy's death did the rest. " Ah, yes--Rainer had died. He remembered.... He started for the East, and gradually, by imperceptible degrees, lifecrept back into his weary bones and leaden brain. His friend was patientand considerate, and they travelled slowly and talked little. At firstFaxon had felt a great shrinking from whatever touched on familiarthings. He seldom looked at a newspaper and he never opened a letterwithout a contraction of the heart. It was not that he had any specialcause for apprehension, but merely that a great trail of darkness lay oneverything. He had looked too deep down into the abyss.... But littleby little health and energy returned to him, and with them the commonpromptings of curiosity. He was beginning to wonder how the world wasgoing, and when, presently, the hotel-keeper told him there were noletters for him in the steamer's mail-bag, he felt a distinct sense ofdisappointment. His friend had gone into the jungle on a long excursion, and he was lonely, unoccupied and wholesomely bored. He got up andstrolled into the stuffy reading-room. There he found a game of dominoes, a mutilated picture-puzzle, somecopies of _Zion's Herald_ and a pile of New York and London newspapers. He began to glance through the papers, and was disappointed to find thatthey were less recent than he had hoped. Evidently the last numbers hadbeen carried off by luckier travellers. He continued to turn them over, picking out the American ones first. These, as it happened, were theoldest: they dated back to December and January. To Faxon, however, theyhad all the flavour of novelty, since they covered the precise periodduring which he had virtually ceased to exist. It had never beforeoccurred to him to wonder what had happened in the world during thatinterval of obliteration; but now he felt a sudden desire to know. To prolong the pleasure, he began by sorting the papers chronologically, and as he found and spread out the earliest number, the date at the topof the page entered into his consciousness like a key slipping into alock. It was the seventeenth of December: the date of the day after hisarrival at Northridge. He glanced at the first page and read in blazingcharacters: "Reported Failure of Opal Cement Company. Lavington's nameinvolved. Gigantic Exposure of Corruption Shakes Wall Street to ItsFoundations. " He read on, and when he had finished the first paper he turned to thenext. There was a gap of three days, but the Opal Cement "Investigation"still held the centre of the stage. From its complex revelations ofgreed and ruin his eye wandered to the death notices, and he read:"Rainer. Suddenly, at Northridge, New Hampshire, Francis John, only sonof the late.... " His eyes clouded, and he dropped the newspaper and sat for a long timewith his face in his hands. When he looked up again he noticed that hisgesture had pushed the other papers from the table and scattered them athis feet. The uppermost lay spread out before him, and heavily his eyesbegan their search again. "John Lavington comes forward with plan forreconstructing Company. Offers to put in ten millions of his own--Theproposal under consideration by the District Attorney. " Ten millions... Ten millions of his own. But if John Lavington wasruined?... Pazon stood up with a cry. That was it, then--that was whatthe warning meant! And if he had not fled from it, dashed wildly awayfrom it into the night, he might have broken the spell of iniquity, thepowers of darkness might not have prevailed! He caught up the pile ofnewspapers and began to glance through each in turn for the head-line:"Wills Admitted to Probate. " In the last of all he found the paragraphhe sought, and it stared up at him as if with Rainer's dying eyes. That--_that_ was what he had done! The powers of pity had singled himout to warn and save, and he had closed his ears to their call, andwashed his hands of it, and fled. Washed his hands of it! That wasthe word. It caught him back to the dreadful moment in the lodge when, raising himself up from Rainer's side, he had looked at his hands andseen that they were red....