WIDDERSHINS

by

OLIVER ONIONS

1911

 "From Ghaisttes, Ghoulies and long-leggity Beasties and Things that go Bump in the night--

 "Good Lord, deliver us!"

NOTE

I have pleasure in acknowledging the courtesy of the proprietors of"Shurey's Publications" by whose permission "The Cigarette Case" isincluded in the present volume. Also it has been suggested that adefinition should be given of the word that forms the volume's title. That word means "contrary to the course of the Sun. "

O. O. 

CONTENTS

 I. THE BECKONING FAIR ONE II. PHANTAS III. ROOUM IV. BENLIAN V. IO VI. THE ACCIDENT VII. THE CIGARETTE CASEVIII. THE ROCKER IX. HIC JACET

THE BECKONING FAIR ONE

I

The three or four "To Let" boards had stood within the low paling aslong as the inhabitants of the little triangular "Square" could remember, and if they had ever been vertical it was a very long time ago. They nowoverhung the palings each at its own angle, and resembled nothing somuch as a row of wooden choppers, ever in the act of falling upon somepasser-by, yet never cutting off a tenant for the old house from thestream of his fellows. Not that there was ever any great "stream" throughthe square; the stream passed a furlong and more away, beyond theintricacy of tenements and alleys and byways that had sprung up since theold house had been built, hemming it in completely; and probably thehouse itself was only suffered to stand pending the falling-in of a leaseor two, when doubtless a clearance would be made of the wholeneighbourhood. 

It was of bloomy old red brick, and built into its walls were the crownsand clasped hands and other insignia of insurance companies long sincedefunct. The children of the secluded square had swung upon the low gateat the end of the entrance-alley until little more than the solid top barof it remained, and the alley itself ran past boarded basement windows onwhich tramps had chalked their cryptic marks. The path was washed andworn uneven by the spilling of water from the eaves of the encroachingnext house, and cats and dogs had made the approach their own. Thechances of a tenant did not seem such as to warrant the keeping of the"To Let" boards in a state of legibility and repair, and as a matter offact they were not so kept. 

For six months Oleron had passed the old place twice a day or oftener, onhis way from his lodgings to the room, ten minutes' walk away, he hadtaken to work in; and for six months no hatchet-like notice-board hadfallen across his path. This might have been due to the fact that heusually took the other side of the square. But he chanced one morning totake the side that ran past the broken gate and the rain-worn entrancealley, and to pause before one of the inclined boards. The board bore, besides the agent's name, the announcement, written apparently about thetime of Oleron's own early youth, that the key was to be had at NumberSix. 

Now Oleron was already paying, for his separate bedroom and workroom, more than an author who, without private means, habitually disregards hispublic, can afford; and he was paying in addition a small rent for thestorage of the greater part of his grandmother's furniture. Moreover, itinvariably happened that the book he wished to read in bed was at hisworking-quarters half a mile and more away, while the note or letter hehad sudden need of during the day was as likely as not to be in thepocket of another coat hanging behind his bedroom door. And there wereother inconveniences in having a divided domicile. Therefore Oleron, brought suddenly up by the hatchet-like notice-board, looked first downthrough some scanty privet-bushes at the boarded basement windows, thenup at the blank and grimy windows of the first floor, and so up to thesecond floor and the flat stone coping of the leads. He stood for aminute thumbing his lean and shaven jaw; then, with another glance at theboard, he walked slowly across the square to Number Six. 

He knocked, and waited for two or three minutes, but, although the doorstood open, received no answer. He was knocking again when a long-nosedman in shirt-sleeves appeared. 

"I was arsking a blessing on our food, " he said in severe explanation. 

Oleron asked if he might have the key of the old house; and thelong-nosed man withdrew again. 

Oleron waited for another five minutes on the step; then the man, appearing again and masticating some of the food of which he had spoken, announced that the key was lost. 

"But you won't want it, " he said. "The entrance door isn't closed, and apush'll open any of the others. I'm a agent for it, if you're thinking oftaking it--"

Oleron recrossed the square, descended the two steps at the broken gate, passed along the alley, and turned in at the old wide doorway. To theright, immediately within the door, steps descended to the roomy cellars, and the staircase before him had a carved rail, and was broad andhandsome and filthy. Oleron ascended it, avoiding contact with the railand wall, and stopped at the first landing. A door facing him had beenboarded up, but he pushed at that on his right hand, and an insecure boltor staple yielded. He entered the empty first floor. 

He spent a quarter of an hour in the place, and then came out again. Without mounting higher, he descended and recrossed the square to thehouse of the man who had lost the key. 

"Can you tell me how much the rent is?" he asked. 

The man mentioned a figure, the comparative lowness of which seemedaccounted for by the character of the neighbourhood and the abominablestate of unrepair of the place. 

"Would it be possible to rent a single floor?"

The long-nosed man did not know; they might. .. . 

"Who are they?"

The man gave Oleron the name of a firm of lawyers in Lincoln's Inn. 

"You might mention my name--Barrett, " he added. 

Pressure of work prevented Oleron from going down to Lincoln's Inn thatafternoon, but he went on the morrow, and was instantly offered thewhole house as a purchase for fifty pounds down, the remainder of thepurchase-money to remain on mortgage. It took him half an hour todisabuse the lawyer's mind of the idea that he wished anything more ofthe place than to rent a single floor of it. This made certain hums andhaws of a difference, and the lawyer was by no means certain that it laywithin his power to do as Oleron suggested; but it was finally extractedfrom him that, provided the notice-boards were allowed to remain up, andthat, provided it was agreed that in the event of the whole houseletting, the arrangement should terminate automatically without furthernotice, something might be done. That the old place should suddenly letover his head seemed to Oleron the slightest of risks to take, and hepromised a decision within a week. On the morrow he visited the houseagain, went through it from top to bottom, and then went home to hislodgings to take a bath. 

He was immensely taken with that portion of the house he had alreadydetermined should be his own. Scraped clean and repainted, and withthat old furniture of Oleron's grandmother's, it ought to be entirelycharming. He went to the storage warehouse to refresh his memory of hishalf-forgotten belongings, and to take measurements; and thence he wentto a decorator's. He was very busy with his regular work, and could havewished that the notice-board had caught his attention either a few monthsearlier or else later in the year; but the quickest way would be tosuspend work entirely until after his removal. .. . 

A fortnight later his first floor was painted throughout in a tender, elder-flower white, the paint was dry, and Oleron was in the middle ofhis installation. He was animated, delighted; and he rubbed his hands ashe polished and made disposals of his grandmother's effects--the talllattice-paned china cupboard with its Derby and Mason and Spode, thelarge folding Sheraton table, the long, low bookshelves (he had had twoof them "copied"), the chairs, the Sheffield candlesticks, the rivetedrose-bowls. These things he set against his newly painted elder-whitewalls--walls of wood panelled in the happiest proportions, and mouldedand coffered to the low-seated window-recesses in a mood of gaiety andrest that the builders of rooms no longer know. The ceilings were lofty, and faintly painted with an old pattern of stars; even the taperingmouldings of his iron fireplace were as delicately designed as jewellery;and Oleron walked about rubbing his hands, frequently stopping for themere pleasure of the glimpses from white room to white room. .. . 

"Charming, charming!" he said to himself. "I wonder what Elsie Bengoughwill think of this!"

He bought a bolt and a Yale lock for his door, and shut off his quartersfrom the rest of the house. If he now wanted to read in bed, his bookcould be had for stepping into the next room. All the time, he thoughthow exceedingly lucky he was to get the place. He put up a hat-rack inthe little square hall, and hung up his hats and caps and coats; andpassers through the small triangular square late at night, looking upover the little serried row of wooden "To Let" hatchets, could see thelight within Oleron's red blinds, or else the sudden darkening of oneblind and the illumination of another, as Oleron, candlestick in hand, passed from room to room, making final settlings of his furniture, orpreparing to resume the work that his removal had interrupted. 

II

As far as the chief business of his life--his writing--was concerned, Paul Oleron treated the world a good deal better than he was treated byit; but he seldom took the trouble to strike a balance, or to compute howfar, at forty-four years of age, he was behind his points on thehandicap. To have done so wouldn't have altered matters, and it mighthave depressed Oleron. He had chosen his path, and was committed to itbeyond possibility of withdrawal. Perhaps he had chosen it in the dayswhen he had been easily swayed by something a little disinterested, alittle generous, a little noble; and had he ever thought of questioninghimself he would still have held to it that a life without nobility andgenerosity and disinterestedness was no life for him. Only quiterecently, and rarely, had he even vaguely suspected that there was morein it than this; but it was no good anticipating the day when, hesupposed, he would reach that maximum point of his powers beyond which hemust inevitably decline, and be left face to face with the questionwhether it would not have profited him better to have ruled his lifeby less exigent ideals. 

In the meantime, his removal into the old house with the insurance marksbuilt into its brick merely interrupted _Romilly Bishop_ at the fifteenthchapter. 

As this tall man with the lean, ascetic face moved about his new abode, arranging, changing, altering, hardly yet into his working-stride again, he gave the impression of almost spinster-like precision and nicety. Fortwenty years past, in a score of lodgings, garrets, flats, and roomsfurnished and unfurnished, he had been accustomed to do many things forhimself, and he had discovered that it saves time and temper to bemethodical. He had arranged with the wife of the long-nosed Barrett, astout Welsh woman with a falsetto voice, the Merionethshire accent ofwhich long residence in London had not perceptibly modified, to comeacross the square each morning to prepare his breakfast, and also to"turn the place out" on Saturday mornings; and for the rest, he evenwelcomed a little housework as a relaxation from the strain of writing. 

His kitchen, together with the adjoining strip of an apartment intowhich a modern bath had been fitted, overlooked the alley at the side ofthe house; and at one end of it was a large closet with a door, and asquare sliding hatch in the upper part of the door. This had been apowder-closet, and through the hatch the elaborately dressed head hadbeen thrust to receive the click and puff of the powder-pistol. Oleronpuzzled a little over this closet; then, as its use occurred to him, hesmiled faintly, a little moved, he knew not by what. .. . He would have toput it to a very different purpose from its original one; it wouldprobably have to serve as his larder. .. . It was in this closet thathe made a discovery. The back of it was shelved, and, rummaging on anupper shelf that ran deeply into the wall, Oleron found a couple ofmushroom-shaped old wooden wig-stands. He did not know how they had cometo be there. Doubtless the painters had turned them up somewhere orother, and had put them there. But his five rooms, as a whole, wereshort of cupboard and closet-room; and it was only by the exercise ofsome ingenuity that he was able to find places for the bestowal of hishousehold linen, his boxes, and his seldom-used but not-to-be-destroyedaccumulations of papers. 

It was in early spring that Oleron entered on his tenancy, and he wasanxious to have _Romilly_ ready for publication in the coming autumn. Nevertheless, he did not intend to force its production. Should it demandlonger in the doing, so much the worse; he realised its importance, itscrucial importance, in his artistic development, and it must have its ownlength and time. In the workroom he had recently left he had been makingexcellent progress; _Romilly_ had begun, as the saying is, to speak andact of herself; and he did not doubt she would continue to do so themoment the distraction of his removal was over. This distraction wasalmost over; he told himself it was time he pulled himself togetheragain; and on a March morning he went out, returned again with two greatbunches of yellow daffodils, placed one bunch on his mantelpiece betweenthe Sheffield sticks and the other on the table before him, and took outthe half-completed manuscript of _Romilly Bishop_. 

But before beginning work he went to a small rosewood cabinet and tookfrom a drawer his cheque-book and pass-book. He totted them up, and hismonk-like face grew thoughtful. His installation had cost him more thanhe had intended it should, and his balance was rather less than fiftypounds, with no immediate prospect of more. 

"Hm! I'd forgotten rugs and chintz curtains and so forth mounted up so, "said Oleron. "But it would have been a pity to spoil the place for thewant of ten pounds or so. .. . Well, _Romilly_ simply _must_ be out for theautumn, that's all. So here goes--"

He drew his papers towards him. 

But he worked badly; or, rather, he did not work at all. The squareoutside had its own noises, frequent and new, and Oleron could only hopethat he would speedily become accustomed to these. First came hawkers, with their carts and cries; at midday the children, returning fromschool, trooped into the square and swung on Oleron's gate; and when thechildren had departed again for afternoon school, an itinerant musicianwith a mandolin posted himself beneath Oleron's window and began tostrum. This was a not unpleasant distraction, and Oleron, pushing up hiswindow, threw the man a penny. Then he returned to his table again. .. . 

But it was no good. He came to himself, at long intervals, to find thathe had been looking about his room and wondering how it had formerlybeen furnished--whether a settee in buttercup or petunia satin had stoodunder the farther window, whether from the centre moulding of the lightlofty ceiling had depended a glimmering crystal chandelier, or where thetambour-frame or the picquet-table had stood. .. . No, it was no good; hehad far better be frankly doing nothing than getting fruitlessly tired;and he decided that he would take a walk, but, chancing to sit down for amoment, dozed in his chair instead. 

"This won't do, " he yawned when he awoke at half-past four in theafternoon; "I must do better than this to-morrow--"

And he felt so deliciously lazy that for some minutes he evencontemplated the breach of an appointment he had for the evening. 

The next morning he sat down to work without even permitting himself toanswer one of his three letters--two of them tradesmen's accounts, thethird a note from Miss Bengough, forwarded from his old address. It was ajolly day of white and blue, with a gay noisy wind and a subtle turn inthe colour of growing things; and over and over again, once or twice aminute, his room became suddenly light and then subdued again, as theshining white clouds rolled north-eastwards over the square. The softfitful illumination was reflected in the polished surface of the tableand even in the footworn old floor; and the morning noises had begunagain. 

Oleron made a pattern of dots on the paper before him, and then broke offto move the jar of daffodils exactly opposite the centre of a creamypanel. Then he wrote a sentence that ran continuously for a couple oflines, after which it broke on into notes and jottings. For a time hesucceeded in persuading himself that in making these memoranda he wasreally working; then he rose and began to pace his room. As he did so, hewas struck by an idea. It was that the place might possibly be a littlebetter for more positive colour. It was, perhaps, a thought _too_pale--mild and sweet as a kind old face, but a little devitalised, evenwan. .. . Yes, decidedly it would bear a robuster note--more and richerflowers, and possibly some warm and gay stuff for cushions for thewindow-seats. .. . 

"Of course, I really can't afford it, " he muttered, as he went for atwo-foot and began to measure the width of the window recesses. .. . 

In stooping to measure a recess, his attitude suddenly changed to one ofinterest and attention. Presently he rose again, rubbing his hands withgentle glee. 

"Oho, oho!" he said. "These look to me very much like window-boxes, nailed up. We must look into this! Yes, those are boxes, orI'm . .. Oho, this is an adventure!"

On that wall of his sitting-room there were two windows (the third was inanother corner), and, beyond the open bedroom door, on the same wall, wasanother. The seats of all had been painted, repainted, and painted again;and Oleron's investigating finger had barely detected the old nailheadsbeneath the paint. Under the ledge over which he stooped an old keyholealso had been puttied up. Oleron took out his penknife. 

He worked carefully for five minutes, and then went into the kitchen fora hammer and chisel. Driving the chisel cautiously under the seat, hestarted the whole lid slightly. Again using the penknife, he cut alongthe hinged edge and outward along the ends; and then he fetched awedge and a wooden mallet. 

"Now for our little mystery--" he said. 

The sound of the mallet on the wedge seemed, in that sweet and paleapartment, somehow a little brutal--nay, even shocking. The panellingrang and rattled and vibrated to the blows like a sounding-board. Thewhole house seemed to echo; from the roomy cellarage to the garretsabove a flock of echoes seemed to awake; and the sound got a little onOleron's nerves. All at once he paused, fetched a duster, and muffled themallet. .. . When the edge was sufficiently raised he put his fingers underit and lifted. The paint flaked and starred a little; the rusty oldnails squeaked and grunted; and the lid came up, laying open the boxbeneath. Oleron looked into it. Save for a couple of inches of scurf andmould and old cobwebs it was empty. 

"No treasure there, " said Oleron, a little amused that he should havefancied there might have been. "_Romilly_ will still have to be out bythe autumn. Let's have a look at the others. "

He turned to the second window. 

The raising of the two remaining seats occupied him until well into theafternoon. That of the bedroom, like the first, was empty; but from thesecond seat of his sitting-room he drew out something yielding and foldedand furred over an inch thick with dust. He carried the object into thekitchen, and having swept it over a bucket, took a duster to it. 

It was some sort of a large bag, of an ancient frieze-like material, andwhen unfolded it occupied the greater part of the small kitchen floor. Inshape it was an irregular, a very irregular, triangle, and it had acouple of wide flaps, with the remains of straps and buckles. The patchthat had been uppermost in the folding was of a faded yellowish brown;but the rest of it was of shades of crimson that varied according to theexposure of the parts of it. 

"Now whatever can that have been?" Oleron mused as he stood surveyingit. .. . "I give it up. Whatever it is, it's settled my work for today, I'm afraid--"

He folded the object up carelessly and thrust it into a corner of thekitchen; then, taking pans and brushes and an old knife, he returned tothe sitting-room and began to scrape and to wash and to line with paperhis newly discovered receptacles. When he had finished, he put his spareboots and books and papers into them; and he closed the lids again, amused with his little adventure, but also a little anxious for the hourto come when he should settle fairly down to his work again. 

III

It piqued Oleron a little that his friend, Miss Bengough, should dismisswith a glance the place he himself had found so singularly winning. Indeed she scarcely lifted her eyes to it. But then she had always beenmore or less like that--a little indifferent to the graces of life, careless of appearances, and perhaps a shade more herself when she atebiscuits from a paper bag than when she dined with greater observance ofthe convenances. She was an unattached journalist of thirty-four, large, showy, fair as butter, pink as a dog-rose, reminding one of a florist'spicked specimen bloom, and given to sudden and ample movements and moistand explosive utterances. She "pulled a better living out of the pool"(as she expressed it) than Oleron did; and by cunningly disguised puffsof drapers and haberdashers she "pulled" also the greater part of hervery varied wardrobe. She left small whirlwinds of air behind her whenshe moved, in which her veils and scarves fluttered and spun. 

Oleron heard the flurry of her skirts on his staircase and her singleloud knock at his door when he had been a month in his new abode. Hergarments brought in the outer air, and she flung a bundle of ladies'journals down on a chair. 

"Don't knock off for me, " she said across a mouthful of large-headedhatpins as she removed her hat and veil. "I didn't know whether you werestraight yet, so I've brought some sandwiches for lunch. You've gotcoffee, I suppose?--No, don't get up--I'll find the kitchen--"

"Oh, that's all right, I'll clear these things away. To tell the truth, I'm rather glad to be interrupted, " said Oleron. 

He gathered his work together and put it away. She was already in thekitchen; he heard the running of water into the kettle. He joined her, and ten minutes later followed her back to the sitting-room with thecoffee and sandwiches on a tray. They sat down, with the tray on a smalltable between them. 

"Well, what do you think of the new place?" Oleron asked as she pouredout coffee. 

"Hm!. .. Anybody'd think you were going to get married, Paul. "

He laughed. 

"Oh no. But it's an improvement on some of them, isn't it?"

"Is it? I suppose it is; I don't know. I liked the last place, in spiteof the black ceiling and no watertap. How's _Romilly_?"

Oleron thumbed his chin. 

"Hm! I'm rather ashamed to tell you. The fact is, I've not got on verywell with it. But it will be all right on the night, as you used to say. "

"Stuck?"

"Rather stuck. "

"Got any of it you care to read to me?. .. "

Oleron had long been in the habit of reading portions of his work to MissBengough occasionally. Her comments were always quick and practical, sometimes directly useful, sometimes indirectly suggestive. She, inreturn for his confidence, always kept all mention of her own worksedulously from him. His, she said, was "real work"; hers merely filledspace, not always even grammatically. 

"I'm afraid there isn't, " Oleron replied, still meditatively dry-shavinghis chin. Then he added, with a little burst of candour, "The factis, Elsie, I've not written--not actually written--very much more ofit--_any_ more of it, in fact. But, of course, that doesn't mean Ihaven't progressed. I've progressed, in one sense, rather alarmingly. I'm now thinking of reconstructing the whole thing. "

Miss Bengough gave a gasp. "Reconstructing!"

"Making Romilly herself a different type of woman. Somehow, I've begun tofeel that I'm not getting the most out of her. As she stands, I'vecertainly lost interest in her to some extent. "

"But--but--" Miss Bengough protested, "you had her so real, so _living_, Paul!"

Oleron smiled faintly. He had been quite prepared for Miss Bengough'sdisapproval. He wasn't surprised that she liked Romilly as she at presentexisted; she would. Whether she realised it or not, there was much ofherself in his fictitious creation. Naturally Romilly would seem "real, ""living, " to her. .. . 

"But are you really serious, Paul?" Miss Bengough asked presently, with around-eyed stare. 

"Quite serious. "

"You're really going to scrap those fifteen chapters?"

"I didn't exactly say that. "

"That fine, rich love-scene?"

"I should only do it reluctantly, and for the sake of something I thoughtbetter. "

"And that beautiful, _beau_tiful description of Romilly on the shore?"

"It wouldn't necessarily be wasted, " he said a little uneasily. 

But Miss Bengough made a large and windy gesture, and then let him haveit. 

"Really, you are _too_ trying!" she broke out. "I do wish sometimes you'dremember you're human, and live in a world! You know I'd be the _last_ towish you to lower your standard one inch, but it wouldn't be lowering itto bring it within human comprehension. Oh, you're sometimes altogethertoo godlike!. .. Why, it would be a wicked, criminal waste of your powersto destroy those fifteen chapters! Look at it reasonably, now. You'vebeen working for nearly twenty years; you've now got what you've beenworking for almost within your grasp; your affairs are at a most criticalstage (oh, don't tell me; I know you're about at the end of your money);and here you are, deliberately proposing to withdraw a thing that willprobably make your name, and to substitute for it something that ten toone nobody on earth will ever want to read--and small blame to them!Really, you try my patience!"

Oleron had shaken his head slowly as she had talked. It was an old storybetween them. The noisy, able, practical journalist was an admirablefriend--up to a certain point; beyond that . .. Well, each of us knowsthat point beyond which we stand alone. Elsie Bengough sometimes saidthat had she had one-tenth part of Oleron's genius there were few thingsshe could not have done--thus making that genius a quantitativelydivisible thing, a sort of ingredient, to be added to or subtractedfrom in the admixture of his work. That it was a qualitative thing, essential, indivisible, informing, passed her comprehension. Theirspirits parted company at that point. Oleron knew it. She did not appearto know it. 

"Yes, yes, yes, " he said a little wearily, by-and-by, "practically you'requite right, entirely right, and I haven't a word to say. If I could onlyturn _Romilly_ over to you you'd make an enormous success of her. Butthat can't be, and I, for my part, am seriously doubting whether she'sworth my while. You know what that means. "

"What does it mean?" she demanded bluntly. 

"Well, " he said, smiling wanly, "what _does_ it mean when you'reconvinced a thing isn't worth doing? You simply don't do it. "

Miss Bengough's eyes swept the ceiling for assistance against thisimpossible man. 

"What utter rubbish!" she broke out at last. "Why, when I saw you lastyou were simply oozing _Romilly_; you were turning her off at the rate offour chapters a week; if you hadn't moved you'd have had her three-partsdone by now. What on earth possessed you to move right in the middle ofyour most important work?"

Oleron tried to put her off with a recital of inconveniences, but shewouldn't have it. Perhaps in her heart she partly suspected the reason. He was simply mortally weary of the narrow circumstances of his life. Hehad had twenty years of it--twenty years of garrets and roof-chambersand dingy flats and shabby lodgings, and he was tired of dinginess andshabbiness. The reward was as far off as ever--or if it was not, he nolonger cared as once he would have cared to put out his hand and take it. It is all very well to tell a man who is at the point of exhaustion thatonly another effort is required of him; if he cannot make it he is as faroff as ever. .. . 

"Anyway, " Oleron summed up, "I'm happier here than I've been for a longtime. That's some sort of a justification. "

"And doing no work, " said Miss Bengough pointedly. 

At that a trifling petulance that had been gathering in Oleron came to ahead. 

"And why should I do nothing but work?" he demanded. "How much happier amI for it? I don't say I don't love my work--when it's done; but I hatedoing it. Sometimes it's an intolerable burden that I simply long to berid of. Once in many weeks it has a moment, one moment, of glow andthrill for me; I remember the days when it was all glow and thrill; andnow I'm forty-four, and it's becoming drudgery. Nobody wants it; I'mceasing to want it myself; and if any ordinary sensible man were to askme whether I didn't think I was a fool to go on, I think I should agreethat I was. "

Miss Bengough's comely pink face was serious. 

"But you knew all that, many, many years ago, Paul--and still you choseit, " she said in a low voice. 

"Well, and how should I have known?" he demanded. "I didn't know. I wastold so. My heart, if you like, told me so, and I thought I knew. Youthalways thinks it knows; then one day it discovers that it is nearlyfifty--"

"Forty-four, Paul--"

"--forty-four, then--and it finds that the glamour isn't in front, but behind. Yes, I knew and chose, if _that's_ knowing andchoosing . .. But it's a costly choice we're called on to make whenwe're young!"

Miss Bengough's eyes were on the floor. Without moving them she said, "You're not regretting it, Paul?"

"Am I not?" he took her up. "Upon my word, I've lately thought I am! What_do_ I get in return for it all?"

"You know what you get, " she replied. 

He might have known from her tone what else he could have had for theholding up of a finger--herself. She knew, but could not tell him, thathe could have done no better thing for himself. Had he, any time theseten years, asked her to marry him, she would have replied quietly, "Very well; when?" He had never thought of it. .. . 

"Yours is the real work, " she continued quietly. "Without you we jackalscouldn't exist. You and a few like you hold everything upon yourshoulders. "

For a minute there was a silence. Then it occurred to Oleron that thiswas common vulgar grumbling. It was not his habit. Suddenly he rose andbegan to stack cups and plates on the tray. 

"Sorry you catch me like this, Elsie, " he said, with a littlelaugh. .. . "No, I'll take them out; then we'll go for a walk, if youlike. .. . "

He carried out the tray, and then began to show Miss Bengough round hisflat. She made few comments. In the kitchen she asked what an old fadedsquare of reddish frieze was, that Mrs. Barrett used as a cushion for herwooden chair. 

"That? I should be glad if you could tell _me_ what it is, " Oleronreplied as he unfolded the bag and related the story of its finding inthe window-seat. 

"I think I know what it is, " said Miss Bengough. "It's been used to wrapup a harp before putting it into its case. "

"By Jove, that's probably just what it was, " said Oleron. "I could makeneither head nor tail of it. .. . "

They finished the tour of the flat, and returned to the sitting-room. 

"And who lives in the rest of the house?" Miss Bengough asked. 

"I dare say a tramp sleeps in the cellar occasionally. Nobody else. "

"Hm!. .. Well, I'll tell you what I think about it, if you like. "

"I should like. "

"You'll never work here. "

"Oh?" said Oleron quickly. "Why not?"

"You'll never finish _Romilly_ here. Why, I don't know, but you won't. I know it. You'll have to leave before you get on with that book. "

He mused for a moment, and then said:

"Isn't that a little--prejudiced, Elsie?"

"Perfectly ridiculous. As an argument it hasn't a leg to stand on. Butthere it is, " she replied, her mouth once more full of the large-headedhat pins. 

Oleron was reaching down his hat and coat. He laughed. 

"I can only hope you're entirely wrong, " he said, "for I shall be in aserious mess if _Romilly_ isn't out in the autumn. "

IV

As Oleron sat by his fire that evening, pondering Miss Bengough'sprognostication that difficulties awaited him in his work, he came to theconclusion that it would have been far better had she kept her beliefs toherself. No man does a thing better for having his confidence damped atthe outset, and to speak of difficulties is in a sense to make them. Speech itself becomes a deterrent act, to which other discouragementsaccrete until the very event of which warning is given is as likely asnot to come to pass. He heartily confounded her. An influence hostileto the completion of _Romilly_ had been born. 

And in some illogical, dogmatic way women seem to have, she had attachedthis antagonistic influence to his new abode. Was ever anything soabsurd! "You'll never finish _Romilly_ here. " . .. Why not? Was this heridea of the luxury that saps the springs of action and brings a man downto indolence and dropping out of the race? The place was well enough--itwas entirely charming, for that matter--but it was not so demoralising asall that! No; Elsie had missed the mark that time. .. . 

He moved his chair to look round the room that smiled, positivelysmiled, in the firelight. He too smiled, as if pity was to beentertained for a maligned apartment. Even that slight lack of robustcolour he had remarked was not noticeable in the soft glow. The drawnchintz curtains--they had a flowered and trellised pattern, with basketsand oaten pipes--fell in long quiet folds to the window-seats; the rowsof bindings in old bookcases took the light richly; the last trace ofsallowness had gone with the daylight; and, if the truth must be told, it had been Elsie herself who had seemed a little out of the picture. 

That reflection struck him a little, and presently he returned to it. Yes, the room had, quite accidentally, done Miss Bengough a disservicethat afternoon. It had, in some subtle but unmistakable way, placed her, marked a contrast of qualities. Assuming for the sake of argument theslightly ridiculous proposition that the room in which Oleron sat _was_characterised by a certain sparsity and lack of vigour; so much the worsefor Miss Bengough; she certainly erred on the side of redundancy andgeneral muchness. And if one must contrast abstract qualities, Oleroninclined to the austere in taste. .. . 

Yes, here Oleron had made a distinct discovery; he wondered he had notmade it before. He pictured Miss Bengough again as she had appearedthat afternoon--large, showy, moistly pink, with that quality of theprize bloom exuding, as it were, from her; and instantly she suffered inhis thought. He even recognised now that he had noticed something odd atthe time, and that unconsciously his attitude, even while she had beenthere, had been one of criticism. The mechanism of her was a littleobvious; her melting humidity was the result of analysable processes; andbehind her there had seemed to lurk some dim shape emblematic ofmortality. He had never, during the ten years of their intimacy, dreamedfor a moment of asking her to marry him; none the less, he now felt forthe first time a thankfulness that he had not done so. .. . 

Then, suddenly and swiftly, his face flamed that he should be thinkingthus of his friend. What! Elsie Bengough, with whom he had spent weeksand weeks of afternoons--she, the good chum, on whose help he would havecounted had all the rest of the world failed him--she, whose loyalty tohim would not, he knew, swerve as long as there was breath in her--Elsieto be even in thought dissected thus! He was an ingrate and a cad. .. . 

Had she been there in that moment he would have abased himself beforeher. 

For ten minutes and more he sat, still gazing into the fire, with thathumiliating red fading slowly from his cheeks. All was still within andwithout, save for a tiny musical tinkling that came from his kitchen--thedripping of water from an imperfectly turned-off tap into the vesselbeneath it. Mechanically he began to beat with his finger to the faintlyheard falling of the drops; the tiny regular movement seemed to hastenthat shameful withdrawal from his face. He grew cool once more; and whenhe resumed his meditation he was all unconscious that he took it up againat the same point. .. . 

It was not only her florid superfluity of build that he had approached inthe attitude of criticism; he was conscious also of the wide differencesbetween her mind and his own. He felt no thankfulness that up to acertain point their natures had ever run companionably side by side; hewas now full of questions beyond that point. Their intellects diverged;there was no denying it; and, looking back, he was inclined to doubtwhether there had been any real coincidence. True, he had read hiswritings to her and she had appeared to speak comprehendingly and to thepoint; but what can a man do who, having assumed that another sees as hedoes, is suddenly brought up sharp by something that falsifies anddiscredits all that has gone before? He doubted all now. .. . It did for amoment occur to him that the man who demands of a friend more than can begiven to him is in danger of losing that friend, but he put the thoughtaside. 

Again he ceased to think, and again moved his finger to the distantdripping of the tap. .. . 

And now (he resumed by-and-by), if these things were true of ElsieBengough, they were also true of the creation of which she was theprototype--Romilly Bishop. And since he could say of Romilly what forvery shame he could not say of Elsie, he gave his thoughts rein. He didso in that smiling, fire-lighted room, to the accompaniment of thefaintly heard tap. 

There was no longer any doubt about it; he hated the central characterof his novel. Even as he had described her physically she overpoweredthe senses; she was coarse-fibred, over-coloured, rank. It became truethe moment he formulated his thought; Gulliver had described theBrobdingnagian maids-of-honour thus: and mentally and spiritually shecorresponded--was unsensitive, limited, common. The model (he closed hiseyes for a moment)--the model stuck out through fifteen vulgar andblatant chapters to such a pitch that, without seeing the reason, he hadbeen unable to begin the sixteenth. He marvelled that it had only justdawned upon him. 

And _this_ was to have been his Beatrice, his vision! As Elsie she was tohave gone into the furnace of his art, and she was to have come out theWoman all men desire! Her thoughts were to have been culled from his ownfinest, her form from his dearest dreams, and her setting wherever hecould find one fit for her worth. He had brooded long before making theattempt; then one day he had felt her stir within him as a mother feelsa quickening, and he had begun to write; and so he had added chapter tochapter. .. . 

And those fifteen sodden chapters were what he had produced!

Again he sat, softly moving his finger. .. . 

Then he bestirred himself. 

She must go, all fifteen chapters of her. That was settled. For what wasto take her place his mind was a blank; but one thing at a time; a manis not excused from taking the wrong course because the right one is notimmediately revealed to him. Better would come if it was to come;in the meantime--

He rose, fetched the fifteen chapters, and read them over before heshould drop them into the fire. 

But instead of putting them into the fire he let them fall from his hand. He became conscious of the dripping of the tap again. It had a tinklinggamut of four or five notes, on which it rang irregular changes, and itwas foolishly sweet and dulcimer-like. In his mind Oleron could see thegathering of each drop, its little tremble on the lip of the tap, and thetiny percussion of its fall, "Plink--plunk, " minimised almost toinaudibility. Following the lowest note there seemed to be a briefphrase, irregularly repeated; and presently Oleron found himself waitingfor the recurrence of this phrase. It was quite pretty. .. . 

But it did not conduce to wakefulness, and Oleron dozed over his fire. 

When he awoke again the fire had burned low and the flames of the candleswere licking the rims of the Sheffield sticks. Sluggishly he rose, yawned, went his nightly round of door-locks and window-fastenings, andpassed into his bedroom. Soon he slept soundly. 

But a curious little sequel followed on the morrow. Mrs. Barrett usuallytapped, not at his door, but at the wooden wall beyond which lay Oleron'sbed; and then Oleron rose, put on his dressing-gown, and admitted her. Hewas not conscious that as he did so that morning he hummed an air; butMrs. Barrett lingered with her hand on the door-knob and her face alittle averted and smiling. 

"De-ar me!" her soft falsetto rose. "But that will be a very o-ald tune, Mr. Oleron! I will not have heard it this for-ty years!"

"What tune?" Oleron asked. 

"The tune, indeed, that you was humming, sir. "

Oleron had his thumb in the flap of a letter. It remained there. 

"_I_ was humming?. .. Sing it, Mrs. Barrett. "

Mrs. Barrett prut-prutted. 

"I have no voice for singing, Mr. Oleron; it was Ann Pugh was the singerof our family; but the tune will be very o-ald, and it is called 'TheBeckoning Fair One. '"

"Try to sing it, " said Oleron, his thumb still in the envelope; and Mrs. Barrett, with much dimpling and confusion, hummed the air. 

"They do say it was sung to a harp, Mr. Oleron, and it will be veryo-ald, " she concluded. 

"And _I_ was singing that?"

"Indeed you wass. I would not be likely to tell you lies. "

With a "Very well--let me have breakfast, " Oleron opened his letter; butthe trifling circumstance struck him as more odd than he would haveadmitted to himself. The phrase he had hummed had been that which he hadassociated with the falling from the tap on the evening before. 

V

Even more curious than that the commonplace dripping of an ordinarywater-tap should have tallied so closely with an actually existing airwas another result it had, namely, that it awakened, or seemed to awaken, in Oleron an abnormal sensitiveness to other noises of the old house. Ithas been remarked that silence obtains its fullest and most impressivequality when it is broken by some minute sound; and, truth to tell, theplace was never still. Perhaps the mildness of the spring air operated onits torpid old timbers; perhaps Oleron's fires caused it to stretch itsold anatomy; and certainly a whole world of insect life bored andburrowed in its baulks and joists. At any rate, Oleron had only to sitquiet in his chair and to wait for a minute or two in order to becomeaware of such a change in the auditory scale as comes upon a man who, conceiving the midsummer woods to be motionless and still, all at oncefinds his ear sharpened to the crepitation of a myriad insects. 

And he smiled to think of man's arbitrary distinction between that whichhas life and that which has not. Here, quite apart from such recognisablesounds as the scampering of mice, the falling of plaster behind hispanelling, and the popping of purses or coffins from his fire, was awhole house talking to him had he but known its language. Beams settledwith a tired sigh into their old mortices; creatures ticked in the walls;joints cracked, boards complained; with no palpable stirring of the airwindow-sashes changed their positions with a soft knock in their frames. And whether the place had life in this sense or not, it had at all eventsa winsome personality. It needed but an hour of musing for Oleron toconceive the idea that, as his own body stood in friendly relation to hissoul, so, by an extension and an attenuation, his habitation mightfantastically be supposed to stand in some relation to himself. He evenamused himself with the far-fetched fancy that he might so identifyhimself with the place that some future tenant, taking possession, mightregard it as in a sense haunted. It would be rather a joke if he, aperfectly harmless author, with nothing on his mind worse than a novel hehad discovered he must begin again, should turn out to be laying thefoundation of a future ghost!. .. 

In proportion, however, as he felt this growing attachment to the fabricof his abode, Elsie Bengough, from being merely unattracted, began toshow a dislike of the place that was more and more marked. And she didnot scruple to speak of her aversion. 

"It doesn't belong to to-day at all, and for you especially it's bad, "she said with decision. "You're only too ready to let go your hold onactual things and to slip into apathy; _you_ ought to be in a placewith concrete floors and a patent gas-meter and a tradesmen's lift. Andit would do you all the good in the world if you had a job that made youscramble and rub elbows with your fellow-men. Now, if I could get you ajob, for, say, two or three days a week, one that would allow you heapsof time for your proper work--would you take it?"

Somehow, Oleron resented a little being diagnosed like this. He thankedMiss Bengough, but without a smile. 

"Thank you, but I don't think so. After all each of us has his own lifeto live, " he could not refrain from adding. 

"His own life to live!. .. How long is it since you were out, Paul?"

"About two hours. "

"I don't mean to buy stamps or to post a letter. How long is it since youhad anything like a stretch?"

"Oh, some little time perhaps. I don't know. "

"Since I was here last?"

"I haven't been out much. "

"And has _Romilly_ progressed much better for your being cooped up?"

"I think she has. I'm laying the foundations of her. I shall begin theactual writing presently. "

It seemed as if Miss Bengough had forgotten their tussle about the first_Romilly_. She frowned, turned half away, and then quickly turned again. 

"Ah!. .. So you've still got that ridiculous idea in your head?"

"If you mean, " said Oleron slowly, "that I've discarded the old_Romilly_, and am at work on a new one, you're right. I have still gotthat idea in my head. "

Something uncordial in his tone struck her; but she was a fighter. Hisown absurd sensitiveness hardened her. She gave a "Pshaw!" of impatience. 

"Where is the old one?" she demanded abruptly. 

"Why?" asked Oleron. 

"I want to see it. I want to show some of it to you. I want, if you'renot wool-gathering entirely, to bring you back to your senses. "

This time it was he who turned his back. But when he turned round againhe spoke more gently. 

"It's no good, Elsie. I'm responsible for the way I go, and you mustallow me to go it--even if it should seem wrong to you. Believe me, Iam giving thought to it. .. . The manuscript? I was on the point of burningit, but I didn't. It's in that window-seat, if you must see it. "

Miss Bengough crossed quickly to the window-seat, and lifted the lid. Suddenly she gave a little exclamation, and put the back of her handto her mouth. She spoke over her shoulder:

"You ought to knock those nails in, Paul, " she said. 

He strode to her side. 

"What? What is it? What's the matter?" he asked. "I did knock themin--or, rather, pulled them out. "

"You left enough to scratch with, " she replied, showing her hand. Fromthe upper wrist to the knuckle of the little finger a welling red woundshowed. 

"Good--Gracious!" Oleron ejaculated. .. . "Here, come to the bathroom andbathe it quickly--"

He hurried her to the bathroom, turned on warm water, and bathed andcleansed the bad gash. Then, still holding the hand, he turned cold wateron it, uttering broken phrases of astonishment and concern. 

"Good Lord, how did that happen! As far as I knew I'd . .. Is this watertoo cold? Does that hurt? I can't imagine how on earth . .. There; that'lldo--"

"No--one moment longer--I can bear it, " she murmured, her eyes closed. .. . 

Presently he led her back to the sitting-room and bound the hand in oneof his handkerchiefs; but his face did not lose its expression ofperplexity. He had spent half a day in opening and making serviceable thethree window-boxes, and he could not conceive how he had come to leave aninch and a half of rusty nail standing in the wood. He himself had openedthe lids of each of them a dozen times and had not noticed any nail; butthere it was. .. . 

"It shall come out now, at all events, " he muttered, as he went for apair of pincers. And he made no mistake about it that time. 

Elsie Bengough had sunk into a chair, and her face was rather white; butin her hand was the manuscript of _Romilly_. She had not finished with_Romilly_ yet. Presently she returned to the charge. 

"Oh, Paul, it will be the greatest mistake you ever, _ever_ made if youdo not publish this!" she said. 

He hung his head, genuinely distressed. He couldn't get that incident ofthe nail out of his head, and _Romilly_ occupied a second place in histhoughts for the moment. But still she insisted; and when presently hespoke it was almost as if he asked her pardon for something. 

"What can I say, Elsie? I can only hope that when you see the newversion, you'll see how right I am. And if in spite of all you _don't_like her, well . .. " he made a hopeless gesture. "Don't you see that I_must_ be guided by my own lights?"

She was silent. 

"Come, Elsie, " he said gently. "We've got along well so far; don't let ussplit on this. "

The last words had hardly passed his lips before he regretted them. Shehad been nursing her injured hand, with her eyes once more closed; buther lips and lids quivered simultaneously. Her voice shook as she spoke. 

"I can't help saying it, Paul, but you are so greatly changed. "

"Hush, Elsie, " he murmured soothingly; "you've had a shock; rest for awhile. How could I change?"

"I don't know, but you are. You've not been yourself ever since you camehere. I wish you'd never seen the place. It's stopped your work, it'smaking you into a person I hardly know, and it's made me horribly anxiousabout you. .. . Oh, how my hand is beginning to throb!"

"Poor child!" he murmured. "Will you let me take you to a doctor and haveit properly dressed?"

"No--I shall be all right presently--I'll keep it raised----"

She put her elbow on the back of her chair, and the bandaged hand restedlightly on his shoulder. 

At that touch an entirely new anxiety stirred suddenly within him. Hundreds of times previously, on their jaunts and excursions, she hadslipped her hand within his arm as she might have slipped it into the armof a brother, and he had accepted the little affectionate gesture as abrother might have accepted it. But now, for the first time, there rushedinto his mind a hundred startling questions. Her eyes were still closed, and her head had fallen pathetically back; and there was a lost andineffable smile on her parted lips. The truth broke in upon him. GoodGod!. .. And he had never divined it!

And stranger than all was that, now that he did see that she was lost inlove of him, there came to him, not sorrow and humility and abasement, but something else that he struggled in vain against--something entirelystrange and new, that, had he analysed it, he would have found to bepetulance and irritation and resentment and ungentleness. The suddenselfish prompting mastered him before he was aware. He all but gave itwords. What was she doing there at all? Why was she not getting on withher own work? Why was she here interfering with his? Who had given herthis guardianship over him that lately she had put forward soassertively?--"Changed?" It was she, not himself, who had changed. .. . 

But by the time she had opened her eyes again he had overcome hisresentment sufficiently to speak gently, albeit with reserve. 

"I wish you would let me take you to a doctor. "

She rose. 

"No, thank you, Paul, " she said. "I'll go now. If I need a dressing I'llget one; take the other hand, please. Good-bye--"

He did not attempt to detain her. He walked with her to the foot of thestairs. Half-way along the narrow alley she turned. 

"It would be a long way to come if you happened not to be in, " she said;"I'll send you a postcard the next time. "

At the gate she turned again. 

"Leave here, Paul, " she said, with a mournful look. "Everything's wrongwith this house. "

Then she was gone. 

Oleron returned to his room. He crossed straight to the window-box. Heopened the lid and stood long looking at it. Then he closed it again andturned away. 

"That's rather frightening, " he muttered. "It's simply not possible thatI should not have removed that nail. .. . "

VI

Oleron knew very well what Elsie had meant when she had said that hernext visit would be preceded by a postcard. She, too, had realised thatat last, at last he knew--knew, and didn't want her. It gave him amiserable, pitiful pang, therefore, when she came again within a week, knocking at the door unannounced. She spoke from the landing; she did notintend to stay, she said; and he had to press her before she would somuch as enter. 

Her excuse for calling was that she had heard of an inquiry for shortstories that he might be wise to follow up. He thanked her. Then, herbusiness over, she seemed anxious to get away again. Oleron did not seekto detain her; even he saw through the pretext of the stories; and heaccompanied her down the stairs. 

But Elsie Bengough had no luck whatever in that house. A second accidentbefell her. Half-way down the staircase there was the sharp sound ofsplintering wood, and she checked a loud cry. Oleron knew the woodwork tobe old, but he himself had ascended and descended frequently enoughwithout mishap. .. . 

Elsie had put her foot through one of the stairs. 

He sprang to her side in alarm. 

"Oh, I say! My poor girl!"

She laughed hysterically. 

"It's my weight--I know I'm getting fat--"

"Keep still--let me clear these splinters away, " he muttered between histeeth. 

She continued to laugh and sob that it was her weight--she was gettingfat--

He thrust downwards at the broken boards. The extrication was no easymatter, and her torn boot showed him how badly the foot and anklewithin it must be abraded. 

"Good God--good God!" he muttered over and over again. 

"I shall be too heavy for anything soon, " she sobbed and laughed. 

But she refused to reascend and to examine her hurt. 

"No, let me go quickly--let me go quickly, " she repeated. 

"But it's a frightful gash!"

"No--not so bad--let me get away quickly--I'm--I'm not wanted. "

At her words, that she was not wanted, his head dropped as if she hadgiven him a buffet. 

"Elsie!" he choked, brokenly and shocked. 

But she too made a quick gesture, as if she put something violentlyaside. 

"Oh, Paul, not _that_--not _you_--of course I do mean that too in asense--oh, you know what I mean!. .. But if the other can't be, spareme this now! I--I wouldn't have come, but--but--oh, I did, I _did_ try tokeep away!"

It was intolerable, heartbreaking; but what could he do--what could hesay? He did not love her. .. 

"Let me go--I'm not wanted--let me take away what's left of me--"

"Dear Elsie--you are very dear to me--"

But again she made the gesture, as of putting something violently aside. 

"No, not that--not anything less--don't offer me anything less--leave mea little pride--"

"Let me get my hat and coat--let me take you to a doctor, " he muttered. 

But she refused. She refused even the support of his arm. She gaveanother unsteady laugh. 

"I'm sorry I broke your stairs, Paul. .. . You will go and see about theshort stories, won't you?"

He groaned. 

"Then if you won't see a doctor, will you go across the square and letMrs. Barrett look at you? Look, there's Barrett passing now--"

The long-nosed Barrett was looking curiously down the alley, but asOleron was about to call him he made off without a word. Elsie seemedanxious for nothing so much as to be clear of the place, and finallypromised to go straight to a doctor, but insisted on going alone. 

"Good-bye, " she said. 

And Oleron watched her until she was past the hatchet-like "To Let"boards, as if he feared that even they might fall upon her and maim her. 

That night Oleron did not dine. He had far too much on his mind. Hewalked from room to room of his flat, as if he could have walked awayfrom Elsie Bengough's haunting cry that still rang in his ears. "I'mnot wanted--don't offer me anything less--let me take away what's leftof me--"

Oh, if he could only have persuaded himself that he loved her!

He walked until twilight fell, then, without lighting candles, he stirredup the fire and flung himself into a chair. 

Poor, poor Elsie!. .. 

But even while his heart ached for her, it was out of the question. If only he had known! If only he had used common observation! Butthose walks, those sisterly takings of the arm--what a fool he hadbeen!. .. Well, it was too late now. It was she, not he, who must nowact--act by keeping away. He would help her all he could. He himselfwould not sit in her presence. If she came, he would hurry her out againas fast as he could. .. . Poor, poor Elsie!

His room grew dark; the fire burned dead; and he continued to sit, wincing from time to time as a fresh tortured phrase rang again in hisears. 

Then suddenly, he knew not why, he found himself anxious for her in a newsense--uneasy about her personal safety. A horrible fancy that even thenshe might be looking over an embankment down into dark water, that shemight even now be glancing up at the hook on the door, took him. Womenhad been known to do those things. .. . Then there would be an inquest, andhe himself would be called upon to identify her, and would be asked howshe had come by an ill-healed wound on the hand and a bad abrasion of theankle. Barrett would say that he had seen her leaving his house. .. . 

Then he recognised that his thoughts were morbid. By an effort of will heput them aside, and sat for a while listening to the faint creakingsand tickings and rappings within his panelling. .. . If only he could havemarried her!. .. But he couldn't. Her face had risen before him againas he had seen it on the stairs, drawn with pain and ugly and swollenwith tears. Ugly--yes, positively blubbered; if tears were women'sweapons, as they were said to be, such tears were weapons turned againstthemselves . .. Suicide again. .. . 

Then all at once he found himself attentively considering her twoaccidents. 

Extraordinary they had been, both of them. He _could not_ have left thatold nail standing in the wood; why, he had fetched tools specially fromthe kitchen; and he was convinced that that step that had broken beneathher weight had been as sound as the others. It was inexplicable. If thesethings could happen, anything could happen. There was not a beam nor ajamb in the place that might not fall without warning, not a plank thatmight not crash inwards, not a nail that might not become a dagger. Thewhole place was full of life even now; as he sat there in the dark heheard its crowds of noises as if the house had been one greatmicrophone. .. . 

Only half conscious that he did so, he had been sitting for some timeidentifying these noises, attributing to each crack or creak or knock itsmaterial cause; but there was one noise which, again not fully consciousof the omission, he had not sought to account for. It had last come someminutes ago; it came again now--a sort of soft sweeping rustle thatseemed to hold an almost inaudibly minute crackling. For half a minute orso it had Oleron's attention; then his heavy thoughts were of ElsieBengough again. 

He was nearer to loving her in that moment than he had ever been. Hethought how to some men their loved ones were but the dearer for thosepoor mortal blemishes that tell us we are but sojourners on earth, with acommon fate not far distant that makes it hardly worth while to doanything but love for the time remaining. Strangling sobs, blearingtears, bodies buffeted by sickness, hearts and mind callous and hard withthe rubs of the world--how little love there would be were these things abarrier to love! In that sense he did love Elsie Bengough. What herhappiness had never moved in him her sorrow almost awoke. .. . 

Suddenly his meditation went. His ear had once more become consciousof that soft and repeated noise--the long sweep with the almostinaudible crackle in it. Again and again it came, with a curiousinsistence and urgency. It quickened a little as he became increasinglyattentive . .. It seemed to Oleron that it grew louder. .. . 

All at once he started bolt upright in his chair, tense and listening. The silky rustle came again; he was trying to attach it to something. .. . 

The next moment he had leapt to his feet, unnerved and terrified. Hischair hung poised for a moment, and then went over, setting thefire-irons clattering as it fell. There was only one noise in the worldlike that which had caused him to spring thus to his feet. .. . 

The next time it came Oleron felt behind him at the empty air with hishand, and backed slowly until he found himself against the wall. 

"God in Heaven!" The ejaculation broke from Oleron's lips. The sound hadceased. 

The next moment he had given a high cry. 

"What is it? What's there? _Who's_ there?"

A sound of scuttling caused his knees to bend under him for a moment; butthat, he knew, was a mouse. That was not something that his stomachturned sick and his mind reeled to entertain. That other sound, the likeof which was not in the world, had now entirely ceased; and again hecalled. .. . 

He called and continued to call; and then another terror, a terror of thesound of his own voice, seized him. He did not dare to call again. Hisshaking hand went to his pocket for a match, but found none. He thoughtthere might be matches on the mantelpiece--

He worked his way to the mantelpiece round a little recess, without for amoment leaving the wall. Then his hand encountered the mantelpiece, andgroped along it. A box of matches fell to the hearth. He could just seethem in the firelight, but his hand could not pick them up until he hadcornered them inside the fender. 

Then he rose and struck a light. 

The room was as usual. He struck a second match. A candle stood on thetable. He lighted it, and the flame sank for a moment and then burned upclear. Again he looked round. 

There was nothing. 

There was nothing; but there had been something, and might still besomething. Formerly, Oleron had smiled at the fantastic thought that, by a merging and interplay of identities between himself and hisbeautiful room, he might be preparing a ghost for the future; it had notoccurred to him _that there might have been a similar merging andcoalescence in the past_. Yet with this staggering impossibility he wasnow face to face. Something did persist in the house; it had a tenantother than himself; and that tenant, whatsoever or whosoever, hadappalled Oleron's soul by producing the sound of a woman brushing herhair. 

VII

Without quite knowing how he came to be there Oleron found himselfstriding over the loose board he had temporarily placed on the stepbroken by Miss Bengough. He was hatless, and descending the stairs. Notuntil later did there return to him a hazy memory that he had left thecandle burning on the table, had opened the door no wider than wasnecessary to allow the passage of his body, and had sidled out, closingthe door softly behind him. At the foot of the stairs another shockawaited him. Something dashed with a flurry up from the disused cellarsand disappeared out of the door. It was only a cat, but Oleron gave achildish sob. 

He passed out of the gate, and stood for a moment under the "To Let"boards, plucking foolishly at his lip and looking up at the glimmerof light behind one of his red blinds. Then, still looking over hisshoulder, he moved stumblingly up the square. There was a smallpublic-house round the corner; Oleron had never entered it; but heentered it now, and put down a shilling that missed the counter byinches. 

"B--b--bran--brandy, " he said, and then stooped to look for the shilling. 

He had the little sawdusted bar to himself; what company therewas--carters and labourers and the small tradesmen of theneighbourhood--was gathered in the farther compartment, beyond the spacewhere the white-haired landlady moved among her taps and bottles. Oleronsat down on a hardwood settee with a perforated seat, drank half hisbrandy, and then, thinking he might as well drink it as spill it, finished it. 

Then he fell to wondering which of the men whose voices he heard acrossthe public-house would undertake the removal of his effects on themorrow. 

In the meantime he ordered more brandy. 

For he did not intend to go back to that room where he had left thecandle burning. Oh no! He couldn't have faced even the entry and thestaircase with the broken step--certainly not that pith-white, fascinating room. He would go back for the present to his oldarrangement, of workroom and separate sleeping-quarters; he wouldgo to his old landlady at once--presently--when he had finished hisbrandy--and see if she could put him up for the night. His glass wasempty now. .. . 

He rose, had it refilled, and sat down again. 

And if anybody asked his reason for removing again? Oh, he had reasonenough--reason enough! Nails that put themselves back into wood againand gashed people's hands, steps that broke when you trod on them, andwomen who came into a man's place and brushed their hair in the dark, were reasons enough! He was querulous and injured about it all. He hadtaken the place for himself, not for invisible women to brush theirhair in; that lawyer fellow in Lincoln's Inn should be told so, too, before many hours were out; it was outrageous, letting people in foragreements like that!

A cut-glass partition divided the compartment where Oleron sat from thespace where the white-haired landlady moved; but it stopped seven oreight inches above the level of the counter. There was no partition atthe farther bar. Presently Oleron, raising his eyes, saw that faces werewatching him through the aperture. The faces disappeared when he lookedat them. 

He moved to a corner where he could not be seen from the other bar; butthis brought him into line with the white-haired landlady. 

She knew him by sight--had doubtless seen him passing and repassing; andpresently she made a remark on the weather. Oleron did not know what hereplied, but it sufficed to call forth the further remark that the winterhad been a bad one for influenza, but that the spring weather seemed tobe coming at last. .. . Even this slight contact with the commonplacesteadied Oleron a little; an idle, nascent wonder whether the landladybrushed her hair every night, and, if so, whether it gave out thoselittle electric cracklings, was shut down with a snap; and Oleron wasbetter. .. . 

With his next glass of brandy he was all for going back to his flat. Notgo back? Indeed, he would go back! They should very soon see whether hewas to be turned out of his place like that! He began to wonder why hewas doing the rather unusual thing he was doing at that moment, unusualfor him--sitting hatless, drinking brandy, in a public-house. Suppose hewere to tell the white-haired landlady all about it--to tell her that acaller had scratched her hand on a nail, had later had the bad luck toput her foot through a rotten stair, and that he himself, in an old housefull of squeaks and creaks and whispers, had heard a minute noise and hadbolted from it in fright--what would she think of him? That he was mad, of course. .. . Pshaw! The real truth of the matter was that he hadn't beendoing enough work to occupy him. He had been dreaming his days away, filling his head with a lot of moonshine about a new _Romilly_ (as if theold one was not good enough), and now he was surprised that the devilshould enter an empty head!

Yes, he would go back. He would take a walk in the air first--he hadn'twalked enough lately--and then he would take himself in hand, settlethe hash of that sixteenth chapter of _Romilly_ (fancy, he had actuallybeen fool enough to think of destroying fifteen chapters!) andthenceforward he would remember that he had obligations to his fellow-menand work to do in the world. There was the matter in a nutshell. 

He finished his brandy and went out. 

He had walked for some time before any other bearing of the matter thanthat on himself occurred to him. At first, the fresh air had increasedthe heady effect of the brandy he had drunk; but afterwards his mind grewclearer than it had been since morning. And the clearer it grew, the lessfinal did his boastful self-assurances become, and the firmer hisconviction that, when all explanations had been made, there remainedsomething that could not be explained. His hysteria of an hour before hadpassed; he grew steadily calmer; but the disquieting conviction remained. A deep fear took possession of him. It was a fear for Elsie. 

For something in his place was inimical to her safety. Of themselves, hertwo accidents might not have persuaded him of this; but she herself hadsaid it. "_I'm not wanted here_. .. " And she had declared that there wassomething wrong with the place. She had seen it before he had. Well andgood. One thing stood out clearly: namely, that if this was so, she mustbe kept away for quite another reason than that which had so confoundedand humiliated Oleron. Luckily she had expressed her intention of stayingaway; she must be held to that intention. He must see to it. 

And he must see to it all the more that he now saw his first impulse, never to set foot in the place again, was absurd. People did not do thatkind of thing. With Elsie made secure, he could not with any respect tohimself suffer himself to be turned out by a shadow, nor even by a dangermerely because it was a danger. He had to live somewhere, and he wouldlive there. He must return. 

He mastered the faint chill of fear that came with the decision, andturned in his walk abruptly. Should fear grow on him again he would, perhaps, take one more glass of brandy. .. . 

But by the time he reached the short street that led to the square he wastoo late for more brandy. The little public-house was still lighted, butclosed, and one or two men were standing talking on the kerb. Oleronnoticed that a sudden silence fell on them as he passed, and he noticedfurther that the long-nosed Barrett, whom he passed a little lower down, did not return his good-night. He turned in at the broken gate, hesitatedmerely an instant in the alley, and then mounted his stairs again. 

Only an inch of candle remained in the Sheffield stick, and Oleron didnot light another one. Deliberately he forced himself to take it up andto make the tour of his five rooms before retiring. It was as he returnedfrom the kitchen across his little hall that he noticed that a letter layon the floor. He carried it into his sitting-room, and glanced at theenvelope before opening it. 

It was unstamped, and had been put into the door by hand. Its handwritingwas clumsy, and it ran from beginning to end without comma or period. Oleron read the first line, turned to the signature, and then finishedthe letter. 

It was from the man Barrett, and it informed Oleron that he, Barrett, would be obliged if Mr. Oleron would make other arrangements for thepreparing of his breakfasts and the cleaning-out of his place. The stinglay in the tail, that is to say, the postscript. This consisted of a textof Scripture. It embodied an allusion that could only be to ElsieBengough. .. . 

A seldom-seen frown had cut deeply into Oleron's brow. So! That was it!Very well; they would see about that on the morrow. .. . For the rest, thisseemed merely another reason why Elsie should keep away. .. . 

Then his suppressed rage broke out. .. . 

The foul-minded lot! The devil himself could not have given a leer atanything that had ever passed between Paul Oleron and Elsie Bengough, yet this nosing rascal must be prying and talking!. .. 

Oleron crumpled the paper up, held it in the candle flame, and thenground the ashes under his heel. 

One useful purpose, however, the letter had served: it had created inOleron a wrathful blaze that effectually banished pale shadows. Nevertheless, one other puzzling circumstance was to close the day. As heundressed, he chanced to glance at his bed. The coverlets bore an impressas if somebody had lain on them. Oleron could not remember that hehimself had lain down during the day--off-hand, he would have said thatcertainly he had not; but after all he could not be positive. Hisindignation for Elsie, acting possibly with the residue of the brandy inhim, excluded all other considerations; and he put out his candle, laydown, and passed immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep, which, inthe absence of Mrs. Barrett's morning call, lasted almost once round theclock. 

VIII

To the man who pays heed to that voice within him which warns him thattwilight and danger are settling over his soul, terror is apt to appearan absolute thing, against which his heart must be safeguarded in a twinkunless there is to take place an alteration in the whole range and scaleof his nature. Mercifully, he has never far to look for safeguards. Ofthe immediate and small and common and momentary things of life, ofusages and observances and modes and conventions, he builds upfortifications against the powers of darkness. He is even content that, not terror only, but joy also, should for working purposes be placed inthe category of the absolute things; and the last treason he will commitwill be that breaking down of terms and limits that strikes, not at oneman, but at the welfare of the souls of all. 

In his own person, Oleron began to commit this treason. He began tocommit it by admitting the inexplicable and horrible to an increasingfamiliarity. He did it insensibly, unconsciously, by a neglect of thethings that he now regarded it as an impertinence in Elsie Bengough tohave prescribed. Two months before, the words "a haunted house, " appliedto his lovely bemusing dwelling, would have chilled his marrow; now, his scale of sensation becoming depressed, he could ask "Haunted bywhat?" and remain unconscious that horror, when it can be proved to berelative, by so much loses its proper quality. He was setting aside thelandmarks. Mists and confusion had begun to enwrap him. 

And he was conscious of nothing so much as of a voraciousinquisitiveness. He wanted _to know_. He was resolved to know. Nothingbut the knowledge would satisfy him; and craftily he cast about for meanswhereby he might attain it. 

He might have spared his craft. The matter was the easiest imaginable. Asin time past he had known, in his writing, moments when his thoughtshad seemed to rise of themselves and to embody themselves in words not tobe altered afterwards, so now the questions he put himself seemed to beanswered even in the moment of their asking. There was exhilaration inthe swift, easy processes. He had known no so such joy in his own powersince the days when his writing had been a daily freshness and a delightto him. It was almost as if the course he must pursue was being dictatedto him. 

And the first thing he must do, of course, was to define the problem. Hedefined it in terms of mathematics. Granted that he had not the place tohimself; granted that the old house had inexpressibly caught and engagedhis spirit; granted that, by virtue of the common denominator of theplace, this unknown co-tenant stood in some relation to himself: whatnext? Clearly, the nature of the other numerator must be ascertained. 

And how? Ordinarily this would not have seemed simple, but to Oleron itwas now pellucidly clear. The key, _of course_, lay in his half-writtennovel--or rather, in both _Romillys_, the old and the proposed new one. 

A little while before Oleron would have thought himself mad to haveembraced such an opinion; now he accepted the dizzying hypothesis withouta quiver. 

He began to examine the first and second _Romillys_. 

From the moment of his doing so the thing advanced by leaps and bounds. Swiftly he reviewed the history of the _Romilly_ of the fifteen chapters. He remembered clearly now that he had found her insufficient on the veryfirst morning on which he had sat down to work in his new place. Otherinstances of his aversion leaped up to confirm his obscure investigation. There had come the night when he had hardly forborne to throw the wholething into the fire; and the next morning he had begun the planning ofthe new _Romilly_. It had been on that morning that Mrs. Barrett, overhearing him humming a brief phrase that the dripping of a tap thenight before had suggested, had informed him that he was singing some airhe had never in his life heard before, called "The Beckoning FairOne. ". .. 

The Beckoning Fair One!. .. 

With scarcely a pause in thought he continued:

The first _Romilly_ having been definitely thrown over, the second hadinstantly fastened herself upon him, clamouring for birth in his brain. He even fancied now, looking back, that there had been something likepassion, hate almost, in the supplanting, and that more than once a straythought given to his discarded creation had--(it was astonishing howcredible Oleron found the almost unthinkable idea)--had offended thesupplanter. 

Yet that a malignancy almost homicidal should be extended to hisfiction's poor mortal prototype. .. . 

In spite of his inuring to a scale in which the horrible was now a thingto be fingered and turned this way and that, a "Good God!" broke fromOleron. 

This intrusion of the first _Romilly's_ prototype into his thoughtagain was a factor that for the moment brought his inquiry into thenature of his problem to a termination; the mere thought of Elsie wasfatal to anything abstract. For another thing, he could not yet think ofthat letter of Barrett's, nor of a little scene that had followed it, without a mounting of colour and a quick contraction of the brow. For, wisely or not, he had had that argument out at once. Striding across thesquare on the following morning, he had bearded Barrett on his owndoorstep. Coming back again a few minutes later, he had been strongly ofopinion that he had only made matters worse. The man had been vaguenessitself. He had not been to be either challenged or browbeaten intoanything more definite than a muttered farrago in which the words"Certain things . .. Mrs. Barrett . .. Respectable house . .. If the capfits . .. Proceedings that shall be nameless, " had been constantlyrepeated. 

"Not that I make any charge--" he had concluded. 

"Charge!" Oleron had cried. 

"I 'ave my idears of things, as I don't doubt you 'ave yours--"

"Ideas--mine!" Oleron had cried wrathfully, immediately dropping hisvoice as heads had appeared at windows of the square. "Look you here, myman; you've an unwholesome mind, which probably you can't help, but atongue which you can help, and shall! If there is a breath of thisrepeated . .. "

"I'll not be talked to on my own doorstep like this by anybody, . .. "Barrett had blustered. .. . 

"You shall, and I'm doing it . .. "

"Don't you forget there's a Gawd above all, Who 'as said. .. "

"You're a low scandalmonger!. .. "

And so forth, continuing badly what was already badly begun. Oleron hadreturned wrathfully to his own house, and thenceforward, looking outof his windows, had seen Barrett's face at odd times, lifting blinds orpeering round curtains, as if he sought to put himself in possession ofHeaven knew what evidence, in case it should be required of him. 

The unfortunate occurrence made certain minor differences in Oleron'sdomestic arrangements. Barrett's tongue, he gathered, had already beenbusy; he was looked at askance by the dwellers of the square; and hejudged it better, until he should be able to obtain other help, to makehis purchases of provisions a little farther afield rather than at thesmall shops of the immediate neighbourhood. For the rest, housekeepingwas no new thing to him, and he would resume his old bachelor habits. .. . 

Besides, he was deep in certain rather abstruse investigations, in whichit was better that he should not be disturbed. 

He was looking out of his window one midday rather tired, not very well, and glad that it was not very likely he would have to stir out of doors, when he saw Elsie Bengough crossing the square towards his house. Theweather had broken; it was a raw and gusty day; and she had to forceher way against the wind that set her ample skirts bellying about heropulent figure and her veil spinning and streaming behind her. 

Oleron acted swiftly and instinctively. Seizing his hat, he sprang to thedoor and descended the stairs at a run. A sort of panic had seized him. She must be prevented from setting foot in the place. As he ran along thealley he was conscious that his eyes went up to the eaves as if somethingdrew them. He did not know that a slate might not accidentally fall. .. . 

He met her at the gate, and spoke with curious volubleness. 

"This is really too bad, Elsie! Just as I'm urgently called away! I'mafraid it can't be helped though, and that you'll have to think me aninhospitable beast. " He poured it out just as it came into his head. 

She asked if he was going to town. 

"Yes, yes--to town, " he replied. "I've got to call on--on Chambers. Youknow Chambers, don't you? No, I remember you don't; a big man you oncesaw me with. .. . I ought to have gone yesterday, and--" this he felt to bea brilliant effort--"and he's going out of town this afternoon. ToBrighton. I had a letter from him this morning. "

He took her arm and led her up the square. She had to remind him that hisway to town lay in the other direction. 

"Of course--how stupid of me!" he said, with a little loud laugh. "I'm soused to going the other way with you--of course; it's the other way tothe bus. Will you come along with me? I am so awfully sorry it's happenedlike this. .. . "

They took the street to the bus terminus. 

This time Elsie bore no signs of having gone through interior struggles. If she detected anything unusual in his manner she made no comment, andhe, seeing her calm, began to talk less recklessly through silences. Bythe time they reached the bus terminus, nobody, seeing the pallid-facedman without an overcoat and the large ample-skirted girl at his side, would have supposed that one of them was ready to sink on his knees forthankfulness that he had, as he believed, saved the other from a wildlyunthinkable danger. 

They mounted to the top of the bus, Oleron protesting that he should notmiss his overcoat, and that he found the day, if anything, ratheroppressively hot. They sat down on a front seat. 

Now that this meeting was forced upon him, he had something else to saythat would make demands upon his tact. It had been on his mind for sometime, and was, indeed, peculiarly difficult to put. He revolved it forsome minutes, and then, remembering the success of his story of a suddencall to town, cut the knot of his difficulty with another lie. 

"I'm thinking of going away for a little while, Elsie, " he said. 

She merely said, "Oh?"

"Somewhere for a change. I need a change. I think I shall go to-morrow, or the day after. Yes, to-morrow, I think. "

"Yes, " she replied. 

"I don't quite know how long I shall be, " he continued. "I shall have tolet you know when I am back. "

"Yes, let me know, " she replied in an even tone. 

The tone was, for her, suspiciously even. He was a little uneasy. 

"You don't ask me where I'm going, " he said, with a little cumbrouseffort to rally her. 

She was looking straight before her, past the bus-driver. 

"I know, " she said. 

He was startled. "How, you know?"

"You're not going anywhere, " she replied. 

He found not a word to say. It was a minute or so before she continued, in the same controlled voice she had employed from the start. 

"You're not going anywhere. You weren't going out this morning. You onlycame out because I appeared; don't behave as if we were strangers, Paul. "

A flush of pink had mounted to his cheeks. He noticed that the wind hadgiven her the pink of early rhubarb. Still he found nothing to say. 

"Of course, you ought to go away, " she continued. "I don't know whetheryou look at yourself often in the glass, but you're rather noticeable. Several people have turned to look at you this morning. So, of course, you ought to go away. But you won't, and I know why. "

He shivered, coughed a little, and then broke silence. 

"Then if you know, there's no use in continuing this discussion, " he saidcurtly. 

"Not for me, perhaps, but there is for you, " she replied. "Shall I tellyou what I know?"

"No, " he said in a voice slightly raised. 

"No?" she asked, her round eyes earnestly on him. 

"No. "

Again he was getting out of patience with her; again he was conscious ofthe strain. Her devotion and fidelity and love plagued him; she was onlyhumiliating both herself and him. It would have been bad enough had heever, by word or deed, given her cause for thus fastening herself onhim . .. But there; that was the worst of that kind of life for a woman. Women such as she, business women, in and out of offices all the time, always, whether they realised it or not, made comradeship a cover forsomething else. They accepted the unconventional status, came andwent freely, as men did, were honestly taken by men at their ownvaluation--and then it turned out to be the other thing after all, andthey went and fell in love. No wonder there was gossip in shops andsquares and public houses! In a sense the gossipers were in the right ofit. Independent, yet not efficient; with some of womanhood's gracesforgone, and yet with all the woman's hunger and need; halfsophisticated, yet not wise; Oleron was tired of it all. .. . 

And it was time he told her so. 

"I suppose, " he said tremblingly, looking down between his knees, "Isuppose the real trouble is in the life women who earn their own livingare obliged to lead. "

He could not tell in what sense she took the lame generality; she merelyreplied, "I suppose so. "

"It can't be helped, " he continued, "but you do sacrifice a good deal. "

She agreed: a good deal; and then she added after a moment, "What, forinstance?"

"You may or may not be gradually attaining a new status, but you're in afalse position to-day. "

It was very likely, she said; she hadn't thought of it much in thatlight--

"And, " he continued desperately, "you're bound to suffer. Your mostinnocent acts are misunderstood; motives you never dreamed of areattributed to you; and in the end it comes to--" he hesitated a momentand then took the plunge, "--to the sidelong look and the leer. "

She took his meaning with perfect ease. She merely shivered a little asshe pronounced the name. 

"Barrett?"

His silence told her the rest. 

Anything further that was to be said must come from her. It came as thebus stopped at a stage and fresh passengers mounted the stairs. 

"You'd better get down here and go back, Paul, " she said. "I understandperfectly--perfectly. It isn't Barrett. You'd be able to deal withBarrett. It's merely convenient for you to say it's Barrett. I know whatit is . .. But you said I wasn't to tell you that. Very well. But beforeyou go let me tell you why I came up this morning. "

In a dull tone he asked her why. Again she looked straight before her asshe replied:

"I came to force your hand. Things couldn't go on as they have beengoing, you know; and now that's all over. "

"All over, " he repeated stupidly. 

"All over. I want you now to consider yourself, as far as I'm concerned, perfectly free. I make only one reservation. "

He hardly had the spirit to ask her what that was. 

"If _I_ merely need _you_, " she said, "please don't give that a thought;that's nothing; I shan't come near for that. But, " she dropped her voice, "if _you're_ in need of _me_, Paul--I shall know if you are, _and youwill be_--then I shall come at no matter what cost. You understand that?"

He could only groan. 

"So that's understood, " she concluded. "And I think that's all. Now goback. I should advise you to walk back, for you're shivering--good-bye--"

She gave him a cold hand, and he descended. He turned on the edge of thekerb as the bus started again. For the first time in all the years he hadknown her she parted from him with no smile and no wave of her long arm. 

IX

He stood on the kerb plunged in misery, looking after her as long as sheremained in sight; but almost instantly with her disappearance he feltthe heaviness lift a little from his spirit. She had given him hisliberty; true, there was a sense in which he had never parted with it, but now was no time for splitting hairs; he was free to act, and all wasclear ahead. Swiftly the sense of lightness grew on him: it became apositive rejoicing in his liberty; and before he was halfway home he haddecided what must be done next. 

The vicar of the parish in which his dwelling was situated lived withinten minutes of the square. To his house Oleron turned his steps. It wasnecessary that he should have all the information he could get about thisold house with the insurance marks and the sloping "To Let" boards, andthe vicar was the person most likely to be able to furnish it. This lastpreliminary out of the way, and--aha! Oleron chuckled--things might beexpected to happen!

But he gained less information than he had hoped for. The house, thevicar said, was old--but there needed no vicar to tell Oleron that; itwas reputed (Oleron pricked up his ears) to be haunted--but there werefew old houses about which some such rumour did not circulate among theignorant; and the deplorable lack of Faith of the modern world, the vicarthought, did not tend to dissipate these superstitions. For the rest, his manner was the soothing manner of one who prefers not to makestatements without knowing how they will be taken by his hearer. Oleronsmiled as he perceived this. 

"You may leave my nerves out of the question, " he said. "How long has theplace been empty?"

"A dozen years, I should say, " the vicar replied. 

"And the last tenant--did you know him--or her?" Oleron was conscious ofa tingling of his nerves as he offered the vicar the alternative of sex. 

"Him, " said the vicar. "A man. If I remember rightly, his name wasMadley; an artist. He was a great recluse; seldom went out of the place, and--" the vicar hesitated and then broke into a little gush of candour"--and since you appear to have come for this information, and since itis better that the truth should be told than that garbled versions shouldget about, I don't mind saying that this man Madley died there, undersomewhat unusual circumstances. It was ascertained at the post-mortemthat there was not a particle of food in his stomach, although he wasfound to be not without money. And his frame was simply worn out. Suicidewas spoken of, but you'll agree with me that deliberate starvation is, tosay the least, an uncommon form of suicide. An open verdict wasreturned. "

"Ah!" said Oleron. .. . "Does there happen to be any comprehensive historyof this parish?"

"No; partial ones only. I myself am not guiltless of having made a numberof notes on its purely ecclesiastical history, its registers and soforth, which I shall be happy to show you if you would care to see them;but it is a large parish, I have only one curate, and my leisure, as youwill readily understand . .. "

The extent of the parish and the scantiness of the vicar's leisureoccupied the remainder of the interview, and Oleron thanked the vicar, took his leave, and walked slowly home. 

He walked slowly for a reason, twice turning away from the house within astone's-throw of the gate and taking another turn of twenty minutes orso. He had a very ticklish piece of work now before him; it required thegreatest mental concentration; it was nothing less than to bring hismind, if he might, into such a state of unpreoccupation and receptivitythat he should see the place as he had seen it on that morning when, his removal accomplished, he had sat down to begin the sixteenth chapterof the first _Romilly_. 

For, could he recapture that first impression, he now hoped for far morefrom it. Formerly, he had carried no end of mental lumber. Before theinfluence of the place had been able to find him out at all, it had hadthe inertia of those dreary chapters to overcome. No results had shown. The process had been one of slow saturation, charging, filling up to abrim. But now he was light, unburdened, rid at last both of that_Romilly_ and of her prototype. Now for the new unknown, coy, jealous, bewitching, Beckoning Fair!. .. 

At half-past two of the afternoon he put his key into the Yale lock, entered, and closed the door behind him. .. . 

His fantastic attempt was instantly and astonishingly successful. Hecould have shouted with triumph as he entered the room; it was as if hehad _escaped_ into it. Once more, as in the days when his writing had hada daily freshness and wonder and promise for him, he was conscious ofthat new ease and mastery and exhilaration and release. The air of theplace seemed to hold more oxygen; as if his own specific gravity hadchanged, his very tread seemed less ponderable. The flowers in the bowls, the fair proportions of the meadowsweet-coloured panels and mouldings, the polished floor, and the lofty and faintly starred ceiling, fairlylaughed their welcome. Oleron actually laughed back, and spoke aloud. 

"Oh, you're pretty, pretty!" he flattered it. 

Then he lay down on his couch. 

He spent that afternoon as a convalescent who expected a dear visitormight have spent it--in a delicious vacancy, smiling now and then asif in his sleep, and ever lifting drowsy and contented eyes to hisalluring surroundings. He lay thus until darkness came, and, withdarkness, the nocturnal noises of the old house. .. . 

But if he waited for any specific happening, he waited in vain. 

He waited similarly in vain on the morrow, maintaining, though with lessease, that sensitised-plate-like condition of his mind. Nothing occurredto give it an impression. Whatever it was which he so patiently wooed, itseemed to be both shy and exacting. 

Then on the third day he thought he understood. A look of gentle drolleryand cunning came into his eyes, and he chuckled. 

"Oho, oho!. .. Well, if the wind sits in _that_ quarter we must see whatelse there is to be done. What is there, now?. .. No, I won't send forElsie; we don't need a wheel to break the butterfly on; we won't go tothose lengths, my butterfly. .. . "

He was standing musing, thumbing his lean jaw, looking aslant; suddenlyhe crossed to his hall, took down his hat, and went out. 

"My lady is coquettish, is she? Well, we'll see what a little neglectwill do, " he chuckled as he went down the stairs. 

He sought a railway station, got into a train, and spent the rest of theday in the country. Oh, yes: Oleron thought _he_ was the man to deal withFair Ones who beckoned, and invited, and then took refuge in shyness andhanging back!

He did not return until after eleven that night. 

"_Now_, my Fair Beckoner!" he murmured as he walked along the alley andfelt in his pocket for his keys. .. . 

Inside his flat, he was perfectly composed, perfectly deliberate, exceedingly careful not to give himself away. As if to intimate that heintended to retire immediately, he lighted only a single candle; and ashe set out with it on his nightly round he affected to yawn. He wentfirst into his kitchen. There was a full moon, and a lozenge ofmoonlight, almost peacock-blue by contrast with his candle-frame, lay onthe floor. The window was uncurtained, and he could see the reflection ofthe candle, and, faintly, that of his own face, as he moved about. Thedoor of the powder-closet stood a little ajar, and he closed it beforesitting down to remove his boots on the chair with the cushion made ofthe folded harp-bag. From the kitchen he passed to the bathroom. There, another slant of blue moonlight cut the windowsill and lay across thepipes on the wall. He visited his seldom-used study, and stood for amoment gazing at the silvered roofs across the square. Then, walkingstraight through his sitting-room, his stockinged feet making no noise, he entered his bedroom and put the candle on the chest of drawers. Hisface all this time wore no expression save that of tiredness. He hadnever been wilier nor more alert. 

His small bedroom fireplace was opposite the chest of drawers on whichthe mirror stood, and his bed and the window occupied the remainingsides of the room. Oleron drew down his blind, took off his coat, andthen stooped to get his slippers from under the bed. 

He could have given no reason for the conviction, but that themanifestation that for two days had been withheld was close at hand henever for an instant doubted. Nor, though he could not form the faintestguess of the shape it might take, did he experience fear. Startling orsurprising it might be; he was prepared for that; but that was all; hisscale of sensation had become depressed. His hand moved this way and thatunder the bed in search of his slippers. .. . 

But for all his caution and method and preparedness, his heart all atonce gave a leap and a pause that was almost horrid. His hand had foundthe slippers, but he was still on his knees; save for this circumstancehe would have fallen. The bed was a low one; the groping for the slippersaccounted for the turn of his head to one side; and he was careful tokeep the attitude until he had partly recovered his self-possession. Whenpresently he rose there was a drop of blood on his lower lip where he hadcaught at it with his teeth, and his watch had jerked out of the pocketof his waistcoat and was dangling at the end of its short leatherguard. .. . 

Then, before the watch had ceased its little oscillation, he was himselfagain. 

In the middle of his mantelpiece there stood a picture, a portrait of hisgrandmother; he placed himself before this picture, so that he could seein the glass of it the steady flame of the candle that burned behind himon the chest of drawers. He could see also in the picture-glass thelittle glancings of light from the bevels and facets of the objects aboutthe mirror and candle. But he could see more. These twinklings andreflections and re-reflections did not change their position; but therewas one gleam that had motion. It was fainter than the rest, and it movedup and down through the air. It was the reflection of the candle onOleron's black vulcanite comb, and each of its downward movements wasaccompanied by a silky and crackling rustle. 

Oleron, watching what went on in the glass of his grandmother's portrait, continued to play his part. He felt for his dangling watch and beganslowly to wind it up. Then, for a moment ceasing to watch, he began toempty his trousers pockets and to place methodically in a little row onthe mantelpiece the pennies and halfpennies he took from them. Thesweeping, minutely electric noise filled the whole bedroom, and hadOleron altered his point of observation he could have brought the dimgleam of the moving comb so into position that it would almost haveoutlined his grandmother's head. 

Any other head of which it might have been following the outline wasinvisible. 

Oleron finished the emptying of his pockets; then, under cover of anothersimulated yawn, not so much summoning his resolution as overmastered byan exhorbitant curiosity, he swung suddenly round. That which was beingcombed was still not to be seen, but the comb did not stop. It hadaltered its angle a little, and had moved a little to the left. It waspassing, in fairly regular sweeps, from a point rather more than fivefeet from the ground, in a direction roughly vertical, to another point afew inches below the level of the chest of drawers. 

Oleron continued to act to admiration. He walked to his little washstandin the corner, poured out water, and began to wash his hands. He removedhis waistcoat, and continued his preparations for bed. The combing didnot cease, and he stood for a moment in thought. Again his eyes twinkled. The next was very cunning--

"Hm!. .. _I think I'll read for a quarter of an hour_, " he said aloud. .. . 

He passed out of the room. 

He was away a couple of minutes; when he returned again the room wassuddenly quiet. He glanced at the chest of drawers; the comb lay still, between the collar he had removed and a pair of gloves. Withouthesitation Oleron put out his hand and picked it up. It was an ordinaryeighteenpenny comb, taken from a card in a chemist's shop, of a substanceof a definite specific gravity, and no more capable of rebellion againstthe Laws by which it existed than are the worlds that keep their orbitsthrough the void. Oleron put it down again; then he glanced at the bundleof papers he held in his hand. What he had gone to fetch had been thefifteen chapters of the original _Romilly_. 

"Hm!" he muttered as he threw the manuscript into a chair. .. . "As Ithought. .. . She's just blindly, ragingly, murderously jealous. "

 * * * * *

On the night after that, and on the following night, and for many nightsand days, so many that he began to be uncertain about the count of them, Oleron, courting, cajoling, neglecting, threatening, beseeching, eatenout with unappeased curiosity and regardless that his life was becomingone consuming passion and desire, continued his search for the unknownco-numerator of his abode. 

X

As time went on, it came to pass that few except the postman mountedOleron's stairs; and since men who do not write letters receive few, eventhe postman's tread became so infrequent that it was not heard more thanonce or twice a week. There came a letter from Oleron's publishers, asking when they might expect to receive the manuscript of his new book;he delayed for some days to answer it, and finally forgot it. A secondletter came, which also he failed to answer. He received no third. 

The weather grew bright and warm. The privet bushes among thechopper-like notice-boards flowered, and in the streets where Oleron didhis shopping the baskets of flower-women lined the kerbs. Oleronpurchased flowers daily; his room clamoured for flowers, fresh andcontinually renewed; and Oleron did not stint its demands. Nevertheless, the necessity for going out to buy them began to irk him more and more, and it was with a greater and ever greater sense of relief that hereturned home again. He began to be conscious that again his scale ofsensation had suffered a subtle change--a change that was not restorationto its former capacity, but an extension and enlarging that once moreincluded terror. It admitted it in an entirely new form. _Lux orco, tenebrae Jovi_. The name of this terror was agoraphobia. Oleron had begunto dread air and space and the horror that might pounce upon theunguarded back. 

Presently he so contrived it that his food and flowers were delivereddaily at his door. He rubbed his hands when he had hit upon thisexpedient. That was better! Now he could please himself whether he wentout or not. .. . 

Quickly he was confirmed in his choice. It became his pleasure to remainimmured. 

But he was not happy--or, if he was, his happiness took an extraordinaryturn. He fretted discontentedly, could sometimes have wept for mereweakness and misery; and yet he was dimly conscious that he would nothave exchanged his sadness for all the noisy mirth of the world outside. And speaking of noise: noise, much noise, now caused him the acutestdiscomfort. It was hardly more to be endured than that new-born fear thatkept him, on the increasingly rare occasions when he did go out, sidlingclose to walls and feeling friendly railings with his hand. He moved fromroom to room softly and in slippers, and sometimes stood for many secondsclosing a door so gently that not a sound broke the stillness that was initself a delight. Sunday now became an intolerable day to him, for, sincethe coming of the fine weather, there had begun to assemble in the squareunder his windows each Sunday morning certain members of the sect towhich the long-nosed Barrett adhered. These came with a great drum andlarge brass-bellied instruments; men and women uplifted anguished voices, struggling with their God; and Barrett himself, with upraised face andclosed eyes and working brows, prayed that the sound of his voice mightpenetrate the ears of all unbelievers--as it certainly did Oleron's. Oneday, in the middle of one of these rhapsodies, Oleron sprang to his blindand pulled it down, and heard as he did so his own name made the subjectof a fresh torrent of outpouring. 

And sometimes, but not as expecting a reply, Oleron stood still andcalled softly. Once or twice he called "Romilly!" and then waited; butmore often his whispering did not take the shape of a name. 

There was one spot in particular of his abode that he began to haunt withincreasing persistency. This was just within the opening of his bedroomdoor. He had discovered one day that by opening every door in his place(always excepting the outer one, which he only opened unwillingly) and byplacing himself on this particular spot, he could actually see to agreater or less extent into each of his five rooms without changing hisposition. He could see the whole of his sitting-room, all of his bedroomexcept the part hidden by the open door, and glimpses of his kitchen, bathroom, and of his rarely used study. He was often in this place, breathless and with his finger on his lip. One day, as he stood there, hesuddenly found himself wondering whether this Madley, of whom the vicarhad spoken, had ever discovered the strategic importance of the bedroomentry. 

Light, moreover, now caused him greater disquietude than did darkness. Direct sunlight, of which, as the sun passed daily round the house, eachof his rooms had now its share, was like a flame in his brain; and evendiffused light was a dull and numbing ache. He began, at successive hoursof the day, one after another, to lower his crimson blinds. He made shortand daring excursions in order to do this; but he was ever careful toleave his retreat open, in case he should have sudden need of it. Presently this lowering of the blinds had become a daily methodicalexercise, and his rooms, when he had been his round, had the blood-redhalf-light of a photographer's darkroom. 

One day, as he drew down the blind of his little study and backed in goodorder out of the room again, he broke into a soft laugh. 

"_That_ bilks Mr. Barrett!" he said; and the baffling of Barrettcontinued to afford him mirth for an hour. 

But on another day, soon after, he had a fright that left him tremblingalso for an hour. He had seized the cord to darken the window over theseat in which he had found the harp-bag, and was standing with his backwell protected in the embrasure, when he thought he saw the tail of ablack-and-white check skirt disappear round the corner of the house. Hecould not be sure--had he run to the window of the other wall, which wasblinded, the skirt must have been already past--but he was _almost_ surethat it was Elsie. He listened in an agony of suspense for her tread onthe stairs. .. . 

But no tread came, and after three or four minutes he drew a long breathof relief. 

"By Jove, but that would have compromised me horribly!" he muttered. .. . 

And he continued to mutter from time to time, "Horriblycompromising . .. _no_ woman would stand that . .. Not _any_ kind ofwoman . .. Oh, compromising in the extreme!"

Yet he was not happy. He could not have assigned the cause of the fits ofquiet weeping which took him sometimes; they came and went, like thefitful illumination of the clouds that travelled over the square; andperhaps, after all, if he was not happy, he was not unhappy. Beforehe could be unhappy something must have been withdrawn, and nothing hadyet been withdrawn from him, for nothing had been granted. He was waitingfor that granting, in that flower-laden, frightfully enticing apartmentof his, with the pith-white walls tinged and subdued by the crimsonblinds to a blood-like gloom. 

He paid no heed to it that his stock of money was running perilously low, nor that he had ceased to work. Ceased to work? He had not ceased towork. They knew very little about it who supposed that Oleron had ceasedto work! He was in truth only now beginning to work. He was preparingsuch a work . .. Such a work . .. Such a Mistress was a-making in thegestation of his Art . .. Let him but get this period of probation andpoignant waiting over and men should see. .. . How _should_ men know her, this Fair One of Oleron's, until Oleron himself knew her? Lovely radiantcreations are not thrown off like How-d'ye-do's. The men to whom it iscommitted to father them must weep wretched tears, as Oleron did, mustswell with vain presumptuous hopes, as Oleron did, must pursue, as Oleronpursued, the capricious, fair, mocking, slippery, eager Spirit that, evereluding, ever sees to it that the chase does not slacken. Let Oleron buthunt this Huntress a little longer. .. He would have her sparklingand panting in his arms yet. .. . Oh no: they were very far from the truthwho supposed that Oleron had ceased to work!

And if all else was falling away from Oleron, gladly he was letting itgo. So do we all when our Fair Ones beckon. Quite at the beginning wewink, and promise ourselves that we will put Her Ladyship through herpaces, neglect her for a day, turn her own jealous wiles against her, flout and ignore her when she comes wheedling; perhaps there lurks withinus all the time a heartless sprite who is never fooled; but in the endall falls away. She beckons, beckons, and all goes. .. . 

And so Oleron kept his strategic post within the frame of his bedroomdoor, and watched, and waited, and smiled, with his finger on hislips. .. . It was his duteous service, his worship, his troth-plighting, all that he had ever known of Love. And when he found himself, as he nowand then did, hating the dead man Madley, and wishing that he had neverlived, he felt that that, too, was an acceptable service. .. . 

But, as he thus prepared himself, as it were, for a Marriage, and mopedand chafed more and more that the Bride made no sign, he made a discoverythat he ought to have made weeks before. 

It was through a thought of the dead Madley that he made it. Since thatnight when he had thought in his greenness that a little studied neglectwould bring the lovely Beckoner to her knees, and had made use of her ownjealousy to banish her, he had not set eyes on those fifteen discardedchapters of _Romilly_. He had thrown them back into the window-seat, forgotten their very existence. But his own jealousy of Madley put him inmind of hers of her jilted rival of flesh and blood, and he rememberedthem. .. . Fool that he had been! Had he, then, expected his Desire tomanifest herself while there still existed the evidence of his dividedallegiance? What, and she with a passion so fierce and centred that ithad not hesitated at the destruction, twice attempted, of her rival? Foolthat he had been!. .. 

But if _that_ was all the pledge and sacrifice she required she shouldhave it--ah, yes, and quickly!

He took the manuscript from the window-seat, and brought it to the fire. 

He kept his fire always burning now; the warmth brought out the lastvestige of odour of the flowers with which his room was banked. He didnot know what time it was; long since he had allowed his clock to rundown--it had seemed a foolish measurer of time in regard to thestupendous things that were happening to Oleron; but he knew it was late. He took the _Romilly_ manuscript and knelt before the fire. 

But he had not finished removing the fastening that held the sheetstogether before he suddenly gave a start, turned his head over hisshoulder, and listened intently. The sound he had heard had not beenloud--it had been, indeed, no more than a tap, twice or thricerepeated--but it had filled Oleron with alarm. His face grew dark asit came again. 

He heard a voice outside on his landing. 

"Paul!. .. Paul!. .. "

It was Elsie's voice. 

"Paul!. .. I know you're in. .. I want to see you. .. . "

He cursed her under his breath, but kept perfectly still. He did notintend to admit her. 

"Paul!. .. You're in trouble. .. . I believe you're in danger. .. At leastcome to the door!. .. "

Oleron smothered a low laugh. It somehow amused him that she, in suchdanger herself, should talk to him of _his_ danger!. .. Well, if she was, serve her right; she knew, or said she knew, all about it. .. . 

"Paul!. .. Paul!. .. "

"_Paul!. .. Paul!_. .. " He mimicked her under his breath. 

"Oh, Paul, it's _horrible_!. .. "

Horrible, was it? thought Oleron. Then let her get away. .. . 

"I only want to help you, Paul. .. . I didn't promise not to come if youneeded me. .. . "

He was impervious to the pitiful sob that interrupted the low cry. Thedevil take the woman! Should he shout to her to go away and not comeback? No: let her call and knock and sob. She had a gift for sobbing; shemustn't think her sobs would move him. They irritated him, so that he sethis teeth and shook his fist at her, but that was all. Let her sob. 

"_Paul!. .. Paul!_. .. "

With his teeth hard set, he dropped the first page of _Romilly_ into thefire. Then he began to drop the rest in, sheet by sheet. 

For many minutes the calling behind his door continued; then suddenly itceased. He heard the sound of feet slowly descending the stairs. Helistened for the noise of a fall or a cry or the crash of a piece of thehandrail of the upper landing; but none of these things came. She wasspared. Apparently her rival suffered her to crawl abject and beatenaway. Oleron heard the passing of her steps under his window; then shewas gone. 

He dropped the last page into the fire, and then, with a low laugh rose. He looked fondly round his room. 

"Lucky to get away like that, " he remarked. "She wouldn't have got awayif I'd given her as much as a word or a look! What devils these womenare!. .. But no; I oughtn't to say that; one of 'em showedforbearance. .. . "

Who showed forbearance? And what was forborne? Ah, Oleronknew!. .. Contempt, no doubt, had been at the bottom of it, but thatdidn't matter: the pestering creature had been allowed to go unharmed. Yes, she was lucky; Oleron hoped she knew it. .. . 

And now, now, now for his reward!

Oleron crossed the room. All his doors were open; his eyes shone as heplaced himself within that of his bedroom. 

Fool that he had been, not to think of destroying the manuscriptsooner!. .. 

 * * * * *

How, in a houseful of shadows, should he know his own Shadow? How, in ahouseful of noises, distinguish the summons he felt to be at hand? Ah, trust him! He would know! The place was full of a jugglery of dim lights. The blind at his elbow that allowed the light of a street lamp tostruggle vaguely through--the glimpse of greeny blue moonlight seenthrough the distant kitchen door--the sulky glow of the fire under theblack ashes of the burnt manuscript--the glimmering of the tulips and themoon-daisies and narcissi in the bowls and jugs and jars--these did notso trick and bewilder his eyes that he would not know his Own! It was he, not she, who had been delaying the shadowy Bridal; he hung his head for amoment in mute acknowledgment; then he bent his eyes on the deceiving, puzzling gloom again. He would have called her name had he known it--butnow he would not ask her to share even a name with the other. .. . 

His own face, within the frame of the door, glimmered white as thenarcissi in the darkness. .. . 

A shadow, light as fleece, seemed to take shape in the kitchen (the timehad been when Oleron would have said that a cloud had passed over theunseen moon). The low illumination on the blind at his elbow grew dimmer(the time had been when Oleron would have concluded that the lamplightergoing his rounds had turned low the flame of the lamp). The fire settled, letting down the black and charred papers; a flower fell from a bowl, and lay indistinct upon the floor; all was still; and then a straydraught moved through the old house, passing before Oleron's face. .. . 

Suddenly, inclining his head, he withdrew a little from the door-jamb. The wandering draught caused the door to move a little on its hinges. Oleron trembled violently, stood for a moment longer, and then, puttinghis hand out to the knob, softly drew the door to, sat down on thenearest chair, and waited, as a man might await the calling of his namethat should summon him to some weighty, high and privy Audience. .. . 

XI

One knows not whether there can be human compassion for anemia of thesoul. When the pitch of Life is dropped, and the spirit is so put overand reversed that that only is horrible which before was sweet andworldly and of the day, the human relation disappears. The sane soulturns appalled away, lest not merely itself, but sanity should suffer. We are not gods. We cannot drive out devils. We must see selfishlyto it that devils do not enter into ourselves. 

And this we must do even though Love so transfuse us that we may welldeem our nature to be half divine. We shall but speak of honour and dutyin vain. The letter dropped within the dark door will lie unregarded, or, if regarded for a brief instant between two unspeakable lapses, left andforgotten again. The telegram will be undelivered, nor will the whistlingmessenger (wiselier guided than he knows to whistle) be conscious as hewalks away of the drawn blind that is pushed aside an inch by a fingerand then fearfully replaced again. No: let the miserable wrestle with hisown shadows; let him, if indeed he be so mad, clip and strain and enfoldand couch the succubus; but let him do so in a house into which not anair of Heaven penetrates, nor a bright finger of the sun pierces thefilthy twilight. The lost must remain lost. Humanity has other businessto attend to. 

For the handwriting of the two letters that Oleron, stealing noiselesslyone June day into his kitchen to rid his sitting-room of an armful offetid and decaying flowers, had seen on the floor within his door, hadhad no more meaning for him than if it had belonged to some dim andfaraway dream. And at the beating of the telegraph-boy upon the door, within a few feet of the bed where he lay, he had gnashed his teeth andstopped his ears. He had pictured the lad standing there, just beyond hispartition, among packets of provisions and bundles of dead and dyingflowers. For his outer landing was littered with these. Oleron had fearedto open his door to take them in. After a week, the errand lads hadreported that there must be some mistake about the order, and had left nomore. Inside, in the red twilight, the old flowers turned brown and felland decayed where they lay. 

Gradually his power was draining away. The Abomination fastened onOleron's power. The steady sapping sometimes left him for many hoursof prostration gazing vacantly up at his red-tinged ceiling, idlysuffering such fancies as came of themselves to have their way with him. Even the strongest of his memories had no more than a precarious holdupon his attention. Sometimes a flitting half-memory, of a novel to bewritten, a novel it was important that he should write, tantalised himfor a space before vanishing again; and sometimes whole novels, perfect, splendid, established to endure, rose magically before him. And sometimesthe memories were absurdly remote and trivial, of garrets he hadinhabited and lodgings that had sheltered him, and so forth. Oleron hadknown a good deal about such things in his time, but all that was nowpast. He had at last found a place which he did not intend to leave untilthey fetched him out--a place that some might have thought a little onthe green-sick side, that others might have considered to be a little tooredolent of long-dead and morbid things for a living man to be mewed upin, but ah, so irresistible, with such an authority of its own, with suchan associate of its own, and a place of such delights when once a man hadceased to struggle against its inexorable will! A novel? Somebody oughtto write a novel about a place like that! There must be lots to writeabout in a place like that if one could but get to the bottom of it! Ithad probably already been painted, by a man called Madley who had livedthere . .. But Oleron had not known this Madley--had a strong feelingthat he wouldn't have liked him--would rather he had lived somewhereelse--really couldn't stand the fellow--hated him, Madley, in fact. (Aha!That was a joke!). He seriously doubted whether the man had led the lifehe ought; Oleron was in two minds sometimes whether he wouldn't tell thatlong-nosed guardian of the public morals across the way about him; butprobably he knew, and had made his praying hullabaloos for him also. That was his line. Why, Oleron himself had had a dust-up with him aboutsomething or other . .. Some girl or other . .. Elsie Bengough her namewas, he remembered. .. . 

Oleron had moments of deep uneasiness about this Elsie Bengough. Orrather, he was not so much uneasy about her as restless about the thingsshe did. Chief of these was the way in which she persisted in thrustingherself into his thoughts; and, whenever he was quick enough, he sent herpacking the moment she made her appearance there. The truth was that shewas not merely a bore; she had always been that; it had now come to thepitch when her very presence in his fancy was inimical to the fullenjoyment of certain experiences. .. . She had no tact; really ought tohave known that people are not at home to the thoughts of everybody allthe time; ought in mere politeness to have allowed him certain seasonsquite to himself; and was monstrously ignorant of things if she did notknow, as she appeared not to know, that there were certain special hourswhen a man's veins ran with fire and daring and power, in which . .. Well, in which he had a reasonable right to treat folk as he had treated thatprying Barrett--to shut them out completely. .. . But no: up she popped, the thought of her, and ruined all. Bright towering fabrics, by the sideof which even those perfect, magical novels of which he dreamed were dunand grey, vanished utterly at her intrusion. It was as if a fog shouldsuddenly quench some fair-beaming star, as if at the threshold of somegolden portal prepared for Oleron a pit should suddenly gape, as if abat-like shadow should turn the growing dawn to mirk and darknessagain. .. . Therefore, Oleron strove to stifle even the nascent thoughtof her. 

Nevertheless, there came an occasion on which this woman Bengoughabsolutely refused to be suppressed. Oleron could not have told exactlywhen this happened; he only knew by the glimmer of the street lamp on hisblind that it was some time during the night, and that for some time shehad not presented herself. 

He had no warning, none, of her coming; she just came--was there. Striveas he would, he could not shake off the thought of her nor the image ofher face. She haunted him. 

But for her to come at that moment of all moments!. .. Really, it was pastbelief! How she could endure it, Oleron could not conceive! Actually, tolook on, as it were, at the triumph of a Rival. .. . Good God! It wasmonstrous! tact--reticence--he had never credited her with anoverwhelming amount of either: but he had never attributed mere--oh, there was no word for it! Monstrous--monstrous! Did she intendthenceforward. .. . Good God! To look on!. .. 

Oleron felt the blood rush up to the roots of his hair with anger againsther. 

"Damnation take her!" he choked. .. . 

But the next moment his heat and resentment had changed to a cold sweatof cowering fear. Panic-stricken, he strove to comprehend what he haddone. For though he knew not what, he knew he had done something, something fatal, irreparable, blasting. Anger he had felt, but not _this_blaze of ire that suddenly flooded the twilight of his consciousness witha white infernal light. _That_ appalling flash was not his--not his_that_ open rift of bright and searing Hell--not his, not his! His hadbeen the hand of a child, preparing a puny blow; but what was _thisother_ horrific hand that was drawn back to strike in the same place? Had_he_ set that in motion? Had _he_ provided the spark that had touched offthe whole accumulated power of that formidable and relentless place? Hedid not know. He only knew that that poor igniting particle in himselfwas blown out, that--Oh, impossible!--a clinging kiss (how else toexpress it?) had changed on his very lips to a gnashing and a removal, and that for very pity of the awful odds he must cry out to her againstwhom he had lately raged to guard herself . .. Guard herself. .. . 

"_Look out!_" he shrieked aloud. .. . 

 * * * * *

The revulsion was instant. As if a cold slow billow had broken over him, he came to to find that he was lying in his bed, that the mist and horrorthat had for so long enwrapped him had departed, that he was Paul Oleron, and that he was sick, naked, helpless, and unutterably abandoned andalone. His faculties, though weak, answered at last to his calls uponthem; and he knew that it must have been a hideous nightmare that hadleft him sweating and shaking thus. 

Yes, he was himself, Paul Oleron, a tired novelist, already past thesummit of his best work, and slipping downhill again empty-handed from itall. He had struck short in his life's aim. He had tried too much, hadover-estimated his strength, and was a failure, a failure. .. . 

It all came to him in the single word, enwrapped and complete; it neededno sequential thought; he was a failure. He had missed. .. . 

And he had missed not one happiness, but two. He had missed the ease ofthis world, which men love, and he had missed also that other shiningprize for which men forgo ease, the snatching and holding and triumphantbearing up aloft of which is the only justification of the mad adventurerwho hazards the enterprise. And there was no second attempt. Fate has nomorrow. Oleron's morrow must be to sit down to profitless, ill-done, unrequired work again, and so on the morrow after that, and the morrowafter that, and as many morrows as there might be. .. . 

He lay there, weakly yet sanely considering it. .. . 

And since the whole attempt had failed, it was hardly worth while toconsider whether a little might not be saved from the general wreck. Nogood would ever come of that half-finished novel. He had intended that itshould appear in the autumn; was under contract that it should appear; nomatter; it was better to pay forfeit to his publishers than to waste whatdays were left. He was spent; age was not far off; and paths of wisdomand sadness were the properest for the remainder of the journey. .. . 

If only he had chosen the wife, the child the faithful friend at thefireside, and let them follow an _ignis fatuus_ that list!. .. 

In the meantime it began to puzzle him exceedingly what he should be soweak, that his room should smell so overpoweringly of decaying vegetablematter, and that his hand, chancing to stray to his face in the darkness, should encounter a beard. 

"Most extraordinary!" he began to mutter to himself. "Have I been ill? AmI ill now? And if so, why have they left me alone?. .. Extraordinary!. .. "

He thought he heard a sound from the kitchen or bathroom. He rose alittle on his pillow, and listened. .. . Ah! He was not alone, then! Itcertainly would have been extraordinary if they had left him ill andalone--Alone? Oh no. He would be looked after. He wouldn't be left, ill, to shift for himself. If everybody else had forsaken him, he could trustElsie Bengough, the dearest chum he had, for that . .. Bless her faithfulheart!

But suddenly a short, stifled, spluttering cry rang sharply out:

"_Paul!_"

It came from the kitchen. 

And in the same moment it flashed upon Oleron, he knew not how, that two, three, five, he knew not how many minutes before, another sound, unmarkedat the time but suddenly transfixing his attention now, had striven toreach his intelligence. This sound had been the slight touch of metal onmetal--just such a sound as Oleron made when he put his key into thelock. 

"Hallo!. .. Who's that?" he called sharply from his bed. 

He had no answer. 

He called again. "Hallo!. .. Who's there?. .. Who is it?"

This time he was sure he heard noises, soft and heavy, in the kitchen. 

"This is a queer thing altogether, " he muttered. "By Jove, I'm as weak asa kitten too. .. . Hallo, there! Somebody called, didn't they?. .. Elsie! Isthat you?. .. "

Then he began to knock with his hand on the wall at the side of his bed. 

"Elsie!. .. Elsie!. .. You called, didn't you?. .. Please come here, whoeverit is!. .. "

There was a sound as of a closing door, and then silence. Oleron began toget rather alarmed. 

"It may be a nurse, " he muttered; "Elsie'd have to get me a nurse, ofcourse. She'd sit with me as long as she could spare the time, bravelass, and she'd get a nurse for the rest. .. . But it was awfully like hervoice. .. . Elsie, or whoever it is!. .. I can't make this out at all. Imust go and see what's the matter. .. . "

He put one leg out of bed. Feeling its feebleness, he reached with hishand for the additional support of the wall. .. . 

 * * * * *

But before putting out the other leg he stopped and considered, pickingat his new-found beard. He was suddenly wondering whether he _dared_ gointo the kitchen. It was such a frightfully long way; no man knew whathorror might not leap and huddle on his shoulders if he went so far;when a man has an overmastering impulse to get back into bed he ought totake heed of the warning and obey it. Besides, why should he go? Whatwas there to go for? If it was that Bengough creature again, let her lookafter herself; Oleron was not going to have things cramp themselves onhis defenceless back for the sake of such a spoilsport as _she_!. .. Ifshe was in, let her let herself out again, and the sooner the better forher! Oleron simply couldn't be bothered. He had his work to do. On themorrow, he must set about the writing of a novel with a heroine sowinsome, capricious, adorable, jealous, wicked, beautiful, inflaming, andaltogether evil, that men should stand amazed. She was coming over himnow; he knew by the alteration of the very air of the room when she wasnear him; and that soft thrill of bliss that had begun to stir in himnever came unless she was beckoning, beckoning. .. . 

He let go the wall and fell back into bed again as--oh, unthinkable!--theother half of that kiss that a gnash had interrupted was placed (how elseconvey it?) on his lips, robbing him of very breath. .. . 

XII

In the bright June sunlight a crowd filled the square, and looked up atthe windows of the old house with the antique insurance marks in itswalls of red brick and the agents' notice-boards hanging like woodenchoppers over the paling. Two constables stood at the broken gate of thenarrow entrance-alley, keeping folk back. The women kept to the outskirtsof the throng, moving now and then as if to see the drawn red blinds ofthe old house from a new angle, and talking in whispers. The childrenwere in the houses, behind closed doors. 

A long-nosed man had a little group about him, and he was telling somestory over and over again; and another man, little and fat and wide-eyed, sought to capture the long-nosed man's audience with some relation inwhich a key figured. 

". .. And it was revealed to me that there'd been something that veryafternoon, " the long-nosed man was saying. "I was standing there, whereConstable Saunders is--or rather, I was passing about my business, whenthey came out. There was no deceiving me, oh, no deceiving _me! I_ sawher face. .. . "

"What was it like, Mr. Barrett?" a man asked. 

"It was like hers whom our Lord said to, 'Woman, doth any man accusethee?'--white as paper, and no mistake! Don't tell _me_!. .. And so Iwalks straight across to Mrs. Barrett, and 'Jane, ' I says, 'this muststop, and stop at once; we are commanded to avoid evil, ' I says, 'and itmust come to an end now; let him get help elsewhere. '

"And she says to me, 'John, ' she says, 'it's four-and-sixpence aweek'--them was her words. 

"'Jane, ' I says, 'if it was forty-six thousand pounds it shouldstop'. .. And from that day to this she hasn't set foot inside that gate. "

There was a short silence: then, "Did Mrs. Barrett ever. .. _ see_ anythink, like?" somebody vaguelyinquired. 

Barrett turned austerely on the speaker. 

"What Mrs. Barrett saw and Mrs. Barrett didn't see shall not pass theselips; even as it is written, keep thy tongue from speaking evil, " hesaid. 

Another man spoke. 

"He was pretty near canned up in the _Waggon and Horses_ that night, weren't he, Jim?"

"Yes, 'e 'adn't 'alf copped it. .. . "

"Not standing treat much, neither; he was in the bar, all on his own. .. . "

"So 'e was; we talked about it. .. . "

The fat, scared-eyed man made another attempt. 

"She got the key off of me--she 'ad the number of it--she come into myshop of a Tuesday evening. .. . "

Nobody heeded him. 

"Shut your heads, " a heavy labourer commented gruffly, "she hasn't beenfound yet. 'Ere's the inspectors; we shall know more in a bit. "

Two inspectors had come up and were talking to the constables who guardedthe gate. The little fat man ran eagerly forward, saying that she hadbought the key of him. "I remember the number, because of it's beingthree one's and three three's--111333!" he exclaimed excitedly. 

An inspector put him aside. 

"Nobody's been in?" he asked of one of the constables. 

"No, sir. "

"Then you, Brackley, come with us; you, Smith, keep the gate. There's asquad on its way. "

The two inspectors and the constable passed down the alley and enteredthe house. They mounted the wide carved staircase. 

"This don't look as if he'd been out much lately, " one of the inspectorsmuttered as he kicked aside a litter of dead leaves and paper that layoutside Oleron's door. "I don't think we need knock--break a pane, Brackley. "

The door had two glazed panels; there was a sound of shattered glass; andBrackley put his hand through the hole his elbow had made and drew backthe latch. 

"Faugh!". .. Choked one of the inspectors as they entered. "Let some lightand air in, quick. It stinks like a hearse--"

The assembly out in the square saw the red blinds go up and the windowsof the old house flung open. 

"That's better, " said one of the inspectors, putting his head out of awindow and drawing a deep breath. .. . "That seems to be the bedroom inthere; will you go in, Simms, while I go over the rest?. .. "

They had drawn up the bedroom blind also, and the waxy-white, emaciatedman on the bed had made a blinker of his hand against the torturingflood of brightness. Nor could he believe that his hearing was notplaying tricks with him, for there were two policemen in his room, bending over him and asking where "she" was. He shook his head. 

"This woman Bengough. .. Goes by the name of Miss Elsie Bengough. .. D'yehear? Where is she?. .. No good, Brackley; get him up; be careful withhim; I'll just shove _my_ head out of the window, I think. .. . "

The other inspector had been through Oleron's study and had foundnothing, and was now in the kitchen, kicking aside an ankle-deep mass ofvegetable refuse that cumbered the floor. The kitchen window had noblind, and was over-shadowed by the blank end of the house across thealley. The kitchen appeared to be empty. 

But the inspector, kicking aside the dead flowers, noticed that ashuffling track that was not of his making had been swept to a cupboardin the corner. In the upper part of the door of the cupboard was a squarepanel that looked as if it slid on runners. The door itself was closed. 

The inspector advanced, put out his hand to the little knob, and slid thehatch along its groove. 

Then he took an involuntary step back again. 

Framed in the aperture, and falling forward a little before it jammedagain in its frame, was something that resembled a large lumpy pudding, done up in a pudding-bag of faded browny red frieze. 

"Ah!" said the inspector. 

To close the hatch again he would have had to thrust that pudding backwith his hand; and somehow he did not quite like the idea of touchingit. Instead, he turned the handle of the cupboard itself. There wasweight behind it, so much weight that, after opening the door three orfour inches and peering inside, he had to put his shoulder to it in orderto close it again. In closing it he left sticking out, a few inches fromthe floor, a triangle of black and white check skirt. 

He went into the small hall. 

"All right!" he called. 

They had got Oleron into his clothes. He still used his hands asblinkers, and his brain was very confused. A number of things werehappening that he couldn't understand. He couldn't understand theextraordinary mess of dead flowers there seemed to be everywhere; hecouldn't understand why there should be police officers in his room; hecouldn't understand why one of these should be sent for a four-wheelerand a stretcher; and he couldn't understand what heavy article theyseemed to be moving about in the kitchen--his kitchen. .. . 

"What's the matter?" he muttered sleepily. .. . 

Then he heard a murmur in the square, and the stopping of a four-wheeleroutside. A police officer was at his elbow again, and Oleron wonderedwhy, when he whispered something to him, he should run off a string ofwords--something about "used in evidence against you. " They had liftedhim to his feet, and were assisting him towards the door. .. . 

No, Oleron couldn't understand it at all. 

They got him down the stairs and along the alley. Oleron was aware ofconfused angry shoutings; he gathered that a number of people wanted tolynch somebody or other. Then his attention became fixed on a little fatfrightened-eyed man who appeared to be making a statement that an officerwas taking down in a notebook. 

"I'd seen her with him . .. They was often together . .. She came into myshop and said it was for him . .. I thought it was all right . .. 111333the number was, " the man was saying. 

The people seemed to be very angry; many police were keeping them back;but one of the inspectors had a voice that Oleron thought quite kind andfriendly. He was telling somebody to get somebody else into the cabbefore something or other was brought out; and Oleron noticed that afour-wheeler was drawn up at the gate. It appeared that it was himselfwho was to be put into it; and as they lifted him up he saw that theinspector tried to stand between him and something that stood behind thecab, but was not quick enough to prevent Oleron seeing that thissomething was a hooded stretcher. The angry voices sounded like a sea;something hard, like a stone, hit the back of the cab; and the inspectorfollowed Oleron in and stood with his back to the window nearer the sidewhere the people were. The door they had put Oleron in at remained open, apparently till the other inspector should come; and through the openingOleron had a glimpse of the hatchet-like "To Let" boards among theprivet-trees. One of them said that the key was at Number Six. .. . 

Suddenly the raging of voices was hushed. Along the entrance-alleyshuffling steps were heard, and the other inspector appeared at thecab door. 

"Right away, " he said to the driver. 

He entered, fastened the door after him, and blocked up the second windowwith his back. Between the two inspectors Oleron slept peacefully. Thecab moved down the square, the other vehicle went up the hill. Themortuary lay that way. 

PHANTAS

 _"For, barring all pother, With this, or the other, Still Britons are Lords of the Main. _"

THE CHAPTER OF ADMIRALS

I

As Abel Keeling lay on the galleon's deck, held from rolling down it onlyby his own weight and the sun-blackened hand that lay outstretched uponthe planks, his gaze wandered, but ever returned to the bell that hung, jammed with the dangerous heel-over of the vessel, in the smallornamental belfry immediately abaft the mainmast. The bell was of castbronze, with half-obliterated bosses upon it that had been the heads ofcherubs; but wind and salt spray had given it a thick incrustation ofbright, beautiful, lichenous green. It was this colour that AbelKeeling's eyes liked. 

For wherever else on the galleon his eyes rested they found onlywhiteness--the whiteness of extreme eld. There were slightly varyingdegrees in her whiteness; here she was of a white that glistened likesalt-granules, there of a greyish chalky white, and again her whitenesshad the yellowish cast of decay; but everywhere it was the mild, disquieting whiteness of materials out of which the life had departed. Her cordage was bleached as old straw is bleached, and half her ropeskept their shape little more firmly than the ash of a string keeps itsshape after the fire has passed; her pallid timbers were white and cleanas bones found in sand; and even the wild frankincense with which (forlack of tar, at her last touching of land) she had been pitched, haddried to a pale hard gum that sparkled like quartz in her open seams. Thesun was yet so pale a buckler of silver through the still white miststhat not a cord or timber cast a shadow; and only Abel Keeling's face andhands were black, carked and cinder-black from exposure to his pitilessrays. 

The galleon was the _Mary of the Tower_, and she had a frightful list tostarboard. So canted was she that her mainyard dipped one of its steelsickles into the glassy water, and, had her foremast remained, or morethan the broken stump of her bonaventure mizzen, she must have turnedover completely. Many days ago they had stripped the mainyard of itscourse, and had passed the sail under the Mary's bottom, in the hope thatit would stop the leak. This it had partly done as long as the galleonhad continued to glide one way; then, without coming about, she had begunto glide the other, the ropes had parted, and she had dragged the sailafter her, leaving a broad tarnish on the silver sea. 

For it was broadside that the galleon glided, almost imperceptibly, eversucking down. She glided as if a loadstone drew her, and, at first, AbelKeeling had thought it was a loadstone, pulling at her iron, drawing herthrough the pearly mists that lay like face-cloths to the water and hidat a short distance the tarnish left by the sail. But later he had knownthat it was no loadstone drawing at her iron. The motion was due--mustbe due--to the absolute deadness of the calm in that silent, sinister, three-miles-broad waterway. With the eye of his mind he saw thatloadstone now as he lay against a gun-truck, all but toppling down thedeck. Soon that would happen again which had happened for five days past. He would hear again the chattering of monkeys and the screaming ofparrots, the mat of green and yellow weeds would creep in towards theMary over the quicksilver sea, once more the sheer wall of rock wouldrise, and the men would run. .. . 

But no; the men would not run this time to drop the fenders. There wereno men left to do so, unless Bligh was still alive. Perhaps Bligh wasstill alive. He had walked half-way down the quarter-deck steps a littlebefore the sudden nightfall of the day before, had then fallen and lainfor a minute (dead, Abel Keeling had supposed, watching him from hisplace by the gun-truck), and had then got up again and tottered forwardto the forecastle, his tall figure swaying and his long arms waving. AbelKeeling had not seen him since. Most likely, he had died in theforecastle during the night. If he had not been dead he would have comeaft again for water. .. . 

At the remembrance of the water Abel Keeling lifted his head. The strandsof lean muscle about his emaciated mouth worked, and he made a littlepressure of his sun-blackened hand on the deck, as if to verify itssteepness and his own balance. The mainmast was some seven or eight yardsaway. .. . He put one stiff leg under him and began, seated as he was, tomake shuffling movements down the slope. 

To the mainmast, near the belfry, was affixed his contrivance forcatching water. It consisted of a collar of rope set lower at one sidethan at the other (but that had been before the mast had steeved so manydegrees away from the zenith), and tallowed beneath. The mists lingeredlater in that gully of a strait than they did on the open ocean, and thecollar of rope served as a collector for the dews that condensed on themast. The drops fell into a small earthen pipkin placed on the deckbeneath it. 

Abel Keeling reached the pipkin and looked into it. It was nearly a thirdfull of fresh water. Good. If Bligh, the mate, was dead, so much the morewater for Abel Keeling, master of the _Mary of the Tower_. He dipped twofingers into the pipkin and put them into his mouth. This he did severaltimes. He did not dare to raise the pipkin to his black and broken lipsfor dread of a remembered agony, he could not have told how many daysago, when a devil had whispered to him, and he had gulped down thecontents of the pipkin in the morning, and for the rest of the day hadgone waterless. .. . Again he moistened his fingers and sucked them; thenhe lay sprawling against the mast, idly watching the drops of wateras they fell. 

It was odd how the drops formed. Slowly they collected at the edge of thetallowed collar, trembled in their fullness for an instant, and fell, another beginning the process instantly. It amused Abel Keeling to watchthem. Why (he wondered) were all the drops the same size? What cause andcompulsion did they obey that they never varied, and what frail tenuityheld the little globules intact? It must be due to some Cause. .. . Heremembered that the aromatic gum of the wild frankincense with which theyhad parcelled the seams had hung on the buckets in great sluggish gouts, obedient to a different compulsion; oil was different again, and so werejuices and balsams. Only quicksilver (perhaps the heavy and motionlesssea put him in mind of quicksilver) seemed obedient to no law. .. . Why wasit so?

Bligh, of course, would have had his explanation: it was the Hand of God. That sufficed for Bligh, who had gone forward the evening before, andwhom Abel Keeling now seemed vaguely and as at a distance to remember asthe deep-voiced fanatic who had sung his hymns as, man by man, he hadcommitted the bodies of the ship's company to the deep. Bligh was thatsort of man; accepted things without question; was content to take thingsas they were and be ready with the fenders when the wall of rock rose outof the opalescent mists. Bligh, too, like the waterdrops, had his Law, that was his and nobody else's. .. . 

There floated down from some rotten rope up aloft a flake of scurf, thatsettled in the pipkin. Abel Keeling watched it dully as it settledtowards the pipkin's rim. When presently he again dipped his fingers intothe vessel the water ran into a little vortex, drawing the flake with it. The water settled again; and again the minute flake determined towardsthe rim and adhered there, as if the rim had power to draw it. .. . 

It was exactly so that the galleon was gliding towards the wall of rock, the yellow and green weeds, and the monkeys and parrots. Put out intomid-water again (while there had been men to put her out) she had glidedto the other wall. One force drew the chip in the pipkin and the shipover the tranced sea. It was the Hand of God, said Bligh. .. . 

Abel Keeling, his mind now noting minute things and now clouded withtorpor, did not at first hear a voice that was quakingly lifted upover by the forecastle--a voice that drew nearer, to an accompaniment ofswirling water. 

_"O Thou, that Jonas in the fish Three days didst keep from pain, Which was a figure of Thy death And rising up again--"_

It was Bligh, singing one of his hymns:

_"O Thou, that Noah keptst from flood And Abram, day by day, As he along through Egypt passed Didst guide him in the way--"_

The voice ceased, leaving the pious period uncompleted. Bligh was alive, at any rate. .. . Abel Keeling resumed his fitful musing. 

Yes, that was the Law of Bligh's life, to call things the Hand of God;but Abel Keeling's Law was different; no better, no worse, onlydifferent. The Hand of God, that drew chips and galleons, must work bysome method; and Abel Keeling's eyes were dully on the pipkin again as ifhe sought the method there. .. . 

Then conscious thought left him for a space, and when he resumed it waswithout obvious connection. 

Oars, of course, were the thing. With oars, men could laugh at calms. Oars, that only pinnaces and galliasses now used, had had theiradvantages. But oars (which was to say a method, for you could say if youliked that the Hand of God grasped the oar-loom, as the Breath of Godfilled the sail)--oars were antiquated, belonged to the past, and meant athrowing-over of all that was good and new and a return to fine lines, abattle-formation abreast to give effect to the shock of the ram, and aday or two at sea and then to port again for provisions. Oars . .. No. Abel Keeling was one of the new men, the men who swore by the line-ahead, the broadside fire of sakers and demi-cannon, and weeks and monthswithout a landfall. Perhaps one day the wits of such men as he woulddevise a craft, not oar-driven (because oars could not penetrate into theremote seas of the world)--not sail-driven (because men who trusted tosails found themselves in an airless, three-mile strait, suspendedmotionless between cloud and water, ever gliding to a wall of rock)--buta ship . .. A ship . .. 

"_To Noah and his sons with him God spake, and thus said He:A covenant set I up with you And your posterity_--"

It was Bligh again, wandering somewhere in the waist. Abel Keeling's mindwas once more a blank. Then slowly, slowly, as the water drops collectedon the collar of rope, his thought took shape again. 

A galliasse? No, not a galliasse. The galliasse made shift to be twothings, and was neither. This ship, that the hand of man should one daymake for the Hand of God to manage, should be a ship that should take andconserve the force of the wind, take it and store it as she stored hervictuals; at rest when she wished, going ahead when she wished; turningthe forces both of calm and storm against themselves. For, of course, herforce must be wind--stored wind--a bag of the winds, as the children'stale had it--wind probably directed upon the water astern, driving itaway and urging forward the ship, acting by reaction. She would have awind-chamber, into which wind would be pumped with pumps. .. . Bligh wouldcall that equally the Hand of God, this driving-force of the ship of thefuture that Abel Keeling dimly foreshadowed as he lay between themainmast and the belfry, turning his eyes now and then from ashy whitetimbers to the vivid green bronze-rust of the bell above him. .. . 

Bligh's face, liver-coloured with the sun and ravaged from inwards by thefaith that consumed him, appeared at the head of the quarter-deck steps. His voice beat uncontrolledly out. 

_"And in the earth here is no place Of refuge to be found, Nor in the deep and water-course That passeth under ground--"_

II

Bligh's eyes were lidded, as if in contemplation of his inner ecstasy. His head was thrown back, and his brows worked up and down tormentedly. His wide mouth remained open as his hymn was suddenly interrupted on thelong-drawn note. From somewhere in the shimmering mists the note wastaken up, and there drummed and rang and reverberated through the straita windy, hoarse, and dismal bellow, alarming and sustained. A tremor rangthrough Bligh. Moving like a sightless man, he stumbled forward from thehead of the quarter-deck steps, and Abel Keeling was aware of his gauntfigure behind him, taller for the steepness of the deck. As that vastempty sound died away, Bligh laughed in his mania. 

"Lord, hath the grave's wide mouth a tongue to praise Thee? Lo, again--"

Again the cavernous sound possessed the air, louder and nearer. Throughit came another sound, a slow throb, throb--throb, throb--Again thesounds ceased. 

"Even Leviathan lifteth up his voice in praise!" Bligh sobbed. 

Abel Keeling did not raise his head. There had returned to him the memoryof that day when, before the morning mists had lifted from the strait, hehad emptied the pipkin of the water that was the allowance until nightshould fall again. During that agony of thirst he had seen shapes andheard sounds with other than his mortal eyes and ears, and even in themoments that had alternated with his lightness, when he had known theseto be hallucinations, they had come again. He had heard the bells on aSunday in his own Kentish home, the calling of children at play, theunconcerned singing of men at their daily labour, and the laughter andgossip of the women as they had spread the linen on the hedge ordistributed bread upon the platters. These voices had rung in his brain, interrupted now and then by the groans of Bligh and of two other men whohad been alive then. Some of the voices he had heard had been silent onearth this many a long year, but Abel Keeling, thirst-tortured, had heardthem, even as he was now hearing that vacant moaning with theintermittent throbbing that filled the strait with alarm. .. . 

"Praise Him, praise Him, praise Him!" Bligh was calling deliriously. 

Then a bell seemed to sound in Abel Keeling's ears, and, as if somethingin the mechanism of his brain had slipped, another picture rose in hisfancy--the scene when the _Mary of the Tower_ had put out, to a braveryof swinging bells and shrill fifes and valiant trumpets. She had not beena leper-white galleon then. The scroll-work on her prow had twinkled withgilding; her belfry and stern-galleries and elaborate lanterns hadflashed in the sun with gold; and her fighting-tops and the war-pavesseabout her waist had been gay with painted coats and scutcheons. To hersails had been stitched gaudy ramping lions of scarlet saye, and from hermainyard, now dipping in the water, had hung the broad two-tailed pennantwith the Virgin and Child embroidered upon it. .. . 

Then suddenly a voice about him seemed to be saying, "_And ahalf-seven--and a half-seven--_" and in a twink the picture in AbelKeeling's brain changed again. He was at home again, instructing his son, young Abel, in the casting of the lead from the skiff they had pulled outof the harbour. 

"_And a half-seven!_" the boy seemed to be calling. 

Abel Keeling's blackened lips muttered: "Excellently well cast, Abel, excellently well cast!"

"_And a half-seven--and a half-seven--seven--seven--_"

"Ah, " Abel Keeling murmured, "that last was not a clear cast--give me theline--thus it should go . .. Ay, so. .. . Soon you shall sail the seas withme in the _Mary of the Tower_. You are already perfect in the stars andthe motions of the planets; to-morrow I will instruct you in the use ofthe backstaff. .. . "

For a minute or two he continued to mutter; then he dozed. When again hecame to semi-consciousness it was once more to the sound of bells, atfirst faint, then louder, and finally becoming a noisy clamourimmediately above his head. It was Bligh. Bligh, in a fresh attack ofdelirium, had seized the bell-lanyard and was ringing the bell insanely. The cord broke in his fingers, but he thrust at the bell with his hand, and again called aloud. 

"Upon an harp and an instrument of ten strings . .. Let Heaven and Earthpraise Thy Name!. .. "

He continued to call aloud, and to beat on the bronze-rusted bell. 

_"Ship ahoy! What ship's that?"_

One would have said that a veritable hail had come out of the mists; butAbel Keeling knew those hails that came out of the mists. They came fromships which were not there. "Ay, ay, keep a good look-out, and have acare to your lodemanage, " he muttered again to his son. .. . 

But, as sometimes a sleeper sits up in his dream, or rises from his couchand walks, so all of a sudden Abel Keeling found himself on his hands andknees on the deck, looking back over his shoulder. In some deep-seatedregion of his consciousness he was dimly aware that the cant of the deckhad become more perilous, but his brain received the intelligence andforgot it again. He was looking out into the bright and baffling mists. The buckler of the sun was of a more ardent silver; the sea below it waslost in brilliant evaporation; and between them, suspended in the haze, no more substantial than the vague darknesses that float before dazzledeyes, a pyramidal phantom-shape hung. Abel Keeling passed his hand overhis eyes, but when he removed it the shape was still there, glidingslowly towards the _Mary's_ quarter. Its form changed as he watched it. The spirit-grey shape that had been a pyramid seemed to dissolve intofour upright members, slightly graduated in tallness, that nearest the_Mary's_ stern the tallest and that to the left the lowest. It might havebeen the shadow of the gigantic set of reed-pipes on which that vacantmournful note had been sounded. 

And as he looked, with fooled eyes, again his ears became fooled:

_"Ahoy there! What ship's that? Are you a ship?. .. Here, give me thattrumpet--"_ Then a metallic barking. _"Ahoy there! What the devil areyou? Didn't you ring a bell? Ring it again, or blow a blast or something, and go dead slow!"_

All this came, as it were, indistinctly, and through a sort of highsinging in Abel Keeling's own ears. Then he fancied a short bewilderedlaugh, followed by a colloquy from somewhere between sea and sky. 

"Here, Ward, just pinch me, will you? Tell me what you see there. I wantto know if I'm awake. "

"See where?"

"There, on the starboard bow. (Stop that ventilating fan; I can'thear myself think. ) See anything? Don't tell me it's that damnedDutchman--don't pitch me that old Vanderdecken tale--give me an easyone first, something about a sea-serpent. .. . You did hear that bell, didn't you?"

"Shut up a minute--listen--"

Again Bligh's voice was lifted up. 

_"This is the cov'nant that I make: From henceforth nevermoreWill I again the world destroy With water, as before. "_

Bligh's voice died away again in Abel Keeling's ears. 

"_Oh--my--fat--Aunt--Julia!_" the voice that seemed to come from betweensea and sky sounded again. Then it spoke more loudly. "_I say, _" it beganwith careful politeness, "_if you are a ship, do you mind telling uswhere the masquerade is to be? Our wireless is out of order, and wehadn't heard of it. .. . Oh, you do see it, Ward, don't you?. .. Please, please tell us what the hell you are!_"

Again Abel Keeling had moved as a sleepwalker moves. He had raisedhimself up by the belfry timbers, and Bligh had sunk in a heap on thedeck. Abel Keeling's movement overturned the pipkin, which raced thelittle trickle of its contents down the deck and lodged where the stilland brimming sea made, as it were, a chain with the carved balustrade ofthe quarter-deck--one link a still gleaming edge, then a dark baluster, and then another gleaming link. For one moment only Abel Keeling foundhimself noticing that that which had driven Bligh aft had been therising of the water in the waist as the galleon settled by the head--thewaist was now entirely submerged; then once more he was absorbed inhis dream, its voices, and its shape in the mist, which had again takenthe form of a pyramid before his eyeballs. 

"_Of course_, " a voice seemed to be complaining anew, and still throughthat confused dinning in Abel Keeling's ears, "_we can't turn a four-inchon it. .. . And, of course, Ward, I don't believe in 'em. D'you hear, Ward?I don't believe in 'em, I say. .. . Shall we call down to old A. B. ? Thismight interest His Scientific Skippership. .. . _"

"Oh, lower a boat and pull out to it--into it--over it--through it--"

"Look at our chaps crowded on the barbette yonder. They've seen it. Better not give an order you know won't be obeyed. .. . "

Abel Keeling, cramped against the antique belfry, had begun to find hisdream interesting. For, though he did not know her build, that mirage wasthe shape of a ship. No doubt it was projected from his brooding on shipsof half an hour before; and that was odd. .. . But perhaps, after all, itwas not very odd. He knew that she did not really exist; only theappearance of her existed; but things had to exist like that before theyreally existed. Before the _Mary of the Tower_ had existed she had been ashape in some man's imagination; before that, some dreamer had dreamedthe form of a ship with oars; and before that, far away in the dawn andinfancy of the world, some seer had seen in a vision the raft before manhad ventured to push out over the water on his two planks. And since thisshape that rode before Abel Keeling's eyes was a shape in his, AbelKeeling's dream, he, Abel Keeling, was the master of it. His own broodingbrain had contrived her, and she was launched upon the illimitable oceanof his own mind. .. . 

_"And I will not unmindful be Of this, My covenant, passedTwixt Me and you and every flesh Whiles that the world should last, "_

sang Bligh, rapt. .. . 

But as a dreamer, even in his dream, will scratch upon the wall by hiscouch some key or word to put him in mind of his vision on the morrowwhen it has left him, so Abel Keeling found himself seeking some sign tobe a proof to those to whom no vision is vouchsafed. Even Bligh soughtthat--could not be silent in his bliss, but lay on the deck there, uttering great passionate Amens and praising his Maker, as he said, uponan harp and an instrument of ten strings. So with Abel Keeling. It wouldbe the Amen of his life to have praised God, not upon a harp, but upon aship that should carry her own power, that should store wind or itsequivalent as she stored her victuals, that should be something wrestedfrom the chaos of uninvention and ordered and disciplined andsubordinated to Abel Keeling's will. .. . And there she was, thatship-shaped thing of spirit-grey, with the four pipes that resembled aphantom organ now broadside and of equal length. And the ghost-crewof that ship were speaking again. .. . 

The interrupted silver chain by the quarterdeck balustrade had now becomecontinuous, and the balusters made a herring-bone over their ownmotionless reflections. The spilt water from the pipkin had dried, andthe pipkin was not to be seen. Abel Keeling stood beside the mast, erectas God made man to go. With his leathery hand he smote upon the bell. Hewaited for the space of a minute, and then cried:

"Ahoy!. .. Ship ahoy!. .. What ship's that?"

III

We are not conscious in a dream that we are playing a game the beginningand end of which are in ourselves. In this dream of Abel Keeling's avoice replied:

"_Hallo, it's found its tongue. .. . Ahoy there! What are you?_"

Loudly and in a clear voice Abel Keeling called: "Are you a ship?"

With a nervous giggle the answer came:

"_We are a ship, aren't we, Ward? I hardly feel sure. .. . Yes, of course, we're a ship. No question about us. The question is what the dickensyou are. _"

Not all the words these voices used were intelligible to Abel Keeling, and he knew not what it was in the tone of these last words that remindedhim of the honour due to the _Mary of the Tower_. Blister-white and atthe end of her life as she was, Abel Keeling was still jealous of herdignity; the voice had a youngish ring; and it was not fitting that youngchins should be wagged about his galleon. He spoke curtly. 

"You that spoke--are you the master of that ship?"

"_Officer of the watch_, " the words floated back; "_the captain'sbelow_. "

"Then send for him. It is with masters that masters hold speech, " AbelKeeling replied. 

He could see the two shapes, flat and without relief, standing on a highnarrow structure with rails. One of them gave a low whistle, and seemedto be fanning his face; but the other rumbled something into a sort offunnel. Presently the two shapes became three. There was a murmuring, as of a consultation, and then suddenly a new voice spoke. At its thrilland tone a sudden tremor ran through Abel Keeling's frame. He wonderedwhat response it was that that voice found in the forgotten recesses ofhis memory. .. . 

"_Ahoy!_" seemed to call this new yet faintly remembered voice. "_What'sall this about? Listen. We're His Majesty's destroyer_ Seapink, _out ofDevonport last October, and nothing particular the matter with us. Nowwho are you?_"

"The _Mary of the Tower_, out of the Port of Rye on the day of SaintAnne, and only two men--"

A gasp interrupted him. 

"_Out of_ WHERE?" that voice that so strangely moved Abel Keeling saidunsteadily, while Bligh broke into groans of renewed rapture. 

"Out of the Port of Rye, in the County of Sussex . .. Nay, give ear, elseI cannot make you hear me while this man's spirit and flesh wrestle sotogether!. .. Ahoy! Are you gone?" For the voices had become a low murmur, and the ship-shape had faded before Abel Keeling's eyes. Again and againhe called. He wished to be informed of the disposition and economy of thewind-chamber. .. . 

"The wind-chamber!" he called, in an agony lest the knowledgealmost within his grasp should be lost. "I would know about thewind-chamber. .. . "

Like an echo, there came back the words, uncomprehendingly uttered, "_Thewind-chamber_?. .. "

". .. That driveth the vessel--perchance 'tis not wind--a steel bow thatis bent also conserveth force--the force you store, to move at willthrough calm and storm. .. . "

"Can you make out what it's driving at?"

"Oh, we shall all wake up in a minute. .. . "

"Quiet, I have it; the engines; it wants to know about our engines. It'll be wanting to see our papers presently. Rye Port!. .. Well, no harmin humouring it; let's see what it can make of this. Ahoy there!" camethe voice to Abel Keeling, a little more strongly, as if a shifting windcarried it, and speaking faster and faster as it went on. "Not wind, butsteam; d'you hear? Steam, steam. Steam, in eight Yarrow water-tubeboilers. S-t-e-a-m, steam. Got it? And we've twin-screw triple expansionengines, indicated horse-power four thousand, and we can do 430revolutions per minute; savvy? Is there anything your phantomhood wouldlike to know about our armament?. .. "

Abel Keeling was muttering fretfully to himself. It annoyed him thatwords in his own vision should have no meaning for him. How did wordscome to him in a dream that he had no knowledge of when wide awake? The_Seapink_--that was the name of this ship; but a pink was long andnarrow, low-carged and square-built aft. .. . 

"_And as for our armament, _" the voice with the tones that so profoundlytroubled Abel Keeling's memory continued, "_we've two revolving Whiteheadtorpedo-tubes, three six-pounders on the upper deck, and that's atwelve-pounder forward there by the conning-tower. I forgot to mentionthat we're nickel steel, with a coal capacity of sixty tons in mostdamnably placed bunkers, and that thirty and a quarter knots is about ourtop. Care to come aboard?_"

But the voice was speaking still more rapidly and feverishly, as if tofill a silence with no matter what, and the shape that was uttering itwas straining forward anxiously over the rail. 

"_Ugh! But I'm glad this happened in the daylight, _" another voice wasmuttering. 

"I wish I was sure it was happening at all. .. . Poor old spook!"

"I suppose it would keep its feet if her deck was quite vertical. Thinkshe'll go down, or just melt?"

"Kind of go down . .. Without wash. .. . "

"Listen--here's the other one now--"

For Bligh was singing again:

"For, Lord, Thou know'st our nature such If we great things obtain, And in the getting of the same Do feel no grief or pain, "We little do esteem thereof; But, hardly brought to pass, A thousand times we do esteem More than the other was. "

_"But oh, look--look--look at the other!. .. Oh, I say, wasn't he a grandold boy! Look!"_

For, transfiguring Abel Reeling's form as a prophet's form istransfigured in the instant of his rapture, flooding his brain with thewhite eureka-light of perfect knowledge, that for which he and his dreamhad been at a standstill had come. He knew her, this ship of the future, as if God's Finger had bitten her lines into his brain. He knew her asthose already sinking into the grave know things, miraculously, completely, accepting Life's impossibilities with a nodded "Of course. "From the ardent mouths of her eight furnaces to the last drip from herlubricators, from her bed-plates to the breeches of her quick-firers, heknew her--read her gauges, thumbed her bearings, gave the ranges from herrange-finders, and lived the life he lived who was in command of her. Andhe would not forget on the morrow, as he had forgotten on many morrows, for at last he had seen the water about his feet, and knew that therewould be no morrow for him in this world. .. . 

And even in that moment, with but a sand or two to run in his glass, indomitable, insatiable, dreaming dream on dream, he could not die untilhe knew more. He had two questions to ask, and a master-question; and buta moment remained. Sharply his voice rang out. 

"Ho, there!. .. This ancient ship, the _Mary of the Tower_, cannot steamthirty and a quarter knots, but yet she can sail the waters. Whatmore does your ship? Can she soar above them, as the fowls of the airsoar?"

"_Lord, he thinks we're an aeroplane!. .. No, she can't. .. . _"

"And can you dive, even as the fishes of the deep?"

"_No. .. . Those are submarines . .. We aren't a submarine. .. . _"

But Abel Keeling waited for no more. He gave an exulting chuckle. 

"Oho, oho--thirty knots, and but on the face of the waters--no more thanthat? Oho!. .. Now _my_ ship, the ship I see as a mother sees full-grownthe child she has but conceived--_my_ ship, I say--oho!--_my_ shipshall. .. . Below there--trip that gun!"

The cry came suddenly and alertly, as a muffled sound came from below andan ominous tremor shook the galleon. 

"_By Jove, her guns are breaking loose below--that's her finish_--"

"Trip that gun, and double-breech the others!" Abel Keeling's voice rangout, as if there had been any to obey him. He had braced himself withinthe belfry frame; and then in the middle of the next order his voicesuddenly failed him. His ship-shape, that for the moment he hadforgotten, rode once more before his eyes. This was the end, and hismaster-question, apprehension for the answer to which was now torturinghis face and well-nigh bursting his heart, was still unasked. 

"Ho--he that spoke with me--the master, " he cried in a voice that ranhigh, "is he there?"

"_Yes, yes!_" came the other voice across the water, sick with suspense. "_Oh, be quick!_"

There was a moment in which hoarse cries from many voices, a heavy thudand rumble on wood, and a crash of timbers and a gurgle and a splash wereindescribably mingled; the gun under which Abel Keeling had lain hadsnapped her rotten breechings and plunged down the deck, carrying Bligh'sunconscious form with it. The deck came up vertical, and for one instantlonger Abel Keeling clung to the belfry. 

"I cannot see your face, " he screamed, "but meseems your voice is a voiceI know. _What is your name_?"

In a torn sob the answer came across the water:

"_Keeling--Abel Keeling. .. . Oh, my God!_"

And Abel Keeling's cry of triumph, that mounted to a victorious "Huzza!"was lost in the downward plunge of the _Mary of the Tower_, that leftthe strait empty save for the sun's fiery blaze and the last smoke-likeevaporation of the mists. 

ROOUM

For all I ever knew to the contrary, it was his own name; and somethingabout him, name or man or both, always put me in mind, I can't tell youhow, of negroes. As regards the name, I dare say it was somethinghuggermugger in the mere sound--something that I classed, for noparticular reason, with the dark and ignorant sort of words, such as"Obi" and "Hoodoo. " I only know that after I learned that his name wasRooum, I couldn't for the life of me have thought of him as being calledanything else. 

The first impression that you got of his head was that it was a patchworkof black and white--black bushy hair and short white beard, or else theother way about. As a matter of fact, both hair and beard were piebald, so that if you saw him in the gloom a dim patch of white showed down oneside of his head, and dark tufts cropped up here and there in his beard. His eyebrows alone were entirely black, with a little sprouting of hairalmost joining them. And perhaps his skin helped to make me think ofnegroes, for it was very dark, of the dark brown that always seems tohave more than a hint of green behind it. His forehead was low, andscored across with deep horizontal furrows. 

We never knew when he was going to turn up on a job. We might not haveseen him for weeks, but his face was always as likely as not to appearover the edge of a crane-platform just when that marvellous mechanicalintuition of his was badly needed. He wasn't certificated. He wasn't eventrained, as the rest of us understood training; and he scoffed at thedrawing-office, and laughed outright at logarithms and our laboriousmethods of getting out quantities. But he could set sheers and tackle ina way that made the rest of us look silly. I remember once how, throughthe parting of a chain, a sixty-foot girder had come down and lay undera ruck of other stuff, as the bottom chip lies under a pile ofspellikins--a hopeless-looking smash. Myself, I'm certificated twice orthree times over; but I can only assure you that I wanted to kick myselfwhen, after I'd spent a day and a sleepless night over the job, I saw thegame of tit-tat-toe that Rooum made of it in an hour or two. Certificatedor not, a man isn't a fool who can do that sort of thing. And he wasone of these fellows, too, who can "find water"--tell you where water isand what amount of getting it is likely to take, by just walking over theplace. We aren't certificated up to that yet. 

He was offered good money to stick to us--to stick to our firm--but healways shook his black-and-white piebald head. He'd never be able to keepthe bargain if he were to make it, he told us quite fairly. I know thereare these chaps who can't endure to be clocked to their work with apatent time-clock in the morning and released of an evening with awhistle--and it's one of the things no master can ever understand. SoRooum came and went erratically, showing up maybe in Leeds or Liverpool, perhaps next on Plymouth breakwater, and once he turned up in anout-of-the-way place in Glamorganshire just when I was wondering what hadbecome of him. 

The way I got to know him (got to know him, I mean, more than just tonod) was that he tacked himself on to me one night down Vauxhall way, where we were setting up some small plant or other. We had knocked offfor the day, and I was walking in the direction of the bridge when hecame up. We walked along together; and we had not gone far before itappeared that his reason for joining me was that he wanted to know "whata molecule was. "

I stared at him a bit. 

"What do you want to know that for?" I said. "What does a chap like you, who can do it all backwards, want with molecules?"

Oh, he just wanted to know, he said. 

So, on the way across the bridge, I gave it him more or less from thebook--molecular theory and all the rest of it. But, from the childishquestions he put, it was plain that he hadn't got the hang of it at all. "Did the molecular theory allow things to pass through one another?" hewanted to know; "_Could_ things pass through one another?" and a lot ofridiculous things like that. I gave it up. 

"You're a genius in your own way, Rooum, " I said finally; "you know thesethings without the books we plodders have to depend on. If I'd luck likethat, I think I should be content with it. "

But he didn't seem satisfied, though he dropped the matter for that time. But I had his acquaintance, which was more than most of us had. Heasked me, rather timidly, if I'd lend him a book or two. I did so, butthey didn't seem to contain what he wanted to know, and he soon returnedthem, without remark. 

Now you'd expect a fellow to be specially sensitive, one way or another, who can tell when there's water a hundred feet beneath him; and as youknow, the big men are squabbling yet about this water-finding business. But, somehow, the water-finding puzzled me less than it did that Rooumshould be extraordinarily sensitive to something far commoner and easierto understand--ordinary echoes. He couldn't stand echoes. He'd go amile round rather than pass a place that he knew had an echo; and if hecame on one by chance, sometimes he'd hurry through as quick as hecould, and sometimes he'd loiter and listen very intently. I rather jokedabout this at first, till I found it really distressed him; then, ofcourse, I pretended not to notice. We're all cranky somewhere, and forthat matter, I can't touch a spider myself. 

For the remarkable thing that overtook Rooum--(that, by the way, is anodd way to put it, as you'll see presently; but the words came thatway into my head, so let them stand)--for the remarkable thing thatovertook Rooum, I don't think I can begin better than with the firsttime, or very soon after the first time, that I noticed this peculiarityabout the echoes. 

It was early on a particularly dismal November evening, and this time wewere somewhere out south-east London way, just beyond what they arepleased to call the building-line--you know these districts of wretchedtrees and grimy fields and market-gardens that are about the same to realcountry that a slum is to a town. It rained that night; rain was the mostappropriate weather for the brickfields and sewage-farms and yards of oldcarts and railway-sleepers we were passing. The rain shone on the blackhand-bag that Rooum always carried; and I sucked at the dottle of a pipethat it was too much trouble to fill and light again. We were walking inthe direction of Lewisham (I think it would be), and were still a littleway from that eruption of red-brick houses that . .. But you've doubtlessseen them. 

You know how, when they're laying out new roads, they lay down thenarrow strip of kerb first, with neither setts on the one hand norflagstones on the other? We had come upon one of these. (I had noticedhow, as we had come a few minutes before under a tall hollow-ringingrailway arch, Rooum had all at once stopped talking--it was the echo, ofcourse, that bothered him. ) The unmade road to which we had come hadheadless lamp-standards at intervals, and ramparts of grey road-metalready for use; and save for the strip of kerb, it was a broth of mudand stiff clay. A red light or two showed where the road-barrierswere--they were laying the mains; a green railway light showed on anembankment; and the Lewisham lamps made a rusty glare through the rain. Rooum went first, walking along the narrow strip of kerb. 

The lamp-standards were a little difficult to see, and when I heard Rooumstop suddenly and draw in his breath sharply, I thought he had walkedinto one of them. 

"Hurt yourself?" I said. 

He walked on without replying; but half a dozen yards farther on hestopped again. He was listening again. He waited for me to come up. 

"I say, " he said, in an odd sort of voice, "go a yard or two ahead, willyou?"

"What's the matter?" I asked, as I passed ahead. He didn't answer. 

Well, I hadn't been leading for more than a minute before he wanted tochange again. He was breathing very quick and short. 

"Why, what ails you?" I demanded, stopping. 

"It's all right. .. . You're not playing any tricks, are you?. .. "

I saw him pass his hand over his brow. 

"Come, get on, " I said shortly; and we didn't speak again till we struckthe pavement with the lighted lamps. Then I happened to glance at him. 

"Here, " I said brusquely, taking him by the sleeve, "you're not well. We'll call somewhere and get a drink. "

"Yes, " he said, again wiping his brow. "I say . .. Did you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"Ah, you didn't . .. And, of course, you didn't feel anything. .. . "

"Come, you're shaking. "

When presently we came to a brightly lighted public-house or hotel, I sawthat he was shaking even worse than I had thought. The shirt-sleevedbarman noticed it too, and watched us curiously. I made Rooum sit down, and got him some brandy. 

"What was the matter?" I asked, as I held the glass to his lips. 

But I could get nothing out of him except that it was "All right--allright, " with his head twitching over his shoulder almost as if he hadtouch of the dance. He began to come round a little. He wasn't the kindof man you'd press for explanations, and presently we set out again. He walked with me as far as my lodgings, refused to come in, but for allthat lingered at the gate as if loath to leave. I watched him turn thecorner in the rain. 

We came home together again the next evening, but by a different way, quite half a mile longer. He had waited for me a little pertinaciously. It seemed he wanted to talk about molecules again. 

Well, when a man of his age--he'd be near fifty--begins to ask questions, he's rather worse than a child who wants to know where Heaven is or somesuch thing--for you can't put him off as you can the child. Somewhere orother he'd picked up the word "osmosis, " and seemed to have someglimmering of its meaning. He dropped the molecules, and began to ask meabout osmosis. 

"It means, doesn't it, " he demanded, "that liquids will work their wayinto one another--through a bladder or something? Say a thick fluid and athin: you'll find some of the thick in the thin, and the thin in thethick?"

"Yes. The thick into the thin is ex-osmosis, and the other end-osmosis. That takes place more quickly. But I don't know a deal about it. "

"Does it ever take place with solids?" he next asked. 

What was he driving at? I thought; but replied: "I believe that what iscommonly called 'adhesion' is something of the sort, under another name. "

"A good deal of this bookwork seems to be finding a dozen names for thesame thing, " he grunted; and continued to ask his questions. 

But what it was he really wanted to know I couldn't for the life of memake out. 

Well, he was due any time now to disappear again, having worked quite sixweeks in one place; and he disappeared. He disappeared for a good manyweeks. I think it would be about February before I saw or heard of himagain. 

It was February weather, anyway, and in an echoing enough place that Ifound him--the subway of one of the Metropolitan stations. He'd probablyforgotten the echoes when he'd taken the train; but, of course, therailway folk won't let a man who happens to dislike echoes go wanderingacross the metals where he likes. 

He was twenty yards ahead when I saw him. I recognised him by his patchedhead and black hand-bag. I ran along the subway after him. 

It was very curious. He'd been walking close to the white-tiled wall, and I saw him suddenly stop; but he didn't turn. He didn't even turnwhen I pulled up, close behind him; he put out one hand to the wall, asif to steady himself. But, the moment I touched his shoulder, he justdropped--just dropped, half on his knees against the white tiling. Theface he turned round and up to me was transfixed with fright. 

There were half a hundred people about--a train was just in--and it isn'ta difficult matter in London to get a crowd for much less than a mancrouching terrified against a wall, looking over his shoulder as Rooumlooked, at another man almost as terrified. I felt somebody's hand onmy own arm. Evidently somebody thought I'd knocked Rooum down. 

The terror went slowly from his face. He stumbled to his feet. I shookmyself free of the man who held me and stepped up to Rooum. 

"What the devil's all this about?" I demanded, roughly enough. 

"It's all right . .. It's all right, . .. " he stammered. 

"Heavens, man, you shouldn't play tricks like that!"

"No . .. No . .. But for the love of God don't do it again!. .. "

"We'll not explain here, " I said, still in a good deal of a huff; andthe small crowd melted away--disappointed, I dare say, that it wasn'ta fight. 

"Now, " I said, when we were outside in the crowded street, "you might letme know what all this is about, and what it is that for the love ofGod I'm not to do again. "

He was half apologetic, but at the same time half blustering, as if I hadcommitted some sort of an outrage. 

"A senseless thing like that!" he mumbled to himself. "But there: youdidn't know. .. . You _don't_ know, do you?. .. I tell you, d'you hear, _you're not to run at all when I'm about_! You're a nice fellow and allthat, and get your quantities somewhere near right, if you do go a longway round to do it--but I'll not answer for myself if you run, d'youhear?. .. Putting your hand on a man's shoulder like that, just when . .. "

"Certainly I might have spoken, " I agreed, a little stiffly. 

"Of course, you ought to have spoken! Just you see you don't do it again. It's monstrous!"

I put a curt question. 

"Are you sure you're quite right in your head, Rooum?"

"Ah, " he cried, "don't you think I just fancy it, my lad! Nothing soeasy! I thought you guessed that other time, on the new road . .. It's asplain as a pikestaff. .. No, no, no! _I_ shall be telling _you_ somethingabout molecules one of these days!"

We walked for a time in silence. 

Suddenly he asked: "What are you doing now?"

"I myself, do you mean? Oh, the firm. A railway job, past Pinner. But we've a big contract coming on in the West End soon they mightwant you for. They call it 'alterations, ' but it's one of these bigshop-rebuildings. "

"I'll come along. "

"Oh, it isn't for a month or two yet. "

"I don't mean that. I mean I'll come along to Pinner with you now, to-night, or whenever you go. "

"Oh!" I said. 

I don't know that I specially wanted him. It's a little wearing, thecompany of a chap like that. You never know what he's going to let you infor next. But, as this didn't seem to occur to him, I didn't sayanything. If he really liked catching the last train down, a three-milewalk, and then sharing a double-bedded room at a poor sort of alehouse(which was my own programme), he was welcome. We walked a little farther;then I told him the time of the train and left him. 

He turned up at Euston, a little after twelve. We went down together. Itwas getting on for one when we left the station at the other end, andthen we began the tramp across the Weald to the inn. A little to mysurprise (for I had begun to expect unaccountable behaviour from him) wereached the inn without Rooum having dodged about changing places withme, or having fallen cowering under a gorse-bush, or anything ofthat kind. Our talk, too, was about work, not molecules and osmosis. 

The inn was only a roadside beerhouse--I have forgotten its name--and allits sleeping accomodation was the one double-bedded room. Over the headof my own bed the ceiling was cut away, following the roof-line; and thewallpaper was perfectly shocking--faded bouquets that made V's and A's, interlacing everywhere. The other bed was made up, and lay across theroom. 

I think I only spoke once while we were making ready for bed, and thatwas when Rooum took from his black hand-bag a brush and a torn nightgown. 

"That's what you always carry about, is it?" I remarked; and Rooumgrunted something: Yes . .. Never knew where you'd be next . .. No harm, was it? We tumbled into bed. 

But, for all the lateness of the hour, I wasn't sleepy; so from my ownbag I took a book, set the candle on the end of the mantel, and beganto read. Mark you, I don't say I was much better informed for the readingI did, for I was watching the V's on the wallpaper mostly--that, andwondering what was wrong with the man in the other bed who had fallendown at a touch in the subway. He was already asleep. 

Now I don't know whether I can make the next clear to you. I'm quitecertain he was sound asleep, so that it wasn't just the fact that hespoke. Even that is a little unpleasant, I always think, any sort ofsleep-talking; but it's a very queer sort of sensation when a manactually answers a question that's put to him, knowing nothing whateverabout it in the morning. Perhaps I ought not to have put that question;having put it, I did the next best thing afterwards, as you'll see in amoment . .. But let me tell you. 

He'd been asleep perhaps an hour, and I woolgathering about thewallpaper, when suddenly, in a far more clear and loud voice than he everused when awake, he said:

_"What the devil is it prevents me seeing him, then?"_

That startled me, rather, for the second time that evening; and I reallythink I had spoken before I had fully realised what was happening. 

"From seeing whom?" I said, sitting up in bed. 

"Whom?. .. You're not attending. The fellow I'm telling you about, whoruns after me, " he answered--answered perfectly plainly. 

I could see his head there on the pillow, black and white, and hiseyes were closed. He made a slight movement with his arm, but that didnot wake him. Then it came to me, with a sort of start, what washappening. I slipped half out of bed. Would he--would he?--answeranother question?. .. I risked it, breathlessly:

"Have you any idea who he is?"

Well, that too he answered. 

"Who he is? The Runner?. .. Don't be silly. _Who else should it be?_"

With every nerve in me tingling, I tried again. 

"What happens, then, when he catches you?"

This time, I really don't know whether his words were an answer or not;they were these:

"To hear him catching you up . .. And then padding away ahead again! Allright, all right . .. But I guess it's weakening him a bit, too. .. . "

Without noticing it, I had got out of bed, and had advanced quite to themiddle of the floor. 

"What did you say his name was?" I breathed. 

But that was a dead failure. He muttered brokenly for a moment, gave adeep troubled sigh, and then began to snore loudly and regularly. 

I made my way back to bed; but I assure you that before I did so I filledmy basin with water, dipped my face into it, and then set the candlestickafloat in it, leaving the candle burning. I thought I'd like to have alight. .. . It had burned down by morning. Rooum, I remember, remarked onthe silly practice of reading in bed. 

Well, it was a pretty kind of obsession for a man to have, wasn't it?Somebody running after him all the time, and then . .. Running on ahead?And, of course, on a broad pavement there would be plenty of room forthis running gentleman to run round; but on an eight- or nine-inch kerb, such as that of the new road out Lewisham way . .. But perhaps he was ajumping gentleman too, and could jump over a man's head. You'd think he'dhave to get past some way, wouldn't you?. .. I remember vaguely wonderingwhether the name of that Runner was not Conscience; but Conscience isn'ta matter of molecules and osmosis. .. . 

One thing, however, was clear; I'd got to tell Rooum what I'd learned:for you can't get hold of a fellow's secrets in ways like that. I lostno time about it. I told him, in fact, soon after we'd left the inn thenext morning--told him how he'd answered in his sleep. 

And--what do you think of this?--he seemed to think I ought to haveguessed it! _Guessed_ a monstrous thing like that!

"You're less clever than I thought, with your books and that, if youdidn't, " he grunted. 

"But . .. Good God, man!"

"Queer, isn't it? But you don't know the queerest . .. "

He pondered for a moment, and then suddenly put his lips to my ear. 

"I'll tell you, " he whispered. "_It gets harder every time_!. .. At first, he just slipped through: a bit of a catch at my heart, like when you nodoff to sleep in a chair and jerk up awake again; and away he went. Butnow it's getting grinding, sluggish; and the pain. .. . You'd notice, thatnight on the road, the little check it gave me; that's past long since;and last night, when I'd just braced myself up stiff to meet it, and youtapped me on the shoulder . .. " He passed the back of his hand over hisbrow. 

"I tell you, " he continued, "it's an agony each time. I could scream atthe thought of it. It's oftener, too, now, and he's getting stronger. Theend-osmosis is getting to be ex-osmosis--is that right? Just let me tellyou one more thing--"

But I'd had enough. I'd asked questions the night before, but now--well, I knew quite as much as, and more than, I wanted. 

"Stop, please, " I said. "You're either off your head, or worse. Let'scall it the first. Don't tell me any more, please. "

"Frightened, what? Well, I don't blame you. But what would _you_ do?"

"I should see a doctor; I'm only an engineer, " I replied. 

"Doctors?. .. Bah!" he said, and spat. 

I hope you see how the matter stood with Rooum. What do you make of it?Could you have believed it--_do_ you believe it?. .. He'd made a nearishguess when he'd said that much of our knowledge is giving names to thingswe know nothing about; only rule-of-thumb Physics thinks everything'sexplained in the Manual; and you've always got to remember one thing:You can call it Force or what you like, but it's a certainty that things, solid things of wood and iron and stone, would explode, just go off in apuff into space, if it wasn't for something just as inexplicable as thatthat Rooum said he felt in his own person. And if you can swallow that, it's a relatively small matter whether Rooum's light-footed Familiarslipped through him unperceived, or had to struggle through obstinately. You see now why I said that "a queer thing overtook Rooum. "

More: I saw it. This thing, that outrages reason--I saw it happen. Thatis to say, I saw its effects, and it was in broad daylight, on anordinary afternoon, in the middle of Oxford Street, of all places. Therewasn't a shadow of doubt about it. People were pressing and jostlingabout him, and suddenly I saw him turn his head and listen, as I'd seenhim before. I tell you, an icy creeping ran all over my skin. I fancied Ifelt it approaching too, nearer and nearer. .. . The next moment he hadmade a sort of gathering of himself, as if against a gust. He stumbledand thrust--thrust with his body. He swayed, physically, as a tree swaysin a wind; he clutched my arm and gave a loud scream. Then, afterseconds--minutes--I don't know how long--he was free again. 

And for the colour of his face when by-and-by I glanced at it . .. Well, Ionce saw a swarthy Italian fall under a sunstroke, and _his_ face wasmuch the same colour that Rooum's negro face had gone; a cloudy, whitishgreen. 

"Well--you've seen it--what do you think of it?" he gasped presently, turning a ghastly grin on me. 

But it was night before the full horror of it had soaked into me. 

Soon after that he disappeared again. I wasn't sorry. 

 * * * * *

Our big contract in the West End came on. It was a time-contract, withall manner of penalty clauses if we didn't get through; and I assureyou that we were busy. I myself was far too busy to think of Rooum. 

It's a shop now, the place we were working at, or rather one of thesehuge weldings of fifty shops where you can buy anything; and if you'dseen us there. .. But perhaps you did see us, for people stood up on thetops of omnibuses as they passed, to look over the mud-splashed hoardinginto the great excavation we'd made. It was a sight. Staging rose onstaging, tier on tier, with interminable ladders all over the steelstructure. Three or four squat Otis lifts crouched like iron turtles ontop, and a lattice-crane on a towering three-cornered platform rose ahundred and twenty feet into the air. At one end of the vast quarrywas a demolished house, showing flues and fireplaces and a score ofthicknesses of old wallpaper; and at night--they might well have stood upon the tops of the buses! A dozen great spluttering violet arc-lightshalf-blinded you; down below were the watchmen's fires; overhead, theriveters had their fire-baskets; and in odd corners naphtha-lightsguttered and flared. And the steel rang with the riveters' hammers, andthe crane-chains rattled and clashed. .. . There's not much doubt in _my_mind, it's the engineers who are the architects nowadays. The chaps whothink they're the architects are only a sort of paperhangers, who hangbrick and terra-cotta on our work and clap a pinnacle or two on top--butnever mind that. There we were, sweating and clanging and navvying, tillthe day shift came to relieve us. 

And I ought to say that fifty feet above our great gap, and from end toend across it, there ran a travelling crane on a skeleton line, withplatform, engine, and wooden cab all compact in one. 

It happened that they had pitched in as one of the foremen some fellow orother, a friend of the firm's, a rank duffer, who pestered me incessantlywith his questions. I did half his work and all my own, and it hadn'timproved my temper much. On this night that I'm telling about, he'd beenplaying the fool with his questions as if a time-contract was a sort ofsummer holiday; and he'd filled me up to that point that I really can'tsay just when it was that Rooum put in an appearance again. I think I hadheard somebody mention his name, but I'd paid no attention. 

Well, our Johnnie Fresh came up to me for the twentieth time that night, this time wanting to know something about the overhead crane. At thatI fairly lost my temper. 

"What ails the crane?" I cried. "It's doing its work, isn't it? Isn'teverybody doing their work except you? Why can't you ask Hopkins? Isn'tHopkins there?"

"I don't know, " he said. 

"Then, " I snapped, "in that particular I'm as ignorant as you, and I hopeit's the only one. "

But he grabbed my arm. 

"Look at it now!" he cried, pointing; and I looked up. 

Either Hopkins or somebody was dangerously exceeding the speed-limit. Thething was flying along its thirty yards of rail as fast as a tram, andthe heavy fall-blocks swung like a ponderous kite-tail, thirty feetbelow. As I watched, the engine brought up within a yard of the end ofthe way, the blocks crashed like a ram into the broken house end, fetching down plaster and brick, and then the mechanism was reversed. Thecrane set off at a tear back. 

"Who in Hell . .. " I began; but it wasn't a time to talk. "_Hi!_" Iyelled, and made a spring for a ladder. 

The others had noticed it, too, for there were shouts all over the place. By that time I was halfway up the second stage. Again the crane torepast, with the massive tackle sweeping behind it, and again I heard thecrash at the other end. Whoever had the handling of it was managingit skilfully, for there was barely a foot to spare when it turned again. 

On the fourth platform, at the end of the way, I found Hopkins. He waswhite, and seemed to be counting on his fingers. 

"What's the matter here?" I cried. 

"It's Rooum, " he answered. "I hadn't stepped out of the cab, not aminute, when I heard the lever go. He's running somebody down, he says;he'll run the whole shoot down in a minute--look!. .. "

The crane was coming back again. Half out of the cab I could see Rooum'smottled hair and beard. His brow was ribbed like a gridiron, and as heripped past one of the arcs his face shone like porcelain with the sweatthat bathed it. 

"Now . .. You!. .. Now, damn you!. .. " he was shouting. 

"Get ready to board him when he reverses!" I shouted to Hopkins. 

Just how we scrambled on I don't know. I got one arm over thelifting-gear (which, of course, wasn't going), and heard Hopkins onthe other footplate. Rooum put the brakes down and reversed; again camethe thud of the fall-blocks; and we were speeding back again over thegulf of misty orange light. The stagings were thronged with gaping men. 

"Ready? Now!" I cried to Hopkins; and we sprang into the cab. 

Hopkins hit Rooum's wrist with a spanner. Then he seized the lever, jammed the brake down and tripped Rooum, all, as it seemed, in onemovement. I fell on top of Rooum. The crane came to a standstillhalf-way down the line. I held Rooum panting. 

But either Rooum was stronger than I, or else he took me very muchunawares. All at once he twisted clear from my grasp and stumbled on hisknees to the rear door of the cab. He threw up one elbow, and staggeredto his feet as I made another clutch at him. 

"Keep still, you fool!" I bawled. "Hit him over the head, Hopkins!"

Rooum screamed in a high voice. 

"Run him down--cut him up with the wheels--down, you!--down, I say!--Oh, my God!. .. _Ha_!"

He sprang clear out from the crane door, well-nigh taking me with him. 

I told you it was a skeleton line, two rails and a tie or two. He'dactually jumped to the right-hand rail. And he was running alongit--running along that iron tightrope, out over that well of light andwatching men. Hopkins had started the travelling-gear, as if with someinsane idea of catching him; but there was only one possible end to it. He'd gone fully a dozen yards, while I watched, horribly fascinated; andthen I saw the turn of his head. .. . 

He didn't meet it this time; he sprang to the other rail, as if to evadeit. .. . 

Even at the take-off he missed. As far as I could see, he made no attemptto save himself with his hands. He just went down out of the field ofmy vision. There was an awful silence; then, from far below . .. 

 * * * * *

They weren't the men on the lower stages who moved first. The men abovewent a little way down, and then they too stopped. Presently two of themdescended, but by a distant way. They returned, with two bottles ofbrandy, and there was a hasty consultation. Two men drank the brandy offthere and then--getting on for a pint of brandy apiece; then they wentdown, drunk. 

I, Hopkins tells me, had got down on my knees in the crane cab, and wasjabbering away cheerfully to myself. When I asked him what I said, he hesitated, and then said: "Oh, you don't want to know that, sir, " andI haven't asked him since. 

What do _you_ make of it?

BENLIAN

I

It would be different if you had known Benlian. It would be different ifyou had had even that glimpse of him that I had the very first time I sawhim, standing on the little wooden landing at the top of the flight ofsteps outside my studio door. I say "studio"; but really it was just asort of loft looking out over the timber-yard, and I used it as a studio. The real studio, the big one, was at the other end of the yard, and thatwas Benlian's. 

Scarcely anybody ever came there. I wondered many a time if thetimber-merchant was dead or had lost his memory and forgotten all abouthis business; for his stacks of floorboards, set criss-crosswise toseason (you know how they pile them up) were grimy with soot, and nobodyever disturbed the rows of scaffold-poles that stood like palisades alongthe walls. The entrance was from the street, through a door in abillposter's hoarding; and on the river not far away the steamboatshooted, and, in windy weather, the floorboards hummed to keep themcompany. 

I suppose some of these real, regular artists wouldn't have called me anartist at all; for I only painted miniatures, and it was trade-work atthat, copied from photographs and so on. Not that I wasn't jolly good atit, and punctual too (lots of these high-flown artists have simply noidea of punctuality); and the loft was cheap, and suited me very well. But, of course, a sculptor wants a big place on the ground floor; it'sslow work, that with blocks of stone and marble that cost you twentypounds every time you lift them; so Benlian had the studio. His name wason a plate on the door, but I'd never seen him till this time I'm tellingyou of. 

I was working that evening at one of the prettiest little things I'd everdone: a girl's head on ivory, that I'd stippled up just like . .. Oh, you'd never have thought it was done by hand at all. The daylight hadgone, but I knew that "Prussian" would be about the colour for the eyesand the bunch of flowers at her breast, and I wanted to finish. 

I was working at my little table, with a shade over my eyes; and I jumpeda bit when somebody knocked at the door--not having heard anybody come upthe steps, and not having many visitors anyway. (Letters were always putinto the box in the yard door. )

When I opened the door, there he stood on the platform; and I gave a bitof a start, having come straight from my ivory, you see. He was one ofthese very tall, gaunt chaps, that make us little fellows feel evensmaller than we are; and I wondered at first where his eyes were, theywere set so deep in the dark caves on either side of his nose. Like askull, his head was; I could fancy his teeth curving round inside hischeeks; and his zygomatics stuck up under his skin like razorbacks (butif you're not one of us artists you'll not understand that). A bit ofsmoky, greenish sky showed behind him; and then, as his eyes moved intheir big pits, one of them caught the light of my lamp and flashed likea well of lustre. 

He spoke abruptly, in a deep, shaky sort of voice. 

"I want you to photograph me in the morning, " he said. I supposed he'dseen my printing-frames out on the window-sash some time or other. 

"Come in, " I said. "But I'm afraid, if it's a miniature you want, thatI'm retained--my firm retains me--you'd have to do it through them. Butcome in, and I'll show you the kind of thing I do--though you ought tohave come in the daylight . .. "

He came in. He was wearing a long, grey dressing-gown that came rightdown to his heels and made him look something like a Noah's-ark figure. Seen in the light, his face seemed more ghastly bony still; and as heglanced for a moment at my little ivory he made a sound of contempt--Iknow it was contempt. I thought it rather cheek, coming into my placeand--

He turned his cavernous eyeholes on me. 

"I don't want anything of that sort. I want you to photograph me. I'll behere at ten in the morning. "

So, just to show him that I wasn't to be treated that way, I said, quiteshortly, "I can't. I've an appointment at ten o'clock. "

"What's that?" he said--he'd one of these rich deep voices that alwayssound consumptive. 

"Take that thing off your eyes, and look at me, " he ordered. 

Well, I was awfully indignant. 

"If you think I'm going to be told to do things like this--" I began. 

"Take that thing off, " he just ordered again. 

I've got to remember, of course, that you didn't know Benlian. _I_ didn'tthen. And for a chap just to stalk into a fellow's place, and tell him tophotograph him, and order him about . .. But you'll see in a minute. Itook the shade off my eyes, just to show him that _I_ could browbeat abit too. 

I used to have a tall strip of looking-glass leaning against my wall; forthough I didn't use models much, it's awfully useful to go to Nature forodd bits now and then, and I've sketched myself in that glass, oh, hundreds of times! We must have been standing in front of it, for all atonce I saw the eyes at the bottom of his pits looking rigidly over myshoulder. Without moving his eyes from the glass, and scarcely moving hislips, he muttered:

"Get me a pair of gloves, get me a pair of gloves. "

It was a funny thing to ask for; but I got him a pair of my gloves from adrawer. His hands were shaking so that he could hardly get them on, andthere was a little glistening of sweat on his face, that looked like thesalt that dries on you when you've been bathing in the sea. Then Iturned, to see what it was that he was looking so earnestly andprofoundly at in the mirror. I saw nothing except just the pair of us, hewith my gloves on. 

He stepped aside, and slowly drew the gloves off. I think _I_ could havebullied _him_ just then. He turned to me. 

"Did that look all right to you?" he asked. 

"Why, my dear chap, whatever ails you?" I cried. 

"I suppose, " he went on, "you couldn't photograph me to-night--now?"

I could have done, with magnesium, but I hadn't a scrap in the place. Itold him so. He was looking round my studio. He saw my camera standing ina corner. 

"Ah!" he said. 

He made a stride towards it. He unscrewed the lens, brought it to thelamp, and peered attentively through it, now into the air, now at hissleeve and hand, as if looking for a flaw in it. Then he replaced it, andpulled up the collar of his dressing-gown as if he was cold. 

"Well, another night of it, " he muttered; "but, " he added, facingsuddenly round on me, "if your appointment was to meet your God Himself, you must photograph me at ten to-morrow morning!"

"All right, " I said, giving in (for he seemed horribly ill). "Draw up tothe stove and have a drink of something and a smoke. "

"I neither drink nor smoke, " he replied, moving towards the door. 

"Sit down and have a chat, then, " I urged; for I always like to be decentwith fellows, and it was a lonely sort of place, that yard. 

He shook his head. 

"Be ready by ten o'clock in the morning, " he said; and he passed down mystairs and crossed the yard to his studio without even having said "Goodnight. "

Well, he was at my door again at ten o'clock in the morning, and Iphotographed him. I made three exposures; but the plates were some thatI'd had in the place for some time, and they'd gone off and fogged in thedeveloping. 

"I'm awfully sorry, " I said; "but I'm going out this afternoon, and willget some more, and we'll have another shot in the morning. "

One after the other, he was holding the negatives up to the light andexamining them. Presently he put them down quietly, leaning themmethodically up against the edge of the developing-bath. 

"Never mind. It doesn't matter. Thank you, " he said; and left me. 

After that, I didn't see him for weeks; but at nights I could see thelight of his roof-window, shining through the wreathing river-mists, andsometimes I heard him moving about, and the muffled knock-knocking of hishammer on marble. 

II

Of course I did see him again, or I shouldn't be telling you all this. Hecame to my door, just as he had done before, and at about the same timein the evening. He hadn't come to be photographed this time, but for allthat it was something about a camera--something he wanted to know. He'dbrought two books with him, big books, printed in German. They were onLight, he said, and Physics (or else it was Psychics--I always get thosetwo words wrong). They were full of diagrams and equations and figures;and, of course, it was all miles above my head. 

He talked a lot about "hyper-space, " whatever that is; and at first Inodded, as if I knew all about it. But he very soon saw that I didn't, and he came down to my level again. What he'd come to ask me was this:Did I know anything, of my own experience, about things "photographingthrough"? (You know the kind of thing: a name that's been painted out ona board, say, comes up in the plate. )

Well, as it happened, I _had_ once photographed a drawing for a fellow, and the easel I had stood it on had come up through the picture; and Iknew by the way Benlian nodded that that was the kind of thing he meant. 

"More, " he said. 

I told him I'd once seen a photograph of a man with a bowler hat on, andthe shape of his crown had showed through the hat. 

"Yes, yes, " he said, musing; and then he asked: "Have you ever heard ofthings not photographing at all?"

But I couldn't tell him anything about that; and off he started again, about Light and Physics and so on. Then, as soon as I could get a wordin, I said, "But, of course, the camera isn't Art. " (Some of myminiatures, you understand, were jolly nice little things. )

"No--no, " he murmured absently; and then abruptly he said: "Eh? What'sthat? And what the devil do _you_ know about it?"

"Well, " said I, in a dignified sort of way, "considering that for tenyears I've been--"

"Chut!. .. Hold your tongue, " he said, turning away. 

There he was, talking to me again, just as if I'd asked him in to bullyme. But you've got to be decent to a fellow when he's in your own place;and by-and-by I asked him, but in a cold, off-hand sort of way, how hisown work was going on. He turned to me again. 

"Would you like to see it?" he asked. 

"_Aha_!" thought I, "he's got to a sticking-point with his work! It's allvery well, " I thought, "for you to sniff at my miniatures, my friend, butwe all get stale on our work sometimes, and the fresh eye, even of aminiature-painter . .. "

"I shall be glad if I can be of any help to you, " I answered, still a bithuffish, but bearing no malice. 

"Then come, " he said. 

We descended and crossed the timber-yard, and he held his door open forme to pass in. 

It was an enormous great place, his studio, and all full of mist; and thegallery that was his bedroom was up a little staircase at the fartherend. In the middle of the floor was a tall structure of scaffolding, witha stage or two to stand on; and I could see the dim ghostly marble figurein the gloom. It had been jacked up on a heavy base; and as it would havetaken three or four men to put it into position, and scarcely a strangerhad entered the yard since I had been there, I knew that the figure musthave stood for a long time. Sculpture's weary, slow work. 

Benlian was pottering about with a taper at the end of a long rod; andsuddenly the overhead gas-ring burst into light. I placed myself beforethe statue--to criticise, you know. 

Well, it didn't seem to me that he needed to have turned up his nose atmy ivories, for I didn't think much of his statue--except that it was agreat, lumping, extraordinary piece of work. It had an outstretched armthat, I remember thinking, was absolutely misshapen--disproportioned, big enough for a giant, ridiculously out of drawing. And as I looked atthe thing this way and that, I knew that his eyes in their deep cellarsnever left my face for a moment. 

"It's a god, " he said by-and-by. 

Then I began to tell him about that monstrous arm; but he cut me veryshort. 

"I say it's a god, " he interrupted, looking at me as if he would haveeaten me. "Even you, child as you are, have seen the gods men have madefor themselves before this. Half-gods they've made, all good or all evil(and then they've called them the Devil). This is _my_ god--the god ofgood and of evil also. "

"Er--I see, " I said, rather taken aback (but quite sure he was off hishead for all that). Then I looked at the arm again; a child could haveseen how wrong it was. .. . 

But suddenly, to my amazement, he took me by the shoulders and turned meaway. 

"That'll do, " he said curtly. "I didn't ask you to come in here with aview to learning anything from you. I wanted to see how it struck you. Ishall send for you again--and again--"

Then he began to jabber, half to himself. 

"Bah!" he muttered. "'Is that all?' they ask before a stupendous thing. Show them the ocean, the heavens, infinity, and they ask, 'Is that all?'If they saw their God face to face they'd ask it!. .. There's only oneCause, that works now in good and now in evil, but show It to them andthey put their heads on one side and begin to appraise and patroniseIt!. .. I tell you, what's seen at a glance flies away at a glance. Godscome slowly over you, but presently, ah! they begin to grip you, and atthe end there's no fleeing from them! You'll tell me more about my statueby-and-by!. .. What was that you said?" he demanded, facing swiftly roundon me. "That arm? Ah, yes; but we'll see what you say about that arm sixmonths from now! Yes, the arm. .. . Now be off!" he ordered me. "I'll sendfor you again when I want you!"

He thrust me out. 

"An asylum, Mr. Benlian, " I thought as I crossed the yard, "is the placefor you!" You see, I didn't know him then, and that he wasn't to bejudged as an ordinary man is. Just you wait till you see. .. . 

And straight away, I found myself vowing that I'd have nothing more to dowith him. I found myself resolving that, as if I were making up my mindnot to smoke or drink--and (I don't know why) with a similar sense that Iwas depriving myself of something. But, somehow, I forgot, and within amonth he'd been in several times to see me, and once or twice had fetchedme in to see his statue. 

In two months I was in an extraordinary state of mind about him. I wasfamiliar with him in a way, but at the same time I didn't know one scrapmore about him. Because I'm a fool (oh, yes, I know quite well, now, whatI am) you'll think I'm talking folly if I even begin to tell you whatsort of a man he was. I don't mean just his knowledge (though I think heknew everything--sciences, languages, and all that) for it was far morethan that. Somehow, when he was there, he had me all restless and uneasy;and when he wasn't there I was (there's only the one word for it)jealous--as jealous as if he'd been a girl! Even yet I can't make itout. .. . 

And he knew how unsettled he'd got me; and I'll tell you how I found thatout. 

Straight out one night, when he was sitting up in my place, he asked me:"Do you like me, Pudgie?" (I forgot to say that I'd told him they used tocall me Pudgie at home, because I was little and fat; it was odd, thenumber of things I told him that I wouldn't have told anybody else. )

"Do you like me, Pudgie?" he said. 

As for my answer, I don't know how it spurted out. I was much moresurprised than he was, for I really didn't intend it. It was for all theworld as if somebody else was talking with my mouth. 

"_I loathe and adore you!_" it came; and then I looked round, awfullystartled to hear myself saying that. 

But he didn't look at me. He only nodded. 

"Yes. Of good and evil too--" he muttered to himself. And then all of asudden he got up and went out. 

I didn't sleep for ever so long after that, thinking how odd it was Ishould have said that. 

Well (to get on), after that something I couldn't account for began tocome over me sometimes as I worked. It began to come over me, without anywarning, that he was thinking of me down there across the yard. I used to_know_ (this must sound awfully silly to you) that he was down yonder, thinking of me and doing something to me. And one night I was so surethat it wasn't fancy that I jumped straight up from my work, and I'm notquite sure what happened then, until I found myself in his studio, justas if I'd walked there in my sleep. 

And he seemed to be waiting for me, for there was a chair by his own, infront of the statue. 

"What is it, Benlian?" I burst out. 

"Ah!" he said. .. . "Well, it's about that arm, Pudgie; I want you to tellme about the arm. Does it look so strange as it did?"

"No, " I said. 

"I thought it wouldn't, " he observed. "But I haven't touched it, Pudgie--"

So I stayed the evening there. 

But you must not think he was always doing that thing--whatever itwas--to me. On the other hand, I sometimes felt the oddest sort ofrelease (I don't know how else to put it) . .. Like when, on one of thesemuggy, earthy-smelling days, when everything's melancholy, the windfreshens up suddenly and you breathe again. And that (I'm trying to takeit in order, you see, so that it will be plain to you) brings me to thetime I found out that _he_ did that too, and knew when he was doing it. 

I'd gone into his place one night to have a look at his statue. It wassurprising what a lot I was finding out about that statue. It was stillall out of proportion (that is to say, I knew it must be--remembered I'dthought so--though it didn't annoy me now quite so much. I suppose I'dlost _my_ fresh eye by that time). Somehow, too, my own miniatures hadbegun to look a bit kiddish; they made me impatient; and that's horrible, to be discontented with things that once seemed jolly good to you. 

Well, he'd been looking at me in the hungriest sort of way, and I lookingat the statue, when all at once that feeling of release and lightnesscame over me. The first I knew of it was that I found myself thinking ofsome rather important letters my firm had written to me, wanting to knowwhen a job I was doing was going to be finished. I thought myself it wastime I got it finished; I thought I'd better set about it at once; and Isat suddenly up in my chair, as if I'd just come out of a sleep. And, looking at the statue, I saw it as it had seemed at first--all misshapenand out of drawing. 

The very next moment, as I was rising, I sat down again as suddenly as ifsomebody had pulled me back. 

Now a chap doesn't like to be changed about like that; so, withoutlooking at Benlian, I muttered a bit testily, "Don't, Benlian!"

Then I heard him get up and knock his chair away. He was standing behindme. 

"Pudgie, " he said, in a moved sort of voice, "I'm no good to you. Get outof this. Get out--"

"No, no, Benlian!" I pleaded. 

"Get out, do you hear, and don't come again! Go and live somewhereelse--go away from London--don't let me know where you go--"

"Oh, what have I done?" I asked unhappily; and he was muttering again. 

"Perhaps it would be better for me too, " he muttered; and then he added, "Come, bundle out!"

So in home I went, and finished my ivory for the firm; but I can't tellyou how friendless and unhappy I felt. 

Now I used to know in those days a little girl--a nice, warm-heartedlittle thing, just friendly you know, who used to come to me sometimes inanother place I lived at and mend for me and so on. It was an awful longtime since I'd seen her; but she found me out one night--came to thatyard, walked straight in, went straight to my linen-bag, and began tolook over my things to see what wanted mending, just as she used to. Idon't mind confessing that I was a bit sweet on her at one time; and itmade me feel awfully mean, the way she came in, without asking anyquestions, and took up my mending. 

So she sat doing my things, and I sat at my work, glad of a bit ofcompany; and she chatted as she worked, just jolly and gentle and not atall reproaching me. 

But as suddenly as a shot, right in the middle of it all, I found myselfwondering about Benlian again. And I wasn't only wondering; somehow I washorribly uneasy about him. It came to me that he might be ill orsomething. And all the fun of her having come to see me was gone. I foundmyself doing all sorts of stupid things to my work, and glancing at mywatch that was lying on the table before me. 

At last I couldn't stand it any longer. I got up. 

"Daisy, " I said, "I've got to go out now. "

She seemed surprised. 

"Oh, why didn't you tell me I'd been keeping you!" she said, getting upat once. 

I muttered that I was awfully sorry. .. . 

I packed her off. I closed the door in the hoarding behind her. Then Iwalked straight across the yard to Benlian's. 

He was lying on a couch, not doing anything. 

"I know I ought to have come sooner, Benlian, " I said, "but I hadsomebody with me. "

"Yes, " he said, looking hard at me; and I got a bit red. 

"She's awfully nice, " I stammered; "but you never bother with girls, andyou don't drink or smoke--"

"No, " he said. 

"Well, " I continued, "you ought to have a little relaxation; you'reknocking yourself up. " And, indeed, he looked awfully ill. 

But he shook his head. 

"A man's only a definite amount of force in him, Pudgie, " he said, "andif he spends it in one way he goes short in another. Mine goes--there. "He glanced at the statue. "I rarely sleep now, " he added. 

"Then you ought to see a doctor, " I said, a bit alarmed. (I'd felt surehe was ill. )

"No, no, Pudgie. My force is all going there--all but the minimum thatcan't be helped, you know. .. . You've heard artists talk about 'puttingtheir soul into their work, ' Pudgie?"

"Don't rub it in about my rotten miniatures, Benlian, " I asked him. 

"You've heard them say that; but they're charlatans, professionalartists, all, Pudgie. They haven't got any souls bigger than a sixpenceto put into it. .. . You know, Pudgie, that Force and Matter are the samething--that it's decided nowadays that you can't define matter otherwisethan as 'a point of Force'?"

"Yes, " I found myself saying eagerly, as if I'd heard it dozens of timesbefore. 

"So that if they could put their souls into it, it would be just as easyfor them to put their _bodies_ into it?. .. "

I had drawn very close to him, and again--it was not fancy--I felt as ifsomebody, not me, was using my mouth. A flash of comprehension seemed tocome into my brain. 

"_Not that, Benlian_?" I cried breathlessly. 

He nodded three or four times, and whispered. I really don't know why weboth whispered. 

"_Really that, Benlian_?" I whispered again. 

"Shall I show you?. .. I tried my hardest not to, you know, . .. " he stillwhispered. 

"Yes, show me!" I replied in a suppressed voice. 

"Don't breathe a sound then! I keep them up there. .. . "

He put his finger to his lips as if we had been two conspirators; then hetiptoed across the studio and went up to his bedroom in the gallery. Presently he tiptoed down again, with some rolled-up papers in his hand. They were photographs, and we stooped together over a little table. Hishand shook with excitement. 

"You remember this?" he whispered, showing me a rough print. 

It was one of the prints from the fogged plates that I'd taken after thatfirst night. 

"Come closer to me if you feel frightened, Pudgie, " he said. "You saidthey were old plates, Pudgie. No no; the plates were all right; it's _I_who am wrong!"

"Of course, " I said. It seemed so natural. 

"This one, " he said, taking up one that was numbered "1, " "is a plainphotograph, in the flesh, before it started; _you_ know! Now look atthis, and this--"

He spread them before me, all in order. 

"2" was a little fogged, as if a novice had taken it; on "3" a sort ofcloudy veil partly obliterated the face; "4" was still further smudgedand lost; and "5" was a figure with gloved hands held up, as a man holdshis hands up when he is covered by a gun. The face of this one wascompletely blotted out. 

And it didn't seem in the least horrible to me, for I kept on murmuring, "Of course, of course. "

Then Benlian rubbed his hands and smiled at me. "I'm making goodprogress, am I not?" he said. 

"Splendid!" I breathed. 

"Better than you know, too, " he chuckled, "for you're not properly underyet. But you will be, Pudgie, you will be--"

"Yes, yes!. .. Will it be long, Benlian?"

"No, " he replied, "not if I can keep from eating and sleeping andthinking of other things than the statue--and if you don't disturb me byhaving girls about the place, Pudgie. "

"I'm awfully sorry, " I said contritely. 

"All right, all right; ssh!. .. This, you know, Pudgie, is my own studio;I bought it; I bought it purposely to make my statue, my god. I'm passingnicely into it; and when I'm quite passed--_quite_ passed, Pudgie--youcan have the key and come in when you like. "

"Oh, thanks awfully, " I murmured gratefully. 

He nudged me. 

"What would they think of it, Pudgie--those of the exhibitions andacademies, who say 'their souls are in their work'? What would thecacklers think of it, Pudgie?"

"Aren't they fools!" I chuckled. 

"And I shall have _one_ worshipper, shan't I, Pudgie?"

"Rather!" I replied. "Isn't it splendid!. .. Oh, need I go back just yet?"

"Yes, you must go now; but I'll send for you again very soon. .. . You knowI tried to do without you, Pudge; I tried for thirteen days, and itnearly killed me! That's past. I shan't try again. Now off you trot, myPudgie--"

I winked at him knowingly, and came skipping and dancing across the yard. 

III

It's just silly--that's what it is--to say that something of a mandoesn't go into his work. 

Why, even those wretched little ivories of mine, the thick-headed fellowswho paid for them knew my touch in them, and once spotted it instantlywhen I tried to slip in another chap's who was hard up. Benlian used tosay that a man went about spreading himself over everything he came incontact with--diffusing some sort of influence (as far as I could make itout); and the mistake was, he said, that we went through the world justwasting it instead of directing it. And if Benlian didn't understand allabout those things, I should jolly well like to know who does! A chapwith a great abounding will and brain like him, it's only natural heshould be able to pass himself on, to a statue or anything else, when hereally tried--did without food and talk and sleep in order to savehimself up for it!

"A man can't both _do_ and _be_, " I remember he said to me once. "He's somuch force, no more, and he can either make himself with it or somethingelse. If he tries to do both, he does both imperfectly. I'm going to do_one_ perfect thing. " Oh, he was a queer chap! Fancy, a fellow making athing like that statue, out of himself, and then wanting somebody toadore him!

And I hadn't the faintest conception of how much I did adore him tillyet again, as he had done before, he seemed to--you know--to takehimself away from me again, leaving me all alone, and so wretched!. .. AndI was angry at the same time, for he'd promised me he wouldn't do itagain. .. . (This was one night, I don't remember when. )

I ran to my landing and shouted down into the yard. 

"Benlian! Benlian!"

There was a light in his studio, and I heard a muffled shout come back. 

"Keep away--keep away--keep away!"

He was struggling--I knew he was struggling as I stood there on mylanding--struggling to let me go. And I could only run and throw myselfon my bed and sob, while he tried to set me free, who didn't want to beset free . .. He was having a terrific struggle, all alone there. .. . 

(He told me afterwards that he _had_ to eat something now and then and tosleep a little, and that weakened him--strengthened him--strengthenedhis body and weakened the passing, you know. )

But the next day it was all right again. I was Benlian's again. And Iwondered, when I remembered his struggle, whether a dying man had everfought for life as hard as Benlian was fighting to get away from it andpass himself. 

The next time after that that he fetched me--called me--whatever you liketo name it--I burst into his studio like a bullet. He was sunk in a bigchair, gaunt as a mummy now, and all the life in him seemed to burn inthe bottom of his deep eye-sockets. At the sight of him I fiddled withmy knuckles and giggled. 

"You _are_ going it, Benlian!" I said. 

"Am I not?" he replied, in a voice that was scarcely a breath. 

"You _meant_ me to bring the camera and magnesium, didn't you?" (I hadsnatched them up when I felt his call, and had brought them. )

"Yes. Go ahead. "

So I placed the camera before him, made all ready, and took the magnesiumribbon in a pair of pincers. 

"Are you ready?" I said; and lighted the ribbon. 

The studio seemed to leap with the blinding glare. The ribbon spat andspluttered. I snapped the shutter, and the fumes drifted away and hungin clouds in the roof. 

"You'll have to walk me about soon, Pudgie, and bang me with bladders, asthey do the opium-patients, " he said sleepily. 

"Let me take one of the statue now, " I said eagerly. 

But he put up his hand. 

"No, no. _That's_ too much like testing our god. Faith's the food theyfeed gods on, Pudgie. We'll let the S. P. R. People photograph it when it'sall over, " he said. "Now get it developed. "

I developed the plate. The obliteration now seemed complete. 

But Benlian seemed dissatisfied. 

"There's something wrong somewhere, " he said. "It isn't so perfect asthat yet--I can feel within me it isn't. It's merely that your cameraisn't strong enough to find me, Pudgie. "

"I'll get another in the morning, " I cried. 

"No, " he answered. "I know something better than that. Have a cab here byten o'clock in the morning, and we'll go somewhere. "

By half-past ten the next morning we had driven to a large hospital, andhad gone down a lot of steps and along corridors to a basement room. There was a stretcher couch in the middle of the room, and all manner ofqueer appliances, frames of ground glass, tubes of glass blown intoextraordinary shapes, a dynamo, and a lot of other things all about. Acouple of doctors were there too, and Benlian was talking to them. 

"We'll try my hand first, " Benlian said by-and-by. 

He advanced to the couch, and put his hand under one of the frames ofground glass. One of the doctors did something in a corner. A harshcrackling filled the room, and an unearthly, fluorescent light shot andflooded across the frame where Benlian's hand was. The two doctorslooked, and then started back. One of them gave a cry. He was sicklywhite. 

"Put me on the couch, " said Benlian. 

I and the doctor who was not ill lifted him on the canvas stretcher. Thegreen-gleaming frame of fluctuating light was passed over the whole ofhis body. Then the doctor ran to a telephone and called a colleague. .. . 

We spent the morning there, with dozens of doctors coming and going. Thenwe left. All the way home in the cab Benlian chuckled to himself. 

"That scared 'em, Pudgie!" he chuckled. "A man they can't X-ray--thatscared 'em! We must put that down in the diary--"

"Wasn't it ripping!" I chuckled back. 

He kept a sort of diary or record. He gave it to me afterwards, butthey've borrowed it. It was as big as a ledger, and immensely valuable, I'm sure; they oughtn't to borrow valuable things like that and notreturn them. The laughing that Benlian and I have had over that diary!It fooled them all--the clever X-ray men, the artists of the academies, everybody! Written on the fly-leaf was "_To My Pudgie_. " I shall publishit when I get it back again. 

Benlian had now got frightfully weak; it's awfully hard work, passingyourself. And he had to take a little milk now and then or he'd havedied before he had quite finished. I didn't bother with miniatures anylonger, and when angry letters came from my employers we just put theminto the fire, Benlian and I, and we laughed--that is to say, I laughed, but Benlian only smiled, being too weak to laugh really. He'd lots ofmoney, so that was all right; and I slept in his studio, to be there forthe passing. 

And that wouldn't be very long now, I thought; and I was always lookingat the statue. Things like that (in case you don't know) have to be donegradually, and I supposed he was busy filling up the inside of it andhadn't got to the outside yet--for the statue was much the same to lookat. But, reckoning off his sips of milk and snatches of sleep, he wasmaking splendid progress, and the figure must be getting very full now. I was awfully excited, it was getting so near. .. . 

And then somebody came bothering and nearly spoiling all. It's odd, but Ireally forget exactly what it was. I only know there was a funeral, andpeople were sobbing and looking at me, and somebody said I was callous, but somebody else said, "No, look at him, " and that it was just the otherway about. And I think I remember, now, that it wasn't in London, for Iwas in a train; but after the funeral I dodged them, and found myselfback at Euston again. They followed me, but I shook them off. I locked myown studio up, and lay as quiet as a mouse in Benlian's place when theycame hammering at the door. .. . 

 * * * * *

And now I must come to what you'll called the finish--though it's awfullystupid to call things like that "finishes. "

I'd slipped into my own studio one night--I forget what for; and I'd gonequietly, for I knew they were following me, those people, and would catchme if they could. It was a thick, misty night, and the light camestreaming up through Benlian's roof window, with the shadows of thewindow-divisions losing themselves like dark rays in the fog. A lot ofhooting was going on down the river, steamers and barges. .. . Oh, I knowwhat I'd come into my studio for! It was for those negatives. Benlianwanted them for the diary, so that it could be seen there wasn't anyfake about the prints. For he'd said he would make a final spurt thatevening and get the job finished. It had taken a long time, but I'll bet_you_ couldn't have passed _yourself_ any quicker. 

When I got back he was sitting in the chair he'd hardly left for weeks, and the diary was on the table by his side. I'd taken all the scaffoldingdown from the statue, and he was ready to begin. He had to waste one lastbit of strength to explain to me, but I drew as close as I could, so thathe wouldn't lose much. 

"Now, Pudgie, " I just heard him say, "you've behaved splendidly, andyou'll be quite still up to the finish, won't you?"

I nodded. 

"And you mustn't expect the statue to come down and walk about, or anything like that, " he continued. "_Those_ aren't the reallywonderful things. And no doubt people will tell you it hasn't changed;but you'll know better! It's much more wonderful that I should be therethan that they should be able to prove it, isn't it?. .. And, of course, I don't know exactly how it will happen, for I've never done thisbefore. .. . You have the letter for the S. P. R. ? They can photograph it ifthey want. .. . By the way, you don't think the same of my statue as youdid at first, do you?"

"Oh, it's wonderful!" I breathed. 

"And even if, like the God of the others, it doesn't vouchsafe a specialsign and wonder, it's Benlian, for all that?"

"Oh, do be quick, Benlian! I can't bear another minute!"

Then, for the last time, he turned his great eaten-out eyes on me. 

"_I seal you mine, Pudgie_!" he said. 

Then his eyes fastened themselves on the statue. 

I waited for a quarter of an hour, scarcely breathing. Benlian's breathcame in little flutters, many seconds apart. He had a little clock on thetable. Twenty minutes passed, and half an hour. I was a littledisappointed, really, that the statue wasn't going to move; but Benlianknew best, and it was filling quietly up with him instead. Then I thoughtof those zigzag bunches of lightning they draw on the electric-beltadvertisements, and I was rather glad after all that the statue _wasn't_going to move. It would have been a little cheap, that . .. Vulgar, in asense. .. . He was breathing a little more sharply now, as if in pain, buthis eyes never moved. A dog was howling somewhere, and I hoped that thehooting of the tugs wouldn't disturb Benlian. .. . 

Nearly an hour had passed when, all of a sudden, I pushed my chairfarther away and cowered back, gnawing my fingers, very frightened. Benlian had suddenly moved. He'd set himself forward in his chair, and heseemed to be strangling. His mouth was wide open, and he began to makelong harsh "_Aaaaah-aaaah's_!" I shouldn't have thought passing yourselfwas such agony. .. . 

And then I gave a scream--for he seemed to be thrusting himself back inhis chair again, as if he'd changed his mind and didn't want to passhimself at all. But just you ask anybody: When you get yourself just overhalf-way passed, the other's dragged out of you, and you can't helpyourself. His "_Aaaaahs_!" became so loud and horrid that I shut my eyesand stopped my ears. .. . Minutes that lasted; and then there came a highdinning that I couldn't shut out, and all at once the floor shook with aheavy thump. When all was still again I opened my eyes. 

His chair had overturned, and he lay in a heap beside it. 

I called "Benlian!" but he didn't answer. .. . 

He'd passed beautifully; quite dead. I looked up at the statue. It wasjust as Benlian had said--it didn't open its eyes, nor speak, noranything like that. Don't you believe chaps who tell you that statuesthat have been passed into do that; they don't. 

But instead, in a blaze and flash and shock, I knew now for the firsttime what a glorious thing that statue was! Have you ever seen anythingfor the first time like that? If you have, you never see very muchafterwards, you know. The rest's all piffle after that. It was likecoming out of fog and darkness into a split in the open heavens, mystatue was so transfigured; and I'll bet if you'd been there you'd haveclapped your hands, as I did, and chucked the tablecloth over the Benlianon the floor till they should come to cart that empty shell away, andpatted the statue's foot and cried: "_Is it all right, Benlian_?"

I did this; and then I rushed excitedly out into the street, to callsomebody to see how glorious it was. .. . 

 * * * * *

They've brought me here for a holiday, and I'm to go back to the studioin two or three days. But they've said that before, and I think it'scaddish of fellows not to keep their word--and not to return a valuablediary too! But there isn't a peephole in my room, as there is in some ofthem (the Emperor of Brazil told me that); and Benlian knows I haven'tforsaken him, for they take me a message every day to the studio, andBenlian always answers that it's "_all right_, and I'm to stay where I amfor a bit. " So as long as he knows, I don't mind so much. But it is a bitrotten hanging on here, especially when the doctors themselves admit howreasonable it all is. .. . Still, if Benlian says it's "_All right_ . .. "

IO

As the young man put his hand to the uppermost of the four brassbell-knobs to the right of the fanlighted door he paused, withdrew thehand again, and then pulled at the lowest knob. The sawing of bell-wireanswered him, and he waited for a moment, uncertain whether the bell hadrung, before pulling again. Then there came from the basement a singlecracked stroke; the head of a maid appeared in the whitewashed areabelow; and the head was withdrawn as apparently the maid recognised him. Steps were heard along the hall; the door was opened; and the maid stoodaside to let him enter, the apron with which she had slipped the latchstill crumpled in her greasy hand. 

"Sorry, Daisy, " the young man apologised, "but I didn't want to bring herdown all those stairs. How is she? Has she been out to-day?"

The maid replied that the person spoken of had been out; and the youngman walked along the wide carpeted passage. 

It was cumbered like an antique-shop with alabaster busts on pedestals, dusty palms in faience vases, and trophies of spears and shields andassegais. At the foot of the stairs was a rustling portière of strungbeads, and beyond it the carpet was continued up the broad, easy flight, secured at each step by a brass rod. Where the stairs made a turn, thefading light of the December afternoon, made still dimmer by a window ofdecalcomanied glass, shone on a cloudy green aquarium with sallowgoldfish, a number of cacti on a shabby console table, and a large anddirty white sheepskin rug. Passing along a short landing, the young manbegan the ascent of the second flight. This also was carpeted, but with acarpet that had done duty in some dining- or bed-room before being cut upinto strips of the width of the narrow space between the wall and thehandrail. Then, as he still mounted, the young man's feet sounded loud onoilcloth; and when he finally paused and knocked at a door it was on asmall landing of naked boards beneath the cold gleam of the skylightabove the well of the stairs. 

"Come in, " a girl's voice called. 

The room he entered had a low sagging ceiling on which shone a low glowof firelight, making colder still the patch of eastern sky beyond theroofs and the cowls and hoods of chimneys framed by the square of thesingle window. The glow on the ceiling was reflected dully in the olddark mirror over the mantelpiece. An open door in the farther corner, hampered with skirts and blouses, allowed a glimpse of the girl'sbedroom. 

The young man set the paper bag he carried down on the littered roundtable and advanced to the girl who sat in an old wicker chair beforethe fire. The girl did not turn her head as he kissed her cheek, and helooked down at something that had muffled the sound of his steps ashe had approached her. 

"Hallo, that's new, isn't it, Bessie? Where did that come from?" he askedcheerfully. 

The middle of the floor was covered with a common jute matting, but onthe hearth was a magnificent leopard-skin rug. 

"Mrs. Hepburn sent it up. There was a draught from under the door. It'smuch warmer for my feet. "

"Very kind of Mrs. Hepburn. Well, how are you feeling to-day, old girl?"

"Better, thanks, Ed. "

"That's the style. You'll be yourself again soon. Daisy says you've beenout to-day?"

"Yes, I went for a walk. But not far; I went to the Museum and then satdown. You're early, aren't you?"

He turned away to get a chair, from which he had to move a mass oftissue-paper patterns and buckram linings. He brought it to the rug. 

"Yes. I stopped last night late to cash up for Vedder, so he's stayingto-night. Turn and turn about. Well, tell us all about it, Bess. "

Their faces were red in the firelight. Hers had the prettiness that thefirst glance almost exhausts, the prettiness, amazing in its quantity, that one sees for a moment under the light of the street lamps when shopsand offices close for the day. She was short-nosed, pulpy-mouthed andfaunish-eyed, and only the rather remarkable smallness of the head on thesplendid thick throat saved her from ordinariness. He, too, might havebeen seen in his thousands at the close of any day, hurrying home toCatford or Walham Green or Tufnell Park to tea and an evening with agirl or in a billiard-room, or else dining cheaply "up West" preparatoryto smoking cigarettes from yellow packets in the upper circle of amusic-hall. Four inches of white up-and-down collar encased his neck; andas he lifted his trousers at the knee to clear his purple socks, the pairof paper covers showed, that had protected his cuffs during the day atthe office. He removed them, crumpled them up and threw them on the fire;and the momentary addition to the light of the upper chamber showed howcurd-white was that superb neck of hers and how moody and tired her eyes. 

From his face only one would have guessed, and guessed wrongly, that hispreferences were for billiard-rooms and music-halls. His conversationshowed them to be otherwise. It was of Polytechnic classes that he spoke, and of the course of lectures in English literature that had just begun. And, as if somebody had asserted that the pursuit of such studies was notcompatible with a certain measure of physical development also, heannounced that he was not sure that he should not devote, say, half anevening a week, on Wednesdays, to training in the gymnasium. 

"_Mens sana in corpore sano_, Bessie, " he said; "a sound mind in a soundbody, you know. That's tremendously important, especially when a fellowspends the day in a stuffy office. Yes, I think I shall give it halfWednesdays, from eight-thirty to nine-thirty; sends you home in a glow. But I was going to tell you about the Literature Class. The secondlecture's to-night. The first was splendid, all about the languages ofEurope and Asia--what they call the Indo-Germanic languages, you know. Aryans. I can't tell you exactly without my notes, but the Hindoos andPersians, I think it was, they crossed the Himalaya Mountains and spreadwestward somehow, as far as Europe. That was the way it all began. Itwas splendid, the way the lecturer put it. English is a Germaniclanguage, you know. Then came the Celts. I wish I'd brought my notes. Isee you've been reading; let's look--"

A book lay on her knees, its back warped by the heat of the fire. He tookit and opened it. 

"Ah, Keats! Glad you like Keats, Bessie. We needn't be great readers, butit's important that what we do read should be all right. I don't knowhim, not _really_ know him, that is. But he's quite all right--A1 infact. And he's an example of what I've always maintained, that knowledgeshould be brought within the reach of all. It just shows. He was the sonof a livery-stable keeper, you know, so what he'd have been if he'dreally had chances, been to universities and so on, there's no knowing. But, of course, it's more from the historical standpoint that I'mstudying these things. Let's have a look--"

He opened the book where a hairpin between the leaves marked a place. The firelight glowed on the page, and he read, monotonously andinelastically:

"_And as I sat, over the light blue hillsThere came a noise of revellers; the rillsInto the wide stream came of purple hue-- 'Twas Bacchus and his crew!The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrillsFrom kissing cymbals made a merry din-- 'Twas Bacchus and his kin!Like to a moving vintage down they came, Crowned with green leaves, and faces all on flameAll madly dancing through the pleasant valley To scare thee, Melancholy!"_

It was the wondrous passage from _Endymion_, of the descent of the wildinspired rabble into India. Ed plucked for a moment at his lower lip, andthen, with a "Hm! What's it all about, Bessie?" continued:

_"Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood, Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood, With sidelong laughing;And little rills of crimson wine imbruedHis plump white arms and shoulders, enough white For Venus' pearly bite;And near him rode Silenus on his ass, Pelted with flowers as he on did pass, Tipsily quaffing. "_

"Hm! I see. Mythology. That's made up of tales, and myths, you know. LikeOdin and Thor and those, only those were Scandinavian Mythology. So itwould be absurd to take it too seriously. But I think, in a way, thingslike that do harm. You see, " he explained, "the more beautiful they arethe more harm they might do. We ought always to show virtue and vice intheir true colours, and if you look at it from that point of view this isjust drunkenness. That's rotten; destroys your body and intellect; as Iheard a chap say once, it's an insult to the beasts to call it beastly. Ijoined the Blue Ribbon when I was fourteen and I haven't been sorry forit yet. No. Now there's Vedder; he 'went off on a bend, ' as he calls it, last night, and even he says this morning it wasn't worth it. But let'sread on. "

Again he read, with unresilient movement:

"_I saw Osirian Egypt kneel adownBefore the vine wreath crown! I saw parched Abyssinia rouse and sing To the silver cymbals' ring!I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce Old Tartary the fierce!Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans_ . .. "

"Hm! He was a Buddhist god, Brahma was; mythology again. As I say, if youtake it seriously, it's just glorifying intoxication. --But I say; I canhardly see. Better light the lamp. We'll have tea first, then read. No, you sit still; I'll get it ready; I know where things are--"

He rose, crossed to a little cupboard with a sink in it, filled thekettle at the tap, and brought it to the fire. Then he struck a match andlighted the lamp. 

The cheap glass shade was of a foolish corolla shape, clear glass below, shading to pink, and deepening to red at the crimped edge. It gave afalse warmth to the spaces of the room above the level of themantelpiece, and Ed's figure, as he turned the regulator, looked from thewaist upwards as if he stood within that portion of a spectrum screenthat deepens to the band of red. The bright concentric circles thatspread in rings of red on the ceiling were more dimly reduplicated in theold mirror over the mantelpiece; and the wintry eastern light beyond thechimney-hoods seemed suddenly almost to die out. 

Bessie, her white neck below the level of the lamp-shade, had taken upthe book again; but she was not reading. She was looking over it at theupper part of the grate. Presently she spoke. "I was looking at some ofthose things this afternoon, at the Museum. "

He was clearing from the table more buckram linings and patterns ofpaper, numbers of Myra's Journal and The Delineator. Already on his wayto the cupboard he had put aside a red-bodiced dressmaker's "shape" ofwood and wire. "What things?" he asked. 

"Those you were reading about. Greek, aren't they?"

"Oh, the Greek room!. .. But those people, Bacchus and those, weren'tpeople in the ordinary sense. Gods and goddesses, most of 'em; Bacchuswas a god. That's what mythology means. I wish sometimes our course tookin Greek literature, but it's a dead language after all. German's moregood in modern life. It would be nice to know everything, but one has toselect, you know. Hallo, I clean forgot; I brought you some grapes, Bessie; here they are, in this bag; we'll have 'em after tea, what?"

"But, " she said again after a pause, still looking at the grate, "theyhad their priests and priestesses, and followers and people, hadn't they?It was their things I was looking at--combs and brooches and hairpins, and things to cut their nails with. They're all in a glass case there. And they had safety-pins, exactly like ours. "

"Oh, they were a civilised people, " said Ed cheerfully. "It all gives youan idea. I only hope you didn't tire yourself out. You'll soon be allright, of course, but you have to be careful yet. We'll have a cleantablecloth, shall we?"

She had been seriously ill; her life had been despaired of; and somehowthe young Polytechnic student seemed anxious to assure her that she wasnow all right again, or soon would be. They were to be married "as soonas things brightened up a bit, " and he was very much in love with her. Hewatched her head and neck as he continued to lay the table, and then, ashe crossed once more to the cupboard, he put his hand lightly in passingon her hair. 

She gave so quick a start that he too started. She must have been verydeep in her reverie to have been so taken by surprise. 

"I say, Bessie, don't jump like that!" he cried with involuntaryquickness. Indeed, had his hand been red-hot, or ice-cold, or taloned, she could not have turned a more startled, even frightened, face to him. 

"It was your touching me, " she muttered, resuming her gazing into thegrate. 

He stood looking anxiously down on her. It would have been better not todiscuss her state, and he knew it; but in his anxiety he forgot it. 

"That jumpiness is the effect of your illness, you know. I shall be gladwhen it's all over. It's made you so odd. "

She was not pleased that he should speak of her "oddness. " For thatmatter, she, too, found him "odd"--at any rate, found it difficult torealise that he was as he always had been. He had begun to irritate her alittle. His club-footed reading of the verses had irritated her, and shehad tried hard to hide from him that his cocksure opinions and the tonein which they were pronounced jarred on her. It was not that she was"better" than he, "knew" any more than he did, didn't (she supposed) lovehim still the same; these moods, that dated from her illness, had nothingto do with those things; she reproached herself sometimes that she wassubject to such doldrums. 

"It's all right, Ed, but please don't touch me just now, " she said. 

He was in the act of leaning over her chair, but he saw her shrink, andrefrained. 

"Poor old girl!" he said sympathetically. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know. It's awfully stupid of me to be like this, but I can'thelp it. I shall be better soon if you leave me alone. "

"Nothing's happened, has it?"

"Only those silly dreams I told you about. "

"Bother the dreams!" muttered the Polytechnic student. 

During her illness she had had dreams, and had come to herself atintervals to find Ed or the doctor, Mrs. Hepburn or her aunt, bendingover her. These kind, solicitous faces had been no more than a glimpse, and then she had gone off into the dreams again. The curious thing hadbeen that the dreams had seemed to be her vivid waking life, and theother things--the anxious faces, the details of her dingy bedroom, thethermometer under her tongue--had been the dream. And, though she hadcome back to actuality, the dreams had never quite vanished. She couldremember no more of them than that they had seemed to hold a high singingand jocundity, issuing from some region of haze and golden light; andthey seemed to hover, ever on the point of being recaptured, yet evereluding all her mental efforts. She was living now between reality and avision. 

She had fewer words than sensations, and it was a little pitiful to hearher vainly striving to make clear what she meant. 

"It's so queer, " she said. "It's like being on the edge of something--asort of tiptoe--I can't describe it. Sometimes I could almost touch itwith my hand, and then it goes away, but never quite away. It's likesomething just past the corner of my eye, over my shoulder, and I sitvery still sometimes, trying to take it off its guard. But the moment Imove my head it moves too--like this--"

Again he gave a quick start at the suddenness of her action. Verystealthily her faunish eyes had stolen sideways, and then she had swiftlyturned her head. 

"Here, I say, don't, Bessie!" he cried nervously. "You look awfullyuncanny when you do that! You're brooding, " he continued, "that's whatyou're doing, brooding. You're getting into a low state. You want buckingup. I don't think I shall go to the Polytec. To-night; I shall stay andcheer you up. You know, I really don't think you're making an effort, darling. "

His last words seemed to strike her. They seemed to fit in with somethingof which she too was conscious. "Not making an effort . .. " she wonderedhow he knew that. She felt in some vague way that it was important thatshe should make an effort. 

For, while her dream ever evaded her, and yet never ceased to call herwith such a voice as he who reads on a magic page of the calling of elveshears stilly in his brain, yet somehow behind the seduction was anotherand a sterner voice. There was warning as well as fascination. Beyondthat edge at which she strained on tiptoe, mingled with the jocund callsto Hasten, Hasten, were deeper calls that bade her Beware. They puzzledher. Beware of what? Of what danger? And to whom?. .. 

"How do you mean, I'm not making an effort, Ed?" she asked slowly, againlooking into the fire, where the kettle now made a gnat-like singing. 

"Why, an effort to get all right again. To be as you used to be--as, ofcourse, you will be soon. "

"As I used to be?" The words came with a little check in her breathing. 

"Yes, before all this. To be yourself, you know. "

"Myself?"

"All jolly, and without these jerks and jumps. I wish you could get away. A fortnight by the sea would do you all the good in the world. "

She knew not what it was in the words "the sea" that caused her suddenlyto breathe more deeply. The sea!. .. It was as if, by the mere uttering ofthem, he had touched some secret spring, brought to fulfilment somespell. What had he meant by speaking of the sea?. .. A fortnight before, had somebody spoken to her of the sea it would have been the sea ofMargate, of Brighton, of Southend, that, supplying the image that a wordcalls up as if by conjuration, she would have seen before her; and whatother image could she supply, could she possibly supply, now?. .. Yet shedid, or almost did, supply one. What new experience had she had, or whatold, old one had been released in her? With that confused, joyous dinningjust beyond the range of physical hearing there had suddenly mingleda new illusion of sound--a vague, vast pash and rustle, silky and harshboth at once, its tireless voice holding meanings of stillness andsolitude compared with which the silence that is mere absence of soundwas vacancy. It was part of her dream, invisible, intangible, inaudible, yet there. As if he had been an enchanter, it had come into being at theword upon his lips. Had he other such words? Had he the Master Wordthat--(ah, she knew what the Master Word would do!)--would make theVision the Reality and the Reality the Vision? Deep within her she feltsomething--her soul, herself, she knew not what--thrill and turn over andsettle again. .. . 

"The sea, " she repeated in a low voice. 

"Yes, that's what you want to set you up--rather! Do you remember thatfortnight at Littlehampton, you and me and your Aunt? Jolly that was! Ilike Littlehampton. It isn't flash like Brighton, and Margate's always sobeastly crowded. And do you remember that afternoon by the windmill? Idid love you that afternoon, Bessie!". .. 

He continued to talk, but she was not listening. She was wondering whythe words "the sea" were somehow part of it all--the pins and broochesof the Museum, the book on her knees, the dream. She remembered a game ofhide-and-seek she had played as a child, in which cries of "Warm, warm, warmer!" had announced the approach to the hidden object. Oh, she wasgetting warm--positively hot. .. . 

He had ceased to talk, and was watching her. Perhaps it was the thoughtof how he had loved her that afternoon by the windmill that had broughthim close to her chair again. She was aware of his nearness, and closedher eyes for a moment as if she dreaded something. Then she said quickly, "Is tea nearly ready, Ed?" and, as he turned to the table, took up thebook again. 

She felt that even to touch that book brought her "warmer. " It fell openat a page. She did not hear the clatter Ed made at the table, nor yet thebabble his words had evoked, of the pierrots and banjos and minstrels ofMargate and Littlehampton. It was to hear a gladder, wilder tumult thatshe sat once more so still, so achingly listening. .. . 

_"The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrillsFrom kissing cymbals made a merry din--"_

The words seemed to move on the page. In her eyes another light than thefirelight seemed to play. Her breast rose, and in her thick white throata little inarticulate sound twanged. 

"Eh? Did you speak, Bessie?" Ed asked, stopping in his buttering ofbread. 

"Eh?. .. No. "

In answering, her head had turned for a moment, and she had seen him. Suddenly it struck her with force: what a shaving of a man he was!Desk-chested, weak-necked, conscious of his little "important" lipand chin--yes, he needed a Polytechnic gymnastic course! Then sheremarked how once, at Margate, she had seen him in the distance, asin a hired baggy bathing-dress he had bathed from a machine, in muddywater, one of a hundred others, all rather cold, flinging a polo-ballabout and shouting stridently. "A sound mind in a sound body!". .. Hewas rather vain of his neat shoes, too, and doubtless stunted hisfeet; and she had seen the little spot on his neck caused by thechafing of his collar-stud. .. . No, she did not want him to touch her, just now at any rate. His touch would be too like a betrayal of anothertouch . .. Somewhere, sometime, somehow . .. In that tantalising dreamthat refused to allow itself either to be fully remembered or quiteforgotten. What was that dream? What was it?. .. 

She continued to gaze into the fire. 

Of a sudden she sprang to her feet with a choked cry of almost animalfury. The fool had touched her. Carried away doubtless by the memory ofthat afternoon by the windmill, he had, in passing once more to thekettle, crept softly behind her and put a swift burning kiss on the sideof her neck. 

Then he had retreated before her, stumbling against the table and causingthe cups and saucers to jingle. 

The basket-chair tilted up, but righted itself again. 

"I told you--I told you--" she choked, her stockish figure shaking withrage, "I told you--you--"

He put up his elbow as if to ward off a blow. 

"_You_ touch me--_you!--you!_" the words broke from her. 

He had put himself farther round the table. He stammered. 

"Here--dash it all, Bessie--what is the matter?"

"_You_ touch me!"

"All right, " he said sullenly. "I won't touch you again--no fear. Ididn't know you were such a firebrand. All right, drop it now. I won'tagain. Good Lord!"

Slowly the white fist she had drawn back sank to her side again. 

"All right now, " he continued to grumble resentfully. "You needn't takeon so. It's said--I won't touch you again. " Then, as if he rememberedthat after all she was ill and must be humoured, he began, while herbosom still rose and fell rapidly, to talk with an assumption thatnothing much had happened. "Come, sit down again, Bessie. The tea's inthe pot and I'll have it ready in a couple of jiffs. What a ridiculouslittle girl you are, to take on like that!. .. And I say, listen! That's amuffin-bell, and there's a grand fire for toast! You sit down while I runout and get 'em. Give me your key, so I can let myself in again--"

He took her key from her bag, caught up his hat, and hastened out. 

But she did not sit down again. She was no calmer for his quickdisappearance. In that moment when he had recoiled from her she had hadthe expression of some handsome and angered snake, its hood puffed, readyto strike. She stood dazed; one would have supposed that that ill-advisedkiss of his had indeed been the Master Word she sought, the Word she feltapproaching, the Word to which the objects of the Museum, the book, thatrustle of a sea she had never seen, had been but the ever "warming"stages. Some merest trifle stood between her and those elfin cries, between her and that thin golden mist in which faintly seen shapes seemedto move--shapes almost of tossed arms, waving, brandishing objectsstrangely all but familiar. That roaring of the sea was not the rushingof her own blood in her ears, that rosy flush not the artificial glow ofthe cheap red lampshade. The shapes were almost as plain as if she sawthem in some clear but black mirror, the sounds almost as audible as ifshe heard them through some not very thick muffling. .. . 

"Quick--the book, " she muttered. 

But even as she stretched out her hand for it, again came that solemnsound of warning. As if something sought to stay it, she had deliberatelyto thrust her hand forward. Again the high dinning calls of "Hasten!Hasten!" were mingled with that deeper "Beware!" She knew in her soulthat, once over that terrible edge, the Dream would become the Realityand the Reality the Dream. She knew nothing of the fluidity of the thingcalled Personality--not a thing at all, but a state, a balance, arelation, a resultant of forces so delicately in equilibrium that atouch, and--pff!--the horror of Formlessness rushed over all. 

As she hesitated a new light appeared in the chamber. Within the frame ofthe small square window, beyond the ragged line of the chimney-cowls, an edge of orange brightness showed. She leaned forward. It was the fullmoon, rusty and bloated and flattened by the earth-mist. 

The next moment her hand had clutched at the book. 

_"Whence came ye, merry Damsels! Whence came yeSo many, and so many, and such glee?Why have ye left your bowers desolate, Your lutes, and gentler fate?'We follow Bacchus, Bacchus on the wing A-conquering!Bacchus, young Bacchus! Good or ill betideWe dance before him thorough kingdoms wide!Come hither, Lady fair, and joined be To our wild minstrelsy!'"_

There was an instant in which darkness seemed to blot out all else; thenit rolled aside, and in a blaze of brightness was gone. It was gone, andshe stood face to face with her Dream, that for two thousand years hadslumbered in the blood of her and her line. She stood, with mouth agapeand eyes that hailed, her thick throat full of suppressed clamour. Theother was the Dream now, and these!. .. They came down, mad and noisyand bright--Maenades, Thyades, satyrs, fauns--naked, in hides of beasts, ungirded, dishevelled, wreathed and garlanded, dancing, singing, shouting. The thudding of their hooves shook the ground, and the clash oftheir timbrels and the rustling of their thyrsi filled the air. Theybrandished frontal bones, the dismembered quarters of kids and goats;they struck the bronze cantharus, they tossed the silver obba up aloft. Down a cleft of rocks and woods they came, trooping to a wide seashorewith the red of the sunset behind them. She saw the evening light on thesleek and dappled hides, the gilded ivory and rich brown of their legsand shoulders, the white of inner arms held up on high, their wide redmouths, the quivering of the twin flesh-gouts on the necks of the leapingfauns. And, shutting out the glimpse of sky at the head of the deepravine, the god himself descended, with his car full of drunken girls whoslept with the serpents coiled about them. 

Shouting and moaning and frenzied, leaping upon one another withlibidinous laughter and beating one another with the half-strippedthyrsi, they poured down to the yellow sands and the anemonied pools ofthe shore. They raced to the water, that gleamed pale as nacre in thedeepening twilight in the eye of the evening star. They ran along itsedge over their images in the wet sands, calling their lost companion. 

"Hasten, hasten!" they cried; and one of them, a young man with a torsonoble as the dawn and shoulder-lines strong as those of the eternalhills, ran here and there calling her name. 

"Louder, louder!" she called back in an ecstasy. 

Something dropped and tinkled against the fender. It was one of herhairpins. One side of her hair was in a loose tumble; she threw up thesmall head on the superb thick neck. 

"Louder!--I cannot hear! Once more--"

The throwing up of her head that had brought down the rest of her hairhad given her a glimpse of herself in the glass over the mantelpiece. Forthe last time that formidable "Beware!" sounded like thunder in her ears;the next moment she had snapped with her fingers the ribbon that wascutting into her throbbing throat. He with the torso and those shoulderswas seeking her . .. How should he know her in that dreary garret, inthose joyless habiliments? He would as soon known his Own in thatcrimson-bodiced, wire-framed dummy by the window yonder!. .. 

Her fingers clutched at the tawdry mercerised silk of her blouse. Therewas a rip, and her arms and throat were free. She panted as she tuggedat something that gave with a short "click-click, " as of steelfastenings; something fell against the fender. .. . These also. .. . She toreat them, and kicked them as they lay about her feet as leaves lie aboutthe trunk of a tree in autumn. .. . 

"Ah!"

And as she stood there, as if within the screen of a spectrum thatdeepened to the band of red, her eyes fell on the leopard-skin at herfeet. She caught it up, and in doing so saw purple grapes--purplegrapes that issued from the mouth of a paper bag on the table. With thedappled pelt about her she sprang forward. The juice spurted through theminto the mass of her loosened hair. Down her body there was a spilth ofseeds and pulp. She cried hoarsely aloud. 

"Once more--oh, answer me! Tell me my name!"

Ed's steps were heard on the oilclothed portion of the staircase. 

"My name--oh, my name!" she cried in an agony of suspense. .. . "Oh, theywill not wait for me! They have lighted the torches--they run up and downthe shore with torches--oh, cannot you see me?. .. "

Suddenly she dashed to the chair on which the litter of linings andtissue-paper lay. She caught up a double handful and crammed them on thefire. They caught and flared. There was a call upon the stairs, and thesound of somebody mounting in haste. 

"Once--once only--my name!"

The soul of the Bacchante rioted, struggled to escape from her eyes. Thenas the door was flung open, she heard, and gave a terrifying shout ofrecognition. 

"I hear--I almost hear--but once more. .. . IO! _Io, Io, Io!_"

Ed, in the doorway, stood for one moment agape; the next, ignorant of thefull purport of his own words--ignorant that though man may comewestwards he may yet bring his worship with him--ignorant that to makethe Dream the Reality and the Reality the Dream is Heaven's dreadfullestfavour--and ignorant that, that Edge once crossed, there is no return tothe sanity and sweetness and light that are only seen clearly in themoment when they are lost for ever--he had dashed down the stairs cryingin a voice hoarse and high with terror:

"She's mad! She's mad!"

THE ACCIDENT

I

The street had not changed so much but that, little by little, itsinfluence had come over Romarin again; and as the clock a street or twoaway had struck seven he had stood, his hands folded on his stick, firstcurious, then expectant, and finally, as the sound had died away, oddlysatisfied in his memory. The clock had a peculiar chime, a ratherelaborate one, ending inconclusively on the dominant and followed afteran unusually long interval by the stroke of the hour itself. Not untilits last vibration had become too subtle for his ear had Romarin resumedthe occupation that the pealing of the hour had interrupted. 

It was an occupation that especially tended to abstraction of mind--thenoting in detail of the little things of the street that he had forgottenwith such completeness that they awakened only tardy responses in hismemory now that his eyes rested on them again. The shape of adoorknocker, the grouping of an old chimney-stack, the crack, stillthere, in a flagstone--somewhere deep in the past these things hadassociations; but they lay very deep, and the disturbing of them gaveRomarin a curious, desolate feeling, as of returning to things he hadlong out-grown. 

But, as he continued to stare at the objects, the sluggish memoriesroused more and more; and for each bit of the old that reasserted itselfscores of yards of the new seemed to disappear. New shop-frontages went;a wall, brought up flush where formerly a recess had been, became therecess once more; the intermittent electric sign at the street's end, that wrote in green and crimson the name of a whiskey across a lamp-litfaçade, ceased to worry his eyes; and the unfamiliar new front of thelittle restaurant he was passing and repassing took on its old andwell-known aspect again. 

Seven o'clock. He had thought, in dismissing his hansom, that it had beenlater. His appointment was not until a quarter past. But he decidedagainst entering the restaurant and waiting inside; seeing who his guestwas, it would be better to wait at the door. By the light of therestaurant window he corrected his watch, and then sauntered a few yardsalong the street, to where men were moving flats of scenery from a backdoor of the new theatre into a sort of tumbril. The theatre was twentyyears old, but to Romarin it was "the new theatre. " There had been notheatre there in his day. 

In his day!. .. His day had been twice twenty years before. Forty yearsbefore, that street, that quarter, had been bound up in his life. He hadnot, forty years ago, been the famous painter, honoured, decorated, takenby the arm by monarchs; he had been a student, wild and raw as any, withthat tranquil and urbane philosophy that had made his success still inabeyance within him. As his eyes had rested on the doorknocker next tothe restaurant a smile had crossed his face. How had _that_ door-knockercome to be left by the old crowd that had wrenched off so many others? Bywhat accident had _that_ survived, to bring back all the old life now sooddly? He stood, again smiling, his hands folded on his stick. A CrownPrince had given him that stick, and had had it engraved, "To my Friend, Romarin. "

"You oughtn't to be here, you know, " he said to the door-knocker. "If Ididn't get you, Marsden ought to have done so. .. . "

It was Marsden whom Romarin had come to meet--Marsden, of whom he hadthought with such odd persistency lately. Marsden was the only man in theworld between whom and himself lay as much as the shadow of an enmity;and even that faint shadow was now passing. One does not guard, for fortyyears, animosities that take their rise in quick outbreaks of the youngblood; and, now that Romarin came to think of it, he hadn't really hatedMarsden for more than a few months. It had been within those very doors(Romarin was passing the restaurant again) that there had been that quickblow, about a girl, and the tables had been pushed hastily back, and heand Marsden had fought, while the other fellows had kept the waitersaway. .. . And Romarin was now sixty-four, and Marsden must be a yearolder, and the girl--who knew?--probably dead long ago . .. Yes, timeheals these things, thank God; and Romarin had felt a genuine flush ofpleasure when Marsden had accepted his invitation to dinner. 

But--Romarin looked at his watch again--it was rather like Marsden to belate. Marsden had always been like that--had come and gone pretty much ashe had pleased, regardless of inconvenience to others. But, doubtless, hehad had to walk. If all reports were true, Marsden had not made very muchof his life in the way of worldly success, and Romarin, sorry to hear it, had wished he could give him a leg-up. Even a good man cannot do muchwhen the current of his life sets against him in a tide of persistentill-luck, and Romarin, honoured and successful, yet knew that he had beenone of the lucky ones. .. . 

But it was just like Marsden to be late, for all that. 

At first Romarin did not recognise him when he turned the corner of thestreet and walked towards him. He hadn't made up his mind beforehandexactly how he had expected Marsden to look, but he was conscious that hedidn't look it. It was not the short stubble of grey beard, so short thatit seemed to hesitate between beard and unshavenness; it was not thefigure nor carriage--clothes alter that, and the clothes of the man whowas advancing to meet Romarin were, to put it bluntly, shabby; nor wasit. .. But Romarin did not know what it was in the advancing figure thatfor the moment found no response in his memory. He was already withinhalf a dozen yards of the men who were moving the scenery from thetheatre into the tumbril, and one of the workmen put up his hand as theedge of a fresh "wing" appeared. .. . 

But at the sound of his voice the same thing happened that had happenedwhen the clock had struck seven. Romarin found himself suddenlyexpectant, attentive, and then again curiously satisfied in his memory. Marsden's voice at least had not changed; it was as in the old days--alittle envious, sarcastic, accepting lower interpretations somewhatwillingly, somewhat grudging of better ones. It completed the taking backof Romarin that the chiming of the clock, the doorknocker, the groupingof the chimney-stack and the crack in the flagstone had begun. 

"Well, my distinguished Academician, my--"

Marsden's voice sounded across the group of scene-shifters. .. 

"_'Alf_ a mo, _if_ you please, guv'nor, " said another voice. .. 

For a moment the painted "wing" shut them off from one another. 

 * * * * *

In that moment Romarin's accident befell him. If its essential nature isrelated in arbitrary terms, it is that there are no other terms to relateit in. It is a decoded cipher, which can be restored to its cryptic formas Romarin subsequently restored it. 

 * * * * *

As the painter took Marsden's arm and entered the restaurant, he noticedthat while the outside of the place still retained traces of the old, itsinside was entirely new. Its cheap glittering wall-mirrors, that gave afalse impression of the actual size of the place, its Loves andShepherdesses painted in the style of the carts of the vendors ofice-cream, its hat-racks and its four-bladed propeller that set the airslowly in motion at the farther end of the room, might all have beenmatched in a dozen similar establishments within hail of a cab-whistle. Its gelatine-written menu-cards announced that one might dine there _àla carte_ or _table d'hôte_ for two shillings. Neither the cooking northe service had influenced Romarin in his choice of a place to dine at. 

He made a gesture to the waiter who advanced to help him on with his coatthat Marsden was to be assisted first; but Marsden, with a grunted "Allright, " had already helped himself. A glimpse of the interior of the coattold Romarin why Marsden kept waiters at arm's-length. A little twinge ofcompunction took him that his own overcoat should be fur-collared andlined with silk. 

They sat down at a corner table not far from the slowly movingfour-bladed propeller. 

"Now we can talk, " Romarin said. "I'm glad, glad to see you again, Marsden. "

It was a peculiarly vicious face that he saw, corrugated about the brows, and with stiff iron-grey hair untrimmed about the ears. It shockedRomarin a little; he had hardly looked to see certain things soaccentuated by the passage of time. Romarin's own brow was high and baldand benign, and his beard was like a broad shield of silver. 

"You're glad, are you?" said Marsden, as they sat down facing oneanother. "Well, I'm glad--to be seen with you. It'll revive my credit abit. There's a fellow across there has recognised you already by yourphotographs in the papers. .. . I assume I may. .. ?"

He made a little upward movement of his hand. It was a gin andbitters Marsden assumed he might have. Romarin ordered it; he himselfdid not take one. Marsden tossed down the _apéritif_ at one gulp; thenhe reached for his roll, pulled it to pieces, and--Romarin rememberedhow in the old days Marsden had always eaten bread like that--began tothrow bullets of bread into his mouth. Formerly this habit had irritatedRomarin intensely; now . .. Well, well, Life uses some of us better thanothers. Small blame to these if they throw up the struggle. Marsden, poordevil . .. But the arrival of the soup interrupted Romarin's meditation. He consulted the violet-written card, ordered the succeeding courses, andthe two men ate for some minutes in silence. 

"Well, " said Romarin presently, pushing away his plate and wiping hiswhite moustache, "are you still a Romanticist, Marsden?"

Marsden, who had tucked his napkin between two of the buttons of hisfrayed waistcoat, looked suspiciously across the glass with the dregs ofthe gin and bitters that he had half raised to his lips. 

"Eh?" he said. "I say, Romarin, don't let's go grave-digging amongmemories merely for the sake of making conversation. Yours may bepleasant, but I'm not in the habit of wasting much time over mine. Might as well be making new ones . .. I'll drink whiskey and soda. "

It was brought, a large one; and Marsden, nodding, took a deep gulp. 

"Health, " he said. 

"Thanks, " said Romarin--instantly noting that the monosyllable, whichmatched the other's in curtness, was not at all the reply he hadintended. "Thank you--yours, " he amended; and a short pause followed, inwhich fish was brought. 

This was not what Romarin had hoped for. He had desired to be reconciledwith Marsden, not merely to be allowed to pay for his dinner. Yet ifMarsden did not wish to talk it was difficult not to defer to his wish. It was true that he had asked if Marsden was still a Romanticist largelyfor the sake of something to say; but Marsden's prompt pointing out ofthis was not encouraging. Now that he came to think of it, he had neverknown precisely what Marsden had meant by the word "Romance" he had sofrequently taken into his mouth; he only knew that this creed ofRomanticism, whatever it was, had been worn rather challengingly, a chipon the shoulder, to be knocked off at some peril or other. And it hadseemed to Romarin a little futile in the violence with which it had beenmaintained . .. But that was neither here nor there. The point was, thatthe conversation had begun not very happily, and must be mended at onceif at all. To mend it, Romarin leaned across the table. 

"Be as friendly as I am, Marsden, " he said. "I think--pardon me--that ifour positions were reversed, and I saw in you the sincere desire to helpthat I have, I'd take it in the right way. " Again Marsden lookedsuspiciously at him. "To help? How to help?" he demanded "That's what Ishould like you to tell me. But I suppose (for example) you still work?"

"Oh, my work!" Marsden made a little gesture of contempt. "Try again, Romarin. "

"You don't do any?. .. Come, I'm no bad friend to my friends, and you'llfind me--especially so. "

But Marsden put up his hand. 

"Not quite so quickly, " he said. "Let's see what you mean by help first. Do you really mean that you want me to borrow money from you? That's helpas I understand it nowadays. "

"Then you've changed, " said Romarin--wondering, however, in his secretheart whether Marsden had changed very much in that respect after all. 

Marsden gave a short honk of a laugh. 

"You didn't suppose I hadn't changed, did you?" Then he leaned suddenlyforward. "This is rather a mistake, Romarin--rather a mistake, " he said. 

"What is?"

"This--our meeting again. Quite a mistake. "

Romarin sighed. "I had hoped not, " he said. 

Marsden leaned forward again, with another gesture Romarin rememberedvery well--dinner knife in hand, edge and palm upwards, punctuatingand expounding with the point. 

"I tell you, it's a mistake, " he said, knife and hand balanced. "Youcan't reopen things like this. You don't really _want_ to reopen them;you only want to reopen certain of them; you want to pick and chooseamong things, to approve and disapprove. There must have been somewhereor other something in me you didn't altogether dislike--I can't for thelife of me think what it was, by the way; and you want to lay stress onthat and to sink the rest. Well, you can't. I won't let you. I'll notsubmit my life to you like that. If you want to go into things, allright; but it must be all or none. And I'd like another drink. "

He put the knife down with a little clap as Romarin beckoned to thewaiter. 

There was distress on Romarin's face. He was not conscious of havingadopted a superior attitude. But again he told himself that he must makeallowances. Men who don't come off in Life's struggle are apt to betouchy, and he was; after all, the same old Marsden, the man with whom hedesired to be at peace. 

"Are you quite fair to me?" he asked presently, in a low voice. 

Again the knife was taken up and its point advanced. 

"Yes, I am, " said Marsden in a slightly raised voice; and he indicatedwith the knife the mirror at the end of the table. "You know you've donewell, and I, to all appearances, haven't; you can't look at that glassand not know it. But I've followed the line of my development too, noless logically than you. My life's been mine, and I'm not going toapologise for it to a single breathing creature. More, I'm proud of it. At least, there's been singleness of intention about it. So I think I'mstrictly fair in pointing that out when you talk about helping me. "

"Perhaps so, perhaps so, " Romarin agreed a little sadly. "It's your tonemore than anything else that makes things a little difficult. Believe me, I've no end in my mind except pure friendliness. "

"No-o-o, " said Marsden--a long "no" that seemed to deliberate, toexamine, and finally to admit. "No. I believe that. And you usually getwhat you set out for. Oh yes. I've watched your rise--I've made a pointof watching it. It's been a bit at a time, but you've got there. You'rethat sort. It's on your forehead--your destiny. "

Romarin smiled. 

"Hallo, that's new, isn't it?" he said. "It wasn't your habit to talkmuch about destiny, if I remember rightly. Let me see; wasn't this moreyour style--'will, passion, laughs-at-impossibilities and says, ' etcetera--and so forth? Wasn't that it? With always the suspicion not faraway that you did things more from theoretical conviction than realimpulse after all?"

A dispassionate observer would have judged that the words went somewherenear home. Marsden was scraping together with the edge of his knife thecrumbs of his broken roll. He scraped them into a little square, and thentrimmed the corners. Not until the little pile was shaped to his likingdid he look surlily up. 

"Let it rest, Romarin, " he said curtly. "Drop it, " he added. "Let italone. If I begin to talk like that, too, we shall only cut one anotherup. Clink glasses--there--and let it alone. "

Mechanically Romarin clinked; but his bald brow was perplexed. 

"'Cut one another up?'" he repeated. 

"Yes. Let it alone. "

"'Cut one another up?'" he repeated once more. "You puzzle me entirely. "

"Well, perhaps I'm altogether wrong. I only wanted to warn you that I'vedared a good many things in my time. Now drop it. "

Romarin had fine brown eyes, under Oriental arched brows. Again theynoted the singularly vicious look of the man opposite. They were fullof mistrust and curiosity, and he stroked his silver beard. 

"Drop it?" he said slowly . .. "No, let's go on. I want to hear more ofthis. "

"I'd much rather have another drink in peace and quietness. .. . Waiter!"

Either leaned back in his chair, surveying the other. "You're a perversedevil still, " was Romarin's thought. Marsden's, apparently, was ofnothing but the whiskey and soda the waiter had gone to fetch. 

 * * * * *

Romarin was inclined to look askance at a man who could follow up a ginand bitters with three or four whiskeys and soda without turning a hair. It argued the seasoned cask. Marsden had bidden the waiter leave thebottle and the syphon on the table, and was already mixing himselfanother stiff peg. 

"Well, " he said, "since you will have it so--to the old days. "

"To the old days, " said Romarin, watching him gulp it down. 

"Queer, looking back across all that time at 'em, isn't it? How do youfeel about it?"

"In a mixed kind of way, I think; the usual thing: pleasure and regretmingled. "

"Oh, you have regrets, have you?"

"For certain things, yes. Not, let me say, my turn-up with you, Marsden, "he laughed. "That's why I chose the old place--" he gave a glanceround at its glittering newness. "Do you happen to remember what all thatwas about? I've only the vaguest idea. "

Marsden gave him a long look. "That all?" he asked. 

"Oh, I remember in a sort of way. That 'Romantic' soap-bubble of yourswas really at the bottom of it, I suspect. Tell me, " he smiled, "did youreally suppose Life could be lived on those mad lines you used to laydown?"

"My life, " said Marsden calmly, "has been. "

"Not literally. "

"Literally. "

"You mean to say that you haven't outgrown _that_?"

"I hope not. "

Romarin had thrown up his handsome head. "Well, well!" he murmuredincredulously. 

"Why 'well, well'?" Marsden demanded. .. . "But, of course, you never didand never will know what I meant. "

"By Romance? . .. No, I can't say that I did; but as I conceived it, itwas something that began in appetite and ended in diabetes. "

"Not philosophic, eh?" Marsden inquired, picking up a chicken bone. 

"Highly unphilosophic, " said Romarin, shaking his head. 

"Hm!" grunted Marsden, stripping the bone. .. "Well, I grant it pays in adifferent way. "

"It does pay, then?" Romarin asked. 

"Oh yes, it pays. "

The restaurant had filled up. It was one frequented by young artists, musicians, journalists and the clingers to the rather frayed fringes ofthe Arts. From time to time heads were turned to look at Romarin's portlyand handsome figure, which the Press, the Regent Street photographicestablishments, and the Academy Supplements had made well known. Theplump young Frenchwoman within the glazed cash office near the door, at whom Marsden had several times glanced in a way at which Romarin hadfrowned, was aware of the honour done the restaurant; and several timesthe blond-bearded proprietor had advanced and inquired with concernwhether the dinner and the service was to the liking of M'sieu. 

And the eyes that were turned to Romarin plainly wondered who thescallawag dining with him might be. 

Since Romarin had chosen that their conversation should be of the olddays, and without picking and choosing, Marsden was quite willing thatit should be so. Again he was casting the bullets of bread into hismouth, and again Romarin was conscious of irritation. Marsden, too, noticed it; but in awaiting the _rôti_ he still continued to roll andbolt the pellets, washing them down with gulps of whiskey and soda. 

"Oh yes, it paid, " he resumed. "Not in that way, of course--" heindicated the head, quickly turned away again, of an aureoled youngsterwith a large bunch of black satin tie, "--not in admiration of thatsort, but in other ways--"

"Tell me about it. "

"Certainly, if you want it. But you're my host. Won't you let me hearyour side of it all first?"

"But I thought you said you knew that--had followed my career?"

"So I have. It's not your list of honours and degrees; let me see, whatare you? R. A. , D. C. L. , Doctor of Literature, whatever that means, andProfessor of this, that, and the other, and not at the end of it yet. Iknow all that. I don't say you haven't earned it; I admire your painting;but it's not that. I want to know what it _feels_ like to be up therewhere you are. "

It was a childish question, and Romarin felt foolish in trying to answerit. Such things were the things the adoring aureoled youngster a table ortwo away would have liked to ask. Romarin recognised in Marsden the oldcraving for sensation; it was part of the theoretical creed Marsden hadmade for himself, of doing things, not for their own sakes, but in orderthat he might have done them. Of course, it had appeared to a fellow likethat, that Romarin himself had always had a calculated end in view; hehad not; Marsden merely measured Romarin's peck out of his own bushel. Ithad been Marsden who, in self-consciously seeking his own life, had lostit, and Romarin was more than a little inclined to suspect that thevehemence with which he protested that he had not lost it was preciselythe measure of the loss. 

But he essayed it--essayed to give Marsden a _résumé_ of his career. Hetold him of the stroke of sheer luck that had been the foundation of itall, the falling ill of another painter who had turned over certaincommissions to him. He told him of his poor but happy marriage, and ofthe windfall, not large, but timely, that had come to his wife. He toldhim of fortunate acquaintanceships happily cultivated, of his firstimportant commission, of the fresco that had procured for him hisAssociateship, of his sale to the Chantrey, and of his quietlyremunerative Visitorships and his work on Boards and Committees. 

And as he talked, Marsden drew his empty glass to him, moistened hisfinger with a little spilt liquid, and began to run the finger round therim of the glass. They had done that formerly, a whole roomful of them, producing, when each had found the note of his instrument, a high, thin, intolerable singing. To this singing Romarin strove to tell his tale. 

But that thin and bat-like note silenced him. He ended lamely, with someempty generalisation on success. 

"Ah, but success in what?" Marsden demanded, interrupting his playing onthe glass for a moment. 

"In your aim, whatever it may be. "

"Ah!" said Marsden, resuming his performance. 

Romarin had sought in his recital to minimise differences incircumstances; but Marsden seemed bent on aggravating them. He had themiserable advantage of the man who has nothing to lose. And bit by bit, Romarin had begun to realise that he was going considerably more thanhalfway to meet this old enemy of his, and that amity seemed as far on asever. In his heart he began to feel the foreknowledge that their meetingcould have no conclusion. He hated the man, the look of his face and thesound of his voice, as much as ever. 

The proprietor approached with profoundest apology in his attitude. M'sieu would pardon him, but the noise of the glass . .. It wasannoying . .. Another M'sieu had made complaint. .. . 

"Eh?. .. " cried Marsden. "Oh, that! Certainly! It can be put to a muchbetter purpose. "

He refilled the glass. 

The liquor had begun to tell on him. A quarter of the quantity would havemade a clean-living man incapably drunk, but it had only made Marsden'seyes bright. He gave a sarcastic laugh. 

"And is that all?" he asked. 

Romarin replied shortly that that was all. 

"You've missed out the R. A. , and the D. C. L. "

"Then let me add that I'm a Doctor of Civil Law and a full Member of theRoyal Academy, " said Romarin, almost at the end of his patience. "Andnow, since you don't think much of it, may I hear your own account?"

"Oh, by all means. I don't know, however, that--" he broke off to throw aglance at a woman who had just entered the restaurant--a divesting glancethat caused Romarin to redden to his crown and drop his eyes. "I wasgoing to say that you may think as little of my history as I do of yours. Supple woman that; when the rather scraggy blonde does take it into herhead to be a devil she's the worst kind there is. .. . "

Without apology Romarin looked at his watch. 

"All right, " said Marsden, smiling, "for what _I've_ got out of life, then. But I warn you, it's entirely discreditable. "

Romarin did not doubt it. 

"But it's mine, and I boast of it. I've done--barring receiving honoursand degrees--everything--everything! If there's anything I haven't done, tell me and lend me a sovereign, and I'll go and do it. "

"You haven't told the story. "

"That's so. Here goes then . .. Well, you know, unless you've forgotten, how I began. .. . "

Fruit and nutshells and nutcrackers lay on the table between them, and atthe end of it, shielded from draughts by the menu cards, the coffeeapparatus simmered over its elusive blue flame. Romarin was taking therind from a pear with a table-knife, and Marsden had declined port infavour of a small golden liqueur of brandy. Every seat in the restaurantwas now occupied, and the proprietor himself had brought his finestcigarettes and cigars. The waiter poured out the coffee, and departedwith the apparatus in one hand and his napkin in the other. 

Marsden was already well into his tale. .. 

The frightful unction with which he told it appalled Romarin. It was ashe had said--there was nothing he had not done and did not exult in witha sickening exultation. It had, indeed, ended in diabetes. In the pitifulhunting down of sensation to the last inch he had been fiendishlyingenious and utterly unimaginative. His unholy curiosity had sparednothing, his unnatural appetite had known no truth. It was grinning sin. The details of it simply cannot be told. .. . 

And his vanity in it all was prodigious. Romarin was pale as he listened. What! In order that _this_ malignant growth in Society's breast shouldbe able to say "I know, " had sanctities been profaned, sweet conventionsassailed, purity blackened, soundness infected, and all that was brightand of the day been sunk in the quagmire that this creature of the nighthad called--yes, stilled called--by the gentle name of Romance? Yes, so it had been. Not only had men and women suffered dishonour, butmanhood and womanhood and the clean institutions by which alone thecreature was suffered to exist had been brought to shame. And what was heto look at when it was all done?. .. 

"Romance--Beauty--the Beauty of things as they are!" he croaked. 

If faces in the restaurant were now turned to Romarin, it was the horroron Romarin's own face that drew them. He drew out his handkerchief andmopped his brow. 

"But, " he stammered presently, "you are speaking ofgeneralities--horrible theories--things diabolically conceivableto be done--"

"What?" cried Marsden, checked for a moment in his horrible triumph. "No, by God! I've done 'em, done 'em! Don't you understand? If you don't, question me!. .. "

"No, no!" cried Romarin. 

"But I say yes! You came for this, and you shall have it! I tried to stopyou, but you wanted it, and by God you shall have it! You think yourlife's been full and mine empty? Ha ha!. .. Romance! I had the convictionof it, and I've had the courage too! I haven't told you a tenth of it!What would you like? Chamber-windows when Love was hot? The killing of aman who stood in my way? (I've fought a duel, and killed. ) The squeezingof the juice out of life like _that_?" He pointed to Romarin's plate;Romarin had been eating grapes. "Did you find me saying I'd do a thingand then drawing back from it when we--" he made a quick gesture of bothhands towards the middle of the restaurant floor. 

"When we fought--?"

"Yes, when we fought, here!. .. Oh no, oh no! I've lived, I tell you, every moment! Not a title, not a degree, but I've lived such a life asyou never dreamed of--!"

"Thank God--"

But suddenly Marsden's voice, which had risen, dropped again. He began toshake with interior chuckles. They were the old, old chuckles, and theyfilled Romarin with a hatred hardly to be borne. The sound of theanimal's voice had begun it, and his every word, look, movement, gesture, since they had entered the restaurant, had added to it. And hewas now chuckling, chuckling, shaking with chuckles, as if somemonstrous tit-bit still remained to be told. Already Romarin had tossedaside his napkin, beckoned to the waiter, and said, "M'sieu dineswith me. .. . "

"Ho ho ho ho!" came the drunken sounds. "It's a long time since M'sieudined here with his old friend Romarin! Do you remember the last time? Doyou remember it? _Pif, pan_! Two smacks across the table, Romarin--oh, you got it in very well!--and then, _brrrrr_! quick! Back with thetables--all the fellows round--Farquharson for me and Smith for you, andthen to it, Romarin!. .. And you really don't remember what it was allabout?. .. "

Romarin had remembered. His face was not the face of the philosophicmaster of Life now. 

"You said she shouldn't--little Pattie Hines you know--you said sheshouldn't--"

Romarin sprang half from his chair, and brought his fist down on thetable. 

"And by Heaven, she didn't! At least that's one thing you haven't done!"

Marsden too had risen unsteadily. 

"Oho, oho? You think that?"

A wild thought flashed across Romarin's brain. 

"You mean--?"

"I mean?. .. Oho, oho! Yes, I mean! She did, Romarin. .. . "

The mirrors, mistily seen through the smoke of half a hundred cigars andcigarettes, the Loves and Shepherdesses of the garish walls, the dinersstarting up in their places, all suddenly seemed to swing round in agreat half-circle before Romarin's eyes. The next moment, feeling as ifhe stood on something on which he found it difficult to keep his balance, he had caught up the table-knife with which he had peeled the pear andhad struck at the side of Marsden's neck. The rounded blade snapped, buthe struck again with the broken edge, and left the knife where itentered. The table appeared uptilted almost vertical; over it Marsden'shead disappeared; it was followed by a shower of glass, cigars, artificial flowers and the tablecloth at which he clutched; and thedirty American cloth of the table top was left bare. 

 * * * * *

But the edge behind which Marsden's face had disappeared remainedvertical. A group of scene-shifters were moving a flat of scenery from atheatre into a tumbril-like cart. .. 

And Romarin knew that, past, present, and future, he had seen it all inan instant, and that Marsden stood behind that painted wing. 

And he knew, too, that he had only to wait until that flat passed and totake Marsden's arm and enter the restaurant, _and it would be so_. Adrowning man is said to see all in one unmeasurable instant of time; ayear-long dream is but, they say, an instantaneous arrangement in themoment of waking of the molecules we associate with ideas; and the pastof history and the future of prophecy are folded up in the mystic momentwe call the present. .. . 

_It would come true_. .. . 

For one moment Romarin stood; the next, he had turned and run for hislife. 

At the corner of the street he collided with a loafer, and only the wallsaved them from going down. Feverishly Romarin plunged his hand into hispocket and brought out a handful of silver. He crammed it into theloafer's hand. 

"Here--quick--take it!" he gasped. "There's a man there, by thatrestaurant door--he's waiting for Mr. Romarin--tell him--tell him--tellhim Mr. Romarin's had an accident--"

And he dashed away, leaving the man looking at the silver in his palm. 

THE CIGARETTE CASE

"A cigarette, Loder?" I said, offering my case. For the moment Loder wasnot smoking; for long enough he had not been talking. 

"Thanks, " he replied, taking not only the cigarette, but the case also. The others went on talking; Loder became silent again; but I noticedthat he kept my cigarette case in his hand, and looked at it from time totime with an interest that neither its design nor its costliness seemedto explain. Presently I caught his eye. 

"A pretty case, " he remarked, putting it down on the table. "I once hadone exactly like it. "

I answered that they were in every shop window. 

"Oh yes, " he said, putting aside any question of rarity. .. . "I lostmine. "

"Oh?. .. "

He laughed. "Oh, that's all right--I got it back again--don't be afraidI'm going to claim yours. But the way I lost it--found it--the wholething--was rather curious. I've never been able to explain it. I wonderif you could?"

I answered that I certainly couldn't till I'd heard it, whereupon Loder, taking up the silver case again and holding it in his hand as he talked, began:

"This happened in Provence, when I was about as old as Marsham there--andevery bit as romantic. I was there with Carroll--you remember poor oldCarroll and what a blade of a boy he was--as romantic as four Marshamsrolled into one. (Excuse me, Marsham, won't you? It's a romantic tale, you see, or at least the setting is. ) . .. We were in Provence, Carrolland I; twenty-four or thereabouts; romantic, as I say; and--and thishappened. 

"And it happened on the top of a whole lot of other things, you mustunderstand, the things that do happen when you're twenty-four. If ithadn't been Provence, it would have been somewhere else, I suppose, nearly, if not quite as good; but this was Provence, that smells (as youmight say) of twenty-four as it smells of argelasse and wild lavender andbroom. .. . 

"We'd had the dickens of a walk of it, just with knapsacks--had startedsomewhere in the Ardèche and tramped south through the vines and almondsand olives--Montélimar, Orange, Avignon, and a fortnight at that blanchedskeleton of a town, Les Baux. We'd nothing to do, and had gone just wherewe liked, or rather just where Carroll had liked; and Carroll had had the_De Bello Gallico_ in his pocket, and had had a notion, I fancy, oftaking in the whole ground of the Roman conquest--I remember he lugged meoff to some place or other, Pourrières I believe its name was, because--Iforget how many thousands--were killed in a river-bed there, and theystove in the water-casks so that if the men wanted water they'd have togo forward and fight for it. And then we'd gone on to Arles, whereCarroll had fallen in love with everything that had a bow of blackvelvet in her hair, and after that Tarascon, Nîmes, and so on, the usualround--I won't bother you with that. In a word, we'd had two months ofit, eating almonds and apricots from the trees, watching the women at thecommunal washing-fountains under the dark plane-trees, singing _Magali_and the _Qué Cantes_, and Carroll yarning away all the time about Caesarand Vercingetorix and Dante, and trying to learn Provençal so that hecould read the stuff in the _Journal des Félibriges_ that he'd never havelooked at if it had been in English. .. . 

"Well, we got to Darbisson. We'd run across some young chap orother--Rangon his name was--who was a vine-planter in those parts, andRangon had asked us to spend a couple of days with him, with him and hismother, if we happened to be in the neighbourhood. So as we might aswell happen to be there as anywhere else, we sent him a postcard andwent. This would be in June or early in July. All day we walked acrossa plain of vines, past hurdles of wattled _cannes_ and great wind-screensof velvety cypresses, sixty feet high, all white with dust on the northside of 'em, for the mistral was having its three-days' revel, and itwhistled and roared through the _cannes_ till scores of yards of 'emat a time were bowed nearly to the earth. A roaring day it was, Iremember. .. . But the wind fell a little late in the afternoon, and wewere poring over what it had left of our Ordnance Survey--like fools, we'd got the unmounted paper maps instead of the linen ones--when Rangonhimself found us, coming out to meet us in a very badly turned-out trap. He drove us back himself, through Darbisson, to the house, a mile and ahalf beyond it, where he lived with his mother. 

"He spoke no English, Rangon didn't, though, of course, both French andProvençal; and as he drove us, there was Carroll, using him as aFranco-Provençal dictionary, peppering him with questions about the namesof things in the patois--I beg its pardon, the language--though there'sa good deal of my eye and Betty Martin about that, and I fancy thisFélibrige business will be in a good many pieces when Frédéric Mistralis under that Court-of-Love pavilion arrangement he's had put up forhimself in the graveyard at Maillanne. If the language has got to go, well, it's got to go, I suppose; and while I personally don't want togive it a kick, I rather sympathise with the Government. Those jaunts ofa Sunday out to Les Baux, for instance, with paper lanterns and Bengalfire and a fellow spouting _O blanche Venus d'Arles_--they're wellenough, and compare favourably with our Bank Holidays and Sunday Leaguepicnics, but . .. But that's nothing to do with my tale after all. .. . Sohe drove on, and by the time we got to Rangon's house Carroll had learnedthe greater part of _Magali_. .. . 

"As you, no doubt, know, it's a restricted sort of life in some respectsthat a young _vigneron_ lives in those parts, and it was as we reachedthe house that Rangon remembered something--or he might have been tryingto tell us as we came along for all I know, and not been able to get aword in edgeways for Carroll and his Provençal. It seemed that his motherwas away from home for some days--apologies of the most profound, ofcourse; our host was the soul of courtesy, though he did try to get atus a bit later. .. . We expressed our polite regrets, naturally; but Ididn't quite see at first what difference it made. I only began to seewhen Rangon, with more apologies, told us that we should have to go backto Darbisson for dinner. It appeared that when Madame Rangon went awayfor a few days she dispersed the whole of the female side of herestablishment also, and she'd left her son with nobody to look afterhim except an old man we'd seen in the yard mending one of thesedouble-cylindered sulphur-sprinklers they clap across the horse's backand drive between the rows of vines. .. . Rangon explained all this as westood in the hall drinking an _apéritif_--a hall crowded with oakfurniture and photographs and a cradle-like bread-crib and doors openingto right and left to the other rooms of the ground floor. He had also, itseemed, to ask us to be so infinitely obliging as to excuse him for onehour after dinner--our postcard had come unexpectedly, he said, andalready he had made an appointment with his agent about the _vendange_for the coming autumn. .. . We, begged him, of course, not to allow us tointerfere with his business in the slightest degree. He thanked us athousand times. 

"'But though we dine in the village, we will take our own wine with us, 'he said, 'a wine _surfin_--one of my wines--you shall see--'

"Then he showed us round his place--I forget how many hundreds of acresof vines, and into the great building with the presses and pumps andcasks and the huge barrel they call the thunderbolt--and about seveno'clock we walked back to Darbisson to dinner, carrying our wine with us. I think the restaurant we dined in was the only one in the place, and ourgaillard of a host--he was a straight-backed, well-set-up chap, withrather fine eyes--did us on the whole pretty well. His wine certainly wasgood stuff, and set our tongues going. .. . 

"A moment ago I said a fellow like Rangon leads a restricted sort of lifein those parts. I saw this more clearly as dinner went on. We dined by anopen window, from which we could see the stream with the planks across itwhere the women washed clothes during the day and assembled in theevening for gossip. There were a dozen or so of them there as we dined, laughing and chatting in low tones--they all seemed pretty--it wasquickly falling dusk--all the girls are pretty then, and are quiteconscious of it--_you_ know, Marsham. Behind them, at the end of thestreet, one of these great cypress wind-screens showed black against thesky, a ragged edge something like the line the needle draws on a rainfallchart; and you could only tell whether they were men or women under theplantains by their voices rippling and chattering and suddenly a deepernote. .. . Once I heard a muffled scuffle and a sound like a kiss. .. . Itwas then that Rangon's little trouble came out. .. . 

"It seemed that he didn't know any girls--wasn't allowed to know anygirls. The girls of the village were pretty enough, but you see how itwas--he'd a position to keep up--appearances to maintain--couldn't befamiliar during the year with the girls who gathered his grapes for himin the autumn. .. . And as soon as Carroll gave him a chance, _he_ began toask _us_ questions, about England, English girls, the liberty they had, and so on. 

"Of course, we couldn't tell him much he hadn't heard already, but thatmade no difference; he could stand any amount of that, our strappingyoung _vigneron_; and he asked us questions by the dozen, that we bothtried to answer at once. And his delight and envy!. .. What! In Englanddid the young men see the young women of their own class withoutrestraint--the sisters of their friends _même_--even at the house? Was itpermitted that they drank tea with them in the afternoon, or went withoutinvitation to pass the _soirée_?. .. He had all the later Prévosts in hisroom, he told us (I don't doubt he had the earlier ones also); Prévostand the Disestablishment between them must be playing the mischiefwith the convent system of education for young girls; and our young manwas--what d'you call it?--'Co-ed'--co-educationalist--by Jove, yes!. .. Heseemed to marvel that we should have left a country so blessed as Englandto visit his dusty, wild-lavender-smelling, girl-less Provence. .. . Youdon't know half your luck, Marsham. .. . 

"Well, we talked after this fashion--we'd left the dining-room of therestaurant and had planted ourselves on a bench outside with Rangonbetween us--when Rangon suddenly looked at his watch and said it was timehe was off to see this agent of his. Would we take a walk, he asked us, and meet him again there? he said. .. . But as his agent lived in thedirection of his own home, we said we'd meet him at the house in an houror so. Off he went, envying every Englishman who stepped, I don'tdoubt. .. . I told you how old--how young--we were. .. . Heigho!. .. 

"Well, off goes Rangon, and Carroll and I got up, stretched ourselves, and took a walk. We walked a mile or so, until it began to get prettydark, and then turned; and it was as we came into the blackness of one ofthese cypress hedges that the thing I'm telling you of happened. Thehedge took a sharp turn at that point; as we came round the angle we sawa couple of women's figures hardly more than twenty yards ahead--don'tknow how they got there so suddenly, I'm sure; and that same moment Ifound my foot on something small and white and glimmering on the grass. 

"I picked it up. It was a handkerchief--a woman's--embroidered--

"The two figures ahead of us were walking in our direction; there wasevery probability that the handkerchief belonged to one of them; so westepped out. .. . 

"At my 'Pardon, madame, ' and lifted hat one of the figures turned herhead; then, to my surprise, she spoke in English--cultivated English. I held out the handkerchief. It belonged to the elder lady of the two, the one who had spoken, a very gentle-voiced old lady, older by very manyyears than her companion. She took the handkerchief and thanked me. .. . 

"Somebody--Sterne, isn't it?--says that Englishmen don't travel to seeEnglishmen. I don't know whether he'd stand to that in the case ofEnglishwomen; Carroll and I didn't. .. . We were walking rather slowlyalong, four abreast across the road; we asked permission to introduceourselves, did so, and received some name in return which, strangelyenough, I've entirely forgotten--I only remember that the ladies wereaunt and niece, and lived at Darbisson. They shook their heads when Imentioned M. Rangon's name and said we were visiting him. They didn'tknow him. .. . 

"I'd never been in Darbisson before, and I haven't been since, so I don'tknow the map of the village very well. But the place isn't very big, and the house at which we stopped in twenty minutes or so is probablythere yet. It had a large double door--a double door in two senses, for it was a big _porte-cochère_ with a smaller door inside it, and aniron grille shutting in the whole. The gentle-voiced old lady had alreadytaken a key from her reticule and was thanking us again for the littleservice of the handkerchief; then, with the little gesture one makes whenone has found oneself on the point of omitting a courtesy, she gave alittle musical laugh. 

"'But, ' she said with a little movement of invitation, 'one sees sofew compatriots here--if you have the time to come in and smoke acigarette . .. Also the cigarette, ' she added, with another ripplinglaugh, 'for we have few callers, and live alone--'

"Hastily as I was about to accept, Carroll was before me, professing anostalgia for the sound of the English tongue that made his recentprotestations about Provençal a shameless hypocrisy. Persuasive youngrascal, Carroll Was--poor chap . .. So the elder lady opened the grilleand the wooden door beyond it, and we entered. 

"By the light of the candle which the younger lady took from a bracketjust within the door we saw that we were in a handsome hall or vestibule;and my wonder that Rangon had made no mention of what was apparently aconsiderable establishment was increased by the fact that its tenantsmust be known to be English and could be seen to be entirely charming. Icouldn't understand it, and I'm afraid hypotheses rushed into my headthat cast doubts on the Rangons--you know--whether _they_ were all right. We knew nothing about our young planter, you see. .. . 

"I looked about me. There were tubs here and there against the walls, gaily painted, with glossy-leaved aloes and palms in them--one of thealoes, I remember, was flowering; a little fountain in the middle made atinkling noise; we put our caps on a carved and gilt console table; andbefore us rose a broad staircase with shallow steps of spotless stone anda beautiful wrought-iron handrail. At the top of the staircase were morepalms and aloes, and double doors painted in a clear grey. 

"We followed our hostesses up the staircase. I can hear yet the sharpclean click our boots made on that hard shiny stone--see the lights ofthe candle gleaming on the handrail . .. The young girl--she was not muchmore than a girl--pushed at the doors, and we went in. 

"The room we entered was all of a piece with the rest for ratherold-fashioned fineness. It was large, lofty, beautifully kept. Carrollwent round for Miss . .. Whatever her name was . .. Lighting candles insconces; and as the flames crept up they glimmered on a beautifullypolished floor, which was bare except for an Eastern rug here and there. The elder lady had sat down in a gilt chair, Louis Fourteenth I shouldsay, with a striped rep of the colour of a petunia; and I really don'tknow--don't smile, Smith--what induced me to lead her to it by thefinger-tips, bending over her hand for a moment as she sat down. Therewas an old tambour-frame behind her chair, I remember, and a vast ovalmirror with clustered candle-brackets filled the greater part of thefarther wall, the brightest and clearest glass I've ever seen. .. . "

He paused, looking at my cigarette case, which he had taken into his handagain. He smiled at some recollection or other, and it was a minute orso before he continued. 

"I must admit that I found it a little annoying, after what we'dbeen talking about at dinner an hour before, that Rangon wasn't withus. I still couldn't understand how he could have neighbours socharming without knowing about them, but I didn't care to insist onthis to the old lady, who for all I knew might have her own reasonsfor keeping to herself. And, after all, it was our place to returnRangon's hospitality in London if he ever came there, not, so to speak, on his own doorstep. .. . So presently I forgot all about Rangon, and I'mpretty sure that Carroll, who was talking to his companion of someFélibrige junketing or other and having the air of Gounod's _Mireille_hummed softly over to him, didn't waste a thought on him either. SoonCarroll--you remember what a pretty crooning, humming voice he had--soonCarroll was murmuring what they call 'seconds, ' but so low that the soundhardly came across the room; and I came in with a soft bass note fromtime to time. No instrument, you know; just an unaccompanied murmur nolouder than an Aeolian harp; and it sounded infinitely sweet andplaintive and--what shall I say?--weak--attenuated--faint--'pale' youmight almost say--in that formal, rather old-fashioned _salon_, with thatgreat clear oval mirror throwing back the still flames of the candles inthe sconces on the walls. Outside the wind had now fallen completely; allwas very quiet; and suddenly in a voice not much louder than a sigh, Carroll's companion was singing _Oft in the Stilly Night_--you knowit. .. . "

He broke off again to murmur the beginning of the air. Then, with alittle laugh for which we saw no reason, he went on again:

"Well, I'm not going to try to convince you of such a special anddelicate thing as the charm of that hour--it wasn't more than anhour--it would be all about an hour we stayed. Things like that justhave to be said and left; you destroy them the moment you begin toinsist on them; we've every one of us had experiences like that, anddon't say much about them. I was as much in love with my old lady asCarroll evidently was with his young one--I can't tell you why--beingin love has just to be taken for granted too, I suppose. .. Marshamunderstands. .. . We smoked our cigarettes, and sang again, once morefilling that clear-painted, quiet apartment with a murmuring no louderthan if a light breeze found that the bells of a bed of flowers werereally bells and played on 'em. The old lady moved her fingers gentlyon the round table by the side of her chair, . . Oh, infinitely pretty itwas. .. . Then Carroll wandered off into the _Qué Cantes_--awfullypretty--'It is not for myself I sing, but for my friend who is nearme'--and I can't tell you how like four old friends we were, those twoso oddly met ladies and Carroll and myself. .. . And so to _Oft in theStilly Night_ again. .. . 

"But for all the sweetness and the glamour of it, we couldn't stay onindefinitely, and I wondered what time it was, but didn't ask--anythingto do with clocks and watches would have seemed a cold and mechanicalsort of thing just then. .. . And when presently we both got up neitherCarroll nor I asked to be allowed to call again in the morning tothank them for a charming hour. .. . And they seemed to feel the same aswe did about it. There was no 'hoping that we should meet again inLondon'--neither an au revoir nor a good-bye--just a tacit understandingthat that hour should remain isolated, accepted like a good gift withoutlooking the gift-horse in the mouth, single, unattached to any hoursbefore or after--I don't know whether you see what I mean. .. . Give me amatch somebody. .. . 

"And so we left, with no more than looks exchanged and finger-tipsresting between the back of our hands and our lips for a moment. Wefound our way out by ourselves, down that shallow-stepped staircase withthe handsome handrail, and let ourselves out of the double door andgrille, closing it softly. We made for the village without speaking aword. .. . Heigho!. .. "

Loder had picked up the cigarette case again, but for all the way hiseyes rested on it I doubt whether he really saw it. I'm pretty sure hedidn't; I knew when he did by the glance he shot at me, as much as to say"I see you're wondering where the cigarette case comes in. ". .. Heresumed with another little laugh. 

"Well, " he continued, "we got back to Rangon's house. I really don'tblame Rangon for the way he took it when we told him, you know--hethought we were pulling his leg, of course, and he wasn't having any; nothe! There were no English ladies in Darbisson, he said. .. . We told him asnearly as we could just where the house was--we weren't very precise, I'mafraid, for the village had been in darkness as we had come through it, and I had to admit that the cypress hedge I tried to describe where we'dmet our friends was a good deal like other cypress hedges--and, as I say, Rangon wasn't taking any. I myself was rather annoyed that he shouldthink we were returning his hospitality by trying to get at him, and itwasn't very easy either to explain in my French and Carroll's Provençalthat we were going to let the thing stand as it was and weren't going tocall on our charming friends again. .. . The end of it was that Rangonjust laughed and yawned. .. . 

"'I knew it was good, my wine, ' he said, 'but--' a shrug said the rest. 'Not so good as all that, ' he meant. .. . 

"Then he gave us our candles, showed us to our rooms, shook hands, andmarched off to his own room and the Prévosts. 

"I dreamed of my old lady half the night. 

"After coffee the next morning I put my hand into my pocket for mycigarette case and didn't find it. I went through all my pockets, andthen I asked Carroll if he'd got it. 

"'No, ' he replied. .. . 'Think you left it behind at that place lastnight?'

"'Yes; did you?' Rangon popped in with a twinkle. 

"I went through all my pockets again. No cigarette case. .. . 

"Of course, it was possible that I'd left it behind, and I was annoyedagain. I didn't want to go back, you see. .. . But, on the other hand, Ididn't want to lose the case--it was a present--and Rangon's smilenettled me a good deal, too. It was both a challenge to our truthfulnessand a testimonial to that very good wine of his. .. . 

"'Might have done, ' I grunted. .. . 'Well, in that case we'll go and getit. '

"'If one tried the restaurant first--?' Rangon suggested, smiling again. 

"'By all means, ' said I stuffily, though I remembered having the caseafter we'd left the restaurant. 

"We were round at the restaurant by half-past nine. The case wasn'tthere. I'd known jolly well beforehand it wasn't, and I saw Rangon'smouth twitching with amusement. 

"'So we now seek the abode of these English ladies, _hein_?' he said. 

"'Yes, ' said I; and we left the restaurant and strode through the villageby the way we'd taken the evening before. .. . 

"That vigneron's smile became more and more irritating to me. .. . 'It isthen the next village?' he said presently, as we left the last house andcame out into the open plain. 

"We went back. .. . 

"I was irritated because we were two to one, you see, and Carroll backedme up. 'A double door, with a grille in front of it, ' he repeated forthe fiftieth time. .. . Rangon merely replied that it wasn't our good faithhe doubted. He didn't actually use the word 'drunk. '. .. 

"'_Mais tiens_, ' he said suddenly, trying to conceal his mirth. '_Sic'est possible. .. Si c'est possible_. .. A double door with a grille? Butperhaps that I know it, the domicile of these so elusive ladies. .. . Comethis way. '

"He took us back along a plantain-groved street, and suddenly turned upan alley that was little more than two gutters and a crack of skyoverhead between two broken-tiled roofs. It was a dilapidated, deserted_ruelle_, and I was positively angry when Rangon pointed to a blisteredold _porte-cochère_ with a half-unhinged railing in front of it. 

"'Is it that, your house?' he asked. 

"'No, ' says I, and 'No, ' says Carroll . .. And off we started again. .. . 

"But another half-hour brought us back to the same place, and Carrollscratched his head. 

"'Who lives there, anyway?' he said, glowering at the _porte-cochère_, chin forward, hands in pockets. 

"'Nobody, ' says Rangon, as much as to say 'look at it!' 'M'sieu thenmeditates taking it?'. .. 

"Then I struck in, quite out of temper by this time. 

"'How much would the rent be?' I asked, as if I really thought of takingthe place just to get back at him. 

"He mentioned something ridiculously small in the way of francs. 

"'One might at least see the place, ' says I. 'Can the key be got?'

"He bowed. The key was at the baker's, not a hundred yards away, hesaid. .. . 

"We got the key. It was the key of the inner wooden door--that grid ofrusty iron didn't need one--it came clean off its single hinge whenCarroll touched it. Carroll opened, and we stood for a moment motioningto one another to step in. Then Rangon went in first, and I heard himmurmur 'Pardon, Mesdames. '. .. 

"Now this is the odd part. We passed into a sort of vestibule or hall, with a burst lead pipe in the middle of a dry tank in the centre of it. There was a broad staircase rising in front of us to the first floor, anddouble doors just seen in the half-light at the head of the stairs. Oldtubs stood against the walls, but the palms and aloes in them weredead--only a cabbage-stalk or two--and the rusty hoops lay on the groundabout them. One tub had come to pieces entirely and was no more than aheap of staves on a pile of spilt earth. And everywhere, everywhere wasdust--the floor was an inch deep in dust and old plaster that muffled ourfootsteps, cobwebs hung like old dusters on the walls, a regular goblin'statter of cobwebs draped the little bracket inside the door, and thewrought-iron of the hand-rail was closed up with webs in which not even aspider moved. The whole thing was preposterous. .. . 

"'It is possible that for even a less rental--'

"Rangon murmured, dragging his forefinger across the hand-rail andleaving an inch-deep furrow. .. . 

"'Come upstairs, ' said I suddenly. .. . 

"Up we went. All was in the same state there. A clutter of stuff camedown as I pushed at the double doors of the _salon_, and I had to strikea stinking French sulphur match to see into the room at all. Underfootwas like walking on thicknesses of flannel, and except where we putour feet the place was as printless as a snowfield--dust, dust, unbrokengrey dust. My match burned down. .. . 

"'Wait a minute--I've a _bougie_, ' said Carroll, and struck the waxmatch. .. . 

"There were the old sconces, with never a candle-end in them. There wasthe large oval mirror, but hardly reflecting Carroll's match for thedust on it. And the broken chairs were there, all gutless, and therickety old round table. .. . 

"But suddenly I darted forward. Something new and bright on the tabletwinkled with the light of Carroll's match. The match went out, and bythe time Carroll had lighted another I had stopped. I wanted Rangon tosee what was on the table. .. . 

"'You'll see by my footprints how far from that table _I've_ been, ' Isaid. 'Will you pick it up?'

"And Rangon, stepping forward, picked up from the middle of the table--mycigarette case. "

 * * * * *

Loder had finished. Nobody spoke. For quite a minute nobody spoke, andthen Loder himself broke the silence, turning to me. 

"Make anything of it?" he said. 

I lifted my eyebrows. "Only your _vigneron's_ explanation--" I began, butstopped again, seeing that wouldn't do. 

"_Any_body make anything of it?" said Loder, turning from one to another. 

I gathered from Smith's face that he thought one thing might be made ofit--namely, that Loder had invented the whole tale. But even Smithdidn't speak. 

"Were any English ladies ever found to have lived in the place--murdered, you know--bodies found and all that?" young Marsham asked diffidently, yearning for an obvious completeness. 

"Not that we could ever learn, " Loder replied. "We made inquiriestoo. .. . So you all give it up? Well, so do I. .. . "

And he rose. As he walked to the door, myself following him to get hishat and stick, I heard him humming softly the lines--they are from_Oft in the Stilly Night_--

"_I seem like one who treads alone Some banquet-hall deserted, Whose guests are fled, whose garlands dead, And all but he--departed!_"

THE ROCKER

I

There was little need for the swart gipsies to explain, as they stoodknee-deep in the snow round the bailiff of the Abbey Farm, what itwas that had sent them. The unbroken whiteness of the uplands told that, and, even as they spoke, there came up the hill the dark figures of thefarm men with shovels, on their way to dig out the sheep. In the summer, the bailiff would have been the first to call the gipsies vagabondsand roost-robbers; now . .. They had women with them too. 

"The hares and foxes were down four days ago, and the liquid-manure pumpslike a snow man, " the bailiff said. .. . "Yes, you can lie in the laithesand welcome--if you can find 'em. Maybe you'll help us find our sheeptoo--"

The gipsies had done so. Coming back again, they had had some ado todiscover the spot where their three caravans made a hummock of whiteagainst a broken wall. 

The women--they had four women with them--began that afternoon to weavethe mats and baskets they hawked from door to door; and in the forenoonof the following day one of them, the black-haired, soft-voiced queanwhom the bailiff had heard called Annabel, set her babe in the sling onher back, tucked a bundle of long cane-loops under her oxter, and trudgeddown between eight-foot walls of snow to the Abbey Farm. She stood in thelatticed porch, dark and handsome against the whiteness, and then, advancing, put her head into the great hall-kitchen. 

"Has the lady any chairs for the gipsy woman to mend?" she asked in asoft and insinuating voice. .. . 

They brought her the old chairs; she seated herself on a box in theporch; and there she wove the strips of cane in and out, securing eachone with a little wooden peg and a tap of her hammer. The child remainedin the sling at her back, taking the breast from time to time over hershoulder; and the silver wedding ring could be seen as she whipped thecane, back and forth. 

As she worked, she cast curious glances into the old hall-kitchen. Thesnow outside cast a pallid, upward light on the heavy ceiling-beams; thiswas reflected in the polished stone floor; and the children, who at firsthad shyly stopped their play, seeing the strange woman in the porch--thenearest thing they had seen to gipsies before had been the old itinerantglazier with his frame of glass on his back--resumed it, but still eyedher from time to time. In the ancient walnut chair by the hearth sat theold, old lady who had told them to bring the chairs. Her hair, almostas white as the snow itself, was piled up on her head _à la Marquise_;she was knitting; but now and then she allowed the needle in the littlewooden sheath at her waist to lie idle, closed her eyes, and rockedsoftly in the old walnut chair. 

"Ask the woman who is mending the chairs whether she is warm enoughthere, " the old lady said to one of the children; and the child wentto the porch with the message. 

"Thank you, little missie--thank you, lady dear--Annabel is quite warm, "said the soft voice; and the child returned to the play. 

It was a childish game of funerals at which the children played. The handof Death, hovering over the dolls, had singled out Flora, thearticulations of whose sawdust body were seams and whose boots werepainted on her calves of fibrous plaster. For the greater solemnity, thechildren had made themselves sweeping trains of the garments of theirelders, and those with cropped curls had draped their heads with shawls, the fringes of which they had combed out with their fingers to simulatehair--long hair, such as Sabrina, the eldest, had hanging so low downher back that she could almost sit on it. A cylindrical-bodied horse, convertible (when his flat head came out of its socket) into alocomotive, headed the sad _cortège_; then came the defunct Flora; thencame Jack, the raffish sailor doll, with other dolls; and the childrenfollowed with hushed whisperings. 

The youngest of the children passed the high-backed walnut chair in whichthe old lady sat. She stopped. 

"Aunt Rachel--" she whispered, slowly and gravely opening very wide andclosing very tight her eyes. 

"Yes, dear?"

"Flora's dead!"

The old lady, when she smiled, did so less with her lips than with herfaded cheeks. So sweet was her face that you could not help wondering, when you looked on it, how many men had also looked upon it and loved it. Somehow, you never wondered how many of them had been loved in return. 

"I'm so sorry, dear, " Aunt Rachel, who in reality was a great-aunt, said. "What did she die of this time?"

"She died of . .. Brown Titus . .. 'n now she's going to be buried in agrave as little as her bed. "

"In a what, dear?"

"As little . .. Dread . .. As little as my bed . .. You say it, Sabrina. "

"She means, Aunt Rachel, "_Teach me to live that I may dreadThe Grave as little as my bed, _"

Sabrina, the eldest, interpreted. 

"Ah!. .. But won't you play at cheerful things, dears?"

"Yes, we will, presently, Aunt Rachel; gee up, horse!. .. Shall we go andask the chair-woman if she's warm enough?"

"Do, dears. "

Again the message was taken, and this time it seemed as if Annabel, thegipsy, was not warm enough, for she gathered up her loops of cane andbrought the chair she was mending a little way into the hall-kitchenitself. She sat down on the square box they used to cover the sewingmachine. 

"Thank you, lady dear, " she murmured, lifting her handsome almond eyes toAunt Rachel. Aunt Rachel did not see the long, furtive, curious glance. Her own eyes were closed, as if she was tired; her cheeks were smiling;one of them had dropped a little to one shoulder, as it might havedropped had she held in her arms a babe; and she was rocking, softly, slowly, the rocker of the chair making a little regular noise on thepolished floor. 

The gipsy woman beckoned to one of the children. 

"Tell the lady, when she wakes, that I will tack a strip of felt to therocker, and then it will make no noise at all, " said the low andwheedling voice; and the child retired again. 

The interment of Flora proceeded. .. . 

An hour later Flora had taken up the burden of Life again. It was asAngela, the youngest, was chastising her for some offence, that Sabrina, the eldest, looked with wondering eyes on the babe in the gipsy's sling. She approached on tiptoe. 

"May I look at it, please?" she asked timidly. 

The gipsy set one shoulder forward, and Sabrina put the shawl gentlyaside, peering at the dusky brown morsel within. 

"Sometime, perhaps--if I'm very careful--"

Sabrina ventured diffidently, "--if I'm _very_ careful--may I hold it?"

Before replying, the gipsy once more turned her almond eyes towards AuntRachel's chair. Aunt Rachel had been awakened for the conclusion ofFlora's funeral, but her eyes were closed again now, and once more hercheek was dropped in that tender suggestive little gesture, and sherocked. But you could see that she was not properly asleep. .. . It was, somehow, less to Sabrina, still peering at the babe in the sling, than toAunt Rachel, apparently asleep, that the gipsy seemed to reply. 

"You'll know some day, little missis, that a wean knows its own pair ofarms, " her seductive voice came. 

And Aunt Rachel heard. She opened her eyes with a start. The littleregular noise of the rocker ceased. She turned her head quickly;tremulously she began to knit again; and, as her eyes rested on thesidelong eyes of the gipsy woman, there was an expression in them thatalmost resembled fright. 

II

They began to deck the great hall-kitchen for Christmas, but the snowstill lay thick over hill and valley, and the gipsies' caravans remainedby the broken wall where the drifts had overtaken them. Though all thechairs were mended, Annabel still came daily to the farm, sat on the boxthey used to cover the sewing machine, and wove mats. As she wove them, Aunt Rachel knitted, and from time to time fragments of talk passedbetween the two women. It was always the white-haired lady who spokefirst, and Annabel made all sorts of salutes and obeisances with her eyesbefore replying. 

"I have not seen your husband, " Aunt Rachel said to Annabel one day. (Thechildren at the other end of the apartment had converted a chest into analtar, and were solemnising the nuptials of the resurrected Flora andJack, the raffish sailor-doll. )

Annabel made roving play with her eyes. "He is up at the caravans, ladydear, " she replied. "Is there anything Annabel can bid him do?"

"Nothing, thank you, " said Aunt Rachel. 

For a minute the gipsy watched Aunt Rachel, and then she got up from thesewing machine box and crossed the floor. She leaned so close towards herthat she had to put up a hand to steady the babe at her back. 

"Lady dear, " she murmured with irresistible softness, "your husband died, didn't he?"

On Aunt Rachel's finger was a ring, but it was not a wedding ring. It wasa hoop of pearls. 

"I have never had a husband, " she said. 

The gipsy glanced at the ring. "Then that is--?"

"That is a betrothal ring, " Aunt Rachel replied. 

"Ah!. .. " said Annabel. 

Then, after a minute, she drew still closer. Her eyes were fixed on AuntRachel's, and the insinuating voice was very low. 

"Ah!. .. And did _it_ die too, lady dear?"

Again came that quick, half-affrighted look into Aunt Rachel's face. Hereyes avoided those of the gipsy, sought them, and avoided them again. 

"Did what die?" she asked slowly and guardedly. .. . 

The child at the gipsy's back did not need suck; nevertheless, Annabel'sfingers worked at her bosom, and she moved the sling. As the childsettled, Annabel gave Aunt Rachel a long look. 

"Why do you rock?" she asked slowly. 

Aunt Rachel was trembling. She did not reply. In a voice soft as slidingwater the gipsy continued:

"Lady dear, we are a strange folk to you, and even among us there arethose who shuffle the pack of cards and read the palm when silver hasbeen put upon it, knowing nothing. .. But some of us _see_--some of us_see_. "

It was more than a minute before Aunt Rachel spoke. 

"You are a woman, and you have your babe at your breast now. .. . Everywoman sees the thing you speak of. "

But the gipsy shook her head. "You speak of seeing with the heart. Ispeak of eyes--these eyes. "

Again came a long pause. Aunt Rachel had given a little start, but hadbecome quiet again. When at last she spoke it was in a voice scarcelyaudible. 

"That cannot be. I know what you mean, but it cannot be. .. . He diedon the eve of his wedding. For my bridal clothes they made me blackgarments instead. It is long ago, and now I wear neither black nor white, but--" her hands made a gesture. Aunt Rachel always dressed as if to suita sorrow that Time had deprived of bitterness, in such a tender andfleecy grey as one sees in the mists that lie like lawn over hedgerowand copse early of a midsummer's morning. "Therefore, " she resumed, "yourheart may see, but your eyes cannot see that which never was. "

But there came a sudden note of masterfulness into the gipsy's voice. 

"With my eyes--_these_ eyes, " she repeated, pointing to them. 

Aunt Rachel kept her own eyes obstinately on her knitting needles. "Noneexcept I have seen it. It is not to be seen, " she said. 

The gipsy sat suddenly erect. 

"It is not so. Keep still in your chair, " she ordered, "and I will tellyou when--"

It was a curious thing that followed. As if all the will went out ofher, Aunt Rachel sat very still; and presently her hands fluttered anddropped. The gipsy sat with her own hands folded over the mat on herknees. Several minutes passed; then, slowly, once more that sweetest ofsmiles stole over Aunt Rachel's cheeks. Once more her head dropped. Herhands moved. Noiselessly on the rockers that the gipsy had padded withfelt the chair began to rock. Annabel lifted one hand. 

"_Dovo se li_" she said. "It is there. "

Aunt Rachel did not appear to hear her. With that ineffable smile stillon her face, she rocked. .. . 

Then, after some minutes, there crossed her face such a look as visitsthe face of one who, waking from sleep, strains his faculties torecapture some blissful and vanishing vision. .. . 

"_Jal_--it is gone, " said the gipsy woman. 

Aunt Rachel opened her eyes again. She repeated dully after Annabel:

"It is gone. "

"Ghosts, " the gipsy whispered presently, "are of the dead. Therefore itmust have lived. "

But again Aunt Rachel shook her head. "It never lived. "

"You were young, and beautiful?. .. "

Still the shake of the head. "He died on the eve of his wedding. Theytook my white garments away and gave me black ones. How then couldit have lived?"

"Without the kiss, no. .. . But sometimes a woman will lie through herlife, and at the graveside still will lie. .. . Tell me the truth. "

But they were the same words that Aunt Rachel repeated: "He died on theeve of his wedding; they took away my wedding garments. .. . " From her lipsa lie could hardly issue. The gipsy's face became grave. .. . 

She broke another long silence. 

"I believe, " she said at last. "It is a new kind--but no more wonderfulthan the other. The other I have seen, now I have seen this also. Tellme, does it come to any other chair?"

"It was his chair; he died in it, " said Aunt Rachel. 

"And you--shall you die in it?"

"As God wills. "

"Has . .. _other life_ . .. Visited it long?"

"Many years; but it is always small; it never grows. "

"To their mothers babes never grow. They remain ever babes. .. . None otherhas ever seen it?"

"Except yourself, none. I sit here; presently it creeps into my arms; itis small and warm; I rock, and then. .. It goes. "

"Would it come to another chair?"

"I cannot tell. I think not. It was his chair. "

Annabel mused. At the other end of the room Flora was now bestowed onJack, the disreputable sailor. The gipsy's eyes rested on the bridalparty. .. . 

"Yet another might see it--"

"None has. "

"No; but yet. .. . The door does not always shut behind us suddenly. Perhaps one who has toddled but a step or two over the threshold might, by looking back, catch a glimpse. .. . What is the name of the smallestone?"

"Angela. "

"That means 'angel'. .. Look, the doll who died yesterday is now beingmarried. .. . It may be that Life has not yet sealed the little one's eyes. Will you let Annabel ask her if she sees what it is you hold in yourarms?"

Again the voice was soft and wheedling. .. . 

"No, Annabel, " said Aunt Rachel faintly. 

"Will you rock again?"

Aunt Rachel made no reply. 

"Rock. .. " urged the cajoling voice. 

But Aunt Rachel only turned the betrothal ring on her finger. Over at thealtar Jack was leering at his new-made bride, past decency; and littleAngela held the wooden horse's head, which had parted from its body. 

"Rock, and comfort yourself--" tempted the voice. 

Then slowly Aunt Rachel rose from her chair. 

"No, Annabel, " she said gently. "You should not have spoken. When thesnow melts you will go, and come no more; why then did you speak? It wasmine. It was not meant to be seen by another. I no longer want it. Pleasego. "

The swarthy woman turned her almond eyes on her once more. 

"You cannot live without it, " she said as she also rose. .. . 

And as Jack and his bride left the church on the reheaded horse, AuntRachel walked with hanging head from the apartment. 

III

Thenceforward, as day followed day, Aunt Rachel rocked no more; and withthe packing and partial melting of the snow the gipsies up at thecaravans judged it time to be off about their business. It was on themorning of Christmas Eve that they came down in a body to the AbbeyFarm to express their thanks to those who had befriended them; but thebailiff was not there. He and the farm men had ceased work, and weredown at the church, practising the carols. Only Aunt Rachel sat, stilland knitting, in the black walnut chair; and the children played on thefloor. 

A night in the toy-box had apparently bred discontent between Jackand Flora--or perhaps they sought to keep their countenances beforethe world; at any rate, they sat on opposite sides of the room, Jackkeeping boon company with the lead soldiers, his spouse reposing, herlead-balanced eyes closed, in the broken clockwork motor-car. With theair of performing some vaguely momentous ritual, the children werekissing one another beneath the bunch of mistletoe that hung from thecentre beam. In the intervals of kissing they told one another inwhispers that Aunt Rachel was not very well, and Angela woke Flora totell her that Aunt Rachel had Brown Titus also. 

"Stay you here; I will give the lady dear our thanks, " said Annabel tothe group of gipsies gathered about the porch; and she entered thegreat hall-kitchen. She approached the chair in which Aunt Rachel sat. 

There was obeisance in the bend of her body, but command in her longalmond eyes, as she spoke. 

"Lady dear, you must rock or you cannot live. "

Aunt Rachel did not look up from her work. 

"Rocking, I should not live long, " she replied. 

"We are leaving you. "

"All leave me. "

"Annabel fears she has taken away your comfort. "

"Only for a little while. The door closes behind us, but it opens again. "

"But for that little time, rock--"

Aunt Rachel shook her head. 

"No. It is finished. Another has seen. .. . Say good-bye to yourcompanions; they are very welcome to what they have had; and God speedyou. "

"They thank you, lady dear. .. . Will you not forget that Annabel saw, androck?"

"No more. "

Annabel stooped and kissed the hand that bore the betrothal hoop ofpearls. The other hand Aunt Rachel placed for a moment upon the smokyhead of the babe in the sling. It trembled as it rested there, but thetremor passed, and Annabel, turning once at the porch, gave her a lastlook. Then she departed with her companions. 

That afternoon, Jack and Flora had shaken down to wedlock as marriedfolk should, and sat together before the board spread with the dolls'tea-things. The pallid light in the great hall-kitchen faded; the candleswere lighted; and then the children, first borrowing the stockings oftheir elders to hang at the bed's foot, were packed off early--for it wasthe custom to bring them down again at midnight for the carols. AuntRachel had their good-night kisses, not as she had them every night, butwith the special ceremony of the mistletoe. 

Other folk, grown folk, sat with Aunt Rachel that evening; but the oldwalnut chair did not move upon its rockers. There was merry talk, butAunt Rachel took no part in it. The board was spread with ale and cheeseand spiced loaf for the carol-singers; and the time drew near for theircoming. 

When at midnight, faintly on the air from the church below, there camethe chiming of Christmas morning, all bestirred themselves. 

"They'll be here in a few minutes, " they said; "somebody go and bring thechildren down;" and within a very little while subdued noises were heardoutside, and the lifting of the latch of the yard gate. The children werein their nightgowns, hardly fully awake; a low voice outside was heardgiving orders; and then there arose on the night the carol. 

"Hush!" they said to the wondering children; "listen!. .. "

It was the Cherry Tree Carol that rose outside, of how sweet Mary, theQueen of Galilee, besought Joseph to pluck the cherries for her Babe, andJoseph refused; and the voices of the singers, that had begunhesitatingly, grew strong and loud and free. 

". .. And Joseph wouldn't pluck the cherries, " somebody was whispering tothe tiny Angela. .. . 

"_Mary said to Cherry Tree, 'Bow down to my knee, That I may pluck cherries For my Babe and me. _'"

the carollers sang; and "Now listen, darling, " the one who held Angelamurmured. .. . 

"_The uppermost spray then Bowed down to her knee;'Thus you may see, Joseph, These cherries are for me. '

"'O, eat your cherries, Mary, Give them your Babe now;O, eat your cherries, Mary, That grew upon the bough. _'"

The little Angela, within the arms that held her, murmured, "It's thegipsies, isn't it, mother?"

"No, darling. The gipsies have gone. It's the carol-singers, singingbecause Jesus was born. "

"But, mother . .. It _is_ the gipsies, isn't it?. .. 'Cos look. .. "

"Look where?"

"At Aunt Rachel, mother . .. The gipsy woman wouldn't go without herlittle baby, would she?"

"No, she wouldn't do that. "

"Then has she _lent_ it to Aunt Rachel, like I lend my new toyssometimes?"

The mother glanced across at Aunt Rachel, and then gathered thenight-gowned figure more closely. 

"The darling's only half awake, " she murmured. .. . "Poor Aunt Rachel'ssleepy too. .. . "

Aunt Rachel, her head dropped, her hands lightly folded as if about someshape that none saw but herself, her face again ineffable with thatsweet and peaceful smile, was once more rocking softly in her chair. 

HIC JACET

A TALE OF ARTISTIC CONSCIENCE

INTRODUCTION

As I lighted my guests down the stairs of my Chelsea lodgings, turned upthe hall gas that they might see the steps at the front door, and shookhands with them, I bade them good night the more heartily that I was gladto see their backs. Lest this should seem but an inhospitable confession, let me state, first, that they had invited themselves, dropping in inones and twos until seven or eight of them had assembled in my garret, and, secondly, that I was rather extraordinarily curious to know why, atclose on midnight, the one I knew least well of all had seen fit toremain after the others had taken their departure. To these twoconsiderations I must add a third, namely, that I had become tardilyconscious that, if Andriaovsky had not lingered of himself, I shouldcertainly have asked him to do so. 

It was to nothing more than a glance, swift and momentary, directed byAndriaovsky to myself while the others had talked, that I traced thisdesire to see more of the little Polish painter; but a glance derives itsimport from the circumstance under which it is given. That rapid turningof his eyes in my direction an hour before had held a hundred questions, implications, criticisms, incredulities, condemnations. It had been oneof those uncovenanted gestures that hold the promise of the treasures ofan eternal friendship. I wondered as I turned down the gas again andremounted the stairs what personal message and reproach in it had lumpedme in with the others; and by the time I had reached my own door again aphrase had fitted itself in my mind to that quick, ironical turning ofAndriaovsky's eyes: _"Et tu, Brute!. .. "_

He was standing where I had left him, his small shabby figure in theattitude of a diminutive colossus on my hearthrug. About him were therecently vacated chairs, solemnly and ridiculously suggestive of stillcontinuing the high and choice conversation that had lately finished. Thesame fancy had evidently taken Andriaovsky, for he was turning from chairto chair, his head a little on one side, mischievously and aggravatinglysmiling. As one of them, the deep wicker chair that Jamison had occupied, suddenly gave a little creak of itself, as wicker will when released froma strain, his smile broadened to a grin. I had been on the point ofsitting down in that chair, but I changed my mind and took another. 

"That's right, " said Andriaovsky, in that wonderful English which he hadpicked up in less than three years, "don't sit in the wisdom-seat; youmight profane it. "

I knew what he meant. I felt for my pipe and slowly filled it, notreplying. Then, slowly wagging his head from side to side, with his eyeshumorously and banteringly on mine, he uttered the very words I hadmentally associated with that glance of his. 

_"Et tu, Brute!"_ he said, wagging away, so that with each wag the lensesof his spectacles caught the light of the lamp on the table. 

I too smiled as I felt for a match. 

"It _was_ rather much, wasn't it?" I said. 

But he suddenly stopped his wagging, and held up a not very cleanforefinger. His whole face was altogether too confoundedly intelligent. 

"Oh no, you don't!" he said peremptorily. "No getting out of it likethat the moment they've turned their backs! No running--what is it?--norunning with the hare and hunting with the hounds! _You_ helped, youknow!"

I confess I fidgeted a little. 

"But hang it all, what could I do? They were in my place, " I broke out. 

He chuckled, enjoying my discomfiture. Then his eyes fell on those absurdand solemn chairs again. 

"Look at 'em--the Art Shades in conference!" he chuckled. "Thatrush-seated one, it was talking half an hour ago about 'Scherzos inSilver and Grey!' . .. Nice, fresh green stuff!"

To shut him up I told him that he would find cigarettes and tobacco onthe table. 

"'Scherzos in Silver and Grey'!" he chuckled again as he took acigarette. .. . 

All this, perhaps, needs some explanation. It had been the usual thing, usual in those days, twenty years ago--smarming about Art and the Artsand so forth. They--"we, " as apparently Andriaovsky had lingered behindfor the purpose of reminding me--had perhaps talked a little moresoaringly than the ordinary, that was all. There had been Jamison in thewicker chair, full to the lips and running over with the ColourSuggestions of the late Edward Calvert; Gibbs, in a pulpy state ofadoration of the less legitimate side of the painting of Watts; andMagnani, who had advanced that an Essential Oneness underlies all theArts, and had triumphantly proved his thesis by analogy with the Law ofthe Co-relation of Forces. A book called Music and Morals had appearedabout that time, and on it they--we--had risen to regions of kite-highlunacy about Colour Symphonies, orgies of formless colour thrown on amagic-lantern screen--vieux jeu enough at this time of day. A youngnewspaper man, too, had made mental notes of our adjectives, for use inhis weekly (I nearly spelt it "weakly") half-column of Art Criticism;and--and here was Andriaovsky, grinning at the chairs, and mimickingit all with diabolical glee. 

"'Scherzos in Silver and Grey'--'Word Pastels'--' Lyrics in Stone!'"he chuckled. "And what was it the fat fellow said?' A Siren Song inMarble!' Phew!. .. Well, I'll get along. I shall just be in time to geta pint of bitter to wash it all down if I'm quick. .. Bah!" he broke outsuddenly. "Good men build up Form and Forms--keep the Arts each afterits kind--raise up the dikes so that we shan't all be swept away by nightand nothingness--and these rats come nosing and burrowing and underminingit all!. .. _Et tu, Brute!_"

"Well, when you've finished rubbing it in--" I grunted. 

"As if _you_ didn't know better!. .. Is that your way of getting back on'em, now that you've chucked drawing and gone in for writing books?Phew I. .. Well, I'll go and get my pint of beer--"

But he didn't go for his pint of beer. Instead, he began to prowl aboutmy room, pryingly, nosingly, touching things here and there. I watchedhim as he passed from one thing to another. He was very little, and very, very shabby. His trousers were frayed, and the sole of one of his bootsflapped distressingly. His old bowler hat--he had not thought itnecessary to wait until he got outside before thrusting it on the back ofhis head--was so limp in substance that I verily believed that had he runincautiously downstairs he would have found when he got to the bottomthat its crown had sunk in of its own weight. In spite of his remarkabout the pint of beer, I doubt if he had the price of one in his pocket. 

"What's this, Brutus--a concertina?" he suddenly asked, stopping beforethe collapsible case in which I kept my rather old dress suit. 

I told him what it was, and he hoisted up his shoulders. 

"And these things?" he asked, moving to something else. 

They were a pair of boot-trees of which I had permitted myself theeconomy. I remember they cost me four shillings in the old BromptonRoad. 

"And that's your bath, I suppose. .. . Dumb-bells too. .. . And--_oh, goodLord!_. .. "

He had picked up, and dropped again as if it had been hot, somebody orother's card with the date of a "day" written across the corner of it. .. . 

As I helped him on with his overcoat he made no secret of the conditionof its armholes and lining. I don't for one moment suppose that thegarment was his. I took a candle to light him down as soon as it shouldplease him to depart. 

"Well, so long, and joy to you on the high road to success, " he said withanother grin for which I could have bundled him down the stairs. .. . 

In later days I never looked to Andriaovsky for tact; but I stared at himfor his lack of it that night. And as I stared I noticed for the firsttime the broad and low pylon of his forehead, his handsome mouth andchin, and the fire and wit and scorn that smouldered behind his cheapspectacles. I looked again; and his smallness, his malice, his patheticlittle braggings about his poverty, seemed all to disappear. He hadstrolled back to my hearthrug, wishing, I have no doubt now, to be ableto exclaim suddenly that it was too late for the pint of beer for whichhe hadn't the money, and to curse his luck; and the pigmy quality of hiscolossusship had somehow gone. 

As I watched him, a neighbouring clock struck the half-hour, and hedid even as I had surmised--cursed the closing time of the Englishpublic-houses. .. . 

I lighted him down. For one moment, under the hall gas, he almost droppedhis jesting manner. 

"You _do_ know better, Harrison, you know, " he said. "But, of course, you're going to be a famous author in almost no time. Oh, _ca sevoit_! No garrets for _you_! It was a treat, ' the way you handled thosefellows--really . .. Well don't forget us others when you're up there--Imay want you to write my 'Life' some day. .. . "

I heard the slapping of the loose sole as he shuffled down the path. Atthe gate he turned for a moment. 

"Good night, Brutus, " he called. 

When I had mounted to my garret again my eyes fell once more on thatridiculous assemblage of empty chairs, all solemnly talking to oneanother. I burst out into a laugh. Then I undressed, put my jacket on thehanger, took the morrow's boots from the trees and treed those I hadremoved, changed the pair of trousers under my mattress, and went, stilllaughing at the chairs, to bed. 

This was Michael Andriaovsky, the Polish painter, who died four weeksago. 

I

I knew the reason of Maschka's visit the moment she was announced. Evenin the stressful moments of the funeral she had found time to whisper tome that she hoped to call upon me at an early date. I dismissed theamanuensis to whom I was dictating the last story of the fourth series of_Martin Renard_, gave a few hasty instructions to my secretary, and toldthe servant to show Miss Andriaovsky into the drawing-room, to ask herto be so good as to excuse me for five minutes, to order tea at once, andthen to bring my visitor up to the library. 

A few minutes later she was shown into the room. 

She was dressed in the same plainly cut costume of dead black shehad worn at the funeral, and had pushed up her heavy veil over theclose-fitting cap of black fur that accentuated her Sclavonic appearance. I noticed again with distress the pallor of her face and the bistredrings that weeks of nursing had put under her dark eyes. I noticed alsoher resemblance, in feature and stature, to her brother. I placed a chairfor her; the tea-tray followed her in; and without more than a murmuredgreeting she peeled off her gloves and prepared to preside at the tray. 

She had filled the cups, and I had handed her toast, before she spoke. Then:

"I suppose you know what I've come about, " she said. 

I nodded. 

"Long, long ago you promised it. Nobody else can do it. The only questionis 'when. '"

"That's the only question, " I agreed. 

"We, naturally, " she continued, after a glance in which her eyes mutelythanked me for my implied promise, "are anxious that it should be as soonas possible; but, of course--I shall quite understand--"

She gave a momentary glance round my library. I helped her out. 

"You mean that I'm a very important person nowadays, and that you'reafraid to trespass on my time. Never mind that. I shall find timefor this. But tell me before we go any further exactly how you stand andprecisely what it is you expect. "

Briefly she did so. It did not in the least surprise me to learn that herbrother had died penniless. 

"And if you hadn't undertaken the 'Life, '" she said, "he might just aswell not have worked in poverty all these years. You can, at least, seeto his fame. "

I nodded again gravely, and ruminated for a moment. Then I spoke. 

"I can write it, fully and in detail, up to five years ago, " I said. "Youknow what happened then. I tried my best to help him, but he never wouldlet me. Tell me, Maschka, why he wouldn't sell me that portrait. "

I knew instantly, from her quick confusion, that her brother had spokento her about the portrait he had refused to sell me, and had probablytold her the reason for his refusal. I watched her as she evaded thequestion as well as she could. 

"You know how--queer--he was about who he sold his things to. And as forthose five years in which you saw less of him, Schofield will tell youall you want to know. "

I relinquished the point. "Who's Schofield?" I asked instead. 

"He was a very good friend of Michael's--of both of us. You can talkquite freely to him. I want to say at the beginning that I should likehim to be associated with you in this. "

I don't know how I divined on the spot her relation to Schofield, whoeverhe was. She told me that he too was a painter. 

"Michael thought very highly of his things, " she said. 

"I don't know them, " I replied. 

"You probably wouldn't, " she returned. .. . 

But I caught the quick drop of her eyes from their brief excursion roundmy library, and I felt something within me stiffen a little. It did notneed Maschka Andriaovsky to remind me that I had not attained my positionwithout--let us say--splitting certain differences; the looseness ofthe expression can be corrected hereafter. Life consists very largely ofcompromises. You doubtless know my name, whichever country or hemisphereyou happen to live in, as that of the creator of Martin Renard, thefamous and popular detective; and I was not at that moment disposed toapologise, either to Maschka or Schofield or anybody else, for havingwritten the stories at the bidding of a gaping public. The moment thepublic showed that it wanted something better I was prepared to give it. In the meantime, I sat in my very comfortable library, securely shieldedfrom distress by my balance at my banker's. 

"Well, " I said after a moment, "let's see how we stand. And firstas to what you're likely to get out of this. It goes without saying, of course, that by writing the 'Life' I can get you any amount of'fame'--advertisement, newspaper talk, and all the things that, it struckme, Michael always treated with especial scorn. My name alone, I say, will do that. But for anything else I'm by no means so sure. You see, " Iexplained, "it doesn't follow that because I can sell hundreds ofthousands of. .. You know what. .. That I can sell anything I've a mind tosign. " I said it, confident that she had not lived all those years withher brother without having learned the axiomatic nature of it. To mydiscomfiture, she began to talk like a callow student. 

"I should have thought that it followed that if you could sellsomething--" she hesitated only for a moment, then courageously gave theother stuff its proper adjective, "--something rotten, you could havesold something good when you had the chance. "

"Then if you thought that you were wrong, " I replied briefly andconcisely. 

"_Michael_ couldn't, of course, " she said, putting Michael out of thequestion with a little wave of her hand, "because Michael was--I mean, Michael wasn't a business man. You are. "

"I'm speaking as one, " I replied. "I don't waste time in giving peoplewhat they don't want. That is business. I don't undertake your brother's'Life' as a matter of business, but as an inestimable privilege. Irepeat, it doesn't follow that the public will buy it. "

"But--but--" she stammered, "the public will buy a _Pill_ if they seeyour name on the testimonial!"

"A Pill--yes, " I said sadly. .. . Genius and a Pill were, alas, differentthings. "But, " I added more cheerfully, "you can never tell what thepublic will do. They _might_ buy it--there's no telling except bytrying--"

"Well, Schofield thinks they will, " she informed me with decision. 

"I dare say he does, if he's an artist. They mostly do, " I replied. 

"He doesn't think Michael will ever be popular, " she emphasised theadjective slightly, "but he does think he has a considerable following ifthey could only be discovered. "

I sighed. All artists think that. They will accept any compromise exceptthe one that is offered to them. .. . I tried to explain to Maschka that inthis world we have to stand to the chances of all or nothing. 

"You've got to be one thing or the other--I don't know that it mattersvery much which, " I said. "There's Michael's way, and there's. .. Mine. That's all. However, we'll try it. All you can say to me, and more, I'llsay to a publisher for you. But he'll probably wink at me. "

For a moment she was silent. Then she said: "Schofield rather fancies onepublisher. "

"Oh? Who's he?" I asked. 

She mentioned a name. If I knew anything at all of business she might aswell have offered _The Life of Michael Andriaovsky_ to The ReligiousTract Society at once. .. . 

"Hm!. .. And has Mr. Schofield any other suggestions?" I inquired. 

He had. Several. I saw that Schofield's position would have to be definedbefore we went any further. 

"Hm!" I said again. "Well, I shall have to rely on Schofield for thosefive years in which I saw little of Michael; but unless Schofield knowsmore of publishing than I do, and can enforce a better contract and alarger sum on account than I can, I really think, Maschka, that you'll dobetter to leave things to me. For one thing, it's only fair to me. Myname hasn't much of an artistic value nowadays, but it has a veryconsiderable commercial one, and my worth to publishers isn't as a writerof the Lives of Geniuses. "

I could see she didn't like it; but that couldn't be helped. It had to beso. Then, as we sat for a time in silence over the fire, I noticed againhow like her brother she was. She was not, it was true, much like him ashe had been on that last visit of mine to him . .. And I sighed as Iremembered that visit. The dreadful scene had come back to me. .. . 

On account, I suppose, of the divergence of our paths, I had not evenheard of his illness until almost the finish. Immediately I had hastenedto the Hampstead "Home, " only to find him already in the agony. He hadnot been too far gone to recognise me, however, for he had mutteredsomething brokenly about "knowing better, " that a spasm had interrupted. Besides myself, only Maschka had been there; and I had been thankful forthe summons that had called her for a moment out of the room. I had stillretained his already cold hand; his brow had worked with that dreadfulstruggle; and his eyes had been closed. 

But suddenly he had opened them, and the next moment had sat up on hispillow. He had striven to draw his hand from mine. 

"Who are you?" he had suddenly demanded, not knowing me. 

I had come close to him. "You know me, Andriaovsky--Harrison?" I hadasked sorrowfully. 

I had been on the point of repeating my name but suddenly, after holdingmy eyes for a moment with a look the profundity and familiarity of whichI cannot express, he had broken into the most ghastly haunting laugh Ihave ever heard. 

"_Harrison?_" the words had broken throatily from him. .. . "_Oh yes; Iknow you!. .. You shall very soon know that I know you if. .. If. .. _"

The cough and rattle had come as Maschka had rushed into the room. In tenseconds Andriaovsky had fallen back, dead. 

II

That same evening I began to make notes for Andriaovsky's "Life. " On thefollowing day, the last of the fourth series of the _Martin Renards_occupied me until I was thankful to get to bed. But thereafter I couldcall rather more of my time my own, and I began in good earnest to devotemyself to the "Life. "

Maschka had spoken no more than the truth when she had said that of allmen living none but I could write that "Life. " His remaining behind in myChelsea garret that evening after the others had left had been thebeginning of a friendship that, barring that lapse of five years at theend, had been for twenty years one of completest intimacy. Whatever moneythere might or might not be in the book, I had seen _my_ opportunity init--the opportunity to make it the vehicle for all the aspirations, faiths, enthusiasms, and exaltations we had shared; and I myself did notrealise until I began to note them down one tithe of the subtle links andassociations that had welded our souls together. 

Even the outward and visible signs of these had been wonderful. Settingout from one or other of the score of garrets and cheap lodgings we hadin our time inhabited, we had wandered together, day after day, nightafter night, far down East, where, as we had threaded our way among thebarrels of soused herrings and the stalls and barrows of unleavenedbread, he had taught me scraps of Hebrew and Polish and Yiddish; up intothe bright West, where he could never walk a quarter of a mile withoutmeeting one of his extraordinary acquaintances--furred music-hallmanagers, hawkers of bootlaces, commercial magnates of his own Faith, touts, crossing-sweepers, painted women; into Soho, where he had namesfor the very horses on the cab-ranks and the dogs who slumbered under thecounters of the sellers of French literature; out to the naphtha-lightsand cries of the Saturday night street markets of Islington and the NorthEnd Road; into City churches on wintry afternoons, into the studios offamous artists full of handsomely dressed women, into the studios ofartists not famous, at the ends of dark and break-neck corridors; to teaat the suburban homes of barmaids and chorus girls, to dinner in thestables of a cavalry-barracks, to supper in cabmen's shelters. He waspossessed in some mysterious way of the passwords to doors in hoardingsbehind which excavations were in progress; he knew by name the butchersof the Deptford yards, the men in the blood-caked clothes, so inured toblood that they may not with safety to their lives swear at one another;he took me into an opium-cellar within a stone's-throw of Oxford Street, and into a roof-chamber to call upon certain friends of his . .. Well, they _said_ they were fire extinguishers, so I'd better not say theywere bombs. Up, down; here, there; good report, but more frequentlyevil . .. We had known this side of our London as well as two men may. Andour other adventures and peregrinations, not of the body, but of thespirit . .. But these must be spoken of in their proper place. 

I had arranged with Maschka that Schofield should bring me the whole ofthe work Andriaovsky had left behind him; and he arrived late oneafternoon in a fourwheeler, with four great packages done up in brownpaper. I found him to be a big, shaggy-browed, red-haired, raw-bonedLancashire man of five-and-thirty, given to confidential demonstrationsat the length of a button-shank, quite unconscious of the gulf betweenhis words and his right to employ them, and bent on asserting an equalitythat I did not dispute by a rather aggressive use of my surname. Andriaovsky had appointed him his executor, and he had ever the air ofsuspecting that the appointment was going to be challenged. 

"A'm glad to be associated with ye in this melancholy duty, Harrison, " hesaid. "Now we won't waste words. Miss Andriaovsky has told me preciselyhow matters stand. I had, as ye know, the honour to be poor Michael'sclose friend for a period of five years, and my knowledge of him isentirely at your disposal. "

I answered that I should be seriously handicapped without it. 

"Just so. It is Miss Andriaovsky's desire that we should pull together. Now, in the firrst place, what is your idea about the forrm the bookshould take?"

"In the first place, if you don't mind, " I replied, "perhaps we'd betterrun over together the things you've brought. The daylight will be gonesoon. "

"Just as ye like, Harrison, " he said, "just as ye like. It's all the sameto me. .. . "

I cleared a space about my writing-table at the window, and we turned tothe artistic remains of Michael Andriaovsky. 

I was astonished, first, at the enormous quantity of the stuff, and nextat its utter and complete revelation of the man. In a flash I realisedhow superb that portion at least of the book was going to be. AndSchofield explained that the work he had brought represented but afraction of the whole that was at our disposal. 

"Ye'll know with what foolish generosity poor Michael always gave histhings away, " he said. "Hallard has a grand set; so has Connolly; andfrom time to time he behaved varry handsomely to myself. Artists of varryconsiderable talents both Hallard and Connolly are; Michael thoughtvarry highly of their abilities. They express the deepest interest in theshape your worrk will take; and that reminds me. I myself have drafted arough scenario of the forrm it appeared to me the 'Life' might withadvantage be cast in. A purely private opinion, ye'll understand, Harrison, which ye'll be entirely at liberty to disregard. .. . "

"Well, let's finish with the work first, " I said. 

With boards, loose sheets, scraps of paper, notes, studies, canvasesstretched and stripped from their stretchers, we paved half the libraryfloor, Schofield keeping up all the time a running fire of "Grand, grand! A masterpiece! A gem, that, Harrison!" They were all that he said, and presently I ceased to hear his voice. The splendour of the workissued undimmed even from the severe test of Schofield's praise; and Ithought again with pride how I, I, was the only man living who couldadequately write that "Life. ". .. . 

"Aren't they grand? Aren't they great?" Schofield chanted monotonously. 

"They are, " I replied, coming to a consciousness of his presence again. "But what's that?"

Secretively he had kept one package until the last. He now removed itswrappings and set it against a chair. 

_"There!"_ he cried. "I'll thank ye, Harrison, for your opinion of_that!"_

It was the portrait Andriaovsky had refused to sell me--a portrait ofhimself. 

The portrait was the climax of the display. The Lancastrian still talked;but I, profoundly moved, mechanically gathered up the drawings from thefloor and returned them to their proper packages and folios. I was diningat home, alone, that evening, and for form's sake I asked this faithfuldog of Andriaovsky's to share my meal; but he excused himself--he wasdining with Hallard and Connolly. When the drawings were all put away, all save that portrait, he gave an inquisitive glance round my library. It was the same glance as Maschka had given when she had feared tointrude on my time; but Schofield did these things with a much more heavyhand. He departed, but not before telling me that even my mansioncontained such treasures as it had never held before. 

That evening, after glancing at Schofield's "scenario, " I carefullyfolded it up again for return to him, lest when the book should appearhe should miss the pleasure of saying that I had had his guidance buthad disregarded it; then I sat down at my writing-table and took outthe loose notes I had made. I made other jottings, each on a blank sheetfor subsequent amplification; and the sheets overspread the largeleather-topped table and thrust one another up the standard of theincandescent with the pearly silk shade. The firelight shone low andrichly in the dusky spaces of the large apartment; and the thick carpetand the double doors made the place so quiet that I could hear my watchticking in my pocket. 

I worked for an hour; and then, for the purpose of making yet othernotes, I rose, crossed the room, and took down the three or fourillustrated books to which, in the earlier part of his career, Andriaovsky had put his name. I carried them to the table, and twinkledas I opened the first of them. It was a book of poems, and in making thedesigns for them Andriaovsky had certainly _not_ found for himself. Almost any one of the "Art Shades, " as he had called them, could havedone the thing equally well, and I twinkled again. I did not propose tohave much mercy on _that_. Already Schofield's words had given birth to asuspicion in my mind--that Andriaovsky, in permitting these fellows, Hallard, Connolly, and the rest, to suppose that he "thought highly" ofthem and their work, had been giving play to that malicious humour ofhis; and they naturally did not see the joke. That joke, too, was betweenhimself, dead, and me, preparing to write his "Life. " As if he had beenthere to hear me, I chuckled, and spoke in a low voice. 

"You were pulling their legs, Michael, you know. A little rough on themyou were. But there's a book here of yours that I'm going to tell thetruth about. You and I won't pretend to one another. It's a rotten book, and both you and I know it. .. . "

I don't know what it was that caused me suddenly to see just thensomething that I had been looking at long enough without seeing--thatportrait of himself that I had set leaning against the back of a chair atthe end of my writing-table. It stood there, just within the softpenumbra of shadow cast by the silk-shaded light. The canvas had beenenlarged, the seam of it clumsily sewn by Andriaovsky's own hand; but inthat half-light the rough ridge of paint did not show, and I confess thatthe position and effect of the thing startled me for a moment. Had Icared to play a trick with my fancy I could have imagined the headwagging from side to side, with such rage and fire was it painted. He hadhad the temerity to dash a reflection across one of the glasses of hisspectacles, concealing the eye behind it. The next moment I had given ashort laugh. 

"So you're there, are you?. .. Well, I know you agree very heartily aboutthat book of poems. Heigho! If I remember rightly, you made more moneyout of that book than out of the others put together. But I'm goingto tell the truth about it. _I_ know better, you know. .. . "

Chancing, before I turned in that night, to reopen one of his folios, Icame across a drawing, there by accident, I don't doubt, that confirmedme in my suspicion that Andriaovsky had had his quiet joke withSchofield, Hallard, Connolly and Co. It was a sketch of Schofield's, imitative, deplorable, a dreadful show-up of incapacity. Well enough"drawn, " in a sense, it was . .. And I remembered how Andriaovsky had everurged that "drawing, " of itself, did not exist. I winked at the portrait. I saw his point. He himself had no peer, and, rather than invitecomparison with stars of the second magnitude, he chose his intimatesfrom among the peddlers of the wares that had the least possibleconnection with his Art. He, too, had understood that the Compromisemust be entirely accepted or totally refused; and while, in thedivergence of our paths, he had done the one thing and I the other, wehad each done it thoroughly, with vigour, and with persistence, and eachcould esteem the other, if not as a co-worker, at least as an honourableand out-and-out opposite. 

III

Within a fortnight I was so deep in my task that, in the realest sense, the greater part of my life was in the past. The significance of thoseextraordinary peregrinations of ours had been in the opportunity they hadafforded for a communion of brain and spirit of unusual rarity; and allthis determined to my work with the accumulated force of its longpenning-up. I have spoken of Andriaovsky's contempt for such as had theconception of their work that it was something they "did" as distinctfrom something they "were"; and unless I succeed in making it plain that, not as a mere figure of speech and loose hyperbole, but starkly andliterally, Andriaovsky _was_ everything he did, my tale will bepointless. 

There was not one of the basic facts of life--of Faith, Honour, Truth-speaking, Falsehood, Betrayal, Sin--that he did not turn, not tomoral interpretations, as others do, but to the holy purposes of hisnoble and passionate Art. For any man, Sin is only mortal when it is Sinagainst that which he knows to be immortally true; and the thingsAndriaovsky knew to be immortally true were the things that he had gonedown into the depths in order to bring forth and place upon his paper orcanvas. These things are not for the perusal of many. Unless you love thethings that he loved with a fervour comparable in kind, if not in degree, with his own, you may not come near them. "Truth, 'the highest thing aman may keep, '" he said, "cannot be brought down; a man only attains itby proving his right to it"; and I think I need not further state hisviews on the democratisation of Art. Of any result from the elaborateprocesses of Art-education he held out no hope whatever. "It is in a man, or it isn't, " he ever declared; "if it is, he must bring it out forhimself; if it isn't, let him turn to something useful and have done withit. " I need not press the point that in these things he was almost asolitary. 

He made of these general despotic principles the fiercest personalapplications. I have heard his passionate outbreak of "Thief! Liar!Fool!" over a drawing when it has seemed to him that a man has notvouched with the safety of his immortal soul for the shapes and lines hehas committed to it. I have seen him get into such a rage with the eyesof the artist upon him. I have heard the ice and vinegar of his wordswhen a good man, for money, has consented to modify and emasculatehis work; and there lingers in my memory his side of a telephoneconversation in which he told a publisher who had suggested that heshould do the same thing precisely what he thought of him. And on theother hand, he once walked from Aldgate to Putney Hill, with a loose heelon one of his boots, to see a man of whom he had seen but a singledrawing. See him he did, too, in spite of the man's footman, his liveriedparlourmaid, and the daunting effect of the electric brougham at thedoor. 

"He's a good man, " he said to me afterwards, ruefully looking at theplace where his boot-heel had been. "You've got to take your good whereyou find it. I don't care whether he's a rich amateur or skin-and-griefin a garret as long as he's got the stuff in him. Nobody else could havefetched me up from the East End this afternoon. .. . So long; see you in aweek or so--"

This was the only time I ever knew him break that sacred time in which hecelebrated each year the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles. I doubtwhether this observance of the ritual of his Faith was of more essentialimportance to him than that other philosophical religion towards which hesometimes leaned. I have said what his real religion was. 

But to the "Life. "

With these things, and others, as a beginning, I began to add page topage, phase to phase; and, in a time the shortness of which astonishedmyself, I had pretty well covered the whole of the first ten years of ourfriendship. Maschka called rather less, and Schofield rather morefrequently, than I could have wished; and my surmise that he, at least, was in love with her, quickly became a certainty. This was to be seenwhen they called together. 

It was when they came together that something else also became apparent. This was their slightly derisive attitude towards the means by which Ihad attained my success. It was not the less noticeable that it took theform of compliments on the outward and visible results. Singly I couldmanage them; together they were inclined to get a little out of hand. 

I would have taxed them fairly and squarely with this, singly ortogether, but for one thing--the beautiful ease with which the "Life" wasproceeding. Never had I felt so completely _en rapport_ with my subject. So beautifully was the thing running that I had had the idle fancy ofsome actual urge from Andriaovsky himself; and each night, before sittingdown to work, I set his portrait at my desk's end, as if it had been somekind of an observance. The most beautiful result of all was, that I feltwhat I had not felt for five years--that I too was not "doing" my work, but actually living and being it. At times I took up the sheets I hadwritten as ignorant of their contents as if they had proceeded fromanother pen--so freshly they came to me. And once, I vow, I found, in myown handwriting, a Polish name, that I might (it is true) havesubconsciously heard at some time or other, but that stirred no chord inmy memory even when I saw it written. Maschka checked and confirmed itafterwards; and I did not tell her by what odd circumstance it had issuedfrom my pen. 

The day did come, however, when I found I must have it out with Schofieldabout this superciliousness I have mentioned. The _Falchion_ had justbegun to print the third series of my _Martin Renard_; and this had beenmade the occasion of another of Schofield's ponderous compliments. Iacknowledged it with none too much graciousness; and then he said:

"I've na doubt, Harrison, that by this time the famous sleuth-hound ofcrime has become quite a creature of flesh and blood to ye. "

It was the tone as much as the words that riled me; and I replied thathis doubts or the lack of them were a privacy with which I did not wishto meddle. From being merely a bore the fellow was rapidly becominginsolent. 

"But I opine he'll get wearisome now and then, and in that case poorMichael's 'Life' will come as a grand relaxation, " he next observed. 

If I meant to have it out, here was my opportunity. 

"I should have thought you'd have traced a closer connection than thatbetween the two things, " I remarked. 

He shot a quick glance at me from beneath his shaggy russet brows. 

"How so? I see varry little connection, " he said suspiciously. 

"There's this connection--that while you speak with some freedom of whatI do, you are quite willing to take advantage of it when it servesyour turn. "

"'Advantage, ' Harrison?" he said slowly. 

"Of the advertisement _Martin Renard_ gives you. I must point out thatyou condone a thing when you accept the benefit of it. Either youshouldn't have come to me at all, or you should deny yourself thegratification of these slurs. "

"Slurrrrs?" he repeated loweringly. 

"Both of you--you and Miss Andriaovsky, or Maschka as I call her, _toutcourt_. Don't suppose I don't know as well as you do the exact worth ofmy 'sleuth-hound, ' as you call him. You didn't come to me solely becauseI knew Andriaovsky well; you came because I've got the ear of thepublic also; and I tell you plainly that, however much you dislike it, Michael's fame as far as I'm of any use to him, depends on thepopularity of _Martin Renard. "_

He shook his big head. "This is what I feared, " he said. 

"More, " I continued, "you can depend upon it that Michael, wherever heis, knows all about that. "

"Ay, ay, " he said sagely, "I misdoubt your own artistic soul's only to besaved by the writing of poor Michael's 'Life, ' Harrison. "

"Leave that to me and Michael; we'll settle that. In the meantime, if youdon't like it, write and publish the 'Life' yourself. "

He bent his brows on me. 

"It's precisely what I wanted to do from the varry first, " he said. "Ifyou'd cared to accept my symposium in the spirit in which it was offered, I cannot see that the 'Life' would have suffered. But now, when you'renext in need of my services, ye'll mebbe send for me. "

He took up his hat. I assured him, and let him take it in what sense heliked, that I would do so; and he left me. 

Not for one single moment did I intend that they should bounce me likethat. With or without their sanction and countenance, I intended to writeand publish that "Life. " Schofield--in my own house too--had had theadvantage that a poor and ill-dressed man has over one who is not poorand ill-dressed; but my duty first of all was neither to him nor toMaschka, but to my friend. 

The worst of it was, however, that I had begun dimly to suspect thatthe Lancastrian had hit at least one nail on the head. "Your artisticsoul's only to be saved by writing poor Michael's 'Life, '" he hadinformed me. .. And it was truer than I found it pleasant to believe. Perhaps, after all, my first duty was not to Andriaovsky, but to myself. I could have kicked myself that the fool had been perspicacious enough tosee it, but that did not alter the fact. I saw that in the sense in whichAndriaovsky understood Sin, I had sinned. .. . 

My only defence lay in the magnitude of my sin. I had sinnedthoroughly, out-and-out, and with a will. It had been the onlyrespectable way--Andriaovsky's own way when he had cut the companyof an Academician to hobnob with a vagabond. I had at least institutedno comparison, lowered no ideal, was innocent of the accursed attitudeof facing-both-ways that degrades all lovely and moving things. I was, bya paradox, too black a sinner not to hope for redemption. .. . 

I fell into a long musing on these things. .. . 

Had any of the admirers of _Martin Renard_ entered the library of hisauthor that night he would have seen an interesting thing. He wouldhave seen the creator of that idol of clerks and messenger-lads andfourth-form boys frankly putting the case before a portrait propped up ona chair. He would have heard that popular author haranguing, pleading, curiously on his defence, turning the thing this way and that. 

"If _you'd_ gone over, Michael, " that author argued, "you'd have doneprecisely the same thing. If I'd stuck it out, we were, after all, of akind; We've got to be one thing or the other--isn't that so, Andriaovsky?Since I made up my mind, I've faced only one way--only one way. I've keptyour ideal and theirs entirely separate and distinct. Not one singlebeautiful phrase will you find in the _Martin Renards;_ I've cut 'emout, every one. I may have ceased to worship, but I've profaned notemple. .. . And think what I _might_ have done--what they all do! Theydeal out the slush, but with an apologetic glance at the Art Shades;_you_ know the style!--'Oh, Harrison; he does that detective rubbish, butthat's not Harrison; if Harrison liked to drop that he could be a fineartist!'--I _haven't_ done that. I _haven't_ run with the hare and huntedwith the hounds. I _am_ just Harrison, who does that detectiverubbish!. .. These other chaps, Schofield and Connolly, _they're_ the realsinners, Michael--the fellows who can't make up their minds to be onething or the other ('artists of considerable abilities'--ha! ha!). .. . Ofcourse you know Maschka's going to marry that chap? What'll _they_ do, doyou think? He'll scrape up a few pounds out of the stew where I findthousands, marry her, and they'll set up a salon and talk the stuff thechairs talked that night, you remember!. .. But you wait until I finishyour 'Life. '. .. "

I laid it all before him, almost as if I sought to propitiate him. Imight have been courting his patronage for his own "Life. " Then, with astart, I came to, to find myself talking nonsense to the portrait thatyears before Andriaovsky had refused to sell me. 

IV

The first check I experienced in the hitherto so easy flow of the "Life"came at the chapter that dealt with Andriaovsky's attitude towards"professionalism" in Art. He was inflexible on this point; there oughtnot to be professional artists. When it was pointed out that his positioninvolved a premium upon the rich amateur, he merely replied that richeshad nothing to do with the question, and that the starver in the garretwas not excused for his poverty's sake from the observance of theimplacable conditions. He spoke literally of the "need" to create, usually in the French term, _besogne_; and he was inclined to regard theimposition of this need on a man rather as a curse laid upon him than asa privilege and a pleasure. But I must not enlarge upon this further thanto observe that this portion of his "Life" which I was approachingcoincided in point of time with that period of my own life at which I hadbeen confronted with the alternative of starving for Art's sake orbecoming rich by supplying a clamorous trade demand. 

It came, this check I have spoken of, one night, as I was in the verymiddle of a sentence; and though I have cudgelled my brains in seekinghow best I can describe it, I am reduced to the simple statement that itwas as arresting, as sharp, actual and impossible to resist, as if myhand had been seized and pinned down in its passage across the paper. Ican even see again the fragment of the sentence I had written: ". .. _andthe mere contemplation of a betrayal so essential--_" Then came thatabrupt and remarkable stop. It was such an experience as I had formerlyknown only in nightmare. 

I sat there looking blankly and stupidly at my own hand. And not only wasmy hand arrested, but my brain also had completely ceased to work. Forthe life of me I could not recall the conclusion of the sentence I hadplanned a moment before. 

I looked at my hand, and looked again; and as I looked I rememberedsomething I had been reading only a few days before--a profoundlyunsettling description of an experiment in auto-suggestion. Theexperiment had consisted of the placing of a hand upon a table, and thelaying upon it the conjuration that, the Will notwithstanding, it shouldnot move. And as I watched my own hand, pale on the paper in the pearlylight, I knew that, by some consent to the nullification of the Will thatdid not proceed from, the Self I was accustomed to regard as my own, thatinjunction was already placed upon it. My conscious and deliberate Willwas powerless. I could only sit there and wait until whatever inhibitionhad arrested my writing hand should permit it to move forward again. 

It must have been several minutes before such a tingling of the nerves asannounces that the blood is once more returning to a cramped memberwarned me that I was about to be released. Warily I awaited my moment;then I plucked my hand to myself again with a suddenness that caused alittle blot of ink to spurt from my fountain-pen on to the surface of thepaper. I drew a deep breath. I was free again. And with the freedom camea resolve--that whatever portion of myself had been responsible for thisprank should not repeat it if I could possibly prevent it. 

But scarcely had I come, as I may say (and not without a little gush ofalarm now that it was over), to myself, when I was struck by a thought. It was a queer wild sort of thought. It fetched me out of my chair andset me striding across the library to a lower shelf in the farthestcorner. This shelf was the shelf on which I kept my letter-files. Istooped and ran my fingers along the backs of the dusty row. I drew outthe file for 1900, and brought it back to my writing-table. My contracts, I ought to say, reposed in a deed-box at my agent's office; but my filescontained, in the form of my agent's letters, a sufficient record of mybusiness transactions. 

I opened the file concertina-wise, and turned to the section lettered"R. " I drew out the correspondence that related to the sale of the firstseries of the _Martin Renards_. As I did so I glanced at the movablecalendar on my table. The date was January 20th. 

The file contained no letters for January of any significance whatever. 

The thought that had half formed in my brain immediately became nonsense. I replaced the letters in their compartment, and took the file back toits shelf again. For some minutes I paced the library irresolutely; thenI decided I would work no more that night. When I gathered together mypapers I was careful to place that with the half-finished sentence on thetop, so that with the first resting of my eyes upon it on the morrow mymemory might haply be refreshed. 

I tried again to finish that sentence on the morrow. With certainmodifications that I need not particularise here, my experience was thesame as on the previous night. 

It was the same when I made the attempt on the day after that. 

At ten o'clock of the night of the fourth day I completed the sentencewithout difficulty. I just sat down in my chair and wrote it. 

With equal ease I finished the chapter on professional artists. 

It was not likely that Schofield would have refrained from tellingMaschka of our little difference on our last meeting; and within a weekof the date I have just mentioned I learned that she knew all about it. And, as the circumstances of my learning this were in a high degreeunusual, I will relate them with such clearness as I am able. 

I ought first to say, however, that the selection of the drawings thatwere to illustrate the book having been made (the drawings for which myown text was to serve as commentary would be the better expression), thesuperintendence of their production had been left to Schofield. He, Maschka, and I passed the proofs in consultation. The blocks were almostready; and the reason for their call that evening was to consider thepossibility of having all ready for production in the early spring--apossibility which was contingent on the state of advancement of my ownshare of the book. 

That evening I had experienced my second check. (I omit those that hadimmediately succeeded the first one, as resembling that one so closely inthe manner of their coming. ) It had not come by any means so completelyand definitively as the former one, but it had sufficed to make myprogress, both mentally and mechanically, so sluggish and strugglinga performance that for the time being I had given up the attempt, and wasonce more regarding with a sort of perturbed stupor my hand that held thepen. Andriaovsky's portrait stood in its usual place, on the chair at theend of my writing-table; but I had eyes for nothing but that refractoryhand of mine. 

Now it is true that during the past weeks I had studied Andriaovsky'sportrait thoroughly enough to be able to call up the vivid mental imageof it at will; but that did not entirely account for the changed aspectwith which it now presented itself to that uncomprehended sense withinus that makes of these shadows such startling realities. Flashing andlife-like as was the presentation on the canvas (mind you, I was notlooking at it, but all the time at my own hand), it was dead paint bycomparison with that _mental image_ which I saw (if I may so use a termof which custom has restricted the meaning to one kind of seeing) asplainly as I ever saw Andriaovsky in his life. I know now that it wasby virtue of that essential essence that bound us heart and brain andsoul together that I so saw him, eyes glittering, head sardonicallywagging, fine mouth shaping phrases of insight and irony. And the strangething was, that I could not have located this so living image byconfining it to any portion of the space within the four walls of mylibrary. It was before me, behind me, within my head, about me, _was me_, invading and possessing the "me" that sat at the table. At one momentthe eyes mockingly invited me to go on with my work; the next, a frownhad seated itself on that massive pylon of his forehead; and thensuddenly his countenance changed entirely. .. . A wave of horror brokeover me. He was suddenly as I had seen him that last time in theHampstead "Home"--sitting up on his pillow, looking into my eyes withthat terrible look of profundity and familiarity, and asking me who Iwas. .. . _"Harrison--ha ha!. .. You shall very soon know that I know you, if . .. "_

It is but by the accidence of our limited experience that sounds are loudor soft to that inner ear of us; these words were at one and the sametime a dreadful thunder and a voice interstellarly inaccessible andwithdrawn. They, too, were before, behind, without, and within. Andincorporated (I know not how else to express it) with these words wereother words, in the English I knew, in the Hebrew in which he had quotedthem from the sacred Books of his People, in all languages, in nolanguage save that essential communication of which languages are but theinessential husk and medium--words that told me that though I took theWings of the Morning and fled into the uttermost parts of the earth, yea, though I made my bed in Hell, I could not escape him. .. . 

He had kept his word. I _did_ know that he knew who and what I was. .. . 

I cannot tell whether my lips actually shaped the question that even inthat moment burst from me. 

"But Form--and Forms? It _is_ then true that all things are but aspectsof One thing?. .. "

"Yes--in death, " the voice seemed to reply. 

My next words, I know, were actually spoken aloud. 

"Then tell me--tell me--_do you not wish me to write it?"_

Suddenly I leapt out of my chair with a gulping cry. A voice _had_spoken. .. . 

"Of course we wish you to write it. .. . "

For one instant of time my vision seemed to fold on itself like smoke;then it was gone. The face into which I was wildly staring was Maschka's, and behind her stood Schofield. They had been announced, but I had heardnothing of it. 

"Were you thinking of _not_ writing it?" she demanded, while Schofieldscowled at me. 

"No--no--, " I stammered, as I got up and tardily placed them chairs. 

Schofield did not speak, but he did not remove his eyes from me. SomehowI could not meet them. 

"Well, " she said, "Jack had already told me that you seemed in two mindsabout it. That's what we've called about--to know definitely what it isyou propose to do. "

I saw that she had also called, if necessary, to quarrel. I began torecover a little. 

"Did you tell her that?" I demanded of Schofield. "If you did, you--misinterpreted me. "

In my house, he ignored the fact that I was in the room. He replied toMaschka. 

"I understood Mr. Harrison to say definitely, and in those words, that ifI didn't like the way in which he was writing Michael's 'Life, ' I mightwrite and publish one myself, " he said. 

"I did say that, " I admitted; "but I never said that whatever _you_ did Ishould not go on with mine. "

"Yours!" cried Maschka. "What right have _you_ in my brother's 'Life'?"

I quickly told her. 

"I have the right to write my recollections of him, and, subject tocertain provisions of the Law, to base anything on them I think fit, " Ireplied. 

"But, " she cried aghast, "there can't be _two_ 'Lives'!. .. "

"It's news to me that two were contemplated, " I returned. "The point is, that I can get mine published, and you can't. "

Schofield's harsh voice sounded suddenly--but again to Maschka, not tome. 

"Ye might remind Mr. Harrison that others have capabilities in businessbesides himself. Beyond a doubt our sales will be comparatively small, but they'll be to such as have not made the great refusal. "

Think of it!. .. I almost laughed. 

"Oh!. .. Been trying it?" I inquired. 

He made no reply. 

"Well, those who have made the refusal have at least had something torefuse, " I said mildly. Then, realising that this was mere quarrelling, Ireturned to the point. "Anyhow, there's no question of refusing to writethe 'Life. ' I admit that during the last fortnight I've met with certaindifficulties; but the task isn't so easy as perhaps it looks. .. . I'mmaking progress. "

"I suppose, " she said hesitatingly, after a pause, "that you don't careto show it as far as it is written?"

For a moment I also hesitated. I thought I saw where she was. Thanks tothat Lancashire jackanapes, there was division between us; and I hadpretty well made up my mind, not only that he thought himself quitecapable of writing Andriaovsky's "Life, " himself, but that he hadactually made an attempt in that direction. They had come in thesuspicion that I was throwing them over, and, though that suspicion wasremoved, Maschka wished, if there was any throwing over to be done, to doit herself. In a word, she wanted to compare me with Schofield. 

"To see it as far as it is written, " I repeated slowly. .. . "Well, youmay. That is, you, Michael's sister, may. But on the condition thatyou neither show it to anybody else nor speak of it to anybody else. "

"Ah!" she said. .. . "And only on those conditions?"

"Only on those conditions. "

I saw a quick glance between them. "Shall we tell him?" it seemed tosay. .. . 

"Including the man Michael's sister is going to marry?" she saidabruptly. 

My attitude was deeply apologetic, but, "Including anybody whomsoever, " Ianswered. 

"Then, " she said, rising, "we won't bother. But will you at least let usknow, soon, when we may expect your text?"

"I will let you know, " I replied slowly, "one week from to-day. "

On that assurance they left; and when they had gone I crossed once moreto the lower shelf that contained my letter-files. I turned up the filefor 1900 once more. During their visit I had had an idea. 

I ran through the letters, and then replaced them. .. . 

Yes, I ought to be able to let them know within the week. 

V

Against the day when I myself shall come to die, there are in thepigeon-holes of the newspaper libraries certain biographical recordsthat deal roughly with the outward facts of my life; and these, supplemented by documents I shall place in the hands of my executors, will tell the story of how I leaped at a bound into wealth and fame withthe publication of _The Cases of Martin Renard_. I will set down as muchof that story as has its bearing on my present tale. 

_Martin Renard_ was not immediately accepted by the first editor to whomit was offered. It does not suffice that in order to be popular a thingshall be merely good--or bad; it must be bad--or good--in a particularway. For taking the responsibility when they happen to miss thatparticular way editors are paid their salaries. When they happen to hitit they grow fat on circulation-money: Since it becomes me ill to quarrelwith the way in which any man earns his money, I content myself withmerely stating the fact. 

By the time the fourth editor had refused my series I was about at mylast gasp. To write the things at all I had had to sink four months intime; and debts, writs and pawnshops were my familiars. I was littlebetter off than Andriaovsky at his very worst. I had read the first ofthe _Martin Renards_ to him, by the way; the gigantic outburst of mirthwith which he had received it had not encouraged me to read him a second. I wrote the others in secret. 

I wrote the things in the spring and summer of 1900; and by the last dayof September I was confident that I had at last sold them. Except by aflagrant breach of faith, the editor in whose desk they reposed couldhardly decline them. As it subsequently happened, I have now nothing butgratitude for him that he did, after all, decline them; for I had aduplicate copy "on offer" in another quarter. 

He declined them, I say; and I was free to possess my soul again among mywrits, debts and pawnshops. 

But four days later I received the alternative offer. It was from the_Falchion_. The _Falchion_, as you may remember, has since run no lessthan five complete series of _Martin Renards_. It bought "both sides, "that is to say, both British and American serial rights. Of the twelve_Martin Renards_ I had written, my wise agent had offered the _Falchion_six only. On his advice I accepted the offer. 

Instantaneously with the publication of those six stories came mysuccess. In two continents I was "home"--home in the hearts of thepublic. I had my small cheque--it was not much more than a hundredpounds--but "Wait, " said my agent; "let's see what we can do with theother six. .. . "

Precisely what he did with them only he and I know; but I don't mindsaying that £3000 did not buy my first serial rights. Then came secondand third rights, and after them the book rights, British, American, andColonial. Then came the translation rights. In French, my creation is, ofcourse, as in English, _Martin Renard_; in German he is Martin Fuchs; andby a similar process you can put him--my translators have put him--intoItalian, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian, and three-fourths of the tongues ofEurope. And this was the first series only. It was only with the secondseries that the full splendour of my success appeared. My very imitatorsgrew rich; my agent's income from his comparatively small percentage onmy royalties was handsome; and he chuckled and bade me wait for thedramatic rights and the day when the touring companies should get tobusiness. .. . 

I had "got there. "

And I remember, sadly enough now, my first resolution when the day camewhen I was able to survey the situation with anything approaching calm. It was, "Enough. " For the rest of my days I need not know poverty again. Thenceforward I need not, unless I chose, do any but worthy work. _MartinRenard_ had served his purpose handsomely, and I intended to have nothingmore to do with him. 

Then came that dazzling offer for the second series. .. . 

I accepted it. 

I accepted the third likewise; and I have told you about the fourth. .. . 

I have tried to kill _Martin Renard_. He was killing me. I have, inthe pages of the _Falchion_, actually killed him; but I have had toresuscitate him. I cannot escape from him. .. . 

I am not setting down one word more of this than bears directly on mytale of Andriaovsky's "Life. " For those days, when my whole future hadhung in the balance, _were the very days covered by that portion ofAndriaovsky's life at which I had now arrived_. I had reached, and washesitating at, our point of divergence. Those checks and releases which Ihad at first found so unaccountable corresponded with the vicissitudes ofthe _Martin Renard_ negotiations. 

The actual dates did not, of course, coincide--I had quickly discoveredthe falsity of that scent. Neither did the intervals between them, withthe exception of those few days in which I had been unable to completethat half-written sentence--the few days immediately prior to my(parallel) acceptance by the _Falchion_. But, by that other reckoningof time, of mental and spiritual experience, _they tallied exactly_. The gambling chances of five years ago meant present stumblings andhaltings; the breach of faith of an editor long since meant a presentrespite; and another week should bring me to that point of my sostrangely reduplicated experience that, allowing for the furious mentalrate at which I was now living, would make another node with that otherpoint in the more slowly lived past that had marked my acceptance of theoffer for the second half-dozen of the _Martin Renards_. 

It had been on this hazardous calculation that I had made my promise toMaschka. 

I passed that week in a state of constantly increasing apprehension. True, I worked at the "Life, " even assiduously; but it was plain sailing, mere cataloguing of certain of Andriaovsky's works, a chapter I haddeliberately planned _pour mieux sauter_--to enhance the value of thepenultimate and final chapters. These were the real crux of the "Life. "These were what I was reserving myself for. These were to show that onlyhis body was dead, and that his spirit still lived and his work wasstill being done wherever a man could be found whose soul burned withinhim with the same divine ardour. 

But I was now realising, day by day, hour by hour more clearly, what Iwas incurring. I was penning nothing less than my own artistic damnation. Self-condemned, indeed, I had been this long time; but I was now makingthe world a party to the sentence. The crowning of Andriaovsky involvedmy own annihilation; his "Life" would be my "Hic Jacet. " And yet I wasprepared, nay, resolved, to write it. I had started, and I would goforward. I would not be spewed with the lukewarm out of the mouth of thatSpirit from which proceeds all that is bright and pure and true. Thevehemence with which I had rejected its divine bidding should at least becorrespondent with my adoration of it. The snivelling claims of theSchofields I spurned. If, as they urged, "an artist must live, " he mustlive royally or starve with a tight mouth. No complaining. .. . 

And one other claim I urged in the teeth of this Spirit, which, if itwas a human Spirit at all, it could not disregard. Those pigeon-holedobituaries of mine will proclaim to the world, one and all, the virtuesof my public life. In spite of my royal earnings, I am not a rich man. Ihave not accepted wealth without accepting the personal responsibilityfor it. Sick men and women in more than one hospital lie in wardsprovided by _Martin Renard_ and myself; and I am not dishonoured in myInstitution at Poplar. Those vagrant wanderings with Andriaovsky haveenabled me to know the poor and those who help the poor. My personallabours in the administration of the Institute are great, for outsidethe necessary routine I leave little to subordinates. I have declinedhonours offered to me for my "services to Literature, " and I have neverencouraged a youth, of parts or lacking them, to make of Literature aprofession. And so on and so forth. All this, and more, you will readwhen the day comes; and I don't doubt the _Falchion_ will publish mymemoir in mourning borders. .. 

But to resume. 

I finished the chapter I have mentioned. Maschka and her fiancé keptpunctiliously away. Then, before sitting down to the penultimatechapter, I permitted myself the relaxation of a day in the country. 

I can't tell you precisely where I went; I only know it was somewhere inBuckinghamshire, and that, ordering the car to await me a dozen milesfarther on, I set out to walk. Nor can I tell you what I saw during thatwalk; I don't think I saw anything. There was a red wintry disc of a sun, I remember, and a land grey with rime; and that is all. I was entirelyoccupied with the attempt I was about to make. I think that even thenI had the sense of doom, for I know not how otherwise I should havefound myself several times making little husbandings of my force, as ifconscious that I should need it all. For I was determined, as never in mylife have I been determined, to write that "Life. " And I intended, not towait to be challenged, but to challenge. .. . I met the car, returning insearch of me; and I dined at a restaurant, went home to bed, and sleptdreamlessly. 

On the morrow I deliberately refrained from work until the evening. Mychallenge to Andriaovsky and the Powers he represented should be boldlydelivered at the very gates of their own Hour. Not until half-past eight, with the curtains drawn, the doors locked, and orders given that on noaccount whatever was I to be disturbed, did I switch on the pearly light, place Andriaovsky's portrait in its now accustomed place, and draw mychair up to my writing-table. 

VI

But before I could resume the "Life" at the point at which I had left it, I felt that there were certain preliminaries to be settled. It was notthat I wished to sound a parley with any view of coming to terms; I haddetermined what the terms were to be. As a boxer who leaps from hiscorner the moment the signal is given, astounding with suddenness hisless prompt antagonist, so I should be ready when the moment came. But Iwished the issue to be defined. I did not propose to submit the whole ofmy manhood to the trial. I was merely asserting my right to speak ofcertain things which, if one chose to exaggerate their importance by atoo narrow and exclusive consideration of them, I might conceivably bethought to have betrayed. 

I drew a sheet of paper towards me, and formally made out my claim. Itoccupied not more than a dozen lines, and its nature has already beensufficiently indicated. I put my pen down again, leaned back in my chair, and waited. 

I waited, but nothing happened. It seemed that if this was my attempt tojustify myself, the plea was certainly not disallowed. But neither had Iany sign that it was allowed; and presently it occurred to me thatpossibly I had couched it in terms too general. Perhaps a more particularclaim would meet with a different reception. 

During the earlier stages of the book's progress I had many timesdeliberated on the desirability of a Preface that should state succinctlywhat I considered to be my qualifications for the task. Though I hadfinally decided against any such statement, the form of the Preface mightnevertheless serve for the present occasion. I took another sheet ofpaper, headed it "Preface, " and began once more to write. 

I covered the page; I covered a second; and half-way down the third Ijudged my statement to be sufficient. Again I laid down my pen, leanedback, and waited. 

The Preface also produced no result whatever. 

Again I considered; and then I saw more clearly. It came to me that, bothin the first statement and in the Preface, I was merely talking tomyself. I was convincing myself, and losing both time and strength indoing so. The Power with which I sought to come to grips was treating myvapourings with high disregard. To be snubbed thus by Headquarterswould never, never do. .. . 

Then I saw more clearly still. It seemed that my _right to challenge_was denied. I was not an adversary, with the rights and honours of anadversary, but a trangressor, whose trangression had already severaltimes been sharply visited, and would be visited once more the moment itwas repeated. I might, in a sense, please myself whether I brought myselfinto Court; but, once there, I was not the arraigner in the box, but thearraigned in the dock. 

And I rebelled hotly. Did I sit there, ready for the struggle, only to betold that there could be no struggle? Did that vengeful Angel of the Artsignore my very existence?. .. By Yea and Nay I swore that he should takenotice of me! Once before, a mortal had wrestled a whole night with anangel, and though he had been worsted, it had not been before he hadcompelled the Angel to reveal himself! And so would I. .. 

Challenge, title to challenge, tentatives, preliminaries, I suddenly castthem all aside. We would have it in deeds, not in further words. I openeda drawer, took out the whole of the "Life" so far written, and began toread. I wanted to grasp once more the plan of it in its entirety. 

Page after page, I read on, with deepening attention. Quickly I ranthrough half of it. Then I began to concentrate myself still moreclosely. There would come a point at which I should be flush with thestream of it again, again feel the force of its current; I felt myselfdrawing nearer to that point; when I should reach it I would go aheadwithout a pause. .. 

I read to the end of Chapter Fifteen, the last completed chapter. Theninstantly I took my pen and wrote, "Chapter Sixteen. .. . "

I felt the change at the very first word. 

 * * * * *

I will not retraverse any ground I have covered before. If I have notalready made clear my former sensations of the petrefaction of hand andbrain, I despair of being able to do so any better now. Suffice it thatonce more I felt that inhibition, and that once more I was aware of theubiquitous presence of the image of the dead artist. Once more I heardthose voices, near as thunder and yet interstellarly remote, crying thatsolemn warning, that though I took the Wings of the Morning, made my bedin Hell, or cried aloud upon the darkness to cover me, there was oneSpirit from which I could not hope to escape. I felt the slight crawlingof my flesh on my bones as I listened. 

But there was now a difference. On the former occasion, to hear againthose last horrible words of his, "_You shall very soon know I know whoyou are if_. .. " had been the signal for the total unnerving of me and forthat uncontrollable cry, "_Don't you then want me to write it_?" But nowI intended to write it if I could. In order that I might tell him so Iwas now seeking him out, in what heights or depths I knew not, at whatperil to myself I cared not. I cared not, since I now felt that I couldnot continue to live unless I pressed to the uttermost attempt. And Imust repeat, and repeat again, and yet repeat, that in that hourAndriaovsky was immanent about me, in the whole of me, in the last fibreand cell of me, in all my thoughts, from my consciousness that I wassitting there at my own writing-table to my conception of God Himself. 

It may seem strange--whether it does so or not will depend on the kind of man you yourself are--that as long as I was content to recognise thisimmanence of Andriaovsky's enlarged and liberated spirit, _and not todispute with it_, I found nothing but mildness and benignity in myhazardous experience. More, I felt that, in that clear region to whichin my intensified state of consciousness I was lifted, I was able to move(I must trust you to understand the word aright) without restraint, nay, with an amplitude and freedom of movement past setting down, as long asI was satisfied to possess my soul in quiescence. The state itself wasinimical neither to my safety nor to my sanity. I was conscious of itas a transposition into another register of the scale of life. And, asin this life we move in ignorance and safety only by accepting thehair-balance of stupendous forces, so now I felt that my safety dependedon my observation of the conditions that governed that region of lightand clarity and Law. 

Of clarity and Law; save in the terms of the great abstractions I may notspeak of it. And that is well-nigh equal to saying that I may not speakof it at all. The hand that would have written of it lay (I never for onemoment ceased to be conscious) heavy as stone on a writing-table in somespot quite accidental in my new sense of locality; the tongue that wouldhave spoken of it seemed to slumber in my mouth. And I knew that bothdumbness and stillness were proper. Their opposites would have convictedme (the flat and earthly comparison must be allowed) of intrusion intosome Place of beauty and serenity for which the soilure of my birthdisqualified me. 

For beauty and serenity, austerity and benignity and peace, were theconditions of that Place. To other Places belonged the wingy and robedand starry and golden things that made the heavens of other lives thanthat which I had shared with Andriaovsky; here, white and shapely Truthalone reigned. None questioned, for all knew; none sinned, for sin wasalready judged and punished in its committal; none demonstrated, forall things were evident; and those eager to justify themselves werepermitted no farther than the threshold. .. . 

And it was to justify, to challenge, to maintain a right, that I wasthere. I was there to wrestle, if needs be, with the Angel of that Place, to vanquish him or to compel him to reveal himself. I had not beensummoned; I had thrust myself there unbidden. There was a moment in whichI noticed that my writing-table was a little more than ordinarily removedfrom me, but very little, not more than if I had been looking over theshoulder of another writer at it; and I saw my chapter heading. At thesight of it something of the egotism that had prompted me to write itstirred in me again; everywhere was Andriaovsky's calm face, priest andAngel himself; and I became conscious that I was trying to write aphrase. I also became conscious that I was being pitifully warned not todo so. .. 

Suddenly my whole being was flooded with a frightful pang of pain. 

It was not local. It was no more to be located than the other immanencesof which I have spoken. It was Pain, pure, essential, dissociated; andwith the coming of it that fair Place had grown suddenly horrible andblack. 

And I knew that the shock came _of my own resistance_, and that it wouldcease to afflict me the moment I ceased to resist. 

I did cease. Instantly the pain passed. But as when a knife is pluckedfrom a wound, so only with its passing did I shriek aloud. .. . 

For I know not how many minutes I sat in stupefaction. Then, as withearthly pains, that are assuaged with the passing of accidental time, thememory of it softened a little. Blunderingly and only half consciously, Icast about to collect my dispersed force. 

For--already I was conscious of it--there still remained one claim thateven in thought I had not advanced. I would, were I permitted, stillwrite that "Life, " but, since it was decreed so, I would no longer urgethat in writing it I justified myself. So I might but write it, I wouldembrace my own portion, the portion of doom; yea, though it should be apressing of the searing-iron to my lips, I would embrace it; my nameshould not appear. For the mere sake of the man I had loved I would writeit, in self-scorn and abasement, humbly craving not to be denied. .. . 

_"Oh, let me but do for Love of you what a sinful man can!"_ Igroaned. .. . 

A moment later I had again striven to do so. So do we all, when wethink that out of a poor human Love we can alter the Laws by which ourstate exists. And with such a hideous anguish as was again mine are wevisited. .. . 

And I knew now what that anguish was. It was the twining of body fromspirit that is called the bitterness of Death; for not all of the bodyare the pangs of that severance. With that terrible sword of impersonalPain the God of Peace makes sorrowful war that Peace may come again. Withits flame He ringed the bastions of Heaven when Satan made assault. Onlyon the Gorgon-image of that Pain in the shield may weak man look; andits blaze and ire had permeated with deadly nearness the "everywhere"where I was. .. 

"_Oh, not for Love? Not even for Love?_" broke the agonised question fromme. .. . 

The next moment I had ceased, and ceased for ever, to resist. Instantaneously the terrible flashing of that sword became no morethan the play of lightning one sees far away in the wide cloudfieldson a peaceful summer's twilight. I felt a gentle and overpoweringsleep coming over me; and as it folded me about I saw, with the lastlook of my eyes, my own figure, busily writing at the table. 

Had I, then, prevailed? Had Pain so purged me that I was permitted tofinish my task? And had my tortured cry, "Oh, not even for Love?"been heard?

I did not know. 

 * * * * *

I came to myself to find that my head had fallen on my desk. The lightstill shone within its pearly shade, and in the penumbra of its shadowthe portrait of Andriaovsky occupied its accustomed place. About me weremy papers, and my pen lay where it had fallen from my hand. 

At first I did not look at my papers. I merely saw that the uppermost ofthem was written on. But presently I took it up, and looked at itstupidly. Then, with no memory at all of how I had come to write what wasupon it, I put it down again. 

It was indeed a completion. 

But it was not of Andriaovsky's "Life" that it was the completion. As youmay or may not know, Andriaovsky's "Life" is written by "his friend JohnSchofield. " I had been allowed to write, but it was my own condemnationthat, in sadness and obedience, in the absence of wrath but also in theabsence of mercy, I had written. By the Law I had broken I was broken inmy turn. It was the draft for the fifth series of _The Cases of MartinRenard_. 

No, not for Love--not even for Love. .. .