XI
"You have heard of doubles, of course, Professor?" said Chichester, leaning his arms on the table and putting his hands one against the other, as if making a physical effort to be very calm.
"Of course. There was an account of one in that sermon of yours."
"Have you ever seen a double?"
"No; not to my knowledge."
"I suppose you disbelieve in them?"
"I have no reason to believe in them. I have not collected enough evidence to convince me that there are such manifestations."
"You know a double at this moment."
"Do I, indeed? And may I ask the manifestation's name?"
"Marcus Harding."
"Marcus Harding is a double, you say. Whose?"
"Mine," said Chichester in a low voice.
He clasped and unclasped his hands.
"I don't understand you," said Stepton, rather disdainfully.
"I will try to make you." And Chichester began to speak, at first in a low, level voice. "That sermon of mine," he said, "was a sort of shadow of a truth that I wanted to reveal,—that I dared not fully reveal. Already I had tried to tell Evelyn Malling something of it. I had failed. When the moment came, when Malling was actually before me, I could not speak out. His mind was trying to track the truth that was in me. He got, as it were, upon the trail. Once he even struck into the truth. Then he went away to Marcus Harding. I remained in London. When I knew that those two were together I felt a sort of jealous fear of Malling. For there was pity in him. Despite his intense curiosity he had a capacity for pity. I realized that it might possibly interfere with—with something that I was doing. And I recalled Marcus Harding to London. From that moment I have avoided Malling. I could never tell him. But you, hard searcher after truth as you are—you could never find it in you to drag away another from the contemplation of truth. Could you? Could you?"
"Probably not," said Stepton. "I usually let folks alone even when they're glaring at falsehood. Ha!"
He settled himself in his chair, looking sidewise toward Chichester.
"You, like every one else, have noticed the tremendous change in Marcus Harding," Chichester went on. "That change, the whole of that change, is solely owing to me."
"Very glad to have your explanation of that."
"I am going to give it you. The beginning of that change came about through the action of Marcus Harding. He wished for facts that are, perhaps,—indeed, probably,—withheld deliberately from the cognizance of man. You have sneered at those who live by faith, you have sneered at priests. Well, you can let that Marcus Harding go free of your sarcasm. Although a clergyman he was not a faithful man. And he wanted facts to convince him that there was a life beyond the grave. Henry Chichester—"
"You! You!" interjected Stepton, harshly.
"I, then, came into his life. He thought he would use me to further his purpose. He constrained me to sittings such as you have often taken part in, with a view to sending me into a trance and employing me, when in that condition, as a means of communication with the other world—if there was one. We sat secretly in this room, at this table."
"You need not give me ordinary details of your sittings," said the professor. "I am familiar with them, of course."
"Henry Chichester—"
"You! You! Don't complicate matters!"
"I never was entranced; but presently I felt myself changing subtly."
"People very often imagine they are developing into something wonderful at séances. Nothing new in that."
"Please try to realize the facts of my case without assuming that it resembles a thousand others. I believe, I feel sure, that it resembles no other case that has come under your observation. To grasp it you must grasp the characters of two men, Marcus Harding as he was—and myself, as I was."
"Put them before me, then."
"That Marcus Harding you knew. He was the type of the man who, sublimely self-confident, imposes his view of himself upon other men and especially upon women. He had strength—strength of body and strength of mind. And he had the strength which a devouring ambition sheds through a man. A fine type of the worldly clergyman he was, of the ardent climber up the ladder of preferment. To him the church was a career, and he meant to succeed in it. If he had to begin as a curate he meant to end as a bishop, perhaps as an archbishop. And he had will to help him, and vitality to help him, and the sort of talent that brings quick notice on a man. And he had also a woman to help him, his wife, Lady Sophia. He chose well when he chose her for his helpmate, though he may not think so now. He should have been content with what he had. But he wanted more, and he thought he might perhaps get what he wanted through me. Marcus Harding was a full-blooded type of the clerical autocrat. I once was an equally complete type of the clerical slave—slave to conscience, slave to humble-mindedness, slave to my rector as soon as I knew him.
"St. Francis of Assisi was the character I worshiped. I strove after simple goodness. I desired no glories of this world, no praises of men. I did not wish to be clever or to shine, but only to do my duty to my fellow-men, and so toward God. When I was first to make the acquaintance of Marcus Harding, with a view to becoming his senior curate if he thought fit, I felt some alarm. I had heard so much of his great energy and his remarkable talents. The day came. I paid my visit to Onslow Gardens. For the first time I saw—" Chichester paused. His face became distorted. He turned toward the window as if anxious to hide his face from the professor's small, keen eyes. "I saw—that man," he continued, in a withdrawn and husky voice, and still looking away.
Stepton sat motionless and silent, sidewise, with his arms hanging.
Chichester, after another long pause, again faced him.
"My very first impression was unfavorable. I attributed this to his great size, which had startled me. I now know I was wrong in thinking I took that impression from the outer man. It was the inner man who in that moment announced himself to me. But almost instantly he had surely withdrawn himself very far away, and I, then, had no means of following him. So he escaped from me, and I fell under the influence that Marcus Harding was able to exert at will.
"I was dominated. Buoyancy, life, energy, self-confidence, radiated from that man. He steeped me in his vigor. He seemed kind, cordial. He won my heart. My intellect, of course, was dazzled. But—he won my heart. And I felt not only, 'Here is a man far greater than myself to whom I can look up,' but also, 'Here is a man to whom I must look up, because he is far better than myself.' At that interview it was settled that I should become senior curate at St. Joseph's.
"As you know, I became, and still am, senior curate. As I grew to know Marcus Harding better I admired him more. In fact, my feeling for him was something greater than admiration. I almost worshiped him. His will was law to me in everything. His slightest wish I regarded as a behest. His talents amazed me. But I thought him not only the cleverest, but the best of men. It seemed to me right that such a man should be autocratic. A beneficent autocracy became my ideal of government. That my rector's will should be law to his wife, his servants, his curates, his organist, his choir, to those attached to his schools, to those who benefited by the charities he organized, seemed to me more than right and proper. I could have wished to see it law to all the world. If any one ventured to question any decision of his, or to speak a word against him, I felt almost hot with anger. In a word, I was at his feet, as the small and humble-minded man often is at the feet of the man who has talents and who is gifted with ambition and supreme self-confidence.
"For a long time this condition of things continued, and I was happy in it. Probably it might have continued till now, if—if that accursed idea had not come to Marcus Harding."
Again Chichester paused. In speaking he had evidently become gradually less aware of his companion's presence and personality. His subject had gripped him. Memory had grown warm within him. He lived in the days that were past.
"That accursed idea," he repeated slowly, "to use me as his tool in an endeavor to break down the barrier which divides men from the other world.
"As I told you, we began to sit secretly. Marcus Harding wished me to fall into the entranced condition. I did not know this at first, so at first I did not consciously resist his desire. He had told me a lie. He had told me that he desired only one thing in our sittings, to give to me something of the will power that made him a force in the world. He had declared that this was possible. I believed him unquestioningly. I thought he was trying to send some of his power into me. Soon I felt that he was succeeding in this supposed endeavor. Soon I felt that a strange new power was filtering into me."
Chichester fixed his eyes on Stepton as he said the last words, and seemed to emerge from his former condition of self-absorption.
"You have sat often. Have you ever felt such a sensation? It is like growth," he said.
"When one first begins to sit at séances, one is apt to imagine all sorts of things in the darkness," returned Stepton. "I dare say I did, like other folk."
"I understand," said Chichester, with a sort of strange condescension. "You think I was merely the victim of absurdity. The sense of this coming of power grew slowly, but steadily, within me. And presently it was complicated by another development, which involved—or began to involve, let me say at this point—my companion, Marcus Harding. I think I ought to tell you that in beginning the sittings I had had certain doubts, which were swept away by my admiration of, and faith in, my rector. Hitherto I had always thought that our human knowledge was deliberately limited by God, and that it was very wrong to strive to know too much. The man of science no doubt believes that it is impossible to know too much; but I have thought that many great truths are kept from us because we are not yet in a condition properly to understand them. I had, therefore, begun these practices with a certain tremor, and possibly a certain feeling of resistance, in the depths of my soul. As I felt the power coming to me I had put away my fears. They did not return. Yet surely the new development within me, of which I now became aware, was connected with those fears, however subtly. It was a sensation almost of hostility directed against Marcus Harding."
"Ah, now!" ejaculated the professor, as if in despite of himself. "And where's the connection you speak of?"
"Marcus Harding had constrained me to do a thing that in my soul I had believed to be wrong and that had roused my fear. As power dawned in me, directing itself upon everything about me, it was instinctively hostile to him who had dominated me before I had any power, and who, by dominating me, had for a moment made me afraid."
"Retrospective enmity! Very well!" muttered the professor. "I understand you. Keep on!"
"This hostility—if I may call a feeling at first not very definite by so definite a name—induced in me a critical attitude of mind. I found myself, to my surprise, secretly criticizing the man whom till now I had regarded as altogether beyond the reach of criticism. I felt that Marcus Harding was giving me power. I was grateful to him for doing so; yet I began to see him in a new, and at moments an unpleasant light. Presently, after trying in vain to combat this novel sensation, which seemed to me almost treacherous, almost disloyal, I sought about for a reason, to give myself at least some justification for it. I sought, and one night it seemed to me that I found.
"On that night I was more than ever aware that strength of some kind was pouring into me. I had an almost heady sensation, such as one who drinks a generous wine may experience. When we rose from the table I told my rector so. He stared at me very strangely. Then he said: 'Good! Good! Didn't I tell you I would give you some of my power?' He paused. Then he added: 'It will come! It must come!' As he spoke the last words he frowned, and all his face seemed to harden, as if he were making a violent mental effort to which the body was obliged to respond. And at that instant I was aware that the reason Marcus Harding had given to me to persuade me to these sittings was not the true one, that his purpose was quite other than that which I had hitherto supposed it to be. I was suddenly aware of this, and I thought: 'I must already have been aware of it subconsciously, and that accounts for my sensation of hostility toward the rector.' A lie had been told to me. My new self-confidence resented this; and I said to myself, 'If Marcus Harding can tell a lie to me, who almost worshiped him, he must be an arrant hypocrite.'
"We sat again, and again I knew that there was something in the mind of my companion which he concealed from me, something to which I should strongly object if I knew what it was, something which troubled the atmosphere, the mental atmosphere, of the sitting. Instead of being in accord, we were engaged in a silent, but violent, struggle. I was determined not to be overcome. A sort of fierce desire for tyranny sprang up in me. I longed to see Marcus Harding at my feet.
"Again and again we sat. My hostile feeling grew. My critical feeling grew. My longing to tyrannize increased, till I was almost afraid of it, so cruel did I feel it to be. 'Down! Down under my feet!' That was what my soul was secretly saying now to the man whose will had been as law to me. And one night, as if he heard that ugly voice of my soul, he abruptly got up from the table and said: 'It seems to me that you and I are not en rapport. It seems to me that no more good can come of these sittings. We had better not sit again."
"We must sit again," I replied.
"Marcus Harding turned scarlet with anger. He looked at me. He opened his lips to speak. I let him speak. I even argued the question with him. I pointed out to him that his only design—the only design acknowledged by him, at any rate, in beginning these practices—had been to give me strength such as, he had declared to me, he himself had drawn while at Oxford from a Hindu comrade. In carrying out this design, I now told him, he was being successful. I felt that I was growing in power of will, in self-confidence. How, then, could he refuse to continue when success was already in sight? 'Unless,' I concluded, 'you had some other design in persuading me to sit, which I did in the first instance against my secret desire, and you feel that there is now no probability of carrying that design into effect.'
"He gave in. I had him beaten. Hastily he muttered a good-night and left me. I let him out into the night. As soon as the street door had shut on him I ran upstairs. I went to that window,—" Chichester flung out his hand—"pushed it up, leaned out, and watched him down the street. I saw him pass under a gas-lamp and I said to myself: 'You have submitted to my will, and you shall submit again. I am the master now.'
"In that moment all the domination which I had so joyously endured, which I had even surely reveled in,—for there are those who can revel in their slavery,—abruptly became in my mind a reason for revenge. Marcus Harding disappeared in the night; but still I leaned out, staring down the way he had gone, and thinking, 'You shall pay me back for it. You shall pay me back.'
"From that night I made no effort to check the critical faculty, the exercise of which at first had seemed to me a sort of treachery. And as I let myself criticize, I saw more clearly. The scales fell from my eyes. I realized that I had been nothing less than blind in regard to Marcus Harding. I saw him now as he was, a victim of egomania, a worldling, tyrannical, falsely sentimental, and unfaithful steward, a liar—perhaps even an unbeliever. His whole desire—I knew it now—was not to be good, but to be successful. His charity, his pity for the poor, his generosity, his care for his church, for his schools—all was pretence. I saw Marcus Harding as he was. And what followed?"
Chichester leaned forward to the professor.
"Fear followed," he said in a withdrawn voice.
"Fear!" said Stepton, clearing his throat with a loud, rasping noise.
"Whenever I was with Marcus Harding in any public place I was now companioned by fear. I dreaded unspeakably lest others should begin to see what I saw. When he preached, I could hardly sit to listen: I felt as if any shame falling upon him would overwhelm me also. I strove in vain to combat this strange, this, then, inexplicable sensation. With every sitting this terror grew upon me. It tortured me. It obsessed me. It drove me into action. When I was with my rector, I tried perpetually to prevent him from exposing his true self to the world, by changing the conversation, by attenuating his remarks, by covering up his actions with my own, sometimes even by a brusque interruption. But in the pulpit he escaped from me. I was forced to sit silent and to listen while he preached doctrine in which he had no belief, and put forward theories of salvation, redemption by faith, and the like, which meant less than nothing to him. Finding this presently unendurable by me, I strove to govern him mentally when he was in the pulpit, to track him, as it were, with my mind, to head him off with my mind when he was beginning to take the wrong path."
"Did you succeed in that effort?" interrupted the professor.
"I made an impression, a terrible impression, upon him. I almost broke him down. I sapped his self-confidence. His power as a preacher deserted him, as his power outside the pulpit deserted him. With every day I felt that I saw more clearly into every recess, every cranny, of his mind and nature. Just at first this frightfully clear sight was mine only when we were sitting; but presently it was mine whenever I was with him. And he knew it, and went in fear of me. Gradually, very gradually, it came about that our former positions were reversed; for as he sank down in the human scale, I mounted. As he lost in power, I gained. And especially in the pulpit I felt that now I had force, that I could grip my hearers, could make a mighty impression upon those with whom I was brought into contact.
"But I must tell you that now I gained no satisfaction from my own improvement, if so it may be called. My whole life was vitiated by my secret terror lest Marcus Harding should be found out, should ever be known for what he was. His actions, and even his thoughts, affected me with an intimacy that was inexplicable."
"You were in telepathic communication with him!" interjected Stepton.
"Call it so if you like. Often I felt what he was thinking, almost as if each thought of his were a hand laid upon me—a hand from which I shrank with an almost trembling repugnance. Sometimes when he thought something contemptible or evil, I shrank as if from a blow.
"There was a link between us. Presently, soon, I knew it. We seemed in some dreadful way to belong to each other, so that whatever was thought, said, done by him, whatever happened to him, reacted upon me.
"At this time Lady Sophia Harding hated me with a deadly hatred. Formerly she had been indifferent to me. Concentrated upon her husband, adoring him, vain of him, greedily ambitious for his advancement, she had had no time to bestow on a clerical nonentity. But as I grew to understand what her husband really was she grew to hate me. She was almost rude to me. She spoke ill of me behind my back. She even tried to oust me from my position as senior curate of St. Joseph's. Why did not she succeed? Are you thinking that?"
"Well, what if I was?" snapped the professor, moving in his chair.
"Marcus Harding could not make a move to get rid of me. There was a link between us which he could not even try to break.
"One night—one night—I discovered what that link was."
It was growing dark in the room. The Rossetti Madonna, thin, anemic, with hanging hair, seemed fading away on the somber, green wall. The window-panes looked spectral and white. The faint murmur of the city sounded a little deeper and much sadder than in the light of day. Stepton was aware of a furtive but strong desire for artificial light in the room, but he did not choose to mention it. And Chichester, whose voice—so it seemed to his hearer—began to have that peculiar almost alarming timbre which belongs to a voice speaking not for the ears of another, but for the satisfaction only of the soul which it expresses, continued his narrative, or confession, as if unaware of the dying of day.
"During the day which preceded it I had been haunted by the thought of myself doing what Marcus Harding could not do. Why should not I of my own will leave St. Joseph's, get away from this dreadful contemplation which obsessed me, from this continual anxiety—almost amounting to terror at moments—which gnawed me? Why should not I break this mysterious link, impalpable yet strong? If I did, should I not again find peace? But my sittings with Marcus Harding would be at an end. Could I give them up? I asked myself that, and I felt as if I could not. Through them, by means of them, I felt as if I might attain to something wonderful—terrible perhaps, but wonderful. I felt as if I were approaching the threshold of absolute truth. A voice within me whispered, 'Go no further.' Was it the voice of conscience? I did not heed it. Something irresistible urged me forward. I thrust away from me with a sort of crude mental violence the haunting thought. And when the darkness came I greeted it.
"For he came with the darkness."
On the wall opposite to the professor the thin Madonna faded away.
"As I heard his heavy step on the stairs that night I said to myself, 'At all hazards I will see, I will know, more. I will see, I will know—all.' When he entered at that door"—a thin darkness moved in the darkness as Chichester pointed—"he was dreadfully white and looked sad, almost terrified. He suggested that we should break through our plan and not sit. I refused. He then said he wished to sit in light. I refused. He was become my creature. He dared not disobey my desires! We placed our hands on this table, not touching. I could no longer endure the touch of his hand. We remained motionless. A long time passed. There were no rappings. A strange deadness seemed to prevail in the room. Presently it faded away, and I had the sensation that I was sitting quite alone.
"At first it seemed to me that my companion must have crept out of the room silently, leaving me by myself in the darkness. I shuddered at the thought that I was alone. But then I said to myself that Marcus Harding must be there in the blackness opposite to me, and I moved my hands furtively on the table, thinking to prove his presence to myself by touch. I did not prove it. Suddenly I had no need to touch him in order to know that he was there."
"Why not?" said the professor, and started at the sound of his own voice in the little room.
"Something made me realize that he was still within the room. Nevertheless, I felt that I was alone. How could that be? I asked myself that question. This answer came as it were sluggishly into my mind, 'You are alone not because Marcus Harding is away, but because Henry Chichester is away.' For a long while I sat there stagnantly dwelling on this knowledge which had come to me in the blackness. It was as if I knew without understanding, as a man may know he is involved in a catastrophe without realizing how it has affected his own fate. And then slowly there came to me, or grew in me, an understanding of how I was alone. I was alone with Marcus Harding at that moment because I was Marcus Harding. A shutter seemed to slide back softly, and for the first time I, Marcus Harding, stared upon myself out of the body of another man, of Henry Chichester. I was alone with my soul double. Motionless, silent, I gazed upon it. Now I understood why I had been tortured with anxiety lest the world should learn to comprehend Marcus Harding as I comprehended him. Now I understood why neither he nor I had been able to break that mysterious link which our sittings had forged between us. I had been trying ignorantly to protect myself, to conceal my own shortcomings, to cover my own nakedness. I had sweated with fear lest my own truth should be discovered by all those to whom for so many years I had been presenting a lie. Yes, I had sweated with fear; but even then how little I had known! A voice cried out suddenly, 'Turn on the light!' It was the voice of my double. It seemed to awake, or to recall perhaps,—how can I say?—Henry Chichester. I was aware of a shock; it seemed strongly physical. I got up at once and turned the light on. Marcus Harding was before me, trembling, ashen. 'What is it? What has happened?' he said in a broken voice. I made no reply. He left me. I heard his step in the street—out there!"
Chichester was silent. The professor said nothing for a moment, but passed his tongue twice over his lips and swallowed, sighing immediately afterward.
"Transferred personality!" he muttered—"transferred personality. Is that what you'd have me believe?"
"I'll tell you the rest. When Marcus Harding's steps died away down the street I remained here. Since that shock I have spoken of, I felt that I was again Henry Chichester, changed, as I had long been changed—charged with new force, new knowledge, new discrimination, new power over others, gifted with a penetrating vision into the very soul of the man I had worshiped, yet Henry Chichester. And as Henry Chichester I suffered; I condemned myself. This I said to myself that night, 'I was determined to see. I disregarded the voice within me which warned me that I was treading a forbidden path. God has punished me. He has allowed me to see. But this shall be the end. I will never sit again. I will give up my curacy. I will leave St. Joseph's at once. Never more will I set eyes on Marcus Harding.' I was in a condition of fierce excitement—"
"Ah, exactly," muttered the professor, almost as if consoled—"fierce excitement!"
"I could not think of sleep. For a long time I remained in here, sitting, standing, pacing, opening books; I scarcely know what I did or did not do. At last a sensation of terrible exhaustion crept over me. I undressed. I threw myself on my bed. I tried to sleep. I turned, shifted, got up, let in more air, again lay down, lay resolutely still in the dark, tried not to think. But always my mind dwelt on that matter. In those few frightful moments what had become of myself, of Henry Chichester? Had the powerful personality of that man whom once I had almost worshiped thrust him away, submerged him, stricken him down in a sort of deathlike trance? What I had seen I remembered now as Henry Chichester. What I had known in those moments I still knew now as Henry Chichester. In vain I revolved this matter in my feverish mind. It was too much for me. I was in deep waters.
"I closed my eyes. The fatigue wrapped me more closely. Sleep at last was surely drawing near. But suddenly I knew—how I cannot exactly say—that once more the shutter was to be drawn back for me. This knowledge resembled a horrible physical sensation. The entry of it into my mind, or indeed into my very soul, was as the dawning of a dreadful and unnatural pain in the body. This pain increased till it became agony. Although I still lay motionless, I felt like one involved in a furious struggle in which the whole sum of me took violent part. And there came to me the simile of a man seized by tremendous hands, and held before a window opening into a room in which something frightful was about to take place. And the shutter slipped back from the window.
"Again I looked upon myself. That was my exact sensation. The shutter drawn back, I assisted at the spectacle of Marcus Harding's life. And it was my life. I knew with such frightful intimacy that my knowledge was as vision. Therefore, I say, I saw. Not only my spirit seemed to be gazing, but also my bodily eyes.
"I saw myself in the night slowly approaching my house in Onslow Gardens, ashen pale, shaken, terrified. At a corner I passed a policeman. He knew me and saluted me with respect. I made no gesture in response. He stared at me in surprise. Then a smile came into his face—the smile of a man who is suddenly able to think much less of another than he thought before. I left him smiling thus, reached my house, and stood before it.
"Now I must tell you, and I rely absolutely on your regarding this as said in the strictest, most inviolable confidence—"
"Certainly. Word of honor, and so forth!" said the professor, quickly and sharply.
"I must tell you that Marcus Harding is a sinner, and not merely in the sense in which all men are sinners. There have been recurring moments in his life when he has committed actions which, if publicly known, would ruin him in the eyes of the world and put an end to his career. As I looked at myself standing before my house, I saw that I was hesitating whether to go in with my misery, or whether to seek for it the hideous alleviation of my beloved sin.
"Professor,"—it seemed to Stepton at this moment as if Chichester's voice loomed upon him out of the darkness by which they were now enshrouded,—"it has been said that nothing shocks a man so terribly as the sight of his body-double; that to see what appears to be himself, even if only standing at a window or sitting before a fire, causes in a man a physical horror which seems to strike to the very roots of his physical being. I looked now upon my soul-double, piercing the fleshly envelop and it was my very soul that sweated and turned cold. For I perceived the dreadful action which, if known, would certainly ruin me, being committed by the spirit. The slavish body had not yet bowed down and done its part; but it was about to obey the impulse of the spirit. Slowly the body turned away from its home. The spirit was driving it. The demon with the whip was at work in the night. I looked till the dawn came. And only when at last my double crept, like a thief, into its house, did sleep take me for a little while—sleep that was alive with nightmare."
Chichester was silent. The professor heard him breathing quickly, saw him, almost as a shadow just shown by the faint light that entered from the street through the two small windows, clasp and unclasp his hands, touch his forehead, his eyelids, move in his chair, like a man profoundly stirred and unable to be at ease.
"When I woke," he continued, after a long pause, which the professor did not break by a word or a movement, "I woke to combat. As I told you, I had resolved at once to resign my curacy, and never to see that man again. In the light of the morning I sat down to write my letter of resignation; but I could not do it. A fearful compulsion to remain was upon me. I wrote a few words. I stopped, tore the note up, began again. But writing was impossible. Then I resolved to visit Marcus Harding and to tell him that I must go. I went to his house. He was at home. When I saw him I told him that I wished him to sit again that night. He strove to refuse. He did not understand the truth, but he was terrified. I ordered him to come to my rooms that night, and left him. As I was going away I met Lady Sophia. To my amazement, she stopped me, spoke to me kindly, even more than kindly, looked at me with an expression in her eyes that almost frightened me. I said to myself, 'But those are a slave's eyes!' as I left her. Never before had any woman looked at me like that. In that moment, I think, she began to turn from him toward me, to forsake weakness for strength. Yes, I say strength. I was rent by the tumult within me, but I had strength. I have it now. For, despite his hypocrisy, his unbelief, his active sinning, Marcus Harding had been a strong man. And even Henry Chichester, with all his humbleness, his readiness to yield to others, to think nothing of himself, had had the strength that belongs to purity of soul. And then there is the strength the soul draws from looking upon truth. There was strength, there is now, for the woman to follow. And instinct has surely guided her. She does not, she cannot know. And yet instinct sends her in search of the strength."
"What do you mean by that? What do you claim?"
"You read that sermon?"
"I did."
"Don't you understand? I am that man at the window. He did not flee away. He could not. He was, he is, compelled to remain. He watches that dreadful life. And the other within the room is fading. The strength, the authority, the power, are coming to me. Every sitting broadens that bridge across which the deserters are passing. When I preached that sermon my congregation sat as if numbed by terror. And he in the choir listened, never moving. I saw his spirit, dazed, stretching out to grasp the truth, slipping back powerless to do it. It was like a thing moving through the gloom of deep waters—of deep, deep waters."
Again Chichester's voice died away. In the silence that followed the professor heard the faint ticking of a clock. He had not noticed it before. He could not tell now whether it came from within the room or from the room behind the folding-doors. It seemed to him as if this ticking destroyed his power to think clearly, as if it threw his brain into an unwonted confusion which made him feel strangely powerless. He was aware of a great uneasiness approaching, if not actually amounting to fear. This uneasiness made him long for light. Yet he knew that he dreaded light; for he was aware of an almost unconquerable reluctance to look upon the face of his companion. Beset by conflicting desires, therefore, and the prey of unwonted emotion, he sat like one paralyzed, listening always to the faint ticking of the clock, and striving to reduce what was almost like chaos to order in his brain.
"Why have you selected me to be the hearer of this—this very extraordinary statement?" he forced himself at length to say prosaically. The sound of his own dry voice somewhat reassured him, and he added: "Though there is nothing very extraordinary in the facts you have related. Telepathic communication between one mind and another is a commonplace of to-day, an old story. Every one of course accepts it as possible. What novelty do you claim to present to startle science?"
"I say that telepathy does not explain the link between Marcus Harding and myself."
The professor struck his hand on the table. It seemed to him that if only he could get into an argument this strange confusion and fear might leave him. He would be on familiar ground.
"What you call vision might be merely mind-reading, what you call perceiving the action of the spirit, mind-reading. Your terror lest others should find out bad truths about Marcus Harding would spring naturally enough from your lingering regard for him. Your acute anxiety when he is preaching arises of course from the fact that, owing to bodily causes, no doubt, his mental powers are failing him, and he is no longer able to do himself justice."
"You don't understand. What I desired in our sittings was to draw into myself strength, power, will from—him. What have I done? I have drawn into myself the very man. That night when the shutter slipped back he looked out from the body of Henry Chichester. His mind worked, his soul was alive, within the cage of another man. And meanwhile Henry Chichester lay as if submerged, but presently stirred, and, however feebly, lived again. He lives now. But not from him comes my frightful comprehension of Marcus Harding. Not him does Marcus Harding fear. Not to him does she, the woman, look with the eyes of a slave. It is not he who dominates the crowds in St. Joseph's. It is not he who conceived that sermon of the man and his double. It is not he who has sometimes been terribly afraid."
"Afraid! Afraid!"
"There have been moments when I have been moved to snatch my double out of the sight of men. That day when we met Evelyn Malling I feared as I left them alone together; and when I found Malling intimately there in that house, I felt like one coming upon an ambush which might be destructive of his safety. My instinct was to detach Malling from my double, to attach him to myself. My conduct startled him. I saw that plainly. Yet I tried to win him over, as it were, to my side. He came to me. I strove to tell him, but something secret prevented me. And how could he assist me?"
Chichester got up from the table. The professor saw a darkness moving as he went to stand by the empty fireplace.
"I must look on truth," he continued; "I have to. The fascination of staring upon the truth of oneself is deadly, but it surpasses all other fascination. He sins more often now. I watch him sin. Sometimes under my contemplation I see him writhing like a thing in a trap—the semblance of myself. How the woman despises him now! Sometimes I feel deeply sad at my own ruthlessness. It is frightful to contemplate the physical wreck of a being whom, in some strange and hideous way, one always feels to be oneself. When I look at him it is as if his fallen face, his hanging nerveless hands, his down-drooping figure and eyes lit with despair were mine. His poses, his gestures, his physical tricks, they are all mine. I watch them with a cold, enveloping disgust, frozen in criticism of everything he does, anticipating every movement, every look, hating it when it comes, because it is bred out of the remnant of a spirit I despise as no man surely has ever despised before. Henry Chichester would pity, but he is overborne. He is in me as a drop may be in the ocean. I am most aware of him when my double sins. Only last night we sat"—Chichester came back to the table, and stood there, very faintly relieved against the darkness by the dim light which penetrated through the windows—"we sat in the darkness, and more deeply than ever before I went down into the darkness. I felt as if I were penetrating into the last recesses of a ruined temple. And there, in the ultimate chamber crouched all that was left of the inmate, terrified, helpless, and ignorant. As I looked upon him I understood why man is never permitted really to know himself unless, in an access of mad folly and overweening pride, he succeeds in crossing the boundary which to pass is sheer wickedness. And I tried to turn away, but I could not—I could not. I made a supreme effort. It was in vain.
"I saw him go home. At last he was sick of his sin. There rose within him that strange longing for goodness, for purity and rest, that terrible, aching desire to be what those who once loved him for long had thought him to be, which perhaps never dies in the soul of a human being. Is it the instinct of the Creator burning like an undying spark in the created? And, as he drew near to his house, there came to him the resolve to speak, to acknowledge, to say, 'This is what I am. Know me as I am! Care for me still, in spite of what I am!' He went in, and sought her—the woman. She was alone. Sleep had not come to her. Perhaps some instinct had told her she must wake and be ready for something. Then he gathered together the little that was left to him of courage, and he strove to tell her, to make her understand some of the truth, to obtain from her the greatest of human gifts—the love of one from whom a man has no secrets that he can tell.
"She listened for a moment, then she thrust out her hands as if to push the truth of him out of her life. And last night she left him—going in fear of him."
The professor shook his narrow shoulders, and sprang abruptly to his feet. The ticking of the clock now sounded almost like a hammer beating in his ears.
"It's time we had some light," he said in rather a loud voice.
The darkness that was Chichester moved. A gleam of light shone in the little room, revealing the thin Madonna, "The Light of the World," the piano, the neatly bound books of the curate of St. Joseph's; revealing Chichester, who now stood facing the professor, white, drawn, lined, but with eyes full of almost hideous resolution and power.
"I advise," said the professor—"I advise you from this time forward—"
He stared into the eyes of the man opposite to him, and his voice died away in his throat.
When, immediately afterward, he found himself walking hurriedly toward
Kensington High Street the sweat was pouring down his face.
XII
One night of that autumn, driven by an overmastering impulse, Evelyn Malling set out toward Kensington. He felt that he must know something more of the matter between Marcus Harding and Henry Chichester. Stepton still kept silence. Malling had not approached him. But why should he not call upon Chichester, an acquaintance, almost a friend? It was true that he had resolved, having put the affair into Stepton's hands, to wait. It had come to this, then, to-night that he could be patient no longer? As he stood at the corner of Hornton Street, he asked himself that question. He drew out his watch. It was already past eleven, an unholy hour for an unannounced visit. But slowly he turned into Hornton Street, slowly went down that quiet thoroughfare till he was opposite to the windows of the curate's sitting-room. A light shone in one of them. The rest of the house was dark. Even the fanlight above the small front door displayed no yellow gleam. No doubt the household had retired to rest and Henry Chichester was sitting up alone. A rap would probably bring him down to open to his nocturnal visitor. But now Malling bethought himself seriously of the lateness of the hour, and paced slowly up and down, considering whether to seek speech of the curate or to abandon that idea and return to Cadogan Square. As in his mental debate he paused once more opposite to the solitary gleam in the first-floor window, an incident occurred which startled him, and gave a new bent to his thoughts. It was this: The light in the window was obscured for a moment as if by some solid body passing before it. Then the window was violently thrown up, the large figure of a man, only vaguely perceived by Malling, appeared at it, and a choking sound dropped out into the night. The man seemed to be leaning out as if in an effort to fill his lungs with air, or to obtain the relief of the cool night wind for his distracted nerves. His attitude struck Malling as peculiar and desperate. Suddenly he moved. The light showed, and Malling saw for an instant a second figure, small, slight, commanding. The big man seemed to be sucked back toward the center of the room. Down came the window; the tranquil gleam of the light shone as before; then abruptly all was dark.
Malling realized at once what was happening in the curate's lodgings. As he paused, gazing at the dark house, he knew that the miserable Marcus Harding was within, constrained to endure the observation which, to use his own hideous but poignant phrase, was "eating him away." It was he who had appeared at the window, like a tortured being endeavoring to escape into the freedom of the night. It was Henry Chichester who had followed him, who had drawn him back, who had plunged him into darkness.
The street was deserted. No policeman passed, regarding him with suspicion, and Mailing went on sentinel duty. The dark house fascinated him. More than once a desire came to him to make an effort for the release of Marcus Harding, to cross the street and to hammer brutally at the green door. He recalled Henry Chichester's strange sermon, and he felt as if he assisted at the torture of the double, which he himself had imaginatively suggested to the two clergymen in Lady Sophia's drawing-room. Ought he not to interrupt such a torture?
Midnight struck, and he had not knocked. One o'clock struck; he had paced the street, but had never gone out of sight of the curate's door. It was nearly two, and Mailing was not far from the High Street end of the thoroughfare when he heard a door bang. He turned sharply. A heavy uncertain footstep rang on the pavement. Out of the darkness emerged a tall figure with bowed head. As it moved slowly forward once or twice it swayed, and a wavering arm shot out as if seeking for some support. Malling stood where he was till he saw the broad ghastliness of Marcus Harding's white face show under the ray of a lamp. He discerned no eyes. The eyes of the unhappy man seemed sunken out of recognition in the dreadful whiteness of his countenance. The gait was that of one who believes himself dogged, and who tries to slink furtively, but who has partly lost control of his bodily powers, and who starts in terror at his own too heavy and sounding footfalls.
This figure went by Malling, and was lost in the lighted emptiness of the High Street. Malling did not follow it. Now he had a great desire, born out of his inmost humanity, to speak with Henry Chichester. He made up his mind to return to the curate's door: if he saw a light to knock and ask for admittance; if the window was dark to go on his way. He retraced his steps, looked up, and saw a light. Then it was to be. That man and he were to speak together. But as he looked, the light was extinguished. Nevertheless he struck upon the door.
No one answered. He struck again, then stepped back into the roadway, and looked up at Chichester's window. The curate must surely have heard. Yes, for even as Malling gazed the window moved. No light appeared. But after a pause a voice above said:
"Is that you, Mr. Harding?"
The dim figure of a man was apparent, standing a little back and half concealed by a darkness of drooping curtains.
"It is I—Evelyn Malling," said Malling.
The form at the window started.
"Mr. Malling!" the words came uncertainly. "What is it? Has—has anything happened to—why do you want me at such an hour?"
"I chanced to be in your street and saw your light. I thought I would give you a hail."
"Do you mean that you want to come in?"
After a short pause Malling answered, "Yes."
"I cannot let you in!" the voice above cried out lamentably.
Then the window was shut very softly.
* * * * *
Three days later Malling saw in the papers the news of the complete breakdown of Marcus Harding. "Nervous prostration," was the name given by the doctors to his malady, and it was announced that he had been ordered to take a sea voyage, and was preparing to start for Australia with a nurse.
Soon afterward Malling was walking in the afternoon down Pall Mall, wondering deeply what would happen, whether the rector would ever start on that voyage, when he came upon Professor Stepton sidling out of the Athenaeum.
"Heard about Harding?" jerked out the professor.
"Yes. Has he sailed for Australia?"
"Dead. Died at half-past three o'clock this morning."
Malling turned cold.
"Poor fellow!" he said. "Poor fellow!"
The professor was drawing his plaid shawl round his shoulders. When it was properly adjusted, he began to walk on. Malling kept almost mechanically beside him.
"Did you expect this?" Malling asked.
"Well, I knew he was failing."
"And Chichester? Have you seen Chichester since his death?"
"No. Would you like to see him for me?"
Malling was deep in thought and did not answer.
"Do you think?" said the professor, "that Henry Chichester will be greatly affected by this death?"
"Affected? Do you mean by grief?"
"Yes."
"I should suppose that to be highly improbable."
The professor shot a very sharp glance at Malling.
"I'm not sure that I agree with you," he observed dryly.
"Have you seen him lately?" asked Malling.
"Not quite recently. But if I had seen him, say, yesterday, I don't think that would greatly affect my present dubiety. I should, however, like to set that dubiety at rest. Are you busy to-day?"
"No."
"I am. Will you make a little investigation for me? Will you go and pay a visit of condolence to Chichester on the death of his rector, and then come round to the White House and report?"
"I will if you wish it."
"I shall be in after seven."
"Very well."
"I dare say you will be surprised," observed Stepton. "I see my bus."
Malling left him imperatively waving his arm, and, turning, walked toward
Kensington.
What were his expectations? He did not know. Stepton had upset his mind. As he went on slowly he strove to regain his mental equilibrium. But he could not decide exactly what Stepton had meant. He felt inferior to the professor as he turned into Hornton Street.
He did not hesitate, but went at once to the curate's door and rapped. No one answered. He rapped again, and touched the bell, half hoping, even while he did so, that there was no one within to hear.
But an inquiring head appeared in the area, observed, and was sharply withdrawn. Steps sounded in the passage, and the maid Ellen presented herself, looking somewhat disordered.
"Yes, sir?" she said.
"Is Mr. Chichester at home?"
"He is in, sir, poor gentleman," replied the maid. "Did you want to see him?"
"Yes."
"I'm sure I don't know whether he will see you, sir."
"Is he ill?"
"Not to say ill, sir. But haven't you heard?"
"What?"
"His poor rector's gone, sir, what used to come here to visit him so regular. I never see a gentleman in such a way. Why, he's so changed I don't hardly know him."
"Have you been here long?" said Mailing, abruptly.
"Only six months, sir."
The maid began to look rather astonished.
"And so Mr. Chichester is quite altered by his grief?"
"You never did, sir! He was so firm, wasn't he, above every one! Even his rector used to look to him and be guided by him. And now he's as gentle and weak almost as a new-born child, as they say."
Malling thought of Stepton. Had he looked forward to some such change?
"Perhaps I could console Mr. Chichester in his grief," he said. "Will you take him this card and ask if I can see him? I knew Mr. Harding, too. I might be of use, possibly."
"I'll ask him, sir. He's laying down on the bed, I do believe."
Ellen hurried up-stairs with the card. It seemed to Malling that she was away for a long time. At last she returned.
"If you please, sir, Mr. Chichester wants to know if it's anything important. He's feeling very bad, poor gentleman. But of course if it's anything important, he wouldn't for all the world say no."
"It is important."
"Then I was to ask you to walk in, sir, please."
Chichester's sitting-room was empty when Malling came into it, and the folding-doors between it and the bedroom were shut. Ellen went away, and Malling heard a faint murmur of voices, and then Ellen's footstep retreating down the stairs. Silence followed. He waited, at first standing. Then he sat down near the piano. Not a sound reached him from the bedroom. On the curate's table lay a book. Malling took it up. The title was "God's Will be Done." The author was a well-known high-church divine, Father Rowton. To him, then, Henry Chichester betook himself for comfort. The piano stood open. On it was music. Malling looked and saw, "Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove!" by Mendelssohn. The little room seemed full of pious orthodoxy. Surely its atmosphere was utterly changed since Malling last was in it. The melody of "Oh, for the wings!" went through his brain. That the Henry Chichester he had recently known, that cruel searcher after and expounder of truth, that he should be helped by those words, by that melody, in an hour of sorrow!
There was a movement in the bedroom. The folding-doors opened inward, and the curate appeared. He was very pale, and looked really ill. His face had fallen in. His fair hair was slightly disordered, and his blue eyes were surrounded by red rims. His expression suggested that he had recently undergone an extremely violent shock, which had shaken badly both body and mind. He looked dazed. Coming forward feebly, he held out his hand.
"I believe it is something important," he said in a gentle, rather wavering voice; "otherwise—I am hardly fit, I fear, to be with my kind. I"—He sat down—"I have had a terrible shock, Mr. Malling. You have heard?"
"You mean Mr. Harding's death?"
"Yes."
"I have just heard of it."
"It occurred at half-past three o'clock last night, or, rather, this morning. He had been declining for a long while. At the last he just faded out, as it were. The strange thing is that I knew the exact moment when he entered into rest."
"You weren't with him?"
"Oh, no. I was here, asleep. But at three o'clock I awoke. I felt violently agitated. I can scarcely describe the sensation. It was as if I was torn, as if mind and body, or spirit and body, were torn, lacerated. I suffered the greatest conceivable agony. I tried to cry out, but I could not. Nor could I move. Then everything suddenly seemed to fail, all in a moment, and I was at peace. But it was like the peace of death, I think. And I was aware—I don't know how—that Mr. Harding was dead. I moved. I looked at my watch. It was a minute after half-past three. I noted down the time. And this morning—I heard."
"And then?"
"Only then I understood my loss—the loss to us all. Ah, Mr. Mailing, you knew him, but not as I did! Few or none knew him as I did. He was the greatest and best of men, full of power, but full of kindness and goodness, too. He guided me in everything. I can never tell you how I looked up to him, how I trusted him. His judgment was extraordinary, his reading of character was unerring. I do believe he knew me better than I knew myself. What shall I do without him?"
The curate's grief was almost as genuine and unself-conscious as a child's, and Malling felt as if at that moment, like a child, he felt himself adrift in a difficult world. His gentle, kindly, but not strong face was distorted, but not hardened, by his distress, which seemed begging for sympathy. And Malling remembered the Henry Chichester he had known some years ago, before the days of St. Joseph's, the saintly but rather weak man, beloved by every one, but ruling no one. That man was surely before him, and that man knew not how to play a hypocrite's part. Yet Malling felt he must test him.
"His death is very sad," he replied; "but surely his powers had been on the decline for a long while."
"His powers, but not his capacity for goodness. His patience was angelic. Even when the cruelest blow of all fell upon him, even when his wife—whom, God forgive me! I don't think some of us can ever forgive—even when she deserted him in his hour of need, he never complained. He knew it was God's hand upon him, and he submitted. He has taught me what true patience is. What I owe to him! What I owe to him!"
As if distressed beyond measure, the curate got up, almost wringing his thin hands.
"It was he who sacrificed his time for me!" he continued, moving restlessly about the room. "But I seem to remember I told you. Didn't I tell you—or was it some one else?—how he gave up the hours which should have been hours of repose in order that my will might be strengthened, that I might be developed into a man more worthy to be his coadjutor? When I think, when I remember—"
His light, tenor voice failed. Tears stood in his gentle, blue eyes.
"If I am worth anything at all," he suddenly cried out, "if I have gained any force of character, any power for good at all, I owe it all to my rector's self-sacrificing endeavors on my behalf—of course, through God's blessing."
"Then," said Malling, "you think that Mr. Harding changed you by his influence?"
"He helped me to develop, he brought me on. Jealousy was unknown to him.
I was a very poor preacher. He taught me how to hold people's attention.
When I knew he was near me I sometimes seemed almost inspired. I was
inspired by him. I preached almost as if out of his mouth. And now!"
He made a despairing gesture.
"Now it will all be different!" he exclaimed.
And almost involuntarily Malling found himself echoing:
"Yes, now it will all be different."
He had seen, he had heard, enough to make his report to the professor, and he resolved to go. He held out his hand.
"Oh, but," said Chichester, pressing one hand to his forehead, "I'm so selfish, so forgetful in my great grief! Surely you said you had come on some matter of importance."
"It will wait," said Malling. "Another day. Go and rest now. You need rest. Any one can see that."
"Thank you, thank you," said Chichester, with quivering lips. "You are very thoughtful, very good."
Malling took his hand in farewell. As he did so there was a sharp knock at the front door. Chichester started violently.
"Oh, I do hope it is no one for me!" he cried out. "I cannot—"
He opened the door of the sitting-room a little way and listened. Voices were audible below, Ellen's voice and another woman's.
"You, ma'am! Oh, of course he will see you!"
"Of course."
"I didn't know who it was, ma'am."
"Is it this way?"
"Yes, ma'am. I'll show you. We do feel it, ma'am. The poor gentleman used to come here so often of nights."
"Did he? I didn't know that."
Malling recognized the second voice as Lady Sophia's. A moment, and she was ushered into the room. She was dressed in black, but not in widow's weeds, and wore a veil which she pushed hastily up as she came in almost with a rush. When she saw Malling, for a moment she looked disconcerted.
"Oh, I thought—" she began. She stood still. Chichester said nothing, and did not move. Malling went toward her.
"I was very much grieved," he said, "at the news I heard to-day."
She gave him her hand. He knew his words were conventional. How could they be anything else? But Lady Sophia's manner in giving him her hand was not conventional. She stretched it out without even looking at him. She said nothing. Her eyes were fixed upon Chichester, who stood on the other side of the little room in a rigid attitude, with his eyes cast down, as if he could not bear to see the woman who had just entered.
"I offer you my sympathy," Malling added.
"Sympathy!" said Lady Sophia, with a sharp note in her voice suggestive of intense, almost febrile excitement. "Then didn't you know?"
She stared at him, turning her head swiftly.
"Know?"
"That I had left him? Yes, I left him, and now he is dead. Do you expect me to be sorry? Well, I am not sorry. Ah, I see you don't understand!"
She made a movement toward Chichester. It was obvious that she was so intensely excited that she had lost the power of self-control.
"Nobody understands me but you!" she cried out to Chichester. "You knew what he was, you knew what I endured, you know what I must feel now. Oh, it's no use pretending. I'm sick of pretence. You have taught me to care for absolute truth and only that. My relations, my friends—ah! to-day I have been almost suffocated with hypocrisy! And now, when I come here—" she flung out her hand toward Mailing—"to get away from it all—'grieved,' 'my sympathy!' I can't bear any more of that. Tell him! You tell him! You're so strong, so terribly sincere! One can rest upon your strength when all else fails one!"
She tottered. For an instant it seemed to Malling that she was going to fall against Chichester's shoulder; but she caught at a chair, and saved herself.
"Mr. Chichester!" she said, "tell him! Tell him for me!"
"I have nothing to tell him," said Chichester, with a sort of mild, almost weak coldness, and wearily.
"Nothing!" She went nearer to him. "But—you don't welcome me!"
Chichester looked up, but immediately cast down his eyes again.
"I cannot," he said. "At this moment I simply cannot."
An expression of terrified surprise transformed Lady Sophia's face. She went close up to Chichester, staring at him.
"Why not?" she asked.
"You must know that."
She stood still, always staring at him, as if searching for something which she did not find.
"Why not?" she repeated.
"You left—him when he needed you most. You left him to die alone."
Lady Sophia suddenly turned round to Malling and scrutinized his face, as if demanding from him sympathy in her horrified amazement. He regarded her calmly, and she turned again to the curate.
"What do you mean?" she said, and her voice had changed.
"That his friends can never be yours", said Chichester, as if making a great effort, driven to it by some intense feeling.
"You call yourself his friend!" said Lady Sophia. Her voice vibrated with scorn.
"At any rate, he was mine, my best friend. And now he has gone forever!"
Lady Sophia drew in her breath.
"You hypocrite!" she said. "You hypocrite!"
She spoke like one under the influence of an emotion so intense that it could not be gainsaid.
"To pretend you admired him, loved him—you!"
"I did admire and love him."
She seemed to be struck dumb by his quiet manner, by the conviction in his voice. In a moment she turned round again toward Malling. Her face had quite changed. It was working nervously. The mouth quivered. She stood for a moment, then suddenly she made for the door. As she passed Malling, she whispered: "The strength—where is it? Oh, I'm afraid of him! I'm afraid of him!"
She disappeared. Almost immediately Mailing heard the street door shut.
"I—I cannot pretend to her," Chichester said, "even in my own house."
He seemed greatly moved, almost on the verge of tears.
"I'll leave you alone," said Mailing. "You need to be alone."
"Thank you! Thank you!" said Chichester.
And without another word he went into the bedroom, shutting the folding-doors behind him.
At half-past seven that same evening Malling was with Professor Stepton, and made what the professor called his "report."
"Ah!" said the professor when he had finished.
"Did you expect Chichester to behave like that, to be like that?" asked
Mailing.
"I hoped he would."
"Hoped! Why?"
"Because it enables me to accept as facts certain things about which I must otherwise have remained in doubt. Of course I must see Chichester for myself. But he'll be just the same, just the same."
The professor's eyes shone, and he poked his chin forward.
"The reverend gentlemen of St. Joseph's have provided me with a basis," he exclaimed emphatically.
"A basis! For what?" asked Mailing.
"For future experiments and investigations of a highly interesting nature. Ruskin was very often wrong, but he was right when he said, in a lucid moment, that every creature is precious. Well, good-night, Malling. I must get to work. I'll explain everything to you later."
Almost joyously he shut the door on his friend. Almost joyously he sat down once more before his writing-table and seized his pen and his note-book.
But he did not begin to write. His face suddenly changed. He put his pen down, pushed his note-book away, sat back in his chair, and let his pointed chin drop toward his breast. And presently he began to mutter to himself.
"A little science!" he muttered. "A little science sends man far away from God. A great deal of science brings man back to God. Which is it now—you professor, you? Which is it now?"