II

It was the habit of Jones, since he was compelled to work among

conditions that were utterly distasteful, to withdraw his mind wholly

from business once the day was over. During office hours he kept the

strictest possible watch upon himself, and turned the key on all inner

dreams, lest any sudden uprush from the deeps should interfere with his

duty. But, once the working day was over, the gates flew open, and he

began to enjoy himself.

He read no modern books on the subjects that interested him, and, as

already said, he followed no course of training, nor belonged to any

society that dabbled with half-told mysteries; but, once released from

the office desk in the Manager's room, he simply and naturally entered

the other region, because he was an old inhabitant, a rightful denizen,

and because he belonged there. It was, in fact, really a case of

dual personality; and a carefully drawn agreement existed between

Jones-of-the-fire-insurance-office and Jones-of-the-mysteries, by the

terms of which, under heavy penalties, neither region claimed him out of

hours.

For the moment he reached his rooms under the roof in Bloomsbury, and

had changed his city coat to another, the iron doors of the office

clanged far behind him, and in front, before his very eyes, rolled up

the beautiful gates of ivory, and he entered into the places of flowers

and singing and wonderful veiled forms. Sometimes he quite lost touch

with the outer world, forgetting to eat his dinner or go to bed, and lay

in a state of trance, his consciousness working far out of the body. And

on other occasions he walked the streets on air, half-way between the

two regions, unable to distinguish between incarnate and discarnate

forms, and not very far, probably, beyond the strata where poets,

saints, and the greatest artists have moved and thought and found their

inspiration. But this was only when some insistent bodily claim

prevented his full release, and more often than not he was entirely

independent of his physical portion and free of the real region, without

let or hindrance.

One evening he reached home utterly exhausted after the burden of the

day's work. The Manager had been more than usually brutal, unjust,

ill-tempered, and Jones had been almost persuaded out of his settled

policy of contempt into answering back. Everything seemed to have gone

amiss, and the man's coarse, underbred nature had been in the ascendant

all day long: he had thumped the desk with his great fists, abused,

found fault unreasonably, uttered outrageous things, and behaved

generally as he actually was--beneath the thin veneer of acquired

business varnish. He had done and said everything to wound all that was

woundable in an ordinary secretary, and though Jones fortunately dwelt

in a region from which he looked down upon such a man as he might look

down on the blundering of a savage animal, the strain had nevertheless

told severely upon him, and he reached home wondering for the first time

in his life whether there was perhaps a point beyond which he would be

unable to restrain himself any longer.

For something out of the usual had happened. At the close of a passage

of great stress between the two, every nerve in the secretary's body

tingling from undeserved abuse, the Manager had suddenly turned full

upon him, in the corner of the private room where the safes stood, in

such a way that the glare of his red eyes, magnified by the glasses,

looked straight into his own. And at this very second that other

personality in Jones--the one that was ever _watching_--rose up swiftly

from the deeps within and held a mirror to his face.

A moment of flame and vision rushed over him, and for one single

second--one merciless second of clear sight--he saw the Manager as the

tall dark man of his evil dreams, and the knowledge that he had suffered

at his hands some awful injury in the past crashed through his mind like

the report of a cannon.

It all flashed upon him and was gone, changing him from fire to ice,

and then back again to fire; and he left the office with the certain

conviction in his heart that the time for his final settlement with the

man, the time for the inevitable retribution, was at last drawing very

near.

According to his invariable custom, however, he succeeded in putting

the memory of all this unpleasantness out of his mind with the changing

of his office coat, and after dozing a little in his leather chair

before the fire, he started out as usual for dinner in the Soho French

restaurant, and began to dream himself away into the region of flowers

and singing, and to commune with the Invisibles that were the very

sources of his real life and being.

For it was in this way that his mind worked, and the habits of years had

crystallised into rigid lines along which it was now necessary and

inevitable for him to act.

At the door of the little restaurant he stopped short, a half-remembered

appointment in his mind. He had made an engagement with some one, but

where, or with whom, had entirely slipped his memory. He thought it was

for dinner, or else to meet just after dinner, and for a second it came

back to him that it had something to do with the office, but, whatever

it was, he was quite unable to recall it, and a reference to his pocket

engagement book showed only a blank page. Evidently he had even omitted

to enter it; and after standing a moment vainly trying to recall either

the time, place, or person, he went in and sat down.

But though the details had escaped him, his subconscious memory seemed

to know all about it, for he experienced a sudden sinking of the heart,

accompanied by a sense of foreboding anticipation, and felt that

beneath his exhaustion there lay a centre of tremendous excitement. The

emotion caused by the engagement was at work, and would presently cause

the actual details of the appointment to reappear.

Inside the restaurant the feeling increased, instead of passing: some

one was waiting for him somewhere--some one whom he had definitely

arranged to meet. He was expected by a person that very night and just

about that very time. But by whom? Where? A curious inner trembling came

over him, and he made a strong effort to hold himself in hand and to be

ready for anything that might come.

And then suddenly came the knowledge that the place of appointment was

this very restaurant, and, further, that the person he had promised to

meet was already here, waiting somewhere quite close beside him.

He looked up nervously and began to examine the faces round him. The

majority of the diners were Frenchmen, chattering loudly with much

gesticulation and laughter; and there was a fair sprinkling of clerks

like himself who came because the prices were low and the food good, but

there was no single face that he recognised until his glance fell upon

the occupant of the corner seat opposite, generally filled by himself.

"There's the man who's waiting for me!" thought Jones instantly.

He knew it at once. The man, he saw, was sitting well back into the

corner, with a thick overcoat buttoned tightly up to the chin. His skin

was very white, and a heavy black beard grew far up over his cheeks. At

first the secretary took him for a stranger, but when he looked up and

their eyes met, a sense of familiarity flashed across him, and for a

second or two Jones imagined he was staring at a man he had known years

before. For, barring the beard, it was the face of an elderly clerk who

had occupied the next desk to his own when he first entered the service

of the insurance company, and had shown him the most painstaking

kindness and sympathy in the early difficulties of his work. But a

moment later the illusion passed, for he remembered that Thorpe had been

dead at least five years. The similarity of the eyes was obviously a

mere suggestive trick of memory.

The two men stared at one another for several seconds, and then Jones

began to act _instinctively_, and because he had to. He crossed over and

took the vacant seat at the other's table, facing him; for he felt it

was somehow imperative to explain why he was late, and how it was he had

almost forgotten the engagement altogether.

No honest excuse, however, came to his assistance, though his mind had

begun to work furiously.

"Yes, you _are_ late," said the man quietly, before he could find a

single word to utter. "But it doesn't matter. Also, you had forgotten

the appointment, but that makes no difference either."

"I knew--that there was an engagement," Jones stammered, passing his

hand over his forehead; "but somehow--"

"You will recall it presently," continued the other in a gentle voice,

and smiling a little. "It was in deep sleep last night we arranged this,

and the unpleasant occurrences of to-day have for the moment obliterated

it."

A faint memory stirred within him as the man spoke, and a grove of trees

with moving forms hovered before his eyes and then vanished again, while

for an instant the stranger seemed to be capable of self-distortion and

to have assumed vast proportions, with wonderful flaming eyes.

"Oh!" he gasped. "It was there--in the other region?"

"Of course," said the other, with a smile that illumined his whole face.

"You will remember presently, all in good time, and meanwhile you have

no cause to feel afraid."

There was a wonderful soothing quality in the man's voice, like the

whispering of a great wind, and the clerk felt calmer at once. They sat

a little while longer, but he could not remember that they talked much

or ate anything. He only recalled afterwards that the head waiter came

up and whispered something in his ear, and that he glanced round and saw

the other people were looking at him curiously, some of them laughing,

and that his companion then got up and led the way out of the

restaurant.

They walked hurriedly through the streets, neither of them speaking; and

Jones was so intent upon getting back the whole history of the affair

from the region of deep sleep, that he barely noticed the way they took.

Yet it was clear he knew where they were bound for just as well as his

companion, for he crossed the streets often ahead of him, diving down

alleys without hesitation, and the other followed always without

correction.

The pavements were very full, and the usual night crowds of London were

surging to and fro in the glare of the shop lights, but somehow no one

impeded their rapid movements, and they seemed to pass through the

people as if they were smoke. And, as they went, the pedestrians and

traffic grew less and less, and they soon passed the Mansion House and

the deserted space in front of the Royal Exchange, and so on down

Fenchurch Street and within sight of the Tower of London, rising dim and

shadowy in the smoky air.

Jones remembered all this perfectly well, and thought it was his intense

preoccupation that made the distance seem so short. But it was when the

Tower was left behind and they turned northwards that he began to notice

how altered everything was, and saw that they were in a neighbourhood

where houses were suddenly scarce, and lanes and fields beginning,

and that their only light was the stars overhead. And, as the deeper

consciousness more and more asserted itself to the exclusion of the

surface happenings of his mere body during the day, the sense of

exhaustion vanished, and he realised that he was moving somewhere in the

region of causes behind the veil, beyond the gross deceptions of the

senses, and released from the clumsy spell of space and time.

Without great surprise, therefore, he turned and saw that his companion

had altered, had shed his overcoat and black hat, and was moving beside

him absolutely _without sound_. For a brief second he saw him, tall as a

tree, extending through space like a great shadow, misty and wavering of

outline, followed by a sound like wings in the darkness; but, when he

stopped, fear clutching at his heart, the other resumed his former

proportions, and Jones could plainly see his normal outline against the

green field behind.

Then the secretary saw him fumbling at his neck, and at the same moment

the black beard came away from the face in his hand.

"Then you _are_ Thorpe!" he gasped, yet somehow without overwhelming

surprise.

They stood facing one another in the lonely lane, trees meeting overhead

and hiding the stars, and a sound of mournful sighing among the

branches.

"I am Thorpe," was the answer in a voice that almost seemed part of the

wind. "And I have come out of our far past to help you, for my debt to

you is large, and in this life I had but small opportunity to repay."

Jones thought quickly of the man's kindness to him in the office, and a

great wave of feeling surged through him as he began to remember dimly

the friend by whose side he had already climbed, perhaps through vast

ages of his soul's evolution.

"To help me _now_?" he whispered.

"You will understand me when you enter into your real memory and recall

how great a debt I have to pay for old faithful kindnesses of long ago,"

sighed the other in a voice like falling wind.

"Between us, though, there can be no question of _debt_," Jones heard

himself saying, and remembered the reply that floated to him on the air

and the smile that lightened for a moment the stern eyes facing him.

"Not of debt, indeed, but of privilege."

Jones felt his heart leap out towards this man, this old friend, tried

by centuries and still faithful. He made a movement to seize his hand.

But the other shifted like a thing of mist, and for a moment the clerk's

head swam and his eyes seemed to fail.

"Then you are _dead_?" he said under his breath with a slight shiver.

"Five years ago I left the body you knew," replied Thorpe. "I tried to

help you then instinctively, not fully recognising you. But now I can

accomplish far more."

With an awful sense of foreboding and dread in his heart, the secretary

was beginning to understand.

"It has to do with--with--?"

"Your past dealings with the Manager," came the answer, as the wind rose

louder among the branches overhead and carried off the remainder of the

sentence into the air.

Jones's memory, which was just beginning to stir among the deepest

layers of all, shut down suddenly with a snap, and he followed his

companion over fields and down sweet-smelling lanes where the air was

fragrant and cool, till they came to a large house, standing gaunt and

lonely in the shadows at the edge of a wood. It was wrapped in utter

stillness, with windows heavily draped in black, and the clerk, as he

looked, felt such an overpowering wave of sadness invade him that his

eyes began to burn and smart, and he was conscious of a desire to shed

tears.

The key made a harsh noise as it turned in the lock, and when the door

swung open into a lofty hall they heard a confused sound of rustling and

whispering, as of a great throng of people pressing forward to meet

them. The air seemed full of swaying movement, and Jones was certain he

saw hands held aloft and dim faces claiming recognition, while in his

heart, already oppressed by the approaching burden of vast accumulated

memories, he was aware of the _uncoiling of something_ that had been

asleep for ages.

As they advanced he heard the doors close with a muffled thunder behind

them, and saw that the shadows seemed to retreat and shrink away towards

the interior of the house, carrying the hands and faces with them. He

heard the wind singing round the walls and over the roof, and its

wailing voice mingled with the sound of deep, collective breathing that

filled the house like the murmur of a sea; and as they walked up the

broad staircase and through the vaulted rooms, where pillars rose like

the stems of trees, he knew that the building was crowded, row upon row,

with the thronging memories of his own long past.

"This is the _House of the Past_," whispered Thorpe beside him, as they

moved silently from room to room; "the house of _your_ past. It is full

from cellar to roof with the memories of what you have done, thought,

and felt from the earliest stages of your evolution until now.

"The house climbs up almost to the clouds, and stretches back into the

heart of the wood you saw outside, but the remoter halls are filled with

the ghosts of ages ago too many to count, and even if we were able to

waken them you could not remember them now. Some day, though, they will

come and claim you, and you must know them, and answer their questions,

for they can never rest till they have exhausted themselves again

through you, and justice has been perfectly worked out.

"But now follow me closely, and you shall see the particular memory

for which I am permitted to be your guide, so that you may know and

understand a great force in your present life, and may use the sword of

justice, or rise to the level of a great forgiveness, according to your

degree of power."

Icy thrills ran through the trembling clerk, and as he walked slowly

beside his companion he heard from the vaults below, as well as from

more distant regions of the vast building, the stirring and sighing of

the serried ranks of sleepers, sounding in the still air like a chord

swept from unseen strings stretched somewhere among the very foundations

of the house.

Stealthily, picking their way among the great pillars, they moved up the

sweeping staircase and through several dark corridors and halls, and

presently stopped outside a small door in an archway where the shadows

were very deep.

"Remain close by my side, and remember to utter no cry," whispered the

voice of his guide, and as the clerk turned to reply he saw his face was

stern to whiteness and even shone a little in the darkness.

The room they entered seemed at first to be pitchy black, but gradually

the secretary perceived a faint reddish glow against the farther end,

and thought he saw figures moving silently to and fro.

"Now watch!" whispered Thorpe, as they pressed close to the wall near

the door and waited. "But remember to keep absolute silence. It is a

torture scene."

Jones felt utterly afraid, and would have turned to fly if he dared, for

an indescribable terror seized him and his knees shook; but some power

that made escape impossible held him remorselessly there, and with eyes

glued on the spots of light he crouched against the wall and waited.

The figures began to move more swiftly, each in its own dim light that

shed no radiance beyond itself, and he heard a soft clanking of chains

and the voice of a man groaning in pain. Then came the sound of a door

closing, and thereafter Jones saw but one figure, the figure of an old

man, naked entirely, and fastened with chains to an iron framework on

the floor. His memory gave a sudden leap of fear as he looked, for the

features and white beard were familiar, and he recalled them as though

of yesterday.

The other figures had disappeared, and the old man became the centre of

the terrible picture. Slowly, with ghastly groans; as the heat below him

increased into a steady glow, the aged body rose in a curve of agony,

resting on the iron frame only where the chains held wrists and ankles

fast. Cries and gasps filled the air, and Jones felt exactly as though

they came from his own throat, and as if the chains were burning into

his own wrists and ankles, and the heat scorching the skin and flesh

upon his own back. He began to writhe and twist himself.

"Spain!" whispered the voice at his side, "and four hundred years ago."

"And the purpose?" gasped the perspiring clerk, though he knew quite

well what the answer must be.

"To extort the name of a friend, to his death and betrayal," came the

reply through the darkness.

A sliding panel opened with a little rattle in the wall immediately

above the rack, and a face, framed in the same red glow, appeared and

looked down upon the dying victim. Jones was only just able to choke

a scream, for he recognised the tall dark man of his dreams. With

horrible, gloating eyes he gazed down upon the writhing form of the old

man, and his lips moved as in speaking, though no words were actually

audible.

"He asks again for the name," explained the other, as the clerk

struggled with the intense hatred and loathing that threatened every

moment to result in screams and action. His ankles and wrists pained him

so that he could scarcely keep still, but a merciless power held him to

the scene.

He saw the old man, with a fierce cry, raise his tortured head and spit

up into the face at the panel, and then the shutter slid back again, and

a moment later the increased glow beneath the body, accompanied by awful

writhing, told of the application of further heat. There came the odour

of burning flesh; the white beard curled and burned to a crisp; the body

fell back limp upon the red-hot iron, and then shot up again in fresh

agony; cry after cry, the most awful in the world, rang out with

deadened sound between the four walls; and again the panel slid back

creaking, and revealed the dreadful face of the torturer.

Again the name was asked for, and again it was refused; and this time,

after the closing of the panel, a door opened, and the tall thin man

with the evil face came slowly into the chamber. His features were

savage with rage and disappointment, and in the dull red glow that fell

upon them he looked like a very prince of devils. In his hand he held a

pointed iron at white heat.

"Now the murder!" came from Thorpe in a whisper that sounded as if it

was outside the building and far away.

Jones knew quite well what was coming, but was unable even to close his

eyes. He felt all the fearful pains himself just as though he were

actually the sufferer; but now, as he stared, he felt something more

besides; and when the tall man deliberately approached the rack and

plunged the heated iron first into one eye and then into the other, he

heard the faint fizzing of it, and felt his own eyes burst in frightful

pain from his head. At the same moment, unable longer to control

himself, he uttered a wild shriek and dashed forward to seize the

torturer and tear him to a thousand pieces. Instantly, in a flash, the

entire scene vanished; darkness rushed in to fill the room, and he felt

himself lifted off his feet by some force like a great wind and borne

swiftly away into space.

When he recovered his senses he was standing just outside the house and

the figure of Thorpe was beside him in the gloom. The great doors were

in the act of closing behind him, but before they shut he fancied he

caught a glimpse of an immense veiled figure standing upon the

threshold, with flaming eyes, and in his hand a bright weapon like a

shining sword of fire.

"Come quickly now--all is over!" Thorpe whispered.

"And the dark man--?" gasped the clerk, as he moved swiftly by the

other's side.

"In this present life is the Manager of the company."

"And the victim?"

"Was yourself!"

"And the friend he--_I_ refused to betray?"

"I was that friend," answered Thorpe, his voice with every moment

sounding more and more like the cry of the wind. "You gave your life in

agony to save mine."

"And again, in this life, we have all three been together?"

"Yes. Such forces are not soon or easily exhausted, and justice is not

satisfied till all have reaped what they sowed."

Jones had an odd feeling that he was slipping away into some other state

of consciousness. Thorpe began to seem unreal. Presently he would be

unable to ask more questions. He felt utterly sick and faint with it

all, and his strength was ebbing.

"Oh, quick!" he cried, "now tell me more. Why did I see this? What must

I do?"

The wind swept across the field on their right and entered the wood

beyond with a great roar, and the air round him seemed filled with

voices and the rushing of hurried movement.

"To the ends of justice," answered the other, as though speaking out

of the centre of the wind and from a distance, "which sometimes is

entrusted to the hands of those who suffered and were strong. One wrong

cannot be put right by another wrong, but your life has been so worthy

that the opportunity is given to--"

The voice grew fainter and fainter, already it was far overhead with the

rushing wind.

"You may punish or--" Here Jones lost sight of Thorpe's figure

altogether, for he seemed to have vanished and melted away into the

wood behind him. His voice sounded far across the trees, very weak, and

ever rising.

"Or if you can rise to the level of a great forgiveness--"

The voice became inaudible.... The wind came crying out of the wood

again.

* * * * *

Jones shivered and stared about him. He shook himself violently and

rubbed his eyes. The room was dark, the fire was out; he felt cold and

stiff. He got up out of his armchair, still trembling, and lit the gas.

Outside the wind was howling, and when he looked at his watch he saw

that it was very late and he must go to bed.

He had not even changed his office coat; he must have fallen asleep in

the chair as soon as he came in, and he had slept for several hours.

Certainly he had eaten no dinner, for he felt ravenous.