II

The cat of the next house decided to go a-walking after an excellent

supper of herring-heads. He had an appointment with a friend. So he

cleaned himself carefully on the landing outside the pantry, evaded a

couple of caresses from the young footman lately come from the

country, and finally leapt on the window-sill, and sat there regarding

the back garden, the smoky wall beyond seen in the light of the pantry

window, and the chimney-pots high and forbidding against the luminous

night sky. His tail moved with a soft ominous sinuousness as he

looked.

Presently he climbed cautiously out beneath the sash, gathered himself

for a spring, and the next instant was seated on the boundary wall

between his own house and that of Lady Laura's.

Here again he paused. That which served him for a mind, that

mysterious bundle of intuitions and instincts by which he reckoned

time, exchanged confidences, and arranged experiences, informed him

that the night was yet young, and that his friend would not yet be

arrived. He sat there so still and so long, that if it had not been

for his resolute head and the blunt spires of his ears, he would have

appeared to an onlooker below as no more than a humpy finial on an

otherwise regularly built wall. Now and again the last inch of his

tail twitched slightly, like an independent member, as he contemplated

his thoughts.

Overhead the last glimmer of day was utterly gone, and in the place of

it the mysterious glow of night over a city hung high and luminous.

He, a town-bred cat, descended from generations of town-bred cats,

listened passively to the gentle roar of traffic that stood, to him,

for the running of brooks and the sighing of forest trees. It was to

him the auditory background of adventure, romance, and bitter war.

The energy of life ran strong in his veins and sinews. Once and again

as that, which was for him imaginative vision and anticipation,

asserted itself, he crisped his strong claws into the crumbling

mortar, shooting them, by an unconscious muscular action, from the

padded sheaths in which they lay. Once a furious yapping sounded from

a lighted window far beneath; but he scorned to do more than turn a

slow head in the direction of it: then once more he resumed his watch.

The time came at last, conveyed to him as surely as by a punctual

clock, and he rose noiselessly to his feet. Then again he paused, and

stretched first one strong foreleg and then the other to its furthest

reach, shooting again his claws, conscious with a faint sense of

well-being of those tightly-strung muscles rippling beneath his loose

striped skin. They would be in action presently. And, as he did so,

there looked over the parapet six feet above him, at the top of the

trellis up which presently he would ascend, another resolute little

head and blunt-spired cars, and a soft indescribable voice spoke a

gentle insult. It was his friend ... and, he knew well enough, on some

high ridge in the background squatted a young female beauty, with

flattened ears and waving tail, awaiting the caresses of the victor.

As he saw the head above him, to human eyes a shapeless silhouette, to

his eyes a grey-penciled picture perfect in all its details, he paused

in his stretching. Then he sat back, arranged his tail, and lifted his

head to answer. The cry that came from him, not yet _fortissimo_,

sounded in human ears beneath no more than a soft broken-hearted wail,

but to him who sat above it surpassed in insolence even his own

carefully modulated offensiveness.

Again the other answered, this time lifting himself to his full

height, sending a message along the nerves of his back that prickled

his own skin and passed out along the tail with an exquisite ripple of

movement. And once more came the answer from below.

So the preliminary challenge went on. Already in the voice of each

there had begun to show itself that faint note of hysteria that

culminates presently in a scream of anger and a torrent of spits,

leading again in their turn to an ominous silence and the first fierce

clawing blows at eyes and ears. In another instant the watcher above

would recoil for a moment as the swift rush was made up the trellis,

and then the battle would be joined: but that instant never came.

There fell a sudden silence; and he, peering down into the grey gloom,

chin on paws, and tail twitching eighteen inches behind, saw an

astonishing sight. His adversary had broken off in the midst of a long

crescendo cry, and was himself crouched flat upon the narrow wall

staring now not upwards, but downwards, diagonally, at a certain

curtained window eight feet below.

This was all very unusual and contrary to precedent. A dog, a human

hand armed with a missile, a furious minatory face--these things were

not present to account for the breach of etiquette. Vaguely he

perceived this, conscious only of inexplicability; but he himself also

ceased, and watched for developments.

Very slowly they came at first. That crouching body beneath was

motionless now; even the tail had ceased to twitch and hung limply

behind, dripping over the edge of the narrow wall into the

unfathomable pit of the garden; and as the watcher stared, he felt

himself some communication of the horror so apparent in the other's

attitude. Along his own spine, from neck to flank, ran the paralyzing

nervous movement; his own tail ceased to move; his own ears drew back

instinctively, flattening themselves at the sides of the square strong

head. There was a movement near by, and he turned quick eyes to see

the lithe young love of his heart stepping softly into her place

beside him. When he turned again his adversary had vanished.

* * * * *

Yet he still watched. Still there was no sound from the window at

which the other had stared just now: no oblong of light shone out into

the darkness to explain that sudden withdrawal from the fray.

All was as silent as it had been just now; on all sides windows were

closed; now and then came a human voice, just a word or two, spoken

and answered from one of those pits beneath, and the steady rumble of

traffic went on far away across the roofs; but here, in the immediate

neighborhood, all was at peace. He knew well enough the window in

question; he had leapt himself upon the sill once and again and seen

the foodless waste of floor and carpet and furniture within.

Yet as he watched and waited his own horror grew. That for which in

men we have as yet no term was strong within him, as in every beast

that lives by perception rather than reason; and he too by this

strange faculty knew well enough that something was abroad, raying out

from that silent curtained unseen window--something of an utterly

different order from that of dog or flung shoe and furious

vituperation--something that affected certain nerves within his body

in a new and awful manner. Once or twice in his life he had been

conscious of it before, once in an empty room, once in a room tenanted

by a mere outline beneath a sheet and closed by a locked door.

His heart too seemed melted within him; his tail too hung limply

behind the stucco parapet, and he made no answering movement to the

tiny crooning note that sounded once in his ears.

And still the horror grew....

Presently he withdrew one claw from the crumbling edge, raising his

head delicately; and then the other. For an instant longer he waited,

feeling his back heave uncontrollably. Then, dropping noiselessly on

to the lead, he fled beneath the sheltering parapet, a noiseless

shadow in the gloom; and his mate fled with him.

_Chapter IX_

I

Laurie turned slowly over in bed, drew a long breath, expelled it,

and, releasing his arms from the bed-clothes, sat up. He switched on

the light by his bed, glanced at his watch, switched off the light,

and sank down again into the sheets. He need not get up just yet.

Then he remembered.

When an event of an entirely new order comes into experience, it takes

a little time to be assimilated. It is as when a large piece of

furniture is brought into a room; all the rest of the furniture takes

upon itself a different value. A picture that did very well up to then

over the fire-place must perhaps be moved. Values, relations, and

balance all require readjustment.

Now up to last night Laurie had indeed been convinced, in one sense,

of spiritualistic phenomena; but they had not yet for him reached the

point of significance when they affected everything else. The new

sideboard, so to speak, had been brought into the room, but it had

been put temporarily against the wall in a vacant space to be looked

at; the owner of the room had not yet realized the necessity of

rearranging the whole. But last night something had happened that

changed all this. He was now beginning to perceive the need of a

complete review of everything.

As he lay there, quiet indeed, but startlingly alert, he first

reviewed the single fact.

* * * * *

About an hour or so had passed away before anything particular

happened. They had sat there, those four, in complete silence, their

hands upon the table, occasionally shifting a little, hearing the

sound of one another's breathing or the faint rustle of one of the

ladies' dresses, in sufficient light from the screened fire and the

single heavily shaded electric burner to recognize faces, and even,

after the first few minutes, to distinguish small objects, or to read

large print.

For the most part Laurie had kept his eyes upon the medium in the

cabinet. There the man had leaned back, plainly visible for the most

part, with even the paleness of his face and the dark blot of his

beard clearly discernible in the twilight. Now and then the boy's eyes

had wandered to the other faces, to the young clergyman's opposite

downcast and motionless, with a sort of apprehensive look and a

determination not to give way--to the three-quarter profiles of the

two women, and the gleam of the pince-nez below Lady Laura's frizzed

hair.

So he had sat, the thoughts at first racing through his brain, then,

as time went on, moving more and more slowly, with his own brain

becoming ever more passive, until at last he had been compelled to

make a little effort against the drowsiness that had begun to envelop

him. He had had to do this altogether three or four times, and had

even begun to wonder whether he should be able to resist much longer,

when a sudden trembling of the table had awakened him, alert and

conscious in a moment, and he had sat with every faculty violently

attentive to what should follow.

That trembling was a curious sensation beneath his hands. At first it

was no more than might be caused by the passing of a heavy van in the

street; only there was no van. But it had increased, with spasms and

recoils, till it resembled a continuous shudder as of a living rigid

body. It began also to tilt slightly this way and that.

Now all this, Laurie knew well, meant nothing at all--or rather, it

need not. And when the movement passed again through all the reverse

motions, sinking at last into complete stillness, he was conscious of

disappointment. A moment later, however, as he glanced up again at the

medium in the cabinet, he drew his breath sharply, and Mr. Jamieson,

at the sound, wheeled his head swiftly to look.

There, in the cabinet, somewhere overhead behind the curtain, a faint

but perfectly distinct radiance was visible. It was no more than a

diffused glimmer, but it was unmistakable, and it shone out faintly

and clearly upon the medium's face. By its light Laurie could make out

every line and every feature, the drooping clipped moustache, the

strong jutting nose, the lines from nostril to mouth, and the closed

eyes. As he watched the light deepened in intensity, seeming to

concentrate itself in the hidden corner at the top. Then, with a

smooth, steady motion it emerged into full sight, in appearance like a

softly luminous globe of a pale bluish color, undefined at the edges,

floating steadily forward with a motion like that of an air balloon,

out into the room. Once outside the cabinet it seemed to hesitate,

hanging at about the height of a man's head--then, after an instant,

it retired once more, re-entered the cabinet, disappeared in the

direction from which it had come, and once more died out.

Well, there it had been; there was no doubt about it.... And Laurie

was unacquainted with any mechanism that could produce it.

The clergyman too had seemed affected. He had watched, with

turned-back head, the phenomenon from beginning to end, and at the

close, with a long indrawing of breath, had looked once at Laurie,

licked his dry lips with a motion that was audible in that profound

silence, and once more dropped his eyes. The ladies had been silent,

and all but motionless throughout.

Well, the rest had happened comparatively quickly.

Once more, after the lapse of a few minutes, the radiance had begun to

reform; but this time it had emerged almost immediately, diffused and

misty like a nebula; had hung again before the cabinet, and then, with

a strange, gently whirling motion, had seemed to arrange itself in

lines and curves.

Gradually, as he stared at it, it had begun to take the shape and

semblance of a head, swathed in drapery, with that same drapery,

hanging, as it appeared in folds, dripping downwards to the ground,

where it lost itself in vagueness. Then, as he still stared, conscious

of nothing but the amazing fact, features appeared to be

forming--first blots and lines as of shadow, finally eyes, nose,

mouth, and chin as of a young girl....

A moment later there was no longer a doubt. It was the face of Amy

Nugent that was looking at him, grave and steady--as when he had seen

it in the moonlight above the sluice--and behind, seen half through

the strange drapery, and half apart from it, a couple of feet behind,

the face of the sleeping medium.

At that sight he had not moved nor spoken, it was enough that the fact

was there. Every power he possessed was concentrated in the one effort

of observation....

He heard from somewhere a gasping sigh, and there rose up between him

and the face the figure of the clergyman, with his head turned back

staring at the apparition, and one hand only on the table, yet with

that hand so heavy upon it that the whole table shuddered with his

shudder.

There was a movement on the left, and he heard a fierce feminine

whisper--

"Sit down, sir; sit down this instant...."

When the clergyman had again sunk down into his seat with that same

strong shudder, the luminous face was already incoherent; the features

had relapsed again into blots and shadows, the drapery was absorbing

itself upwards into the center from which it came. Once more the

nebula trembled, moved backwards, and disappeared. The next instant

the radiance went out, as if turned off by a switch. The medium

groaned gently and awoke.

Well, that had ended it. Laurie scarcely remembered the talking that

followed, the explanations, the apologies, the hardly concealed terror

of the young clergyman. The medium had come out presently, dazed and

confused. They had talked ... and so forth. Then Laurie had come home,

still trying to assimilate the amazing fact, of which he said that it

could make no difference--that he had seen with his own eyes the face

of Amy Nugent four months after her death.

Now here he was in bed on the following morning, trying to assimilate

it once more.

* * * * *

It seemed to him as if sleep had done its work--that the subconscious

intelligence had been able to take the fact in--and that henceforth it

was an established thing in his experience. He was not excited now,

but he was intensely and overwhelmingly interested. There the thing

was. Now what difference did it make?

First, he understood that it made an enormous difference to the value

of the most ordinary things. It really was true--as true as tables and

chairs--that there was a life after this, and that personality

survived. Never again could he doubt that for one instant, even in the

gloomiest mood. So long as a man walks by faith, by the acceptance of

authority, human or Divine, there is always psychologically possible

the assertion of self, the instinct that what one has not personally

experienced may just conceivably be untrue. But when one has seen--so

long as memory does not disappear--this agnostic instinct is an

impossibility. Every single act therefore has a new significance.

There is no venture about it any more; there is, indeed, very little

opportunity for heroism. Once it is certain, by the evidence of the

senses, that death is just an interlude, this life becomes merely part

of a long process....

Now as to the conduct of that life--what of religion? And here, for a

moment or two, Laurie was genuinely dismayed. For, as he looked at the

Catholic religion, he perceived that the whole thing had changed. It

no longer seemed august and dominant. As he contemplated himself as he

had been at Mass on the previous morning, he seemed to have been

rather absurd. Why all this trouble, all this energy, all these

innumerable acts and efforts of faith? It was not that his religion

seemed necessarily untrue; it was certainly possible for a man to hold

simultaneously Catholic and spiritualistic beliefs; there had not been

a hint last night against Christianity, and yet, in the face of this

evidence of the senses, Catholicism seemed a very shadowy thing. It

might well be true, as any philosophy may be true, but--did it matter

very much? To be enthusiastic about it was the frenzy of an artist,

who loves the portrait more than the original--and possibly a very

misleading and inadequate portrait. Laurie had seen for himself the

original last night; he had seen a disembodied soul in a garb assumed

for the purpose of identification.... Did he need, then, a "religion?"

Was not his experience all-sufficing....?

Then suddenly all speculation fled away in the presence of the

personal element.

Three days ago he had contemplated the thought of Amy with comparative

indifference. She had been to him lately little more than a "test

case" of the spiritual world, clothed about with the memory of

sentiment. Now once more she sprang into vivid vital life as a person.

She was not lost; his relations with her were not just incidents of

the past; they were as much bound up with the present as courtship has

a continuity with married life. She existed--her very self--and

communication was possible between them....

Laurie rolled over on to his back. The thought was violently

overwhelming; there was a furious, absorbing fascination in it. The

gulf had been bridged; it could be bridged again. Even if tales were

true, it could be bridged far more securely yet. It was possible that

the phantom he had seen could be brought yet more forward into the

world of sense, that he could touch again with his very hand a

tabernacle enclosing her soul. So far spiritualism had not failed him;

why should he suspect it of failure in the future? It had been done

before; it could, and should, be done again. Besides, there was the

pencil incident....

He threw off the clothes and sprang out of bed. It was time to get up;

time to begin again this fascinating, absorbingly interesting earthly

life, which now had such enormous possibilities.