When relative order had been restored, Devonham realized, of course,
that his colleague had cleverly spirited away their "patient"; also
that the sculptor had carried off his daughter. Relieved to escape
from the atmosphere of what he considered collective hysteria, he
had borrowed mackintosh and umbrella, and declining several offers
of a lift, had walked the four miles to his house in the rain and
wind. The exercise helped to work off the emotion in him; his mind
cleared healthily; personal bias gave way to honest and unprejudiced
reflection; there was much that interested him deeply, at the same time
puzzled and bewildered him beyond anything he had yet experienced. He
reached the house with a mind steady if unsatisfied; but the emotions
caused by prejudice had gone. His main anxiety centred about his chief.
He was glad to notice a light in an upper window, for it meant, he
hoped, that LeVallon was now safely home. While his latchkey sought its
hole, however, this light was extinguished, and when the door opened,
it was Fillery himself who greeted him, a finger on his lips.
"Quietly!" he whispered. "I've just got him to bed and put his light
out. He's asleep already." Paul noticed his manner instantly--its
happiness. There was a glow of mysterious joy and wonder in his
atmosphere that made the other hostile at once.
They went together towards that inner room where so often together
they had already talked both moon and sun to bed. Cold food lay on the
table, and while they satisfied their hunger, the rain outside poured
down with a steady drenching sound. The wind had dropped. The suburb
lay silent and deserted. It was long past midnight. The house was
very still, only the occasional step of a night-nurse audible in the
passages and rooms upstairs. They would not be disturbed.
"You got him home all right, then?" Paul asked presently, keeping his
voice low.
He had been observing his friend closely; the evident pleasure and
satisfaction in the face annoyed him; the light in the eyes at the
same time profoundly troubled him. Not only did he love his chief for
himself, he set high value on his work as well. It would be deplorable,
a tragedy, if judgment were destroyed by personal bias and desire. He
felt uneasy and distressed.
Fillery nodded, then gave an account of what had happened, but
obviously an account of outward events merely; he did not wish,
evidently, to argue or explain. The strong, rugged face was lit up,
the eyes were shining; some inner enthusiasm pervaded his whole being.
Evidently he felt very sure of something--something that both pleased
and stimulated him.
His account of what had happened was brief enough, little more than a
statement of the facts.
Finding himself close to LeVallon when the darkness came, he had kept
hold of him and hurried him out of the house at once. The sudden
blackness, it seemed, had made LeVallon quiet again, though he kept
asking excitedly for the girl. When assured that he would soon see her,
he became obedient as a lamb. The absence of light apparently had a
calming influence. They found, of course, no taxis, but commandeered
the first available private car, Fillery using the authoritative
influence of his name. And it was Lady Gleeson's car, Lady Gleeson
herself inside it. She had thought things over, put two and two
together, and had come back. Her car might be of use. It was. For the
rain was falling in sheets and bucketfuls, the road had become a river
of water, and Fillery's automobile, ordered for an hour later, had not
put in an appearance. It was the rain that saved the situation....
An exasperated expression crossed Devonham's face as he heard this
detail emphasized. He had meant to listen without interruption. The
enigmatical reference to the rain proved too much for him.
"Why 'the rain'? What d'you mean exactly, Edward?"
"Water," was the reply, made in a significant tone that further annoyed
his listener's sense of judgment. "You remember the Channel, surely!
Water and fire mutually destroy each other. They are hostile elements."
There was a look almost of amusement on his face as he said it.
Devonham kept a tight hold upon his tongue. It was not impatience or
surprise he felt, though both were strong; it was perhaps sorrow.
"And so Lady Gleeson drove you home?"
He waited with devouring interest for further details. The throng of
questions, criticisms and emotions surging in him he repressed with
admirable restraint.
Lady Gleeson, yes, had driven the party home. Fillery made her sit on
the back seat alone, while he occupied the front one, LeVallon beside
him, but as far back among the deep cushions as possible. The doctor
held his hand. At any other time, Devonham could have laughed; but he
saw no comedy now. Lady Gleeson, it seemed, was awed by the seriousness
of the "Chief," whom, even at the best of times, she feared a little.
Her vanity, however, persuaded her evidently that she was somehow the
centre of interest.
Yet Devonham, as he listened, had difficulty in persuading himself that
he was in the twentieth century, and that the man who spoke was his
colleague and a man of the day as well.
"LeVallon talked little, and that little to himself or to me. He seemed
unaware that a third person was present at all. Though quiet enough,
there was suppressed vehemence still about him. He said various things:
that '_she_ belonged to us,' for instance; that he 'knew his own'; that
_she_ was 'filled with fire in exile'; and that he would 'take her
back.' Also that I, too, must go with them both. He often mentioned
the sun, saying more than once that the sun had 'sent its messengers.'
Obviously, it was not the ordinary sun he referred to, but some source
of central heat and fire he seems aware of----"
"You, I suppose, Edward," put in his listener quickly, "said nothing to
encourage all this? Nothing that could suggest or stimulate?"
Fillery ignored, even if he noticed, the tone of the question. "I kept
silence rather. I said very little. I let him talk. I had to keep an
eye on the woman, too."
"You certainly had your hands full--a dual personality and a
nymphomaniac."
"She helped me, without knowing it. All he said about the girl, she
evidently took to herself. When he begged me to keep the water out, she
drew the window up the last half-inch.... The water frightened him; she
was sympathetic, and her sympathy seemed to reach him, though I doubt
if he was aware of her presence at all until the last minute almost----"
"And 'at the last minute'?"
"She leaned forward suddenly and took both his hands. I had let go
of the one I held and was just about to open the door, when I heard
her say excitedly that I must let her come and see him, or that he
must call on her; she was sure she could help him; he must tell her
everything.... I turned to look.... LeVallon, startled into what I
believe was his first consciousness of her presence, stared into her
eyes, and leaned forward among his cushions a little, so that their
faces were close together. Before I could interfere, she had flung
her bare arms about his neck and kissed him. She then sat back again,
turning to me, and repeating again and again that he needed a woman's
care and that she must help and mother him. She was excited, but she
knew what she was saying. She showed neither shame nor the least
confusion. She tasted--of course with her it cannot last--a bigger
world. She was most determined."
"_His_ reaction?" inquired Devonham, amused in spite of his graver
emotions of uneasiness and exasperation.
"None whatever. I scarcely think he realized he had been kissed. His
interest was so entirely elsewhere. I saw his face a moment among the
white ermine, the bare arms and jewels that enveloped him." Fillery
frowned faintly. "The car had almost stopped. Lady Gleeson was leaning
back again. He looked at me, and his voice was intense and eager: 'Dear
Fillery,' he said, 'we have found each other, I have found her. She
knows, she remembers the way back. Here we can do so little.'
"Lady Gleeson, however, had interpreted the words in another way.
"'I'll come to-morrow to see you,' she said at once intensely. 'You
_must_ let me come,'--the last words addressed to me, of course."
The two men looked at one another a moment in silence, and for the
first time during the conversation they exchanged a smile....
"I got him to bed," Fillery concluded. "In ten minutes he was sound
asleep." And his eyes indicated the room overhead.
He leaned back, and quietly began to fill his pipe. The account was
over.
As though a great spring suddenly released him, Paul Devonham stood up.
His untidy hair hung wild, his glasses were crooked on his big nose,
his tie askew. His whole manner bristled with accumulated challenge and
disagreement.
"_Who?_" he cried. "_Who?_ Edward, I ask you?"
His colleague, yet knowing exactly what he meant, looked up
questioningly. He looked him full in the face.
"Hush!" he said quietly. "You'll wake him."
He gazed with happy penetrating eyes at his companion. "Paul," he added
gently, "do you really mean it? Have you still the faintest doubt?"
The moment had drama in it of unusual kind. The conflict between these
two honest and unselfish minds was vital. The moment, too, was chosen,
the place as well--this small, quiet room in a commonplace suburb of
the greatest city on the planet, drenched by earthly rain and battered
by earthly wind from the heart of an equinoctial storm; the mighty
universe outside, breaking with wondrous, incredible impossibilities
upon a mind that listened and a mind that could not hear; and upstairs,
separated from them by a few carpenter's boards, an assortment of
"souls," either derelict and ruined, or gifted supernormally, masters
of space and time perhaps, yet all waiting to be healed by the best
knowledge known to the race--and one among them, about whom the
conflict raged ... sound asleep ... while wind and water stormed, while
lightning fires lit the distant horizons, while the great sun lay
hidden, and darkness crept soundlessly to and fro....
"Have you still the slightest doubt, Paul?" repeated Fillery. "You know
the evidence. You have an open mind."
Then Devonham, still standing over his Chief, let out the storm that
had accumulated in him over-long. He talked like a book. He talked like
several books. It seemed almost that he distrusted his own personal
judgment.
"Edward," he began solemnly--not knowing that he quoted--"you, above
all men, understand the lower recesses of the human heart, that gloomy,
gigantic oubliette in which our million ancestors writhe together
inextricably, and each man's planetary past is buried alive----"
Fillery nodded quietly his acquiescence.
"You, of all men, know our packed, limitless subterranean life,"
Devonham went on, "and its impenetrable depths. You understand
telepathy, 'extended telepathy' as well, and how a given mind may tap
not only forgotten individual memories, but memories of his family, his
race, even planetary memories into the bargain, the memory, in fact, of
every being that ever lived, right down to Adam, if you will----"
"Agreed," murmured the other, listening patiently, while he puffed his
pipe and heard the rain and wind. "I know all that. I know it, at any
rate, as a possible theory."
"You also know," continued Devonham in a slightly less strident
tone, "your own--forgive me, Edward--your own idiosyncrasies, your
weaknesses, your dynamic accumulated repressions, your strange physical
heritage and spiritual--I repeat the phrase--your spiritual vagrancies
towards--towards----" He broke off suddenly, unable to find the words
he wanted.
"I'm illegitimate, born of a pagan passion," mentioned the other
calmly. "In that sense, if you like, I have in me a 'complex' against
the race, against humanity--as such."
He smiled patiently, and it was the patience, the evident conviction of
superiority that exasperated his cautious, accurate colleague.
"If I love humanity, I also tolerate it perhaps, for I try to heal it,"
added Fillery. "But, believe me, Paul, I do not lose my scientific
judgment."
"Edward," burst out the other, "how can you think it possible,
then--that _he_ is other than the result of tendencies transmitted by
his mad parents, or acquired from Mason, who taught him all he knows,
or--if you will--that he has these hysterical faculties--supernormal
as we may call them--which tap some racial, even, if you will, some
planetary past----"
He again broke off, unable to express his whole thought, his entire
emotion, in a few words.
"I accept all that," said Fillery, still calmly, quietly, "but perhaps
now--in the interest of truth"--his tone was grave, his words obviously
chosen carefully--"if now I feel it necessary to go beyond it! My
strange heritage," he added, "is even possibly a help and guide. How,"
he asked, a trace of passion for the first time visible in his manner,
"shall we venture--how decide--for we are not wholly ignorant, you and
I--between what is possible and impossible? Is this trivial planet,
then," he asked, his voice rising suddenly, ominously perhaps, "our
sole criterion? Dare we not venture--beyond--a little? The scientific
mind should be the last to dogmatize as to the possibilities of this
life of ours...."
The authority of chief, the old tie of respectful and affectionate
friendship, the admiring wonder that pertained to a daring speculator
who had often proved himself right in face of violent opposition--all
these affected Devonham. He did not weaken, but for an instant he knew,
perhaps, the existence of a vast, incredible horizon in his friend's
mind, though one he dared not contemplate. Possibly, he understood in
this passing moment a huger world, a new outlook that scorned limit,
though yet an outlook that his accurate, smaller spirit shrank from.
He found, at any rate, his own words futile. "You remember," he
offered--"'We need only suppose the continuity of our own consciousness
with a mother sea, to allow for exceptional waves occasionally pouring
over the dam.'"
"Good, yes," said Fillery. "But that 'mother sea,' what may it not
include? Dare we set limits to it?"
And, as he said it, Fillery, emotion visible in him, rose suddenly from
his chair. He stood up and faced his colleague.
"Let us come to the point," he said in a clear, steady voice. "It all
lies--doesn't it?--in that question you asked----"
"_Who?_" came at once from Devonham's lips, as he stood, looking oddly
stiff and rigid opposite his Chief. There was a touch of defiance in
his tone. "_Who?_" He repeated his original question.
No pause intervened. Fillery's reply came sharp and firm:
"'N. H.,'" he said.
An interval of silence followed, then, between the two men, as they
looked into each other's eyes. Fillery waited for his assistant to
speak, but no word came.
"LeVallon," the older man continued, "is the transient, acquired
personality. It does not interest us. There is no real LeVallon. The
sole reality is--'N. H.'"
He spoke with the earnestness of deep conviction. There was still no
reply or comment from the other.
"Paul," he continued, steadying his voice and placing a hand upon
his colleague's shoulder, "I am going to ask you to--consider our
arrangement--cancelled. I must----"
Then, before he could finish what he had to say, the other had said it
for him:
"Edward, I give you back your promise."
He shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly, but there was no
unpleasant, no antagonistic touch now either in voice or manner. There
was, rather, a graver earnestness than there had been hitherto, a hint
of reluctant acquiescence, but also there was an emotion that included
certainly affection. No such fundamental disagreement had ever come
between them during all their years of work together. "You understand,"
he added slowly, "what you are doing--what is involved." His tone
almost suggested that he spoke to a patient, a loved patient, but one
over whom he had no control. He sighed.
"I belong, Paul, myself to the unstable--if that is what you mean,"
said his old friend gently, "and with all of danger, or of wonder, it
involves."
The faint movement of the shoulders again was noticeable. "We need not
put it that way, Edward," was the quiet rejoinder; "for that, if true,
can only help your insight, your understanding, and your judgment."
He hesitated a moment or two, searching his mind carefully for words.
Fillery waited. "But it involves--I think"--he went on presently in a
firmer voice--"_his_ fate as well. He must become permanently--one or
other."
No pause followed. There was a smile of curious happiness on Fillery's
face as he instantly answered in a tone of absolute conviction:
"There lies the root of our disagreement, Paul. There is no 'other.' I
am positive for once. There is only one, and that one is--'N. H.'"
"Umph!" his friend grunted. Behind the exclamation hid an attitude
confirmed, as though he had come suddenly to a big decision.
"You see, Paul--I _know_."