Sir Walter persisted in his purpose
and went to Florence. He believed that here Mary might find distractions
and novelties to awaken interest which would come freshly into her life
without the pain and poignancy of any recollection to lessen the work
of peace. For himself he only desired to see her returning to content.
Happiness he knew must be a condition far removed from her spirit for
many days.
They stood one evening on the Piazza of Michelangelo and saw Florence,
like a city of dim, red gold extended beneath them. The setting sunlight
wove an enchantment over towers and roofs. It spread a veil of ineffable
brightness upon the city and tinged green Arno also, where the river
wound through the midst.
Sir Walter was quietly happy, because he knew that in a fortnight his
friends, Ernest and Nelly Travers, would be at Florence. Mary, too,
prepared to welcome them gladly, for her father's sake. He left his
daughter largely undisturbed, and while they took their walks
together, the old man, to whom neither music nor pictures conveyed much
significance, let her wander at will, and the more readily because
he found that art was beginning to exercise a precious influence over
Mary's mind. There was none to guide her studies, but she pursued them
with a plan of her own, and though at first the effort sometimes left
her weary, yet she persisted until she began to perceive at least the
immensity of the knowledge she desired to acquire.
Music soothed her mind; painting offered an interest, part sensuous,
part intellectual. Perhaps she loved music best at first, since it
brought a direct anodyne. In the sound of music she could bear to
think of her brief love story. She even made her father come and listen
presently to things that she began to value.
Their minds inevitably proceeded by different channels of thought, and
while she strove resolutely to occupy herself with the new interests,
and put away the agony of the past, till thinking was bearable again
and a road to peace under her feet once more, Sir Walter seldom found
himself passing many hours without recurrence of painful memories and
a sustained longing to strip the darkness which buried them. To his
forthright and simple intelligence, mystery was hateful, and the
reflection that his home must for ever hold a profound and appalling
mystery often thrust itself upon his thoughts, and even inclined him, in
some moods, to see Chadlands no more. Yet a natural longing to return
to the old environment, in which he could move with ease and comfort,
gradually mastered him, and as the spring advanced he often sighed
for Devonshire, yet wondered how he could do so. Then would return the
gloomy history of the winter rolling over his spirit like a cloud, and
the thought of going home again grew distasteful.
Mary, however, knew her father well enough, and at this lustrous hour,
while Florence stretched beneath them in its quiet, evening beauty, she
declared that they must not much longer delay their return.
"Plenty of time," he said. "I am not too old to learn, I find, and a man
would indeed be a great fool if he could not learn in such a place
as this. But though art can never mean much to me now, your case is
different, and I am thankful to know that these things will be a great
addition and interest to your future life. I'm a Philistine, and shall
always so remain, but I'm a repentant one. I see my mistake too late."
"It's a new world, father," she said, "and it has done a great deal
for an unhappy woman--not only in taking my thoughts off myself, but in
lessening my suffering, too. I do not know why, or how, but music, and
these great, solemn pictures painted by dead men, all touch my thoughts
of dear Tom. I seem to see that there are so many more mighty ones dead
than living. And yet not dead. They live in what they have made. And Tom
lives in what he made--that was my love for him and his for me. He grows
nearer and dearer than ever when I hear beautiful music. I can better
bear to think of him at such times, and it will always help me to
remember him."
"God bless art if it does so much," he said. "We come to it as little
children, and I shall always be a child and never understand, but for
you the valuable message will be received. May life never turn you away
from these things in years to come."
"Never! Never!" she assured him. "Art has done too much for me. I shall
not try to live my life without it. Already I feel I could not."
"What have you seen to-day?" he asked.
"I was at the Pitti all the morning. I liked best Fra Bartolommeo's
great altar piece and Titian's portrait of Cardinal Ippolito dei Medici.
You must see him--a strange, unhappy spirit only twenty-three years old.
Two years afterwards he was poisoned, and his haunted, discontented
eyes closed for ever. And the 'Concert'--so wonderful, with such a
hunger-starved expression in the soul of the player. And Andrea del
Sarto--how gracious and noble; but Henry James says he's second-rate,
because his mind was second-rate, so I suppose he is, but not to me. He
never will be to me. To-morrow you must come and see some of the things
I specially love. I won't bore you. I don't know enough to bore you yet.
Oh, and Allori's 'Judith'--so lovely, but I wonder if Allori did justice
to her? Certainly his 'Judith' could never have done what the real
Judith did. And there's a landscape by Rubens--dark and old--yet it
reminded me of our woods where they open out above the valley."
He devoted the next morning to Mary, and wandered among the pictures
with her. He strove to share her enthusiasm, and, indeed, did so
sometimes. Then occurred a little incident, so trivial that they forgot
all about it within an hour, yet were reminded of it at a very startling
moment now fast approaching.
They had separated, and Sir Walter's eye was caught by a portrait. But
he forgot it a moment later in passing interest of a blazoned coat of
arms upon the frame--a golden bull's head on a red ground. The heraldic
emblem was tarnished and inconspicuous, yet the spectator felt curiously
conscious that it was not unfamiliar. It seemed that he had seen it
already somewhere. He challenged Mary with it presently; but she had
never observed it before to her recollection.
Sir Walter enjoyed his daughter's interest, and finding that his company
among the pictures added to Mary's pleasure, while his comments caused
her no apparent pain, he declared his intention of seeing more.
"You must tell me what you know," he said.
"It will be the blind leading the blind, dearest," she answered, "but my
delight must be in finding things I think you'll like. The truth is that
neither of us knows anything about what we ought to like."
"That's a very small matter," he declared. "We must begin by learning to
like pictures at all. When Ernest comes, he will want us to live in his
great touring car and fly about, so we should use our present time to
the best advantage. Pictures do not attract him, and he will be very
much surprised to hear that I have been looking at them."
"We must interest him, too, if we can."
"That would be impossible. Ernest does not understand pictures, and
music gives him no pleasure. He regards art with suspicion, as a
somewhat unmanly thing."
"Poor Mr. Travers!"
"Do not pity him, Mary. His life is sufficiently full without it."
"But I've lived to find out that no life can be." In due course Ernest
and Nelly arrived, and, as Sir Walter had prophesied, their pleasure
consisted in long motor drives to neighboring places and scenes of
interest and beauty. His daughter, in the new light that was glimmering
for her, found her father's friends had shrunk a little. She could speak
with them and share their interests less whole-heartedly than of old;
but they set it down to her tribulation and tried to "rouse" her. Ernest
Travers even lamented her new-found interests and hoped they were "only
a passing phase."
"She appears to escape from reality into a world of pictures and music,"
he said. "You must guard against that, my dear Walter. These things can
be of no permanent interest to a healthy mind."
For a fortnight they saw much of their friends, and Mary observed
how her father expanded in the atmosphere of Ernest and Nelly. They
understood each other so well and echoed so many similar sentiments and
convictions.
Ernest entertained a poor opinion of the Italian character. He argued
that a nation which depended for its prosperity on wines and silk--"and
such wines"--must have too much of the feminine in it to excel. He had a
shadowy idea that he understood the language, though he could not speak
nor write it himself.
"We, who have been nurtured at Eton and Oxford, remember enough Latin
to understand these people," he said, "for what is Italian but the
emasculated tongue of ancient Rome?"
Nelly Travers committed herself to many utterances as idiotic as
Ernest's, and Mary secretly wondered to find how shadowy and ridiculous
such solid people showed in a strange land. They carried their ignorance
and their parochial atmosphere with them as openly and unashamedly as
they carried their luggage. She was not sorry to leave them, for she and
her father intended to stop for a while at Como before returning home
again.
Their friends were going to motor over the battlefields of France
presently, and both Ernest and Nelly came to see Sir Walter and his
daughter off for Milan. Mr. Travers rushed to the door of the carriage
and thrust in a newspaper as the train moved.
"I have secured a copy of last week's 'Field,' Walter," he said.
They passed over the Apennines on a night when the fire-flies flashed
in every thicket under the starry gloom of a clear and moonless sky;
and when the train stopped at little, silent stations the throb of
nightingales fell upon their ears.
But circumstances prevented their visit to the Larian Lake, for at Milan
letters awaited Sir Walter from home, and among them one that hastened
his return. From a stranger it came, and chance willed that the writer,
an Italian, had actually made the journey from Rome to London in order
that he might see Sir Walter, while all the time the master of Chadlands
happened to be within half a day's travel. Now, the writer was still in
London, and proposed to stop there until he should receive an answer
to his communication. He wrote guardedly, and made one statement of
extraordinary gravity. He was concerned with the mystery of the Grey
Room, and believed that he might throw some light upon the melancholy
incidents recorded concerning it.
Sir Walter hesitated for Mary's sake, but was relieved when she
suggested a prompt return.
"It would be folly to delay," she said. "This means quite as much to me
as to you, father, and I could not go to Como knowing there may be even
the least gleam of light for us at home. Nothing can alter the past, but
if it were possible to explain how and why--what an unutterable relief
to us both!"
"Henry was to meet us at Menaggio."
"He will be as thankful as we are if anything comes of this. He doesn't
leave England till Thursday, and can join us at Chadlands instead."
"I only live to explain these things," confessed her father. "I would
give all that I have to discover reasons for the death of your dear
husband. But there are terribly grave hints here. I can hardly imagine
this man is justified in speaking of 'crime.' Would the word mean less
to him than to us?"
"He writes perfect English. Whatever may be in store, we must face it
hopefully. Such things do not happen by chance."
"He is evidently a gentleman--a man of refinement and delicate feeling.
I am kindly disposed to him already. There is something chivalric and
what is called 'old-fashioned' in his expressions. No young man writes
like this nowadays."
The letter, which both read many times, revealed the traits that Sir
Walter declared. It was written with Latin courtesy and distinction.
There were also touches of humor in it, which neither he nor Mary
perceived:
"Claridge's Hotel, London. April 9.
"Dear Sir Walter Lennox,--In common with the rest of the
world that knows England, I have recently been profoundly
interested and moved at the amazing events reported as
happening at Chadlands, in the County of Devon, under your
roof. The circumstances were related in Italian journals
with no great detail, but I read them in the 'Times'
newspaper, being familiar with your language and a great
lover of your country.
"I had already conceived the idea of communicating with you
when--so small is the world in this our time--accident
actually threw me into the society of one of your personal
friends. At an entertainment given by the British Ambassador
at Rome, a young soldier, one Colonel Vane, was able to do
me some service in a crush of people, and I enjoyed the
privilege of his acquaintance as the result. I would not
have inflicted myself upon another generation, but he took
an interest in conversing with one who knew his own language.
He was also intelligent--for a military man. Needless to
say, he made no allusion to the tragedy at Chadlands, but
when he spoke of espionage in war and kindred matters, I
found him familiar with the details concerning the death of
the great English detective, Peter Hardcastle. I then asked
him, as being myself deeply interested in the matter, whether
it would be possible to get further and fuller details of the
story of 'the Grey Room,' whereupon he told me, to my
amazement, that he had been at Chadlands when your lamented
son-in-law, Captain Thomas May, passed out of life. I then
recollected Colonel Vane's name, among others mentioned in
the 'Times,' as at Chadlands when the disaster occurred.
"Finding that my curiosity was not idle, Colonel Vane accepted
an invitation to dinner, and I enjoyed the pleasure of
entertaining him and learning many personal and intimate
particulars of the event. These were imparted in confidence,
and he knew that I should not abuse his trust. Indeed, I had
already told him that it was my determination to communicate
with you upon the strength of his narrative.
"It seems improbable that anything I can say will bear upon
the case, and I may presently find that I lack the means to
serve you, or throw light where all is so profoundly buried
in darkness. Yet I am not sure. Small things will often
lead to greater, and though the past is unhappily beyond
recall, since our Maker Himself cannot undo the work of
yesterday, or obliterate events embalmed in vanished time,
yet there is always the future; and if we could but read
the past aright, which we never can, then the future would
prove less of a painful riddle than mankind generally
finds it.
"If, then, I can help you to read the past, I may at least
modify your anxieties in the future; and should I, by a
remote chance, be right in my suspicions, it is quite
imperative that I place myself at your service for the
sake of mankind. In a word, a great crime has been
committed, and the situation is possibly such that further
capital crimes will follow it. I affirm nothing, but I
conceive the agency responsible for these murders to
be still active, since the police have been so completely
foiled. At Chadlands there may still remain an unsleeping
danger to those who follow you--a danger, indeed, to all
human life, so long as it is permitted to persist. I write,
of course, assuming you to be desirous of clearing this
abominable mystery, both for your own satisfaction and the
credit of your house. "There is but little to hope from me,
and I would beg you not to feel sanguine in any way. Yet
this I do believe: that if there is one man in the world
to-day who holds the key of your tribulation, I am that man.
One lives in hope that one may empty the world of so great a
horror; and to do so would give one the most active
satisfaction. But I promise nothing.
"If I should be on the right track, however, let me explain
the direction in which my mind is moving. Human knowledge
may not be equal to any solution, and I may fail accordingly.
It may even be possible that the Rev. Septimus May did not
err, and that at the cost of his life he exorcised some
spirit whose operations were permitted for reasons hid in
the mind of its Creator; but, so far as I am concerned, I
believe otherwise. And if I should prove correct, it will
be possible to show that all has fallen out in a manner
consonant with human reason and explicable by human
understanding. I therefore came to England, glad of the
excuse to do so, and waited upon you at your manor, only to
hear, much to my chagrin, that you were not in residence,
but had gone to Florence, a bird's journey from my own home!
"Now I write to the post-office at Milan, where your servant
directed me that letters should for the moment be sent. If
you are returning soon, I wait for you. If not, it may be
possible to meet in Italy. But I should prefer to think
you return ere long, for I cannot be of practical service
until I have myself, with your permission, visited your
house and seen the Grey Room with my own eyes.
"I beg you will accept my assurances of kindly regard and
sympathy in the great sufferings you and Madame May have
been called upon to endure.
"Until I hear from you, I remain at Claridge's Hotel in
London.
"I have the honor to be,
"Faithfully yours,
"Vergilio Mannetti."
To this communication, albeit he felt little hope, Sir Walter made
speedy response. He declared his intention of returning to England
during the following week, after which he hoped that Signor Mannetti
would visit Chadlands at any time convenient to himself. He thanked him
gratefully, but feared that, since the Italian based his theory on a
crime, he could not feel particularly sanguine, for the possibility of
such a thing had proved non-existent.
Mary, however, looked deeper into the letter. She even suspected that
the writer himself entertained a greater belief in his powers than he
declared.
"One has always felt the Grey Room is somehow associated with Italy,"
she said. "The ceiling we know was moulded by Italians in Elizabeth's
day."
"It was; but so are all the other moulded ceilings in the house as
well."
"He may understand Italian workmanship, and know some similar roof that
hid a secret."
"The roof cannot conceal an assassin, and he clearly believes himself on
the track of a crime." Nevertheless, Sir Walter's interest increased as
the hour approached for their return home. Only when that was decided
did he discover how much he longed to be there. For the horror and
suffering of the past were a little dimmed already; he thirsted to see
his woods and meadows in their vernal dress, to hear the murmur of his
river, and move again among familiar voices and familiar paths.
Chadlands welcomed them on a rare evening of May, and the very genuine
joy of his people moved Sir Walter not a little. Henry Lennox was
already arrived, and deeply interested to read the Italian's letter. He
and Mary walked presently in the gardens and he found her changed. She
spoke more slowly, laughed not at all. But she had welcomed him with
affection, and been interested to learn all that he had to tell her of
himself.
"I felt that it would disappoint you to be stopped at the last moment,"
she said, "but I knew the reason would satisfy you well enough. I feel
hopeful somehow; father does not. Yet it is hope mixed with fear, for
Signor Mannetti speaks of a great crime."
"A vain theory, I'm afraid. Tell me about yourself. You are well?"
"Yes, very well. You must come to Italy some day, Henry, and let me show
you the wonderful things I have seen."
"I should dearly love it. I'm such a Goth. But it's only brutal
laziness. I want to take up art and understand a little of what it
really matters."
"You have it in you. Are you writing any more poetry?"
"Nothing worth showing you."
She exercised the old fascination; but he indulged in no hope of the
future. He knew what her husband had been to Mary, despite the shortness
of their union; and, rightly, he felt positive that she would never
marry again.
A mournful spectacle appeared, drawn by the sound of well-known voices,
and the old spaniel, Prince, crept to Mary's feet. He offered feeble
homage, and she made much of him, but the dog had sunk to a shadow.
"He must be put away, poor old beggar; it's cruel to keep him alive.
Only Masters said he was determined he should not go while Uncle Walter
was abroad. Masters has been a mother to him."
"Tell father that; he may blame Masters for letting him linger on like
this. He rather hoped, I know, that poor Prince would be painlessly
destroyed, or die, before he came back."
"Masters would never have let him die unless directed to do so."
"And I'm sure father could never have written the words down and posted
them. You know father."
Letters awaited the returned travellers, one from Colonel Vane, who
described his meeting with Signor Mannetti, and hoped something
might come of it; and another from the stranger himself. He expressed
satisfaction at his invitation, and proposed arriving at Chadlands on
the following Monday, unless directions reached him to the contrary.
When the time came, Sir Walter himself went into Exeter to meet his
guest and bring him back by motor-car. At first sight of the signor, his
host experienced a slight shock of astonishment to mark the Italian's
age. For Vergilio Mannetti was an ancient man. He had been tall, but
now stooped, and, though not decrepit, yet he needed assistance, and
was accompanied and attended by a middle-aged Italian. The traveller
displayed a distinguished bearing. He had a brown, clean-shaved face,
the skin of which appeared to have shrunk rather than wrinkled, yet no
suggestion of a mummy accompanied this physical accident. His hair was
still plentiful, and white as snow; his dark eyes were undimmed, and
proved not only brilliant but wonderfully keen. He told them more
than once, and indeed proved, that behind large glasses, that lent an
owl-like expression to his face, his long sight was unimpaired. His
rather round face sparkled with intelligence and humor.
He owned to eighty years, yet presented an amazing vitality and a keen
interest in life and its fulness. The old man had played the looker-on
at human existence, and seemed to know as much, if not more, of the game
than the players. He confessed to this attitude and blamed himself for
it.
"I have never done a stroke of honest work in my life," he said. "I
was born with the silver spoon in my mouth. Alas, I have been amazingly
lazy; it was my metier to look on. I ought, at least, to have written a
book; but then all the things I wanted to say have been so exquisitely
said by Count Gobineau in his immortal volumes, that I should only have
been an echo. The world is too full of echoes as it is. Believe me, if
I had been called to work for my living, I should have cut a respectable
figure, for I have an excellent brain."
"You know England, signor?"
"When I tell you that I married an English-woman, and that both my sons
have English blood in their veins, you will realize the sincerity of my
devotion. My dear wife was a Somerset."
Mary May always declared that the old Italian won her heart and even
awakened something akin to affection before she had known him half an
hour. There was a fascination in his admixture of childish simplicity
and varied knowledge. None, indeed, could resist his gracious humor and
old-world courtesies. The old man could be simple and ingenuous,
too; but only when it pleased him so to be; and it was not the second
childishness of age, for his intellect remained keen and moved far more
swiftly than any at Chadlands. But he was modest and loved a jest. The
hand of time had indeed touched him, and sometimes his memory broke
down and he faltered with a verbal difficulty; but this only appeared to
happen when he was weary.
"The morning is my good time," he told them. "You will, I fear, find me
a stupid old fellow after dinner."
Signor Mannetti proved a tremendous talker, and implicitly revealed
that he belonged to the nobility of his country, and that he enjoyed
the friendship of many notable men. The subject of his visit was not
mentioned on the day of his arrival. He spoke only of Italy, laughed to
think he had passed through Florence to seek Sir Walter in England,
and then, finding his hostess a neophyte at the shrines of art, attuned
himself to the subject for her benefit.
"If you found pictures answer to an unknown need within yourself, that
is very well," he declared. "About music I know little; but concerning
painting a great deal. And you desire to know, too, I see. The spirit is
willing, but the spirit probably does not know yet what lies in front
of it. You are groping--blind, childlike--without a hand to guard and
an authority to guide. That is merely to waste time. When you go back
to Italy, you must begin at the beginning, if you are in earnest--not at
the middle. Only ignorance measures art in terms of skill, for there are
no degrees in art. None has transcended Giotto, because technique and
draughtsmanship are accidents of time; they lie outside the soul of the
matter. Art is in fact a static thing. It changes as the face of the sea
changes, from hour to hour; but it does not progress. There are great
and small artists and great and small movements, as there are great and
small waves, brisk breezes and terrific tempests; but all are moulded
of like substance. In the one case art, in the other, the ocean, remains
unchanged. I shall plan your instruction for you, if you please,
and send you to the primitives first--the mighty ones who laid the
foundations. I lived five years at Siena--for love of the beginnings;
and you must also learn to love and reverence the beginnings, if you
would understand that light in the darkness men call the Renaissance."
He broke from Mary presently, strove to interest Sir Walter, and
succeeded.
"A benevolent autocracy is the ideal government, my friend--the ideal
of all supreme thinkers--a Machiavelli, a Nietzsche, a Stendhal, a
Gobineau. Liberty and equality are terms mutually destructive, they
cannot exist together; for, given liberty, the strong instantly look to
it that equality shall perish. And rightly so. Equality is a war cry
for fools--a negation of nature, an abortion. The very ants know better.
Doubtless you view with considerable distrust the growing spirit of
democracy, or what is called by that name?"
"I do," admitted Sir Walter.
"Your monarch and mine are a little bitten by this tarantula. I am
concerned for them. We must not pander to the mob's leaders, for they
are not, and never have been, the many-headed thing itself. They, not
the mob, are 'out to kill,' as you say. But that State will soon
perish that thinks to prosper under the rule of the proletariat. Such a
constitution would be opposed to natural law and, therefore, contain
the seeds of its own dissolution. And its death would be inconceivably
horrible; for the death of huge, coarse organisms is always horrible.
Only distinguished creatures are beautiful in death, or know how to die
like gentlemen."
"Who are on your side to-day, signor?" asked Henry Lennox.
"More than I know, I hope. Gobineau is my lighthouse in the storm. You
must read him, if you have not done so. He was the incarnate spirit of
the Renaissance. He radiated from his bosom its effulgence and shot it
forth, like the light of a pharos over dark waters; he, best of all men,
understood it, and, most of all men, mourned to see its bright hope and
glory perish out of the earth under the unconquerable superstition of
mankind and the lamentable infliction of the Jewish race. Alas! The Jews
have destroyed many other things besides the Saviour of us all."
They found the Renaissance to be the favorite theme of Signor Mannetti.
He returned again and again to it, and it was typical of him that he
could combine assurances of being a devout Catholic with sentiments
purely pagan.
"Christianity has operated in the making of many slaves and charlatans,"
he said. "One mourns the fact, but must be honest. It has too often
scourged the only really precious members of society from the temple of
life. It has cast the brave and clean and virile into outer darkness,
and exalted the staple of humanity, which is never brave, or virile, and
seldom really clean. A hideous wave submerges everything that matters.
The proud, the beautiful--the only beings that justify the existence
of mankind--will soon be on the hills with the hawks and leopards, and
hunted like them--outcast, pariah, unwanted, hated."
"The spirit of christianity is socialistic, I fear," said Sir Walter.
"It is one of those things I do not pretend to understand, but the
modern clergy speak with a clear voice on the subject."
"Do your clergy indeed speak with a clear voice?"
"They do; and we must, of course, listen. Truth is apt to be painful.
And how can we reconcile our aristocratic instincts with our faith? I
ask for information and you will forgive the personality. I find myself
in almost entire agreement with your noble sentiments. But, as a good
Christian, ought I to be so? How do you stand with the one true faith in
your heart and these opinions in your head, signor?"
The old man twinkled and a boyish smile lighted his aged countenance.
"A good question--a shrewd thrust, Sir Walter. There can be only one
answer to that, my friend. With God all things are possible."
Henry laughed; his uncle was puzzled.
"You think that is no answer," continued the Italian. "But reason also
must have a place in the sun, though we have to hide it in our pocket
sometimes. So many great men would not extinguish their light--and had
it extinguished for them. A difficult subject. Let us continue to think
in compartments. It is safer so. If you are over eighty years old, you
love safety. But I love joy and romance also, and is not religion almost
the only joy and romance left to us? It is affirmation remember, not
negation, that makes the world go round! The 'intellectuals' forget
that, and they are sterile accordingly."
Signor Mannetti's wits were something too nimble for his hearers. He
talked and talked--about everything but the matter in their minds--until
half-past ten o'clock, when his man came after him. Thereupon he rose,
like an obedient child, and wished them "Good-night."
"Stephano is my guardian angel," he said--"a being of painful
punctuality. But he adds years to my life. He forgets nothing. I wish
you a kind farewell until to-morrow and offer grateful thanks for your
welcome. I breakfast in my room, if you please, and shall be ready
at eleven o'clock to put myself at your service. Then you will be so
gracious as to answer me some questions, and I shall, please God, try to
help you."