It is more than two years since I wrote down any incident of my life.
Two years ago I seemed to myself a stranger. To-day an intimacy has
sprung up between myself and that observant, detached something within
me--that little extra spirit which looks on at me, and yet is, somehow,
me. I am at home with my own power. I am accustomed to my strength of
personality. From my fever I rose like some giant. Long ago my world
recognised the obedience it owed me. Long ago, by many signs, in many
ways, it taught me the paramount quality of the emanation from my soul
that is called my influence. Yet sometimes, even now, I seem to stare at
myself aghast, to turn cold when I am alone with myself. I am seized
with terrible fancies. I think of the voice of the burn. I think of that
childish Autumn ceremony upon its bank among the mists and the flying
leaves. I think of the grey youth who spoke with me in the twilight, and
my soul is full of questions. I muse upon the Wandering Jew, upon Faust,
upon Van Der Decken, upon the monstrous figures that are legends, yet
sometimes realities to men. And then--and this is ghastly--I say to
myself, can it be that I, too, shall become a legend? Can it be that my
name will be whispered by the pale lips of good men long after I am
dead? For, is there not a whirl of white faces attending my progress as
the whirl of dead leaves attends the Autumn? Do I not hear a faint
symphony of despairing cries like a dreadful music about my life? Is not
my power upon men malign? Boys with their hopes shattered, men with
their faiths broken, women with their love turned to gall--do they not
crowd about my chariot wheels? Or is it my vain fancy that they do? Here
and there from the sea of these beings one rises like a drowned creature
whom the ocean will not hide, stark, stiff, corpse-like. Doctor
Wedderburn was the first. Kate Walters is the second--Kate Walters.
* * * * *
When my convalescence was well advanced she left Carlounie and went back
to Edinburgh. Some months afterwards I heard casually that she was
working in an hospital there. But a year and a half went by before I saw
this girl again. Her fresh, pure, ministering face had nearly faded
from my memory. Yet, she had attended intimately upon my marvellous
transformation from my death of weakness to the life of strength. She
had lifted me in her girl's arms when I was nothing. Yes, I had been in
her arms then. How strange, how close are the commonest relations
between the invalid and his nurse! When I chanced to meet Kate again I
had no thought of this. I had forgotten. I came to Edinburgh on some
business connected with a mine discovered on my estate, which seemed
likely to make a great fortune for me, and is already on the way to
accomplishing this first duty of a mine. My business done, I stayed on
at my hotel in Princes Street amusing myself, for I had a multitude of
friends in Edinburgh. One of these friends was a medical student
attached to the hospital there, and he chanced to invite me to go with
him through the wards one day. In one of the wards I encountered Kate
Walters, fresh, clear, calm as in the old Carlounie days of my illness.
She did not know me till I recalled myself to her recollection; then she
looked into my face with the frankest astonishment. My superb physique
amazed her, although she had attended upon its beginnings. I asked after
her life in the interval since our last meeting; and she told me, with a
delightful blush, that her period of nursing was nearly concluded, as
she was engaged to be married to one Hugh Fraser, a handsome, rich,
and--strange thing this!--most steadfast youth, who lived in England in
the south, and who loved her tenderly. I congratulated her, and was on
the point of moving away down the ward with my friend when my eyes were
caught again by Kate's blushing cheeks and eyes alight with the fiery
shames and joys of love. How beautiful is the human face when the
torches of the heart are kindled thus. How beautiful! I paused, and,
before I went, invited Kate to tea one afternoon at my hotel. She
accepted the invitation. Why not? In our meeting the old chain of
sympathy between patient and nurse seemed forged anew. We felt that we
were indeed friends. As we left the ward, my student chum chaffed me--I
let his words go by heedlessly. I was not in love with Kate, but I was
half in love with her love for Hugh Fraser. It had such pretty features.
She came to tea and told me all about him; and when she talked of him
she was so fascinating that I was loath to let her go. It was a sweet
evening, and, as Kate had not to be back at the hospital early, I
suggested that we should go for a stroll on Carlton Hill, and talk a
little more about Hugh Fraser. The bribe tempted her. I saw that. And
she agreed after a moment's hesitation.
There is certainly an influence that lives only out of doors and can
never enter a house, or exercise itself within four walls. There is a
wandering spirit in the air of evening, a soul that walks with
gathering shadows, speaks in the distant hum of a city, and gazes
through its twinkling lights. _There is a grey traveller who journeys in
the twilight._ (What am I saying? To-day, as I write, I am full of
fancies.) I felt that, so soon as Kate and I were away from the hotel,
out under the sky and amid the mysteries of Edinburgh, we were changed.
In a flash our intimacy advanced, the sympathy already existing between
us deepened. Leaving the streets, we mounted the flight of steps that
leads to the hill, and joined the few couples who were walking, almost
like gods on some Olympus, above the world. They were all obviously
lovers. I pointed this fact out to Kate, saying, "Hugh Fraser should be
here, not I."
She smiled, but scarcely, I thought, with much regret. For the moment it
seemed that a confidant satisfied her; and this pleased me. I drew her
arm within mine.
"We must not alarm the lovers," I said. "We must appear to be as they
are, or we shall carry a fiery sword into their Eden."
"You seem to understand us very well," she answered with a smile. And
she left her arm in mine.
The mention of "us" chilled me. It seemed to set me outside a magic
circle within which she, Hugh Fraser, these people sauntering near us,
like amorous ghosts in the dimness, moved. I pressed her arm ever so
gently.
"Tell me how lovers feel at such a time as this," I whispered, looking
into her eyes.
* * * * *
From Carlton Hill at night one sees a heaving ocean of yellow lights,
gleaming like phosphorescence on ebon waves. Towards Arthur's Seat,
towards the Castle, they rise; by Holyrood, by the old town, they fall.
That night I could fancy that this sea of light spoke to me, murmured in
my ear, urging me to prosecute my will, ruthlessly stirring a strange
and, perhaps, evanescent romance in my heart. I know that when I parted
from Kate that night I bent and kissed her. I know that she looked up at
me startled, even terrified, yet found no voice to rebuke me. I know
that I did not leave Edinburgh, as I had originally intended, upon the
morrow. And I know this best of all--that I had no ill-intent in
staying. I was caught in a net of impulse despite my own desire. I was
held fast. There are--I believe it unalterably now--influences in life
that are the very Tsars of the empires of men's souls. They must be
obeyed. Possibly--is it so I wonder?--they only mount upon their thrones
when they are urgently invoked by men who, as it were, say, "Come and
rule over us!" But once that invocation has been made, once it has been
responded to, there is never again free will for him who has rashly
called upon the power he does not understand, and bowed before the
tyrant whose face he has not seen. I tremble now, as I write; I tremble
as does the bond slave. Yet I neither speak with, nor hear, nor have
sight of, my master. Unless, indeed--but I will not give way to any
madness of the brain. No, no; I do not hear, I do not see, although I am
conscious of, my Tsar, whose unemancipated serf I am.
I need not tell all the story of my soul's impression that was stamped
upon the soul of Kate Walters. Perhaps it is old. Certainly it is sad. I
stamped deceit upon the nature which had not known it, knowledge of evil
where only purity had been, satiety upon temperance. And, worst of all,
I expelled from this girl's heart love for a good man who loved her, and
planted, in its stead, passion for a--must I say a bad, or may I not
cry, a driven man? And all this time Hugh Fraser knew nothing of his
sorrow, growing up swiftly to meet him like a giant. Even now, while I
write these words, he knows nothing of it. As I had carelessly taken
possession of the mind, the very nature of Dr Wedderburn, so now I took
possession of the very nature of Kate Walters. My immense strength, my
abounding physical glory drew her--who had known me a puny
invalid--irresistibly. I won the doctor by my mind; this girl, in the
main, I think, by my body. And when at length I tired of her slightly,
the woman, the gentle woman, sprang up a tigress. I had said one night
that, since I was obliged to go to London, we must part for a while. I
had added that it was well Hugh Fraser lived in complete ignorance of
his betrayal.
"Why?" Kate suddenly cried out.
"Because--because it is best so. He and you--some day."
I paused. She understood my meaning. Instantly the tigress had sprung
upon me. The scene that followed was eloquent. I learned what lives and
moves in the very depths of a nature, stirred by the inexhaustible greed
of passion, twisted by passion's fulfilment, the ardent touched by the
inert. But upon that hurricane has followed an immense and very strange
calm. Kate is almost cold to me, though very sweet. She has acquiesced
in my departure for town. She has come to one mind with me on the
subject of Hugh Fraser. More, she has even written a letter to him
asking him to come to her, pressing forward their marriage, and I am to
be the bearer of it to him. This is only a woman's whim. She insists
that I must see once the man who is to be her husband.
So, after all, the tragedy of Dr Wedderburn is not to be repeated. I--I
shall not hear, stealing along the steep and windy streets of Edinburgh,
any--any strange footsteps.
* * * * *
What is the awful fate that pursues me? A year ago I left Edinburgh
carrying with me the letter which I understood to contain the request
of Kate Walters to her lover, Hugh Fraser, to hasten on their marriage.
As the train roared southwards, I congratulated myself on my clever
management of a woman. I had, it is true, stepped in between Kate and
the calm happiness she had been anticipating when I first met her in the
hospital ward. But now I had withdrawn. And, I told myself, in time. All
would be well. This girl would marry the boy who loved her. She would
deceive him. He would never know that the girl he married was not the
girl he originally loved. He would never perceive that a human being had
intervened between her and purity, truth, honour. In this letter--I
touched it with my fingers, congratulating myself--Hugh Fraser would
read the summons to the future he desired, the future with Kate Walters.
His soul would rush to meet hers, and surely, after a little while, hers
would cease to hold back. She would really once more be as she had been.
I forgot that no human soul can ever retreat from knowledge to
ignorance.
Hugh Fraser's rooms in London were in Piccadilly. Directly I arrived in
town I wrote him a note, saying that I was from Edinburgh with a message
from Kate Walters for him. I explained that she had nursed me through a
severe illness, and hoped I might have the pleasure of making his
acquaintance. In reply, I received a most friendly note, begging me to
call at an hour on the evening of the following day.
That evening I drove in a hansom from the Grand Hotel to Piccadilly,
taking Kate's note with me. I was conscious of a certain excitement, and
also of a certain moral exultation. Ridiculously enough, I felt as if I
were about to perform a sort of fine, almost paternal act, blessing
these children with genuine, as opposed to stage, emotion. Yes; I glowed
with a consciousness of personal merit. How incredible human beings are!
Arrived at Hugh Fraser's rooms, I was at once shown in. How vividly I
remember that first interview of ours, the exact condition of the room,
Hugh's attitude of lively anticipation, the precise way in which he held
his cigarette, the grim, short bark of the fox-terrier that sprang up
from a sofa when I came in. Hugh was almost twenty-four years old,
rather tall, slim, with intense, large, dark eyes--full of shining
cheerfulness just then--very short, curling black hair, and fine,
straight features. His expression was boyish; so were his movements. As
soon as he saw me, he sprang forward and gave me an enthusiastic
welcome--for the sake of Kate, I knew. He led me to the fire and made me
sit down. I at once handed him my credentials, Kate's letter. His face
flushed with pleasure, and his fingers twitched with the desire to tear
it open, but he refrained politely, and began to talk--about her, I
confess. I understood in three minutes how deeply he was in love with
her. I told him all about her that might please him, and hinted at the
contents of the letter.
"What!" he exclaimed joyously. "She wants to hasten on our marriage at
last. And she's kept me off--but you know what girls are! She couldn't
leave the hospital immediately. She swore it. There were a thousand
reasons for delay. But now--by Jove!"
His eyes were suddenly radiant, and he clutched hold of my hand like a
schoolboy.
"You are a good chap to bring me such a letter," he cried.
"Read it," I said, again filled with moral self-satisfaction, vain,
paltry egoist that I was.
"No, no--presently."
But I insisted; and at length he complied, enchanted to yield to my
importunity. He opened the letter, and, as he broke the seal, his face
was like morning. Never shall I forget the change that grew in it as he
read. When he had finished his face was like starless night. He looked
old, haggard, black, shrunken. I watched him with a sensation that
something had gone wrong with my sight. Surely radiance was fully before
me and my tricked vision saw it as despair. Raising his blank, bleak
eyes from the letter, Hugh stared towards me and opened his lips. But no
sound came from them. He frowned, as if in fury at his own dumbness.
Then at last, with a sharp shake of his head sideways, he said in a low
and dry voice:
"You know what is in this letter, you say?"
"I--I thought so," I answered, growing cold and filled with anxiety.
"Well, read it, will you?"