minutes, that is to say, was irregular, almost fanciful. Whether the
interval was long or short, however, Morris spent it pacing up and down
the little room, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his mind
oblivious of all else but his absorbing anxiety and grief. To his
friend, who watched him by the wall with intense desire to help, he paid
no attention. The latter's spoken words went by him, entirely unnoticed;
he gave no sign of seeing him; his eyes, as he paced up and down,
muttering inaudibly to himself, were fixed every few seconds on an inner
door. Beyond that door, Sanfield now divined, lay someone who hesitated
on the narrow frontier between life and death.
It opened suddenly and a man, in overall and rubber gloves, came out,
his face grave yet with faint signs of hope about it--a doctor, clearly,
straight from the operating table. Morris, standing rigid in his tracks,
listened to something spoken, for the lips were in movement, though no
words were audible. The operation, Sanfield divined, had been
successful, though danger was still present. The two men passed out,
then, into the hall and climbed a wide staircase to the floor above,
Sanfield following noiselessly, though so close that he could touch
them. Entering a large, airy room where French windows, carefully shaded
with green blinds opened on to a veranda, they approached a bed. Two
nurses bent over it. The occupant was at first invisible.
Events had moved with curious rapidity. All this had happened, it
seemed, in a single moment, yet with the irregular effect already
mentioned which made Sanfield feel it might, equally, have lasted hours.
But, as he stood behind Morris and the surgeon at the bed, the deeps in
him opened suddenly, and he trembled under a shock of intense emotion
that he could not understand. As with a stroke of lightning some
heavenly fire set his heart aflame with yearning. The very soul in him
broke loose with passionate longing that _must_ find satisfaction. It
came to him in a single instant with the certain knowledge of an
unconquerable conviction. Hidden, yet ever waiting, among the broken
centuries, there now leaped upon him this flash of memory--the memory of
some sweet and ancient love Time might veil yet could not kill.
He ran forward, past the surgeon and the nurses, past Morris who bent
above the bed with a face ghastly from anxiety. He gazed down upon the
fair girl lying there, her unbound hair streaming over the pillow. He
saw, and he remembered. And an uncontrollable cry of recognition left
his lips....
The irregularity of the passing minutes became so marked then, that he
might well have passed outside their measure altogether, beyond what men
call Time; duration, interval, both escaped. Alone and free with his
eternal love, he was safe from all confinement, free, it seemed, either
of time or space. His friend, however, was vaguely with him during
the amazing instant. He felt acutely aware of the need each had,
respectively, for the other, born of a heritage the Past had hidden
over-long. Each, it was clear, could do the other a good turn....
Sanfield, though unable to describe or disentangle later, knew, while it
lasted, this joy of full, delicious understanding....
The strange, swift instant of recognition passed and disappeared. The
cry, Sanfield realized, on coming back to the Present, had been
soundless and inaudible as before. No one observed him; no one stirred.
The girl, on that bed beside the opened windows, lay evidently dying.
Her breath came in gasps, her chest heaved convulsively, each attempt
at recovery was slower and more painful than the one before. She was
unconscious. Sometimes her breathing seemed to stop. It grew weaker, as
the pulse grew fainter. And Sanfield, transfixed as with paralysis,
stood watching, waiting, an intolerable yearning in his heart to help.
It seemed to him that he waited with a purpose.
This purpose suddenly became clear. He knew why he waited. There was
help to be given. He was the one to give it.
The girl's vitality and ebbing nerves, her entire physical organism now
fading so quickly towards that final extinction which meant death--could
these but be stimulated by a new tide of life, the danger-point now fast
approaching might be passed, and recovery must follow. This impetus, he
knew suddenly, he could supply. How, he could not tell. It flashed upon
him from beyond the stars, as from ancient store of long-forgotten,
long-neglected knowledge. It was enough that he felt confident and sure.
His soul burned within him; the strength of an ancient and unconquerable
love rose through his being. He would try.
The doctor, he saw, was in the act of giving his last aid in the form of
a hypodermic injection, Morris and the nurses looking on. Sanfield
observed the sharp quick rally, only too faint, too slight; he saw the
collapse that followed. The doctor, shrugging his shoulders, turned with
a look that could not express itself in words, and Morris, burying his
face in his hands, knelt by the bed, shaken with convulsive sobbing. It
was the end.
In which moment, precisely, the strange paralysis that had bound
Sanfield momentarily, was lifted from his being, and an impelling force,
obeying his immense desire, invaded him. He knew how to act. His will,
taught long ago, yet long-forgotten, was set free.
"You have come back to me at last," he cried in his anguish and his
power, though the voice was, as ever, inaudible and soundless, "_I shall
not let you go!..._"
Drawn forward nearer and nearer to the bed, he leaned down, as if to
kiss the pale lips and streaming hair. But his knowledge operated
better than he knew. In the tremendous grip of that power which spins
the stars and suns, while drawing souls into manifestation upon a dozen
planets, he raced, he dived, he plunged, helpless, yet driven by the
creative stress of love and sacrifice towards some eternal purpose.
Caught in what seemed a vortex of amazing force, he sank away, as a
straw is caught and sunk within the suction of a mighty whirlpool. His
memory of Morris, of the doctor, of the girl herself, passed utterly.
His entire personality became merged, lost, obliterated. He was aware of
nothing; not even aware of nothingness. He lost consciousness....
3
The reappearance was as sudden as the obliteration. He emerged. There
had been interval, duration, time. He was not aware of them. A spasm of
blinding pain shot through him. He opened his eyes. His whole body was a
single devouring pain. He felt cramped, confined, uncomfortable. He must
escape. He thrashed about. Someone seized his arm and held it. With a
snarl he easily wrenched it free.
He was in bed. How had he come to this? An accident? He saw the faces of
nurse and doctor bending over him, eager, amazed, surprised, a trifle
frightened. Vague memories floated to him. Who was he? Where had he come
from? And where was ... where was ... someone ... who was dearer to him
than life itself? He looked about him: the room, the faces, the French
windows, the veranda, all seemed only half familiar. He looked, he
searched for ... someone ... but in vain....
A spasm of violent pain burned through his body like a fire, and he shut
his eyes. He groaned. A voice sounded just above him: "Take this, dear.
Try and swallow a little. It will relieve you. Your brother will be back
in a moment. You are much better already."
He looked up at the nurse; he drank what she gave him.
"My brother!" he murmured. "I don't understand. I have no brother."
Thirst came over him; he drained the glass. The nurse, wearing a
startled look, moved away. He watched her go. He pointed at her with his
hand, meaning to say something that he instantly forgot--as he saw his
own bare arm. Its dreadful thinness shocked him. He must have been ill
for months. The arm, wasted almost to nothing, showed the bone. He sank
back exhausted, the sleeping draught began to take effect. The nurse
returned quietly to a chair beside the bed, from which she watched him
without ceasing as the long minutes passed....
He found it difficult to collect his thoughts, to keep them in his mind
when caught. There floated before him a series of odd scenes like
coloured pictures in an endless flow. He was unable to catch them.
Morris was with him always. They were doing quite absurd, impossible
things. They rode together across the desert in the dawn, they wandered
through old massive temples, they saw the sun set behind mud villages
mid wavering palms, they drifted down a river in a sailing boat of
quaint design. It had an enormous single sail. Together they visited
tombs cut in the solid rock, hot airless corridors, and huge, dim,
vaulted chambers underground. There was an icy wind by night, fierce
burning sun by day. They watched vast troops of stars pass down a
stupendous sky.... They knew delight and tasted wonder. Strange memories
touched them....
"Nurse!" he called aloud, returning to himself again, and remembering
that he must speak with his friend about something--he failed to recall
exactly what. "Please ask Mr. Morris to come to me."
"At once, dear. He's only in the next room waiting for you to wake." She
went out quickly, and he heard her voice in the passage. It sank to a
whisper as she came back with Morris, yet every syllable reached him
distinctly:
"... and pay no attention if she wanders a little; just ignore it. She's
turned the corner, thank God, and that's the chief thing." Each word he
heard with wonder and perplexity, with increasing irritability too.
"I'm a hell of a wreck," he said, as Morris came, beaming, to the
bedside. "Have I been ill long? It's frightfully decent of you to come,
old man."
But Morris, staggered at this greeting, stopped abruptly, half turning
to the nurse for guidance. He seemed unable to find words. Sanfield
was extremely annoyed; he showed his feeling. "I'm _not_ balmy, you
old ass!" he shouted. "I'm all right again, though very weak. But I
wanted to ask you--oh, I remember now--I wanted to ask you about
my--er--_Deltas_."
"My poor dear Maggie," stammered Morris, fumbling with his voice. "Don't
worry about your few shares, darling. Deltas are all right--it's _you_
we----"
"Why, the devil, do you call me Maggie?" snapped the other viciously.
"And 'darling'!" He felt furious, exasperated. "Have _you_ gone balmy,
or have I? What in the world are you two up to?" His fury tired him. He
lay back upon his pillows, fuming. Morris took a chair beside the bed;
he put a hand gently on his wasted arm.
"My darling girl," he said, in what was intended to be a soothing
voice, though it stirred the sick man again to fury beyond expression,
"you must really keep quiet for a bit. You've had a very severe
operation"--his voice shook a little--"but, thank God, you've pulled
through and are now on the way to recovery. You are my sister Maggie. It
will all come back to you when you're rested----"
"Maggie, indeed!" interrupted the other, trying to sit up again, but too
weak to compass it. "Your sister! You bally idiot! Don't you know me? I
wish to God the nurse wouldn't 'dear' me in that senseless way. And
you, with your atrocious 'darling,' I'm not your precious sister
Maggie. I'm--I'm George San----"
But even as he said it, there passed over him some dim lost fragment of
a wild, delicious memory he could not seize. Intense pleasure lay in it,
could he but recover it. He knew a sweet, forgotten joy. His broken,
troubled mind lay searching frantically but without success. It dazzled
him. It shook him with an indescribable emotion--of joy, of wonder, of
deep sweet confusion. A rapt happiness rose in him, yet pain, like a
black awful shutter, closed in upon the happiness at once. He remembered
a girl. But he remembered, too, that he had seen her die. Who was she?
Had he lost her ... again...!
"My dear fellow," he faltered in a weaker voice to Morris, "my
brain's in a whirl. I'm sorry. I suppose I've had some blasted
concussion--haven't I?"
But the man beside his bed, he saw, was startled. An extraordinary look
came into his face, though he tried to hide it with a smile.
"My shares!" cried Sanfield, with a half scream. "Four thousand of
them!"
Whereupon Morris blanched. "George Sanfield!" he muttered, half to
himself, half to the nurse who hurried up. "That voice! The very number
too!" He looked white and terrified, as if he had seen a ghost. A
whispered colloquy ensued between him and the nurse. It was inaudible.
"Now, dearest Maggie," he said at length, making evidently a tremendous
effort, "do try and lie quiet for a bit. Don't bother about George
Sanfield, my London friend. His shares are quite safe. You've heard me
speak of him. It's all right, my darling, quite all right. Oh, believe
me! I'm your brother."
"Maggie...!" whispered the man to himself upon the bed, whereupon Morris
stooped, and, to his intense horror, kissed him on the cheek. But his
horror seemed merged at once in another personality that surged through
and over his entire being, drowning memory and recognition hopelessly.
"Darling," he murmured. He realized that he was mad, of course. It
seemed he fainted....
The momentary unconsciousness soon passed, at any rate. He opened his
eyes again. He saw a palm tree out of the window. He knew positively he
was _not_ mad, whatever else he might be. Dead perhaps? He felt the
sheets, the mattress, the skin upon his face. No, he was alive all
right. The dull pains where the tight bandages oppressed him were also
real. He was among substantial, earthly things. The nurse, he noticed,
regarded him anxiously. She was a pleasant-looking young woman. He
smiled; and, with an expression of affectionate, even tender pleasure,
she smiled back at him.
"You feel better now, a little stronger," she said softly. "You've had a
sleep, Miss Margaret." She said "Miss Margaret" with a conscious effort.
It was better, perhaps, than "dear"; but his anger rose at once. He was
too tired, however, to express his feelings. There stole over him,
besides, the afflicting consciousness of an alien personality that was
familiar, and yet not his. It strove to dominate him. Only by a great
effort could he continue to think his own thoughts. This other being
kept trying to intrude, to oust him, to take full possession. It
resented his presence with a kind of violence.
He sighed. So strong was the feeling of another personality trying to
foist itself upon his own, upon his mind, his body, even upon his very
face, that he turned instinctively to the nurse, though unaware exactly
what he meant to ask her for.
"My hand-glass, please," he heard himself saying--with horror. The
phrase was not his own. Glass or mirror were the words _he_ would have
used.
A moment later he was staring with acute and ghastly terror at a
reflection that was not his own. It was the face of the dead girl he
saw within the silver-handled, woman's hand-glass he held up.
* * * * *
The dream with its amazing, vivid detail haunted him for days, even
coming between him and his work. It seemed far more real, more vivid
than the commonplace events of life that followed. The occurrences of
the day were pale compared to its overpowering intensity. And a cable,
received the very next afternoon, increased this sense of actual
truth--of something that had really happened.
"Hold shares writing Morris."
Its brevity added a convincing touch. He was aware of Egypt even in
Throgmorton Street. Yet it was the face of the dead, or dying, girl that
chiefly haunted him. She remained in his thoughts, alive and sweet and
exquisite. Without her he felt incomplete, his life a failure. He
thought of nothing else.
The affairs at the office, meanwhile, went well; unexpected success
attended them; there was no strike; the angry customer was pacified. And
when the promised letter came from Morris, Sanfield's hands trembled so
violently that he could hardly tear it open. Nor could he read it
calmly. The assurance about his precious shares scarcely interested him.
It was the final paragraph that set his heart beating against his ribs
as though a hammer lay inside him:
"... I've had great trouble and anxiety, though, thank God, the
danger is over now. I forget if I ever mentioned my sister,
Margaret, to you. She keeps house for me in Cairo, when I'm there.
She is my only tie in life. Well, a severe operation she had to
undergo, all but finished her. To tell you the truth, she very
nearly died, for the doctor gave her up. You'll smile when I tell
you that odd things happened--at the very last moment. I can't
explain it, nor can the doctor. It rather terrified me. But at the
very moment when we thought her gone, something revived in her.
She became full of unexpected life and vigor. She was even
violent--whereas, a moment before, she had not the strength to
speak, much less to move. It was rather wonderful, but it was
terrible too.
"You don't believe in these things, I know, but I must tell you,
because, when she recovered consciousness, she began to babble about
yourself, using your name, though she has rarely, if ever, heard it,
and even speaking--you won't believe this, of course!--of your
shares in Deltas, giving the _exact_ number that you hold. When you
write, please tell me if you were very anxious about these? Also,
whether your thoughts were directed particularly to me? I thought a
good deal about you, knowing you might be uneasy, but my mind was
pretty full, as you will understand, of her operation at the time.
The climax, when all this happened, was about 11 a. m. on February
13th.
"Don't fail to tell me this, as I'm particularly interested in what
you may have to say."
"And, now, I want to ask a great favor of you. The doctor forbids
Margaret to stay here during the hot weather, so I'm sending her
home to some cousins in Yorkshire, as soon as she is fit to travel.
It would be most awfully kind--I know how women bore you--if you
could manage to meet the boat and help her on her way through
London. I'll let you know dates and particulars later, when I hear
that you will do this for me...."
Sanfield hardly read the remainder of the letter, which dealt with
shares and business matters. But a month later he stood on the dock-pier
at Tilbury, watching the approach of the tender from the _Egyptian
Mail_.
He saw it make fast; he saw the stream of passengers pour down the
gangway; and he saw among them the tall, fair woman of his dream. With a
beating heart he went to meet her....
IX
THE DECOY
It belonged to the category of unlovely houses about which an ugly
superstition clings, one reason being, perhaps, its inability to inspire
interest in itself without assistance. It seemed too ordinary to possess
individuality, much less to exert an influence. Solid and ungainly, its
huge bulk dwarfing the park timber, its best claim to notice was a
negative one--it was unpretentious.
From the little hill its expressionless windows stared across the
Kentish Weald, indifferent to weather, dreary in winter, bleak in
spring, unblessed in summer. Some colossal hand had tossed it down, then
let it starve to death, a country mansion that might well strain the
adjectives of advertisers and find inheritors with difficulty. Its soul
had fled, said some; it had committed suicide, thought others; and it
was an inheritor, before he killed himself in the library, who thought
this latter, yielding, apparently, to an hereditary taint in the family.
For two other inheritors followed suit, with an interval of twenty years
between them, and there was no clear reason to explain the three
disasters. Only the first owner, indeed, lived permanently in the house,
the others using it in the summer months and then deserting it with
relief. Hence, when John Burley, present inheritor, assumed possession,
he entered a house about which clung an ugly superstition, based,
nevertheless, upon a series of undeniably ugly facts.
This century deals harshly with superstitious folk, deeming them fools
or charlatans; but John Burley, robust, contemptuous of half lights, did
not deal harshly with them, because he did not deal with them at all.
He was hardly aware of their existence. He ignored them as he ignored,
say, the Esquimaux, poets, and other human aspects that did not touch
his scheme of life. A successful business man, he concentrated on what
was real; he dealt with business people. His philanthropy, on a big
scale, was also real; yet, though he would have denied it vehemently,
he had his superstition as well. No man exists without some taint of
superstition in his blood; the racial heritage is too rich to be escaped
entirely. Burley's took this form--that unless he gave his tithe to the
poor he would not prosper. This ugly mansion, he decided, would make an
ideal Convalescent Home.
"Only cowards or lunatics kill themselves," he declared flatly, when his
use of the house was criticized. "I'm neither one nor t'other." He let
out his gusty, boisterous laugh. In his invigorating atmosphere such
weakness seemed contemptible, just as superstition in his presence
seemed feeblest ignorance. Even its picturesqueness faded. "I can't
conceive," he boomed, "can't even imagine to myself," he added
emphatically, "the state of mind in which a man can think of suicide,
much less do it." He threw his chest out with a challenging air. "I tell
you, Nancy, it's either cowardice or mania. And I've no use for either."
Yet he was easy-going and good-humoured in his denunciation. He admitted
his limitations with a hearty laugh his wife called noisy. Thus he made
allowances for the fairy fears of sailorfolk, and had even been known to
mention haunted ships his companies owned. But he did so in the terms of
tonnage and L s. d. His scope was big; details were made for clerks.
His consent to pass a night in the mansion was the consent of a
practical business man and philanthropist who dealt condescendingly with
foolish human nature. It was based on the common-sense of tonnage and
L s. d. The local newspapers had revived the silly story of the suicides,
calling attention to the effect of the superstition upon the fortunes
of the house, and so, possibly, upon the fortunes of its present owner.
But the mansion, otherwise a white elephant, was precisely ideal for his
purpose, and so trivial a matter as spending a night in it should not
stand in the way. "We must take people as we find them, Nancy."
His young wife had her motive, of course, in making the proposal, and,
if she was amused by what she called "spook-hunting," he saw no reason
to refuse her the indulgence. He loved her, and took her as he found
her--late in life. To allay the superstitions of prospective staff and
patients and supporters, all, in fact, whose goodwill was necessary to
success, he faced this boredom of a night in the building before its
opening was announced. "You see, John, if you, the owner, do this, it
will nip damaging talk in the bud. If anything went wrong later it would
only be put down to this suicide idea, this haunting influence. The Home
will have a bad name from the start. There'll be endless trouble. It
will be a failure."
"You think my spending a night there will stop the nonsense?" he
inquired.
"According to the old legend it breaks the spell," she replied. "That's
the condition, anyhow."
"But somebody's sure to die there sooner or later," he objected. "We
can't prevent that."
"We can prevent people whispering that they died unnaturally." She
explained the working of the public mind.
"I see," he replied, his lip curling, yet quick to gauge the truth of
what she told him about collective instinct.
"Unless _you_ take poison in the hall," she added laughingly, "or elect
to hang yourself with your braces from the hat peg."
"I'll do it," he agreed, after a moment's thought. "I'll sit up
with you. It will be like a honeymoon over again, you and I on the
spree--eh?" He was even interested now; the boyish side of him was
touched perhaps; but his enthusiasm was less when she explained that
three was a better number than two on such an expedition.
"I've often done it before, John. We were always three."
"Who?" he asked bluntly. He looked wonderingly at her, but she answered
that if anything went wrong a party of three provided a better margin
for help. It was sufficiently obvious. He listened and agreed. "I'll get
young Mortimer," he suggested. "Will he do?"