flight of stairs in a series of leaps, four steps at a time, reached the
hall, flew across it, and opened the front door, just as his pursuer,
electric torch in hand, covered half the stairs behind him. Slamming the
door, he plunged headlong into the welcome, all-obscuring fog outside.
The fog had now no terrors for him, he welcomed its concealing mantle;
nor did it matter in which direction he ran so long as he put distance
between him and the house of death. The pursuer had, of course, not
followed him into the street. He crossed open spaces without a tremor.
He ran in a circle nevertheless, though without being aware he did so.
No people were about, no single groping shadow passed him; no boom of
traffic reached his ears, when he paused for breath at length against an
area railing. Then for the first time he made the discovery that he had
no hat. He remembered now. In examining the body, partly out of respect,
partly perhaps unconsciously, he had taken it off and laid it--on the
very bed.
It was there, a tell-tale bit of damning evidence, in the house of
death. And a series of probable consequences flashed through his mind
like lightning. It was a new hat fortunately; more fortunate still, he
had not yet written name or initials in it; but the maker's mark was
there for all to read, and the police would go immediately to the shop
where he had bought it only two days before. Would the shop-people
remember his appearance? Would his visit, the date, the conversation be
recalled? He thought it was unlikely; he resembled dozens of men; he had
no outstanding peculiarity. He tried to think, but his mind was confused
and troubled, his heart was beating dreadfully, he felt desperately ill.
He sought vainly for some story to account for his being out in the fog
and far from home without a hat. No single idea presented itself. He
clung to the icy railings, hardly able to keep upright, collapse very
near--when suddenly a figure emerged from the fog, paused a moment to
stare at him, put out a hand and caught him, and then spoke:
"You're ill, my dear sir," said a man's kindly voice. "Can I be of any
assistance? Come, let me help you." He had seen at once that it was not
a case of drunkenness. "Come, take my arm, won't you? I'm a physician.
Luckily, too, you are just outside my very house. Come in." And he half
dragged, half pushed O'Reilly, now bordering on collapse, up the steps
and opened the door with his latch-key.
"Felt ill suddenly--lost in the fog ... terrified, but be all right
soon, thanks awfully----" the Canadian stammered his gratitude, but
already feeling better. He sank into a chair in the hall, while the
other put down a paper parcel he had been carrying, and led him
presently into a comfortable room; a fire burned brightly; the electric
lamps were pleasantly shaded; a decanter of whisky and a siphon stood on
a small table beside a big arm-chair; and before O'Reilly could find
another word to say the other had poured him out a glass and bade him
sip it slowly, without troubling to talk till he felt better.
"That will revive you. Better drink it slowly. You should never have
been out a night like this. If you've far to go, better let me put you
up----"
"Very kind, very kind, indeed," mumbled O'Reilly, recovering rapidly in
the comfort of a presence he already liked and felt even drawn to.
"No trouble at all," returned the doctor. "I've been at the front, you
know. I can see what your trouble is--shell-shock, I'll be bound."
The Canadian, much impressed by the other's quick diagnosis, noted also
his tact and kindness. He had made no reference to the absence of a hat,
for instance.
"Quite true," he said. "I'm with Dr. Henry, in Harley Street," and he
added a few words about his case. The whisky worked its effect, he
revived more and more, feeling better every minute. The other handed
him a cigarette; they began to talk about his symptoms and recovery;
confidence returned in a measure, though he still felt badly frightened.
The doctor's manner and personality did much to help, for there was
strength and gentleness in the face, though the features showed unusual
determination, softened occasionally by a sudden hint as of suffering in
the bright, compelling eyes. It was the face, thought O'Reilly, of a
man who had seen much and probably been through hell, but of a man who
was simple, good, sincere. Yet not a man to trifle with; behind his
gentleness lay something very stern. This effect of character and
personality woke the other's respect in addition to his gratitude. His
sympathy was stirred.
"You encourage me to make another guess," the man was saying, after a
successful reading of the impromptu patient's state, "that you have had,
namely, a severe shock quite recently, and"--he hesitated for the merest
fraction of a second--"that it would be a relief to you," he went on,
the skilful suggestion in the voice unnoticed by his companion, "it
would be wise as well, if you could unburden yourself to--someone--who
would understand." He looked at O'Reilly with a kindly and very pleasant
smile. "Am I not right, perhaps?" he asked in his gentle tone.
"Someone who would understand," repeated the Canadian. "That's my
trouble exactly. You've hit it. It's all so incredible."
The other smiled. "The more incredible," he suggested, "the greater your
need for expression. Suppression, as you may know, is dangerous in cases
like this. You think you have hidden it, but it bides its time and comes
up later, causing a lot of trouble. Confession, you know"--he emphasized
the word--"confession is good for the soul!"
"You're dead right," agreed the other.
"Now if you can, bring yourself to tell it to someone who will listen
and believe--to myself, for instance. I am a doctor, familiar with such
things. I shall regard all you say as a professional confidence, of
course; and, as we are strangers, my belief or disbelief is of no
particular consequence. I may tell you in advance of your story,
however--I think I can promise it--that I shall believe all you have to
say."
O'Reilly told his story without more ado, for the suggestion of the
skilled physician had found easy soil to work in. During the recital his
host's eyes never once left his own. He moved no single muscle of his
body. His interest seemed intense.
"A bit tall, isn't it?" said the Canadian, when his tale was finished.
"And the question is----" he continued with a threat of volubility which
the other checked instantly.
"Strange, yes, but incredible, no," the doctor interrupted. "I see no
reason to disbelieve a single detail of what you have just told me.
Things equally remarkable, equally incredible, happen in all large
towns, as I know from personal experience. I could give you instances."
He paused a moment, but his companion, staring into his eyes with
interest and curiosity, made no comment. "Some years ago, in fact,"
continued the other, "I knew of a very similar case--strangely similar."
"Really! I should be immensely interested----"
"So similar that it seems almost a coincidence. _You_ may find it hard,
in your turn, to credit it." He paused again, while O'Reilly sat forward
in his chair to listen. "Yes," pursued the doctor slowly, "I think
everyone connected with it is now dead. There is no reason why I should
not tell it, for one confidence deserves another, you know. It happened
during the Boer War--as long ago as that," he added with emphasis. "It
is really a very commonplace story in one way, though very dreadful in
another, but a man who has served at the front will understand and--I'm
sure--will sympathize."
"I'm sure of that," offered the other readily.
"A colleague of mine, now dead, as I mentioned--a surgeon, with a big
practice, married a young and charming girl. They lived happily
together for several years. His wealth made her very comfortable. His
consulting-room, I must tell you, was some distance from his house--just
as this might be--so that she was never bothered with any of his
cases. Then came the war. Like many others, though much over age, he
volunteered. He gave up his lucrative practice and went to South Africa.
His income, of course, stopped; the big house was closed; his wife found
her life of enjoyment considerably curtailed. This she considered a
great hardship, it seems. She felt a bitter grievance against him.
Devoid of imagination, without any power of sacrifice, a selfish type,
she was yet a beautiful, attractive woman--and young. The inevitable
lover came upon the scene to console her. They planned to run away
together. He was rich. Japan they thought would suit them. Only, by some
ill luck, the husband got wind of it and arrived in London just in the
nick of time."
"Well rid of her," put in O'Reilly, "_I_ think."
The doctor waited a moment. He sipped his glass. Then his eyes fixed
upon his companion's face somewhat sternly.
"Well rid of her, yes," he continued, "only he determined to make that
riddance final. He decided to kill her--and her lover. You see, he loved
her."
O'Reilly made no comment. In his own country this method with a
faithless woman was not unknown. His interest was very concentrated. But
he was thinking, too, as he listened, thinking hard.
"He planned the time and place with care," resumed the other in a lower
voice, as though he might possibly be overheard. "They met, he knew, in
the big house, now closed, the house where he and his young wife had
passed such happy years during their prosperity. The plan failed,
however, in an important detail--the woman came at the appointed hour,
but without her lover. She found death waiting for her--it was a
painless death. Then her lover, who was to arrive half an hour later,
did not come at all. The door had been left open for him purposely. The
house was dark, its rooms shut up, deserted; there was no caretaker
even. It was a foggy night, just like this."
"And the other?" asked O'Reilly in a failing voice. "The lover----"
"A man did come in," the doctor went on calmly, "but it was not the
lover. It was a stranger."
"A stranger?" the other whispered. "And the surgeon--where was he all
this time?"
"Waiting outside to see him enter--concealed in the fog. He saw the man
go in. Five minutes later he followed, meaning to complete his
vengeance, his act of justice, whatever you like to call it. But the man
who had come in was a stranger--he came in by chance--just as you might
have done--to shelter from the fog--or----"
O'Reilly, though with a great effort, rose abruptly to his feet. He had
an appalling feeling that the man facing him was mad. He had a keen
desire to get outside, fog or no fog, to leave this room, to escape from
the calm accents of this insistent voice. The effect of the whisky was
still in his blood. He felt no lack of confidence. But words came to him
with difficulty.
"I think I'd better be pushing off now, doctor," he said clumsily. "But
I feel I must thank you very much for all your kindness and help." He
turned and looked hard into the keen eyes facing him. "Your friend," he
asked in a whisper, "the surgeon--I hope--I mean, was he ever caught?"
"No," was the grave reply, the doctor standing up in front of him, "he
was never caught."
O'Reilly waited a moment before he made another remark. "Well," he said
at length, but in a louder tone than before, "I think--I'm glad." He
went to the door without shaking hands.
"You have no hat," mentioned the voice behind him. "If you'll wait a
moment I'll get you one of mine. You need not trouble to return it." And
the doctor passed him, going into the hall. There was a sound of tearing
paper, O'Reilly left the house a moment later with a hat upon his head,
but it was not till he reached the Tube station half an hour afterwards
that he realized it was his own.
XIV
THE LANE THAT RAN EAST AND WEST
I
The curving strip of lane, fading into invisibility east and west, had
always symbolized life to her. In some minds life pictures itself a
straight line, uphill, downhill, flat, as the case may be; in hers it
had been, since childhood, this sweep of country lane that ran past her
cottage door. In thick white summer dust, she invariably visualized it,
blue and yellow flowers along its untidy banks of green. It flowed, it
glided, sometimes it rushed. Without a sound it ran along past the nut
trees and the branches where honeysuckle and wild roses shone. With
every year now its silent speed increased.
From either end she imagined, as a child, that she looked over into
outer space--from the eastern end into the infinity before birth, from
the western into the infinity that follows death. It was to her of real
importance.
From the veranda the entire stretch was visible, not more than five
hundred yards at most; from the platform in her mind, whence she viewed
existence, she saw her own life, similarly, as a white curve of
flowering lane, arising she knew not whence, gliding whither she could
not tell. At eighteen she had paraphrased the quatrain with a smile upon
her red lips, her chin tilted, her strong grey eyes rather wistful with
yearning--
_Into this little lane, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like water willy-nilly flowing,
And out again--like dust along the waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing._
At thirty she now repeated it, the smile still there, but the lips not
quite so red, the chin a trifle firmer, the grey eyes stronger, clearer,
but charged with a more wistful and a deeper yearning.
It was her turn of mind, imaginative, introspective, querulous perhaps,
that made the bit of running lane significant. Food with the butcher's
and baker's carts came to her from its eastern, its arriving end, as she
called it; news with the postman, adventure with rare callers. Youth,
hope, excitement, all these came from the sunrise. Thence came likewise
spring and summer, flowers, butterflies, the swallows. The fairies, in
her childhood, had come that way too, their silver feet and gossamer
wings brightening the summer dawns; and it was but a year ago that Dick
Messenger, his car stirring a cloud of thick white dust, had also come
into her life from the space beyond the sunrise.
She sat thinking about him now--how he had suddenly appeared out of
nothing that warm June morning, asked her permission about some
engineering business on the neighbouring big estate over the hill, given
her a dog-rose and a bit of fern-leaf, and eventually gone away with her
promise when he left. Out of the eastern end he appeared; into the
western end he vanished.
For there was this departing end as well, where the lane curved out of
sight into the space behind the yellow sunset. In this direction went
all that left her life. Her parents, each in turn, had taken that way to
the churchyard. Spring, summer, the fading butterflies, the restless
swallows, all left her round that western curve. Later the fairies
followed them, her dreams one by one, the vanishing years as well--and
now her youth, swifter, ever swifter, into the region where the sun
dipped nightly among pale rising stars, leaving her brief strip of life
colder, more and more unlit.
Just beyond this end she imagined shadows.
She saw Dick's car whirling towards her, whirling away again, making for
distant Mexico, where his treasure lay. In the interval he had found
that treasure and realized it. He was now coming back again. He had
landed in England yesterday.
Seated in her deck-chair on the veranda, she watched the sun sink to the
level of the hazel trees. The last swallows already flashed their dark
wings against the fading gold. Over that western end to-morrow or the
next day, amid a cloud of whirling white dust, would emerge, again out
of nothingness, the noisy car that brought Dick Messenger back to her,
back from the Mexican expedition that ensured his great new riches, back
into her heart and life. In the other direction she would depart a week
or so later, her life in his keeping, and his in hers ... and the feet
of their children, in due course, would run up and down the mysterious
lane in search of flowers, butterflies, excitement, in search of life.
She wondered ... and as the light faded her wondering grew deeper.
Questions that had lain dormant for twelve months became audible
suddenly. Would Dick be satisfied with this humble cottage which meant
so much to her that she felt she could never, never leave it? Would not
his money, his new position, demand palaces elsewhere? He was ambitious.
Could his ambitions set an altar of sacrifice to his love? And
she--could she, on the other hand, walk happy and satisfied along the
western curve, leaving her lane finally behind her, lost, untravelled,
forgotten? Could she face this sacrifice for him? Was he, in a word,
_the_ man whose appearance out of the sunrise she had been watching and
waiting for all these hurrying, swift years?
She wondered. Now that the decisive moment was so near, unhappy doubts
assailed her. Her wondering grew deeper, spread, enveloped, penetrated
her being like a gathering darkness. And the sun sank lower, dusk crept
along the hedgerows, the flowers closed their little burning eyes.
Shadows passed hand in hand along the familiar bend that was so short,
so soon travelled over and left behind that a mistake must ruin all its
sweetest joy. To wander down it with a companion to whom its flowers,
its butterflies, its shadows brought no full message, must turn it
chill, dark, lonely, colourless.... Her thoughts slipped on thus into a
soft inner reverie born of that scented twilight hour of honeysuckle and
wild roses, born too of her deep self-questioning, of wonder, of
yearning unsatisfied.
The lane, meanwhile, produced its customary few figures, moving
homewards through the dusk. She knew them well, these familiar figures
of the countryside, had known them from childhood onwards--labourers,
hedgers, ditchers and the like, with whom now, even in her reverie, she
exchanged the usual friendly greetings across the wicket-gate. This
time, however, she gave but her mind to them, her heart absorbed with
its own personal and immediate problem.
Melancey had come and gone; old Averill, carrying his hedger's
sickle-knife, had followed; and she was vaguely looking for Hezekiah
Purdy, bent with years and rheumatism, his tea-pail always rattling, his
shuffling feet making a sorry dust, when the figure she did not quite
recognize came into view, emerging unexpectedly from the sunrise end.
Was it Purdy? Yes--no--yet, if not, who was it? Of course it must be
Purdy. Yet while the others, being homeward bound, came naturally from
west to east, with this new figure it was otherwise, so that he was
half-way down the curve before she fully realized him. Out of the
eastern end the man drew nearer, a stranger therefore; out of the
unknown regions where the sun rose, and where no shadows were, he moved
towards her down the deserted lane, perhaps a trespasser, an intruder
possibly, but certainly an unfamiliar figure.
Without particular attention or interest, she watched him drift nearer
down her little semi-private lane of dream, passing leisurely from east
to west, the mere fact that he was there establishing an intimacy that
remained at first unsuspected. It was her eye that watched him, not her
mind. What was he doing here, where going, whither come, she wondered
vaguely, the lane both his background and his starting-point? A little
by-way, after all, this haunted lane. The real world, she knew, swept
down the big high-road beyond, unconscious of the humble folk its
unimportant tributary served. Suddenly the burden of the years assailed
her. Had she, then, missed life by living here?
Then, with a little shock, her heart contracted as she became aware of
two eyes fixed upon her in the dusk. The stranger had already reached
the wicket-gate and now stood leaning against it, staring at her over
its spiked wooden top. It was certainly not old Purdy. The blood rushed
back into her heart again as she returned the gaze. He was watching her
with a curious intentness, with an odd sense of authority almost, with
something that persuaded her instantly of a definite purpose in his
being there. He was waiting for her--expecting her to come down and
speak with him, as she had spoken with the others. Of this, her little
habit, he made use, she felt. Shyly, half-nervously, she left her
deck-chair and went slowly down the short gravel path between the
flowers, noticing meanwhile that his clothes were ragged, his hair
unkempt, his face worn and ravaged as by want and suffering, yet that
his eyes were curiously young. His eyes, indeed, were full brown smiling
eyes, and it was the surprise of his youth that impressed her chiefly.
That he could be tramp or trespasser left her. She felt no fear.
She wished him "Good evening" in her calm, quiet voice, adding with
sympathy, "And who are you, I wonder? You want to ask me something?" It
flashed across her that his shabby clothing was somehow a disguise. Over
his shoulder hung a faded sack. "I can do something for you?" she
pursued inquiringly, as was her kindly custom. "If you are hungry,
thirsty, or----"
It was the expression of vigour leaping into the deep eyes that stopped
her. "If you need clothes," she had been going to add. She was not
frightened, but suddenly she paused, gripped by a wonder she could not
understand.
And his first words justified her wonder. "_I_ have something for you,"
he said, his voice faint, a kind of stillness in it as though it came
through distance. Also, though this she did not notice, it was an
educated voice, and it was the absence of surprise that made this detail
too natural to claim attention. She had expected it. "Something to give
you. I have brought it for you," the man concluded.
"Yes," she replied, aware, again without comprehension, that her courage
and her patience were both summoned to support her. "Yes," she repeated
more faintly, as though this was all natural, inevitable, expected. She
saw that the sack was now lifted from his shoulder and that his hand
plunged into it, as it hung apparently loose and empty against the gate.
His eyes, however, never for one instant left her own. Alarm, she was
able to remind herself, she did not feel. She only recognized that this
ragged figure laid something upon her spirit she could not fathom, yet
was compelled to face.
His next words startled her. She drew, if unconsciously, upon her
courage:
"A dream."
The voice was deep, yet still with the faintness as of distance in it.
His hand, she saw, was moving slowly from the empty sack. A strange
attraction, mingled with pity, with yearning too, stirred deeply in her.
The face, it seemed, turned soft, the eyes glowed with some inner fire
of feeling. Her heart now beat unevenly.
"Something--to--sell to me," she faltered, aware that his glowing eyes
upon her made her tremble. The same instant she was ashamed of the
words, knowing they were uttered by a portion of her that resisted, and
this was not the language he deserved.
He smiled, and she knew her resistance a vain make-believe he pierced
too easily, though he let it pass in silence.
"There is, I mean, a price--for every dream," she tried to save herself,
conscious delightfully that her heart was smiling in return.
The dusk enveloped them, the corncrakes were calling from the fields,
the scent of honeysuckle and wild roses lay round her in a warm wave of
air, yet at the same time she felt as if her naked soul stood side by
side with this figure in the infinitude of space beyond the sunrise end.
The golden stars hung calm and motionless above them. "That price"--his
answer fell like a summons she had actually expected--"you pay to
another, not to me." The voice grew fainter, farther away, dropping
through empty space behind her. "All dreams are but a single dream. You
pay that price to----"
Her interruption slipped spontaneously from her lips, its inevitable
truth a prophecy:
"To myself!"
He smiled again, but this time he did not answer. His hand, instead, now
moved across the gate towards her.