It was a bright starlight night, a week or ten days later. There had
been several such nights since the occasion of Lady Constantine's promise
to Swithin St. Cleeve to come and study astronomical phenomena on the
Rings-Hill column; but she had not gone there. This evening she sat at a
window, the blind of which had not been drawn down. Her elbow rested on
a little table, and her cheek on her hand. Her eyes were attracted by
the brightness of the planet Jupiter, as he rode in the ecliptic
opposite, beaming down upon her as if desirous of notice.
Beneath the planet could be still discerned the dark edges of the park
landscape against the sky. As one of its features, though nearly
screened by the trees which had been planted to shut out the fallow
tracts of the estate, rose the upper part of the column. It was hardly
visible now, even if visible at all; yet Lady Constantine knew from
daytime experience its exact bearing from the window at which she leaned.
The knowledge that there it still was, despite its rapid envelopment by
the shades, led her lonely mind to her late meeting on its summit with
the young astronomer, and to her promise to honour him with a visit for
learning some secrets about the scintillating bodies overhead. The
curious juxtaposition of youthful ardour and old despair that she had
found in the lad would have made him interesting to a woman of
perception, apart from his fair hair and early-Christian face. But such
is the heightening touch of memory that his beauty was probably richer in
her imagination than in the real. It was a moot point to consider
whether the temptations that would be brought to bear upon him in his
course would exceed the staying power of his nature. Had he been a
wealthy youth he would have seemed one to tremble for. In spite of his
attractive ambitions and gentlemanly bearing, she thought it would
possibly be better for him if he never became known outside his lonely
tower,--forgetting that he had received such intellectual enlargement as
would probably make his continuance in Welland seem, in his own eye, a
slight upon his father's branch of his family, whose social standing had
been, only a few years earlier, but little removed from her own.
Suddenly she flung a cloak about her and went out on the terrace. She
passed down the steps to the lower lawn, through the door to the open
park, and there stood still. The tower was now discernible. As the
words in which a thought is expressed develop a further thought, so did
the fact of her having got so far influence her to go further. A person
who had casually observed her gait would have thought it irregular; and
the lessenings and increasings of speed with which she proceeded in the
direction of the pillar could be accounted for only by a motive much more
disturbing than an intention to look through a telescope. Thus she went
on, till, leaving the park, she crossed the turnpike-road, and entered
the large field, in the middle of which the fir-clad hill stood like Mont
St. Michel in its bay.
The stars were so bright as distinctly to show her the place, and now she
could see a faint light at the top of the column, which rose like a
shadowy finger pointing to the upper constellations. There was no wind,
in a human sense; but a steady stertorous breathing from the fir-trees
showed that, now as always, there was movement in apparent stagnation.
Nothing but an absolute vacuum could paralyze their utterance.
The door of the tower was shut. It was something more than the
freakishness which is engendered by a sickening monotony that had led
Lady Constantine thus far, and hence she made no ado about admitting
herself. Three years ago, when her every action was a thing of
propriety, she had known of no possible purpose which could have led her
abroad in a manner such as this.
She ascended the tower noiselessly. On raising her head above the
hatchway she beheld Swithin bending over a scroll of paper which lay on
the little table beside him. The small lantern that illuminated it
showed also that he was warmly wrapped up in a coat and thick cap, behind
him standing the telescope on its frame.
What was he doing? She looked over his shoulder upon the paper, and saw
figures and signs. When he had jotted down something he went to the
telescope again.
'What are you doing to-night?' she said in a low voice.
Swithin started, and turned. The faint lamp-light was sufficient to
reveal her face to him.
'Tedious work, Lady Constantine,' he answered, without betraying much
surprise. 'Doing my best to watch phenomenal stars, as I may call them.'
'You said you would show me the heavens if I could come on a starlight
night. I have come.'
Swithin, as a preliminary, swept round the telescope to Jupiter, and
exhibited to her the glory of that orb. Then he directed the instrument
to the less bright shape of Saturn.
'Here,' he said, warming up to the subject, 'we see a world which is to
my mind by far the most wonderful in the solar system. Think of streams
of satellites or meteors racing round and round the planet like a fly-
wheel, so close together as to seem solid matter!' He entered further
and further into the subject, his ideas gathering momentum as he went on,
like his pet heavenly bodies.
When he paused for breath she said, in tones very different from his own,
'I ought now to tell you that, though I am interested in the stars, they
were not what I came to see you about. . . . I first thought of
disclosing the matter to Mr. Torkingham; but I altered my mind, and
decided on you.'
She spoke in so low a voice that he might not have heard her. At all
events, abstracted by his grand theme, he did not heed her. He
continued,--
'Well, we will get outside the solar system altogether,--leave the whole
group of sun, primary and secondary planets quite behind us in our
flight, as a bird might leave its bush and sweep into the whole forest.
Now what do you see, Lady Constantine?' He levelled the achromatic at
Sirius.
She said that she saw a bright star, though it only seemed a point of
light now as before.
'That's because it is so distant that no magnifying will bring its size
up to zero. Though called a fixed star, it is, like all fixed stars,
moving with inconceivable velocity; but no magnifying will show that
velocity as anything but rest.'