There are eager spirits who enter upon each morning like adventurers
upon an unknown sea. Mr. Rupert Glynn, however, was not of that
company. He had been christened "Rupert" in an ironical moment, for he
preferred the day to be humdrum. Possessed of an easy independence,
which he had never done a stroke of work to enlarge, he remained a
bachelor, not from lack of opportunity to become a husband, but in
order that his comfort might not be disarranged.
"A hunting-box in the Midlands," he used to say, "a set of chambers in
the Albany, the season in town, a cure in the autumn at some French
spa where a modest game of baccarat can be enjoyed, and a five-pound
note in my pocket at the service of a friend--these conditions satisfy
my simple wants, and I can rub along."
Contentment had rounded his figure, and he was a little thicker in the
jaw and redder in the face than he used to be. But his eye was clear,
and he had many friends, a fact for which it was easy to account. For
there was a pleasant earthliness about him which made him restful
company. It seemed impossible that strange startling things could
happen in his presence; he had so stolid and comfortable a look, his
life was so customary and sane. "When I am frightened by queer
shuffling sounds in the dead of night," said a nervous friend of his,
"I think of Rupert Glynn and I am comforted." Yet just because of this
atmosphere of security which he diffused about him, Mr. Glynn was
dragged into mysteries, and made acquainted with terrors.
In the first days of February Mr. Glynn found upon his breakfast-table
at Melton a letter which he read through with an increasing gravity.
Mr. Glynn being a man of method, kept a file of the _Morning Post_. He
rang the bell for his servant, and fetched to the table his pocket
diary. He turned back the pages until he read in the space reserved
for November 15th, "My first run of the year."
Then he spoke to his servant, who was now waiting in the room:
"Thompson, bring me the _Morning Post_ of November 16th."
Mr. Glynn remembered that he had read a particular announcement in the
paper on the morning after his first run, when he was very stiff.
Thompson brought him the copy for which he had asked, and, turning
over the pages, he soon lighted upon the paragraph.
"Mr. James Thresk has recovered from his recent breakdown, and left
London yesterday with Mrs. Thresk for North Uist."
Glynn laid down his newspaper and contemplated the immediate future
with gloom. It was a very long way to the Outer Hebrides, and,
moreover, he had eight horses in his stable. Yet he could hardly
refuse to take the journey in the face of that paragraph. It was not,
indeed, in his nature to refuse. For the letter written by Linda
Thresk claimed his presence urgently. He took it up again. There was
no reason expressed as to why he was needed. And there were
instructions, besides, which puzzled him, very explicit instructions.
He was to bring his guns, he was to send a telegram from Loch
Boisdale, the last harbour into which the steamer from Oban put before
it reached North Uist, and from no other place. He was, in a word, to
pretend that he had been shooting in a neighbouring island to North
Uist, and that, since he was so near, he ventured to trespass for a
night or two on Mrs. Thresk's hospitality. All these precautions
seemed to Glynn ominous, but still more ominous was the style of the
letter. A word here, a sentence there--nay, the very agitation of the
handwriting, filled Glynn with uneasiness. The appeal was almost
pitiful. He seemed to see Linda Thresk bending over the pages of the
letter which he now held in his hand, writing hurriedly, with a
twitching, terrified face, and every now and then looking up, and to
this side and to that, with the eyes of a hunted animal. He remembered
Linda's appearance very well as he held her letter in his hand,
although three years had passed since he had seen her--a fragile,
slender woman with a pale, delicate face, big dark eyes, and masses of
dark hair--a woman with the look of a girl and an almost hot-house air
of refinement.
Mr. Glynn laid the letter down again, and again rang for his servant.
"Pack for a fortnight," he said. "And get my guns out. I am going
away."
Thompson was as surprised as his self-respect allowed him to be.
"Your guns, sir?" he asked. "I think they are in town, but we have not
used them for so long."
"I know," said Mr. Glynn impatiently, "But we are going to use them
now."
Thompson knew very well that Mr. Glynn could not hit a haystack twenty
yards away, and had altogether abandoned a sport in which he was so
lamentably deficient. But a still greater shock was to be inflicted
upon him.
"Thompson," said Mr. Glynn, "I shall not take you with me. I shall go
alone."
And go alone he did. Here was the five-pound note, in a word, at the
service of a friend. But he was not without perplexities, to keep his
thoughts busy upon his journey.
Why had Linda Thresk sent for him out of all her friends?
For since her marriage three years before, he had clean lost sight of
her, and even before her marriage he had, after all, been only one of
many. He found no answer to that question. On the other hand, he
faithfully fulfilled Mrs. Thresk's instructions. He took his guns with
him, and when the steamer stopped beside the little quay at Loch
Boisdale he went ashore and sent off his telegram. Two hours later he
disembarked at Lochmaddy in North Uist, and, hiring a trap at the inn,
set off on his long drive across that flat and melancholy island. The
sun set, the swift darkness followed, and the moon had risen before he
heard the murmurous thunder of the sea upon the western shore. It was
about ten minutes later when, beyond a turn of the road, he saw the
house and lights shining brightly in its windows. It was a small white
house with a few out-buildings at the back, set in a flat peat country
on the edge of a great marsh. Ten yards from the house a great brake
of reeds marked the beginning of the marsh, and beyond the reeds the
bog stretched away glistening with pools to the low sand-hills. Beyond
the sand-hills the Atlantic ran out to meet the darkness, a shimmering
plain of silver. One sapling stood up from the middle of the marsh,
and laid a finger across the moon. But except that sapling, there were
not any trees.
To Glynn, fresh from the meadowlands of Leicestershire with their neat
patterns of hedges, white gates and trees, this corner of the Outer
Hebrides upon the edge of the Atlantic had the wildest and most
desolate look. The seagulls and curlews cried perpetually above the
marsh, and the quiet sea broke upon the sand with a haunting and
mournful sound. Glynn looked at the little house set so far away in
solitude, and was glad that he had come. To his southern way of
thinking, trouble was best met and terrors most easily endured in the
lighted ways of cities, where companionship was to be had by the mere
stepping across the threshold.
When the trap drove up to the door, there was some delay in answering
Glynn's summons. A middle-aged man-servant came at last to the door,
and peered out from the doorway in surprise.
"I sent a telegram," said Glynn, "from Loch Boisdale. I am Mr. Glynn."
"A telegram?" said the man. "It will not come up until the morning,
sir."
Then the voice of the driver broke in.
"I brought up a telegram from Lochmaddy. It's from a gentleman who is
coming to visit Mrs. Thresk from South Uist."
In the outer islands, where all are curious, news is not always to be
had, and the privacy of the telegraph system is not recognised. Glynn
laughed, and the same moment the man-servant opened an inner door of
the tiny hall. Glynn stepped into a low-roofed parlour which was
obviously the one living-room of the house. On his right hand there
was a great fireplace with a peat fire burning in the grate, and a
high-backed horsehair sofa in front of it. On his left at a small
round table Thresk and his wife were dining.
Both Thresk and his wife sprang up as he entered. Linda advanced to
him with every mark of surprise upon her face.
"You!" she cried, holding out her hand. "Where have you sprung from?"
"South Uist," said Glynn, repeating his lesson.
"And you have come on to us! That is kind of you! Martin, you must
take Mr. Glynn's bag up to the guest-room. I expect you will be
wanting your dinner."
"I sent you a telegram asking you whether you would mind if I
trespassed upon your hospitality for a night or so."
He saw Linda's eyes fixed upon him with some anxiety, and he continued
at once:
"I sent it from Loch Boisdale."
A wave of relief passed over Linda's face.
"It will not come up until the morning," she said with a smile.
"As a matter of fact, the driver brought it up with him," said Glynn.
And Martin handed to Mrs. Thresk the telegram. Over his shoulder,
Glynn saw Thresk raise his head. He had been standing by the table
listening to what was said. Now he advanced. He was a tall man,
powerfully built, with a strongly-marked, broad face, which was only
saved from coarseness by its look of power. They made a strange
contrast, the husband and wife, as they stood side by side--she slight
and exquisitely delicate in her colour, dainty in her movements, he
clumsy and big and masterful. Glynn suddenly recalled gossip which had
run through the town about the time of their marriage. Linda had been
engaged to another--a man whose name Glynn did not remember, but on
whom, so the story ran, her heart was set.
"Of course you are very welcome," said Thresk, as he held out his
hand, and Glynn noticed with something of a shock that his throat was
bandaged. He looked towards Linda. Her eyes were resting upon him with
a look of agonised appeal. He was not to remark upon that wounded
throat. He took Thresk's hand.
"We shall be delighted if you will stay with us as long as you can,"
said Thresk, "We have been up here for more than three months. You
come to us from another world, and visitors from another world are
always interesting, aren't they, Linda?"
He spoke his question with a quiet smile, like a man secretly amused.
But on Linda's face fear flashed out suddenly and was gone. It seemed
to Glynn that she was at pains to repress a shiver.
"Martin will show you your room," said Thresk. "What's the matter?"
Glynn was staring at the table in consternation. Where had been the
use of all the pretence that he had come unexpectedly on an
unpremeditated visit? His telegram had only this minute arrived--and
yet there was the table laid for three people. Thresk followed the
direction of his visitor's eyes.
"Oh, I see," he said with a laugh.
Glynn flushed. No wonder Thresk was amused. He had been sitting at the
table; and between himself and his wife the third place was laid.
"I will go up and change," said Glynn awkwardly.
"Well, don't be long!" replied Thresk.
Glynn followed Martin to the guest-room. But he was annoyed. He did
not, under any circumstances, like to look a fool. But he had the
strongest possible objection to travelling three hundred miles in
order to look it. If he wanted to look a fool, he grumbled, he could
have managed it just as well in the Midlands.
But he was to be more deeply offended. For when he came down into the
dining-room he walked to the table and drew out the vacant chair. At
once Thresk shot out his hand and stopped him.
"You mustn't sit there!" he cried violently. Then his face changed.
Slowly the smile of amusement reappeared upon it. "After all, why
not?" he said. "Try, yes, try," and he watched Glynn with a strange
intentness.
Glynn sat down slowly. A trick was being played upon him--of that he
was sure. He was still more sure when Thresk's face relaxed and he
broke into a laugh.
"Well, that's funny!" he cried, and Glynn, in exasperation, asked
indignantly:
"What's funny?"
But Thresk was no longer listening. He was staring across the room
towards the front door, as though he heard outside yet another
visitor. Glynn turned angrily towards Linda. At once his anger died
away. Her face was white as paper, and her eyes full of fear. Her need
was real, whatever it might be. Thresk turned sharply back again.
"It's a long journey from London to North Uist," he said pleasantly.
"No doubt," replied Glynn, as he set himself to his dinner. "But I
have come from South Uist. However, I am just as hungry as if I had
come from London."
He laughed, and Thresk joined in the laugh.
"I am glad of that," he said, "for it's quite a long time since we
have seen you."
"Yes, it is," replied Glynn carelessly. "A year, I should think."
"Three years," said Thresk. "For I don't think that you have ever come
to see us in London."
"We are so seldom there," interrupted Linda.
"Three months a year, my dear," said Thresk. "But I know very well
that a man will take a day's journey in the Outer Island's to see his
friends, whereas he wouldn't cross the street in London. And, in any
case, we are very glad to see you. By the way," and he reached out his
hand carelessly for the salt, "isn't this rather a new departure for
you, Glynn? You were always a sociable fellow. A hunting-box in the
Midlands, and all the lighted candles in the season. The Outer Islands
were hardly in your line." And he turned quickly towards him. "You
have brought your guns?"
"Of course," said Glynn, laughing as easily as he could under a
cross-examination which he began to find anything but comfortable.
"But I won't guarantee that I can shoot any better than I used to."
"Never mind," said Thresk. "We'll shoot the bog to-morrow, and it
will be strange if you don't bring down something. It's full of duck.
You don't mind getting wet, I suppose? There was once a man named
Channing----" he broke off upon the name, and laughed again with that
air of secret amusement. "Did you ever hear of him?" he asked of
Glynn.
"Yes," replied Glynn slowly. "I knew him."
At the mention of the name he had seen Linda flinch, and he knew why
she flinched.
"Did you?" exclaimed Thresk, with a keen interest. "Then you will
appreciate the story. He came up here on a visit."
Glynn started.
"He came here!" he cried, and could have bitten out his tongue for
uttering the cry.
"Oh, yes," said Thresk easily, "I asked him," and Glynn looked from
Thresk to Thresk's wife in amazement. Linda for once did not meet
Glynn's eyes. Her own were fixed upon the tablecloth. She was sitting
in her chair rather rigidly. One hand rested upon the tablecloth, and
it was tightly clenched. Alone of the three James Thresk appeared at
ease.
"I took him out to shoot that bog," he continued with a laugh. "He
loathed getting wet. He was always so very well dressed, wasn't he,
Linda? The reeds begin twenty yards from the front door, and within
the first five minutes he was up to the waist!" Thresk suddenly
checked his laughter. "However, it ceased to be a laughing matter.
Channing got a little too near the sapling in the middle."
"Is it dangerous there?" asked Glynn.
"Yes, it's dangerous." Thresk rose from his chair and walked across
the room to the window. He pulled up the blind and, curving his hands
about his eyes to shut out the light of the room, leaned his face
against the window-frame and looked out. "It's more than dangerous,"
he said in a low voice. "Just round that sapling, it's swift and
certain death. You would sink to the waist," and he spoke still more
slowly, as though he were measuring by the utterance of the syllables
the time it would take for the disaster to be complete--"from the
waist to the shoulders, from the shoulders clean out of sight, before
any help could reach you."
He stopped abruptly, and Glynn, watching him from the table, saw his
attitude change. He dropped his head, he hunched his back, and made a
strange hissing sound with his breath.
"Linda!" he cried, in a low, startling voice, "Linda!"
Glynn, unimpressionable man that he was, started to his feet. The long
journey, the loneliness of the little house set in this wild, flat
country, the terror which hung over it and was heavy in the very
atmosphere of the rooms, were working already upon his nerves.
"Who is it?" he cried.
Linda laid a hand upon his arm.
"There's no one," she said in a whisper. "Take no notice."
And, looking at her quivering face, Glynn was inspired to ask a
question, was wrought up to believe that the answer would explain to
him why Thresk leaned his forehead against the window-pane and called
upon his wife in so strange a voice.
"Did Channing sink--by the sapling?"
"No," said Linda hurriedly, and as hurriedly she drew away in her
chair. Glynn turned and saw Thresk himself standing just behind his
shoulder. He had crept down noiselessly behind them.
"No," Thresk repeated. "But he is dead. Didn't you know that? Oh, yes,
he is dead," and suddenly he broke out with a passionate violence. "A
clever fellow--an infernally clever fellow. You are surprised to hear
me say that, Glynn. You underrated him like the rest of us. We thought
him a milksop, a tame cat, a poor, weak, interloping, unprofitable
creature who would sidle obsequiously into your house, and make his
home there. But we were wrong--all except Linda there."
Linda sat with her head bowed, and said not a word. She was sitting so
that Glynn could see her profile, and though she said nothing, her
lips were trembling.
"Linda was right," and Thresk turned carelessly to Glynn. "Did you
know that Linda was at one time engaged to Channing?"
"Yes, I knew," said Glynn awkwardly.
"It was difficult for most of us to understand," said Thresk. "There
seemed no sort of reason why a girl like Linda should select a man
like Channing to fix her heart upon. But she was right. Channing was a
clever fellow--oh, a very clever fellow," and he leaned over and
touched Glynn upon the sleeve, "for he died."
Glynn started back.
"What are you saying?" he cried.
Thresk burst into a laugh.
"That my throat hurts me to-night," he said.
Glynn recovered himself with an effort. "Oh, yes," he said, as though
now for the first time he had noticed the bandage. "Yes, I see you
have hurt your throat. How did you do it?"
Thresk chuckled.
"Not very well done, Glynn. Will you smoke?"
The plates had been cleared from the table, and the coffee brought in.
Thresk rose from his seat and crossed to the mantelshelf on which a
box of cigars was laid. As he took up the box and turned again towards
the table, a parchment scroll which hung on a nail at the side of the
fireplace caught his eye.
"Do you see this?" he said, and he unrolled it. "It's my landlord's
family tree. All the ancestors of Mr. Robert Donald McCullough right
back to the days of Bruce. McCullough's prouder of that scroll than of
anything else in the world. He is more interested in it than in
anything else in the world."
For a moment he fingered it, and in the tone of a man communing with
himself, he added:
"Now, isn't that curious?"
Glynn rose from his chair, and moved down the table so that he could
see the scroll unimpeded by Thresk's bulky figure. Thresk, however,
was not speaking any longer to his guest. Glynn sat down again. But he
sat down now in the chair which Thresk had used; the chair in which he
himself had been sitting between Thresk and Linda was empty.
"What interests me," Thresk continued, like a man in a dream, "is what
is happening now--and very strange, queer, interesting things are
happening now--for those who have eyes to see. Yes, through centuries
and centuries, McCulloughs have succeeded McCulloughs, and lived in
this distant, little corner of the Outer Islands through forays and
wars and rebellions, and the oversetting of kings, and yet nothing has
ever happened in this house to any one of them half so interesting and
half so strange as what is happening now to us, the shooting tenants
of a year."
Thresk dropped the scroll, and, coming out of his dream, brought the
cigar-box to the table.
"You have changed your seat!" he said with a smile, as he offered the
box to Glynn. Glynn took out of it a cigar, and leaning back, cut off
the end. As he stooped forward to light it, he saw the cigar-box still
held out to him. Thresk had not moved. He seemed to have forgotten
Glynn's presence in the room. His eyes were fixed upon the empty
chair. He stood strangely rigid, and then he suddenly cried out:
"Take care, Linda!"
There was so sharp a note of warning in his voice that Linda sprang to
her feet, with her hand pressed upon her heart. Glynn was startled
too, and because he was startled he turned angrily to Thresk.
"Of what should Mrs. Thresk take care?"
Thresk took his eyes for a moment, and only for a moment, from the
empty chair.
"Do you see nothing?" he asked, in a whisper, and his glance went back
again. "Not a shadow which leans across the table there towards Linda,
darkening the candle-light?"
"No; for there's nothing to cast a shadow."
"Is there not?" said Thresk, with a queer smile. "That's where you
make your mistake. Aren't you conscious of something very strange,
very insidious, close by us in this room?"
"I am aware that you are frightening Mrs. Thresk," said Glynn roughly;
and, indeed, standing by the table, with her white face and her bosom
heaving under her hand, she looked the very embodiment of terror.
Thresk turned at once to her. A look of solicitude made his gross face
quite tender. He took her by the arm, and in a chiding, affectionate
tone he said very gently:
"You are not frightened, Linda, are you? Interested--yes, just as I
am. But not frightened. There's nothing to be frightened at. We are
not children."
"Oh, Jim," she said, and she leaned upon his arm. He led her across to
the sofa, and sat down beside her.
"That's right. Now we are comfortable." But the last word was not
completed. It seemed that it froze upon his lips. He stopped, looked
for a second into space, and then, dropping his arm from about his
wife's waist, he deliberately moved aside from her, and made a space
between them.
"Now we are in our proper places--the four of us," he said bitterly,
"The three of us," Glynn corrected, as he walked round the table.
"Where's the fourth?"
And then there came to him this extraordinary answer given in the
quietest voice imaginable.
"Between my wife and me. Where should he be?"
Glynn stared. There was no one in the room but Linda, Thresk, and
himself--no one. But--but--it was the loneliness of the spot, and its
silence, and its great distance from his world, no doubt, which
troubled him. Thresk's manner, too, and his words were having their
effect. That was all, Glynn declared stoutly to himself. But--but--he
did not wonder that Linda had written so urgently for him to come to
her. His back went cold, and the hair stirred upon his scalp.
"Who is it, then?" he cried violently.
Linda rose from the sofa, and took a quick step towards him.. Her eyes
implored him to silence.
"There is no one," she protested in a low voice.
"No," cried Glynn loudly. "Let us understand what wild fancy he has!
Who is the fourth?"
Upon Thresk's face came a look of sullenness.
"Who should he be?"
"Who is he?" Glynn insisted.
"Channing," said Thresk. "Mildmay Channing." He sat for a while,
brooding with his head sunk upon his breast. And Glynn started back.
Some vague recollection was stirring in his memory. There had been a
story current amongst Linda's friends at the time of her marriage. She
had been in love with Channing, desperately in love with him. The
marriage with Thresk had been forced on her by her parents--yes, and
by Thresk's persistency. It had been a civilised imitation of the Rape
of the Sabine Women. That was how the story ran, Glynn remembered. He
waited to hear more from James Thresk, and in a moment the words came,
but in a thoroughly injured tone.
"It's strange that you can't see either."
"There is some one else, then, as blind as I am?" said Glynn.
"There was. Yes, yes, the dog," replied Thresk, gazing into the fire.
"You and the dog," he repeated uneasily, "you and the dog. But the dog
saw in the end, Glynn, and so will you--even you."
Linda turned quickly, but before she could speak, Glynn made a sign to
her. He went over to her side. A glance at Thresk showed him that he
was lost in his thoughts.
"If you want me to help you, you must leave us alone," he said.
She hesitated for a moment, and then swiftly crossed the room and went
out at the door. Glynn, who had let his cigar go out, lit it again at
the flame of one of the candles on the dining-table. Then he planted
himself in front of Thresk.
"You are terrifying your wife," he said. "You are frightening her to
death."
Thresk did not reply to the accusation directly. He smiled quietly at
Glynn.
"She sent for you."
Glynn looked uncomfortable, and Thresk went on:
"You haven't come from South Uist. You have come from London."
"No," said Glynn.
"From Melton, then. You came because Linda sent for you."
"If it were so," stammered Glynn, "it would only be another proof that
you are frightening her."
Thresk shook his head.
"It wasn't because Linda was afraid that she sent for you," he said
stubbornly. "I know Linda. I'll tell you the truth," and he fixed his
burning eyes on Glynn's face. "She sent for you because she hates
being here with me."
"Hates being with you!" cried Glynn, and Thresk nodded his head. Glynn
could hardly even so believe that he had heard aright. "Why, you must
be mad!" he protested. "Mad or blind. There's just one person of whom
your wife is thinking, for whom she is caring, for whose health she is
troubled. It has been evident to me ever since I have been in this
house--in spite of her fears. Every time she looks at you her eyes are
tender with solicitude. That one person is yourself."
"No," said Thresk. "It's Channing."
"But he's dead, man!" cried Glynn in exasperation. "You told me so
yourself not half an hour ago. He is dead."
"Yes," answered Thresk. "He's dead. That's where he beat me. You don't
understand that?"
"No, I don't," replied Glynn.
He was speaking aggressively; he stood with his legs apart in an
aggressive attitude. Thresk looked him over from head to foot and
agreed.
"No," he said, "and I don't see why you should. You are rather like
me, comfortable and commonplace, and of the earth earthy. Before men
of our gross stamp could believe and understand what I am going to
tell you, they would have to reach--do you mind if I say a
refinement?--by passing through the same fires which have tempered
me."
Glynn made no reply. He shifted his position so that the firelight
might fall upon Thresk's face with its full strength. Thresk leaned
forward with his hands upon his knees, and very quietly, though now
and then a note of scorn rang in his voice, he told his story.
"You tell me my wife cares for me. I reply that she would have cared,
if Channing had not died. When I first met Linda she was engaged to
him. You know that. She was devoted to him. You know that too. I knew
it and I didn't mind. I wasn't afraid of Channing. A poor, feeble
creature--heaps of opportunities, not one of them foreseen, not one of
them grasped when it came his way. A grumbler, a bag of envy, a beggar
for sympathy at any woman's lap! Why should I have worried my head
about Channing? And I didn't. Linda's people were all for breaking off
their engagement. After all, I was some good. I had made my way. I had
roughed it in South America; and I had come home a rich man--not such
a very easy thing, as the superior people who haven't the heart even
to try to be rich men are inclined to think. Well, the engagement was
broken off, Channing hadn't a penny to marry on, and nobody would give
him a job. Look here!" And he suddenly swung round upon Glynn.
"I gave Channing his chance. I knew he couldn't make any use of it. I
wanted to prove he wasn't any good. So I put a bit of a railway in
Chili into his hands, and he brought the thing to the edge of
bankruptcy within twelve months. So the engagement was broken off.
Linda clung to the fellow. I knew it, and I didn't mind. She didn't
want to marry me. I knew it, and I didn't mind. Her parents broke her
down to it. She sobbed through the night before we were married. I
knew it, and I didn't mind. You think me a beast, of course," he
added, with a look at Glynn. "But just consider the case from my point
of view. Channing was no match for Linda. I was. I wanted time, that
was all. Give me only time, and I knew that I could win her."
Boastful as the words sounded, there was nothing aggressive in
Thresk's voice. He was speaking with a quiet simplicity which robbed
them quite of offence. He was unassumingly certain.
"Why?" asked Glynn. "Why, given time, were you sure that you could win
her?"
"Because I wanted enough. That's my creed, Glynn. If you want enough,
want with every thought, and nerve, and pulse, the thing you want
comes along all right. There was the difference between Channing and
me. He hadn't the heart to want enough. I wanted enough to go to
school again. I set myself to learn the small attentions which mean so
much to women. They weren't in my line naturally. I pay so little heed
to things of that kind myself that it did not easily occur to me that
women might think differently. But I learnt my lesson, and I got my
reward. Just simple little precautions, like having a cloak ready for
her, almost before she was aware that she was cold. And I would see a
look of surprise on her face, and the surprise flush into a smile of
pleasure. Oh, I was holding her, Glynn, I can tell you. I went about
it so very warily," and Thresk laughed with a knowing air. "I didn't
shut my door on Channing either. Not I! I wasn't going to make a
martyr of him. I let him sidle in and out of the house, and I laughed.
For I was holding her. Every day she came a step or two nearer to me."
He broke off suddenly, and his voice, which had taken on a tender and
wistful note, incongruous in so big a creature, rose in a gust of
anger.
"But he died! He died and caught her back again."
Glynn raised his hands in despair.
"That memory has long since faded," he argued, and Thresk burst out in
a bitter laugh.
"Memory," he cried, flinging himself into a chair. "You are one of the
imaginative people after all, Glynn." And Glynn stared in round-eyed
surprise. Here to him was conclusive proof that there was something
seriously wrong with Thresk's mind. Never had Mr. Glynn been called
imaginative before, and his soul revolted against the aspersion.
"Yes," said Thresk, pointing an accusing finger. "Imaginative! I am
one of the practical people. I don't worry about memories. Actual real
things interest me--such as Channing's presence now--in this house."
And he spoke suddenly, leaning forward with so burning a fire in his
eyes and voice that Glynn, in spite of himself, looked nervously
across his shoulder. He rose hastily from the sofa, and rather in
order to speak than with any thought of what he was saying, he asked:
"When did he die?"
"Four months ago. I was ill at the time."
"Ah!"
The exclamation sprang from Glynn's lips before he could check it.
Here to him was the explanation of Thresk's illusions. But he was
sorry that he had not kept silent. For he saw Thresk staring angrily
at him.
"What did you mean by your 'Ah'?" Thresk asked roughly.
"Merely that I had seen a line about your illness in a newspaper,"
Glynn explained hastily.
Thresk leaned back satisfied.
"Yes," he resumed. "I broke down. I had had a hard life, you see, and
I was paying for it. I am right enough now, however," and his voice
rose in a challenge to Glynn to contradict him.
Nothing was further from Glynn's thoughts.
"Of course," he said quickly.
"I saw Channing's death in the obituary column whilst I was lying in
bed, and, to tell you the truth, I was relieved by it."
"But I thought you said you didn't mind about Channing?" Glynn
interrupted, and Thresk laughed with a little discomfort.
"Well, perhaps I did mind a little more than I care to admit," Thresk
confessed. "At all events, I felt relieved at his death. What a fool I
was!" And he stopped for a moment as though he wondered now that his
mind was so clear, at the delusion which had beset him.
"I thought that it was all over with Channing. Oh, what a fool I was!
Even after he came back and would sidle up to my bedside in his old
fawning style, I couldn't bring myself to take him seriously, and I
was only amused."
"He came to your bedside!" exclaimed Glynn.
"Yes," replied Thresk, and he laughed at the recollection. "He came
with his humble smirk, and pottered about the room as if he were my
nurse. I put out my tongue at him, and told him he was dead and done
for, and that he had better not meddle with the bottles on my table.
Yes, he amused me. What a fool I was! I thought no one else saw him.
That was my first mistake. I thought he was helpless.... That was my
second."
Thresk got up from his chair, and, standing over the fireplace,
knocked the ash off his cigar.
"Do you remember a great Danish boar-hound I used to have?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Glynn, puzzled by the sudden change of subject. "But
what has the boar-hound to do with your story?"
"A good deal," said Thresk. "I was very fond of that dog."
"The dog was fond of you," said Glynn.
"Yes. Remember that!" Thresk cried suddenly. "For it's true." Then he
relapsed again into a quiet, level voice.
"It took me some time to get well. I was moved up here. It was the one
place where I wanted to be. But I wasn't used to sitting round and
doing nothing. So the time of my convalescence hung pretty heavily,
and, casting about for some way of amusing myself, I wondered whether
I could teach the dog to see Channing as I saw him. I tried. Whenever
I saw Channing come in at the door, I used to call the dog to my side
and point Channing out to him with my finger as Channing moved about
the room."
Thresk sat down in a chair opposite to Glynn, and with a singular
alertness began to act over again the scenes which had taken place in
his sick room upstairs.
"I used to say, 'Hst! Hst!' 'There! Do you see? By the window!' or if
Channing moved towards Linda I would turn the dog's head and make his
eyes follow him across the room. At first the dog saw nothing. Then he
began to avoid me, to slink away with his tail between his legs, to
growl. He was frightened. Yes, he was frightened!" And Thresk nodded
his head in a quick, interested way.
"He was frightened of you," cried Glynn, "and I don't wonder."
For even to him there was something uncanny and impish in Thresk's
quick movements and vivid gestures.
"Wait a bit," said Thresk. "He was frightened, but not of me. He saw
Channing. His hair bristled under my fingers as I pointed the fellow
out. I had to keep one hand on his neck, you see, to keep him by me.
He began to yelp in a queer, panicky way, and tremble--a man in a
fever couldn't tremble and shake any more than that dog did. And then
one day, when we were alone together, the dog and I and Channing--the
dog sprang at my throat."
"That's how you were wounded!" cried Glynn, leaping from his sofa. He
stood staring in horror at Thresk. "I wonder the dog didn't kill you."
"He very nearly did," said Thresk. "Oh, very nearly."
"You had frightened him out of his wits."
Thresk laughed contemptuously.
"That's the obvious explanation, of course," he said. "But it's not
the true one. I have been living amongst the subtleties of life. I
know about things now. The dog sprang at me because--" He stopped and
glanced uneasily about the room. When he raised his face again, there
was a look upon it which Glynn had not seen there before--a look of
sudden terror. He leaned forward that he might be the nearer to Glynn,
and his voice sank to a whisper--"well, because Channing set him on to
me."
It was no doubt less the statement itself than the crafty look which
accompanied it, and the whisper which uttered it, that shocked Glynn.
But he was shocked. There came upon him--yes, even upon him, the sane,
prosaic Glynn--a sudden doubt whether, after all, Thresk was mad. It
occurred to him as a possibility that Thresk was speaking the mere,
bare truth. Suppose that it were the truth! Suppose that Channing were
here! In this room! Glynn felt the flesh creep upon his bones.
"Ah, you are beginning to understand," said Thresk, watching his
companion. "You are beginning to get frightened, too." And he nodded
his head in comprehension. "I used not to know what fear meant. But I
knew the meaning well enough as soon as I had guessed why the dog
sprang at my throat. For I realised my helplessness."
Throughout their conversation Glynn had been perpetually puzzled by
something unexpected in Thresk's conclusions. He followed his
reasoning up to a point, and then came a word which left him at a
loss. Thresk's fear he understood. But why the sense of helplessness?
And he asked for an explanation.
"Because I had no weapons to fight Channing with," Thresk replied. "I
could cope with the living man and win every time. But against the
dead man I was helpless. I couldn't hurt him. I couldn't even
come to grips with him. I had just to sit by and make room. And that's
what I have been doing ever since. I have been sitting by and
watching--without a single resource, without a single opportunity of a
counterstroke. Oh, I had my time--when Channing was alive. But upon my
word, he has the best of it. Here I sit without raising a hand while
he recaptures Linda."
"There you are wrong," cried Glynn, seizing gladly, in the midst of
these subtleties, upon some fact of which he felt sure. "Your wife is
yours. There has been no recapture. Besides, she doesn't believe that
Channing is here."
Thresk laughed.
"Do you think she would tell me if she did?" he asked. "No."
He rose from his chair and, walking to the window, thrust back the
curtains and looked out. So he stood for the space of a minute. Then
he came back and, looking fixedly at Glynn, said with an air of
extraordinary cunning:
"But I have a plan. Yes, I have a plan. I shall get on level terms
with Mr. Channing again one of these fine days, and then I'll prove to
him for a second time which of us two is the better man."
He made a sign to Glynn, and looked towards the door. It was already
opening. He advanced to it as Linda came into the room.
"You have come back, Linda! I have been talking to Glynn at such a
rate that he hasn't been able to get a word in edgeways," he said,
with a swift change to a gaiety of voice and manner. "However, I'll
show him a good day's sport to-morrow, Linda. We will shoot the bog,
and perhaps you'll come out with the luncheon to the sand-hills?"
Linda Thresk smiled.
"Of course I will," she said. She showed to Glynn a face of gratitude.
"It has done you good, Jim, to have a man to talk to," and she laid a
hand upon her husband's arm and laughed quite happily. Glynn turned
his back upon them and walked up to the window, leaving them standing
side by side in the firelight. Outside, the moon shone from a clear
sky upon the pools and the reeds of the marsh and the low white
sand-hills, chequered with their tufts of grass. But upon the sea
beyond, a white mist lay thick and low.
"There's a sea-fog," said Glynn; and Thresk, at the fire, suddenly
lifted his head, and looked towards the window with a strange
intensity. One might have thought that a sea-fog was a strange,
unusual thing among the Outer Islands.
"Watch it!" he said, and there was a vibration in his voice which
matched the intensity of his look. "You will see it suddenly creep
through the gaps in the sand-hills and pass over the marsh like an
army that obeys a command. I have watched it by the hour, time and
time again. It gathers on the level of the sea and waits and waits
until it seems that the word is given. Then it comes swirling through
the gaps of the sand-hills and eats up the marsh in a minute."
Even as he spoke Glynn cried out:
"That's extraordinary!"
The fog had crept out through the gaps. Only the summits of the
sand-hills rose in the moonlight like little peaks above clouds; and
over the marsh the fog burst like cannon smoke and lay curling and
writhing up to the very reeds twenty yards from the house. The sapling
alone stood high above it, like the mast of a wreck in the sea.
"How high is it?" asked Thresk.
"Breast high," replied Glynn.
"Only breast high," said Thresk, and there seemed to be a note of
disappointment in his voice. However, in the next moment he shook it
off. "The fog will be gone before morning," he said. "I'll go and tell
Donald to bring the dogs round at nine to-morrow, and have your guns
ready. Nine is not too early for you, I suppose?"
"Not a bit," said Glynn; and Thresk, going up to the door which led
from the house, opened it, went out, and closed it again behind him.
Glynn turned at once towards Linda Thresk. But she held up a warning
hand, and waited for the outer door to slam. No sound, however, broke
the silence. Glynn went to the inner door and opened it. A bank of
white fog, upon which he saw his own shadow most brightly limned by
the light behind him, filled the outer passage and crept by him into
the room. Glynn closed the latch quickly.
"He has left the outer door open," he said, and, coming back into the
room he stood beside the fire looking down into Linda's face.
"He has been talking to me," said Glynn.
Linda looked at him curiously.
"How much did he tell you?"
"There can be little he left unsaid. He told me of the dog, of
Channing's death----"
"Yes?"
"Of Channing's return."
"Yes?"
"And of you."
With each sentence Glynn's embarrassment had increased. Linda,
however, held him to his story.
"What did he say of me?"
"That but for Channing's death he would have held you. That since
Channing died--and came back--he had lost you."
Linda nodded her head. Nothing in Glynn's words surprised her--that
was clear. It was a story already familiar to her which he was
repeating.
"Is that all?" she said.
"I think so. Yes," replied Glynn, glad to get the business over. Yet
he had omitted the most important part of Thresk's confession--the one
part which Linda did not already know. He omitted it because he had
forgotten it. There was something else which he had in his mind to
say.
"When Thresk told me that Channing had won you back, I ventured to say
that no one watching you and Thresk, even with the most indifferent
eyes, could doubt that it was always and only of him that you were
thinking."
"Thank you," said Linda, quietly. "That is true."
"And now," said Glynn, "I want, in my turn, to ask you a question. I
have been a little curious. I want, too, to do what I can. Therefore,
I ask you, why did you send, for me? What is it that you think I can
do? That other friends of yours can't?"
A slight colour came into Linda's cheeks; and for a moment she lowered
her eyes. She spoke with an accent of apology.
"It is quite true that there are friends whom I see more constantly
than you, Mr. Glynn, and upon whom I have, perhaps, greater claims."
"Oh, I did not mean you to think that I was reluctant to come," Glynn
exclaimed, and Linda smiled, lifting her eyes to his.
"No," she said. "I remembered your kindness. It was that recollection
which helped me to appeal to you," and she resumed her explanation as
though he had never interrupted her.
"Nor was there any particular thing which I thought you could do.
But--well, here's the truth--I have been living in terror. This house
has become a house of terror. I am frightened, and I have come almost
to believe----" and she looked about her with a shiver of her
shoulders, sinking her voice to a whisper as she spoke--"that Jim was
right--that _he is_ here after all."
And Glynn recoiled. Just for a moment the same fancy had occurred to
him.
"You don't believe that--really!" he cried.
"No--no," she answered. "Once I think calmly. But it is so difficult
to think calmly and reasonably here. Oh----" and she threw up her arms
suddenly, and her whole face and eyes were alight with terror--"the
very air is to me heavy with fear in this house. It is Jim's quiet
certainty."
"Yes, that's it!" exclaimed Glynn, catching eagerly at that
explanation because it absolved him to his own common sense for the
inexplicable fear which he had felt invade himself. "Yes, Jim's quiet,
certain, commonplace way in which he speaks of Channing's presence
here. That's what makes his illusion so convincing."
"Well, I thought that if I could get you here, you who----" and she
hesitated in order to make her description polite--"are not afflicted
by fancies, who are pleasantly sensible"--thus did Linda express her
faith that Mr. Glynn was of the earth, earthy--"I myself should
lose my terror, and Jim, too, might lose his illusion. But now," she
looked at him keenly, "I think that Jim is affecting you--that you,
too--yes"--she sprang up suddenly and stood before him, with her dark,
terror-haunted eyes fixed upon him--"that you, too, believe Mildmay
Channing is here."
"No," he protested violently--too violently unless the accusation were
true.
"Yes," she repeated, nodding her head quietly. "You, too, believe that
Mildmay Channing is here."
And before her horror-stricken face the protest which was on the tip
of his tongue remained unuttered. His eyes sought the floor. With a
sudden movement of despair Linda turned aside. Even the earthliness of
Mr. Glynn had brought her no comfort or security. He had fallen under
the spell, as she had done. It seemed that they had no more words to
speak to one another. They stood and waited helplessly until Thresk
should return.
But that return was delayed.
"He has been a long time speaking to the keeper," said Linda
listlessly, and rather to break a silence which was becoming
intolerable, than with any intention in the words. But they struck a
chord of terror in Glynn's thoughts. He walked quickly to the window,
and hastily tore the curtain aside.
The flurry of his movements aroused Linda's attention. She followed
him with her eyes. She saw him curve his hands about his forehead and
press his face against the pane, even as Thresk had done an hour
before. She started forward from the fireplace and Glynn swung round
with his arms extended, barring the window. His face was white, his
lips shook. The one important statement of Thresk's he now recalled.
"Don't look!" he cried, and as he spoke, Linda pushed past him. She
flung up the window. Outside the fog curled and smoked upon the marsh
breast high. The moonlight played upon it; above it the air was clear
and pure, and in the sky stars shone faintly. Above the mist the bare
sapling stood like a pointing finger, and halfway between the sapling
and the house Thresk's head and shoulders showed plain to see. But
they were turned away from the house.
"Jim! Jim!" cried Linda, shaking the window-frame with her hand. Her
voice rang loudly out on the still air. But Thresk never so much as
turned his head. He moved slowly towards the sapling, feeling the
unstable ground beneath him with his feet.
"Jim! Jim!" again she cried. And behind her she heard a strange,
unsteady whispering voice.
"'On equal terms!' That's what he said--I did not understand. He said,
'On equal terms.'"
And even as Glynn spoke, both Linda and he saw Thresk throw up his
arms and sink suddenly beneath the bog. Linda ran to the door,
stumbling as she ran, and with a queer, sobbing noise in her throat.
Glynn caught her by the arm.
"It is of no use. You know. Round the sapling--there is no chance of
rescue. It is my fault, I should have understood. He had no fear of
Channing--if only he could meet him on equal terms."
Linda stared at Glynn. For a little while the meaning of the words did
not sink into her mind.
"He said that!" she cried. "And you did not tell me." She crept back
to the fireplace and cowered in front of it, shivering.
"But he said he would come back to me," she said in the voice of a
child who has been deceived. "Yes, Jim said he would come back to me."
Of course it was a chance, accident, coincidence, a breath of
wind--call it what you will, except what Linda Thresk and Glynn called
it. But even as she uttered her complaint, "He said he would come back
to me," the latch of the door clicked loudly. There was a rush of cold
air into the room. The door swung slowly inwards and stood wide open.
Linda sprang to her feet. Both she and Glynn turned to the open door.
The white fog billowed into the room. Glynn felt the hair stir and
move upon his scalp. He stood transfixed. Was it possible? he asked
himself. Had Thresk indeed come back to fight for Linda once more, and
to fight now as he had fought the first time--on equal terms? He stood
expecting the white fog to shape itself into the likeness of a man.
And then he heard a wild scream of laughter behind him. He turned in
time to catch Linda as she fell.