COWERING in body and spirit in that dark corner, time, for
June, became of no account. Perhaps, after all, she might be allowed to
die where she was. As a kind of inertia crept upon her she was able to
draw something of comfort from the thought. It would be better than the
river or being run over in the street.
She grew very cold; yet a lowering of the body’s temperature induced a
heightened consciousness. Aches and pains sprang into life; the forces
of her mind began to reassert themselves; the phantoms about her took
on new powers of menace. Gradually it became clear to June, under the
goad of this new and sharper phase of suffering, that mere passivity
could not induce the death she longed for.
No, it was not in that way the end would come. She would have to go
into the shadow-land beyond the lamp, and seek some positive means of
destroying herself. For that reason she must hold on to the fragment
of will that now remained to her. It alone could release her from the
awful pit in which she was now engulfed.
She gathered herself for an effort to move towards the fog-encircled
light at the entrance to the street. But the effort, when made,
amounted to nothing. Her limbs were paper, all power of volition was
gone.
The October raw struck to her blood. She began to whimper miserably. To
pain of mind was added pain of body, but the delicate apparatus from
whose harmony sprang the fuse of action was out of gear. Something must
be done; yet no matter how definite the task, any form of doing was
beyond her now.
At this dire moment, however, help came. It came, moreover, in an
unlooked-for way. She heard a door slam over head. There was the sound
of a match being struck, and then came a gingerly shuffle of feet on
the stone stairs.
Someone was coming down. June cowered still lower into the dark recess
at the back of the stairway. A man was approaching. And by the flicker
of the match which he threw away as he reached the floor of the
vestibule she saw that the man was Keller.
Faint and but momentary as was the glimpse afforded, June, with every
sense strung again to the point of intensity, saw that under Keller’s
arm was a brown paper parcel. The sight of it was like a charm. Some
fabulous djinnee might have lurked in that neat package, who commanded
a miraculous power of reaction upon the human will.
Keller struck a second match and peered into the shadows. June knew
that he was looking to see if she had lingered there, but the light
could not pierce to the corner in which she crouched; and it burnt
itself out, leaving him none the wiser.
Without striking another match Keller moved away from her towards the
doorway, and as he did so June felt a swift release of heart and brain.
A thrill of new energy ran through her. No sooner had Keller passed out
of the vestibule, beyond the lamp into the fog, than without conscious
impulse or design she began to follow him.
It may have been the reasoned act of a lucid being, but at first it
did not appear to be so. Once, however, her limbs were moving, all her
faculties, now intensely awake, seemed as if by magic to bear them
company. As soon as she reached the open street, with Keller a clear
ten yards ahead, the keen air on her face had an effect of strong wine.
Her nerves felt again the sense of motion; the impulse of the natural
fighter unfurled strong pinions within her. All the virile sense and
the indomitable will of a sound inheritance rallied to her need.
Growing sensibly stronger at every yard, she followed Keller round the
corner into Manning Square. The mist was thick, the lamps poor and few,
but as well as she could she kept on his track. Lurking pantherlike in
the deep shadows of the house-walls, she had approached within five
yards of him by the time he had turned the corner into a bye-street.
He went a few yards along this, and then zigzagged into a squalid
ill-smelling thoroughfare whose dismal length seemed unending.
June had no difficulty in keeping up with these twists and winds, for
Keller, impeded by the fog, moved slowly. For her, however, the fog had
its own special problem, since there was a danger of losing him if he
was allowed to get too far ahead; and yet if his steps were dogged too
closely there was always the fear that he might turn round suddenly and
see her.
At last the interminable street seemed to be nearing its end. For
June, whose every faculty was now strung up to an unnatural acuteness,
saw but a short distance in front the brightly lit awning of the
Underground looming through the fog.
In a flash she realized the nature of the peril. Only too surely was
this the bourn for which Keller was making. Once within its precincts
and her last remaining hope would be gone.
It must be now or never. The spur of occasion drove deep in her heart.
She knew but too well that the hope was tragically small, but wholly
desperate as she was, with the penalty of failure simply not to be met,
she would put all to the touch.
Closer and closer she crept up behind the quarry. But the entrance to
the Tube loomed now so near that it began to seem certain that she
must lose him before she could attempt what she had to do. Abruptly,
however, within ten yards or so of his goal, Keller stopped. He began
to search the pockets of his overcoat for a box of matches to relight
his pipe which had gone out. While so doing, and in the preoccupation
of the moment, he took the parcel from under his right arm, and set it
rather carelessly beneath his left.
Providence had given June her chance. Like a falcon, she swooped
forward. Aim and timing incredibly true, at the instant Keller struck a
match and bent over his pipe, her fingers closed on the Van Roon, and
whisked it out of his unguarded grasp.