I
In the garden the silence was like a warning, as though the night had
her finger to her lips holding back a multitude of breathing, deeply
interested spectators.
Harkness, slipping from the path on to the lawn, felt a relief, as
though with the touch of his foot on the cool turf there had come a
freedom from imprisonment.
The garden was so friendly, so safe, so homely in its welcome. The scent
of roses that had seemed to follow him throughout the adventures of that
queer evening came to him now as though crowding up to reassure him. The
night sky pierced with stars, but they were thick and dim seen through a
veil of mist. The trees of the garden, like serried ranks of giants in
black armour, seemed to stand, in silent attention, on every side of
him, awaiting his orders. The voice of all this world was the sea
stirring, with a sigh and a whisper, below the wall of rock.
His first impulse as he stood on the lawn was to go away as far as he
could from that house. Yes, as far as ever he could--miles and miles and
miles--China if you like. Ah, no! That was just where that man would be!
He was trembling and shaking and wiping his forehead with his
handkerchief; the breeze stroked him with cool fingers. He must run for
ever to be clear of that house--and then suddenly remembered that he
must not run because he had his duty to do--and even as he remembered
that a figure stepped up to him out of the trees. He would have called
out--so wild and trembling were his nerves--had he not at once
recognized from his great size that this was Jabez the fisherman.
He might have been an incarnation of the night with his deep black
beard, his grave kindly face, and his simple, natural quiet. He was
dressed in his fisherman's jersey and blue trousers and had no covering
on his head.
"Good evening, sir," he said. "Mr. Dunbar told me as how you'd be
wanting to be back in the house for a moment to fetch something you'd
forgotten.
"We'd best be just stepping off the lawn, sir, if you don't mind. They
foreigners are always nosing around."
They turned quietly off the grass and stood closely together under the
dark shadow of the house.
"I must go back at once," said Harkness. "There's no time to lose. It
struck half-past twelve some time ago."
"I don't know nothing about that, sir," said Jabez; "I only know as how
you must be going back into the house for something you'd forgotten and
I was to let you in."
"Yes," said Harkness, his teeth chattering, "that's right."
He wasn't made, in any kind of way at all, for this sort of adventure.
He had never before realised how utterly inefficient he was. And of all
absurdities to go back into the house when he was now safely out of it!
Of all Dunbar's mad plan this was the maddest part. What could he do but
be seen or heard and then rouse suspicion when it might so easily have
been undisturbed?
Let Crispin find him groping among those dark passages and what was his
fate likely to be? There flashed into his consciousness then a sudden
suspicion of Dunbar. It might suit the boy's plans only too well that he
should be found, and so turn attention to another part of the house,
leaving the girl free. But no! There was Dunbar's own steady clear gaze
to answer him, and beyond that the certainty that Crispin's suspicions,
roused by the discovery of himself, would proceed immediately to the
girl.
No, did he return at once, the plan was quite feasible. Seeing him there
so soon after his departure, they could do nothing but accept his
reasons, and that especially if he returned quite openly with no thought
of concealment.
But oh how he hated to go back! He put his hand on the rough stuff of
Jabez's jersey, listened for a moment to the regular, consoling
breathing of the sea, sniffed the roses and the cool, gentle night air,
then said:
"Well, come along, Jabez; show me how to get back."
As they moved round to the door the thought came to him as to whether he
had given the elder Crispin and his two nasty servants time enough to
retire up to their part of the house. A difficult thing that, to hit the
precise medium between too lengthy a wait and too short. He could not
remember exactly what Dunbar had said as to that.
"Do you think I've waited long enough, Jabez?" he asked.
"Well, if you'd forgotten something, sir," said Jabez, "you'd want to be
sure of finding it before the house is sleeping. They don't bolt this
door, sir," he continued in a whisper, "because Mr. Crispin don't like
to be bolted in. His fancy. After half-past one or so one of they Japs
is around. It's just their hour like from half-past twelve to half-past
one that I have to watch this part of the house extra careful. Yes,
sir," he added as he turned the key in the lock and pushed the door
quietly open.
II
The hall was very dark. From half-way up the staircase some of the
starlit evening scattered mistily through a narrow window, splintering
the boards with spars of pale milky shadow.
A clock chattered cluck-cluck-spin-spin-cluck close to Harkness's ear.
Otherwise there was not a sound anywhere. He reflected that several
things had been forgotten in his talk with Dunbar; one that there would,
in all probability, be no light in the upper passage. How was he then to
find the younger Crispin's door, or to see whether or no there were that
piece of paper under Mrs. Crispin's? Secondly, it would be in the room
on the ground floor where he had had his strange interview with the
elder Crispin that he must see the younger, because, of course, that
gloomy creature, dumb though he appeared to be, would be at least aware
that Harkness had never ventured into the upper floor at all and could
not therefore have left his gold match-box there. On the whole, this
would be the better for Dunbar's plan, because it would lead the younger
Crispin all the farther from his wife's door. But there were, at this
point, so many dangers and difficulties, so many opportunities of
disaster, that in absolute desperation he must perforce go forward.
He was aware that for himself now the easiest fashion would be to
persuade himself that he had indeed lost his match-box and was returning
to secure it. He hesitated on the bottom step of the stairs as though he
were wondering what he ought to do, how he might find the tiresome thing
without rousing the whole house.
He climbed the staircase slowly, walking softly, but not too softly,
accompanied all the way by the clock that attended him like a faithful
coughing dog. At the turn of the stairs he found the passage that Dunbar
had described to him, and he was instantly relieved to find that a wide
and deep window at the far end had no curtain, and that through it the
long stretch was suffused with a pale ghostly light turning the heavy
old frames, the faded green paper, into shadow opaque.
He hesitated, looking about him, then clearly saw the two doors that
must be those of Crispin and his wife; from under one of them, quite
clearly, a small piece of white paper obtruded.
He waited an instant, then moved boldly forward, not trying to walk
softly, and knocked on the nearer of the two doors. There was a moment's
pause, during which the wild beating of his own heart and the friendly
chatter of the clock from downstairs seemed to strive together to break
the silence.
The door opened abruptly, and the younger Crispin, his white horse-face
unmoved above his dark evening clothes, appeared there.
"I really must beg your pardon," Harkness said, smiling. "A most
ridiculous thing has happened. I left the house some ten minutes ago
after wishing your father good-night, and it was only after going a
little way that I discovered that I had lost a gold match-box of mine
that was of very great value to me. I hesitated as to what I ought to
do. I guess I should have gone straight back to my hotel, but it worried
me to think of losing it. It has some very intimate connections for me.
And I knew, you see, that you were leaving early to-morrow morning--or
_this_ morning as it is by this time, I fancy. So that it was now or
never for my match-box. I came back very reluctantly, I can assure you,
Mr. Crispin. I do feel this to be an intrusion. I had hoped that your
father would still be about, and that I should simply ask him to give me
a light in the room where we were sitting. In a moment I am sure that we
would find the thing. Your night porter very kindly let me in, but
although I had only been gone ten minutes the house was dark and there
was no one about. I would have left again, but I tell you frankly I
couldn't bear to leave the thing. I saw a light behind your door, and
knew that some one at any rate had not gone to bed. The whole thing has
been unpardonable. But just lend me a candle, and in five minutes I
shall have found it."
"I will go down with you myself," said Crispin, staring at Harkness as
though he had never seen him before.
"That's mighty fine of you. Thank you."
But still Crispin did not move, his eyes fixed on Harkness's face. The
eyes moved. They fell, and it seemed to Harkness that they were staring
at the small piece of paper underneath the next door. Crispin looked,
then without another word went back into his room, closing the door
behind him.
Harkness's heart stopped; the floor pitched and heaved beneath his feet.
It was all over already, then: young Crispin was now in his wife's room,
had discovered her, in all probability, in the very act of escaping. In
another moment the house would be aroused.
He prepared himself for what might come, standing back against the wall,
his hands spread palm-wise against the paper as though he would hold
himself up.
Truly he was shaking at the knees: he could see nothing, only that
possibility of being once again in the presence of the elder Crispin, of
hearing again that sweet voice, of feeling once more the touch of those
boneless fingers, of seeing for another time those mad beseeching eyes.
His tongue was dry in his throat. Yes, he was afraid, more utterly
afraid than he would have fancied it possible for a grown man ever to
be. . . .
The door opened. Crispin appeared holding in his hand a lighted candle.
"Now, let us go down," he said quietly.
The relief was so great that Harkness began to babble, "You have no
idea . . . the trouble I am causing you. . . . At this late
hour. . . . What must you think . . .?"
The young man said nothing. Harkness meekly followed, the candle-light
splashing the walls and floor with its wavering shadows. Their heads
were gigantic on the faded wall-paper, and Harkness had a sudden fancy
that the shadows here were the realities and he a mist. The younger
Crispin gave that sense of unreality.
A kind of weariness went with him as though he were the personification
of a strangled yawn. And yet beneath the weariness and indifference
there was a flame burning. One realised it in that strange absorbed
stare of the eyes, in a kind of determination in the movements, in a
concentrated indifference to any motive of life but the intended one.
Harkness was to realise this with a start of alarmed surprise when, once
more in the long shabby room lit only by the light of one uncertain
candle, young Crispin turned upon him and shot out at him in his harsh
rasping voice:
"What are you here for?"
They were standing one on either side of the table, and between them on
the floor were the white scattered fragments of the torn "Orvieto."
"I told you," said Harkness. "I left my match-box. I won't keep you a
moment if you'll allow me to take that candle----"
"No, no," said the other impatiently, "I don't mean that. What do I care
for your match-box? You are worrying my father. I must beg you, very
seriously, never to come near him again."
"Indeed," said Harkness, laughing, "I don't understand you. How could I
worry your father? I have never seen him in my life before this evening.
He invited me out here for an hour's chat. I am going now. He is leaving
for abroad to-morrow. I don't suppose that we shall ever meet again.
Please allow me just to find my match-box and go."
But Crispin had apparently heard nothing. He stood, his hand tapping the
table.
"I don't wish to appear rude, Mr.--Mr.----"
"Harkness is my name," Harkness said.
"I beg your pardon. I didn't catch it when my father introduced me this
evening. I don't want to seem offensive in any way. I simply thought
this a good opportunity for a few words that may help you to understand
the situation.
"My father is my chief care, Mr. Harkness. He is everything to me in the
world. He has no one to look after him but myself. He is, as you must
have seen, very nervous and susceptible to different personalities. I
could see at once to-night that your personality is one that would have
a very disturbing effect on him. He does not recognise these things
himself, and so I have to protect him. I beg you to leave him alone."
"But really," Harkness cried, "the boot's on the other leg. Your father
has been very charming in showing me his lovely things, but it was he
who sought me out, not I him. I haven't the least desire to push my
acquaintance with him, or indeed with yourself, any further."
Crispin's cold eyes regarded Harkness steadily, then he moved round the
table until he was close beside him.
"I will tell you something, Mr.--ah--Harkness--something that probably
you do not know. There have been one or two persons as foolish and
interfering as to suggest that my father is not in complete control of
his faculties, even that he is dangerous to the public peace. My father
is an original mind. There is no one like him in this whole world, no
one who has the good of the human race at heart as he has. He goes his
own way, and at times has pursued certain experiments that were
necessary for the development of his general plan. He was the judge of
their true necessity and he has had the courage of his opinions--hence
the inquisitive meddlesomeness of certain people." He paused, then
added:
"If you have come here with any idea, Mr.--Mr.--Harkness, of interfering
with my father's liberty, I warn you that one visit is enough. It will
be dangerous for you to make another."
Harkness's temper, so seldom at his command when he needed it, now
happily flamed up.
"Are you trying to insult me, Mr. Crispin?" he asked. "It looks mighty
like it. Let me tell you once again, and really now for the last time,
that I am an American travelling for pleasure in Cornwall, that I had
never heard of your father before this evening, that he spoke to me
first and asked me to dine with him, and that he invited me here. I am
not in the habit of spying on anybody. I would be greatly obliged if you
would allow me to look for my match-box and depart. I am not likely to
disturb you again."
But this show of force did not disturb young Crispin in the least. He
stood there as though he were a wax model for evening clothes in a
tailor's window, his black hair had just that wig-like sleekness, his
face that waxen pallor, his body that wooden patience.
"My father is everything to me," he said simply. "If my father died I
should die too. Life would simply come to an end for me. I am of no
importance to my father. He is frequently irritated by my stupidity.
That is natural--but I am there to protect him, and protect him I will.
We have been really driven from place to place, Mr. Harkness, during the
last year by the ridiculous ignorant superstitions of local gossip.
Great men always seem odd to their inferiors, and my father seems odd to
a number of people, but I warn them all that any spying, asking of
questions, and the like, is dangerous. We know how to protect
ourselves."
His eyes suddenly fell on the fragments of the "Orvieto." He bent down
and picked some of them up. A look of true human anxiety and distress
crept into his queer fish-like eyes that gave him a new air and colour.
"Oh dear! oh dear!" he said. "Did he do this while you were with him?"
"Yes," said Harkness, "he did."
"Ah! it was one of his favourites. He must have been in great distress.
This only confirms what I said to you just now about disturbing him. I
beg you to go--now, at once, immediately--and never, never return. It is
so bad for my father to be disturbed. He has so excitable a temperament.
Please, please leave at once----"
"But my match-box," said Harkness.
"Give me your London address. I promise you that it shall be forwarded
to you." He held the candle high and swept the room with it, the sudden
shadows playing on the walls, like a troop of dancing scarecrows. "You
don't see it anywhere?"
Harkness looked about him, then up at the face of the chattering clock.
Time enough had elapsed. She was safe away by now.
"Very well, then," he said. "I will give you my address. Here is my
card."
Young Crispin, who seemed in great agitation and, under this emotion, a
new and different human being from anything that Harkness had believed
to be possible, took the card, and with the candle moved into the hall.
He turned the key, opened the door, and the night air rushed in blowing
the flame.
"I wish you good-night," he said, holding out his hand.
Harkness touched it--it was cold and hard--bowed, said: "I must
apologise again for disturbing you. I would only reassure you that it is
for the last time."
Both bowed. The door closed, and Harkness was once again in the garden.
III
Jabez was waiting for him. They were both in the shadow; beyond them the
lawn was scattered with star-dust mist as though sewn with immortal
daisies; the stars above were veiled. The world was so still that it
seemed to march forward with the rhythm of the sea, that could be heard
stamping now like a whole army of marching men.
"They are waiting for you, sir," Jabez whispered. "I was terrible feared
you'd be too long in there."
They moved, keeping to the shadows, and reached the path that led to the
door in the wall. Here their feet crunched on the gravel, and every step
was an agony of anticipated alarm. It seemed to Harkness that the house
sprang into life, that lights jumped in the windows, figures passed to
and fro, but he dared not look back, and then Jabez's hand was on the
door, he was through and out safely in the wide free road.
Then, for an instant, he did look back, and there the house was, dark,
motionless, rising out of the trees like part of the rock on which it
was built, the high tower climbing pale in the mist above it.
Only an instant's glimpse, because there was the jingle, the pony,
Dunbar and the girl. An absurd emotion took possession of him at the
sight of them. He had been through a good deal that evening, and the
picture of them, safe, honest, sane, after the house and the company
that he had left, came with the breeze from the sea reassuring him of
normality and youth.
Jabez, too, standing over them like a protective deity. His whole heart
warmed to the man, and he vowed that in the morning he would do
something for him that would give him security for the rest of his days.
There was something in the patient, statuesque simplicity of that giant
figure that he was never afterwards to forget.
But he had little time to think of anything. He had climbed into the
jingle, and without a word exchanged between any of them they were off,
turning at once away from the road to the right over a turfy path that
led to the Downs.
Dunbar, who had the reins, spoke at last.
"My God," he said, "I thought you were never coming."
"I had a queer time," Harkness answered, whispering because he was still
under the obsession of his escape from the house. "You must remember
that I'm not accustomed to such adventures. I've never had such an odd
two hours before, and I shouldn't think that I'm ever likely to have
such another again."
They all clustered together as though to assure one another of their
happiness at their escape. The strong tang now of the sea in their
faces, the freshness of the wide open sky, the spring of the turf
beneath the jingle's wheels, all spoke to them of their freedom. They
were so happy that, had they dared, they would have sung aloud.
But Harkness now was conscious only of one thing, that Hesther Crispin,
a black shawl over her head, only the outline of her figure to be seen
against the blue night, was pressed close to him. Her hand touched his
knee, the strands of her hair, escaping the shawl, blew close to his
face, he could feel the beating of her heart. An ecstasy seized him at
the sense of her closeness. Whatever was to come of that night, at least
this he had--his perfect hour. The elder Crispin and his madness, the
younger and his strangeness, the dim faded house, the jewels and the
torn "Orvieto," the mad talk, all these vanished into unreality, and,
curiously, this ride was joined directly to the dance around the town as
though no other events had intervened.
Then he had won his freedom, this sanctified it. Then he had felt his
common humanity with all life, now he knew his own passionate share of
it.
He wanted nothing for himself but this, that, like Browning's strong
peasant, he might serve his duchess, at the last receiving his white
rose and watching her vanish into her own magical kingdom. A romantic,
idealistic American, as has been already declared in this history; but
ten hours ago both romance and idealism were theoretic, now they were
pulsing, living things.
"Hesther's the one for my money," Dunbar said, some of his happiness at
their safety ringing through his voice. "You should have seen her climb
out of that window. She landed on the roof of that tool-house so lightly
that not a mouse could have heard her. And then she swung down the pipe
like a monkey. Tell me how you managed with friend Crispin."
"It wasn't difficult," Harkness answered. "He went with me to that long
room downstairs like a lamb. He told me that he had been wanting to
speak with me to tell me that I was bothering his father and must keep
away."
"That you were bothering his father?"
"Yes. He---- Wait. Do you hear any one coming?"
They listened. The ramp-ramp of the sea was now very loud. They had come
nearly two miles on the soft track across the Downs. They stayed
listening, staring into the distance. There was no sound but the sea.
Then a bell ringing mournfully, regretfully, through the air.
"That's the Liddon," said Dunbar. "We must be nearly at our cottage. But
I don't hear anything. Unless they saw the jingle they never would think
of this. Our only danger was the younger Crispin going into Hesther's
room after he left you. I believe we're safe."
They stayed there listening. Very strange in that wide expanse, with
only the bell for their company. They drove on a little way, and a
building loomed up. This was a deserted cottage, simply the four walls
standing.
"I'm to tie the pony to this," Dunbar said. "Jabez will fetch it in the
morning."
They climbed out of the jingle and waited while the pony was tied.
Having done it, Dunbar raised his head sniffing the air.
"I say, don't you think the mist's coming up a bit? It won't do if it
gets too thick. We'll have difficulty in finding the Cove."
It was true. The mist was spreading like very thin smoky glass. The pony
was etherealised, the cottage a ghostly cottage.
"Well, come on," Dunbar said. "We haven't a great deal of time, but the
Cove's only a step of the way. Along here to the right."
He led, the others followed. Hesther had hitherto said nothing. Now she
looked up at Harkness. "Thank you for helping us. It was generous of
you."
He couldn't see her face. He touched her hand with his for a moment.
"I guess that was the least any one could do," he said.
"Oh, I'm so glad it's over!" She gave a little shiver. "To be out here
free after those weeks, after that house--you don't know, you don't know
what that was."
"I can pretty well imagine," Harkness answered grimly, "from the hour or
two I spent in your father-in-law's company. But don't let's talk about
it just now. Afterwards we'll tell each other all our adventures."
"Isn't it strange," she said simply, "we've only exchanged a word or
two, we never knew one another before this evening, and yet we're like
old friends? Isn't it pleasant?"
"Very pleasant," he answered. "We must always be friends."
"Yes, always," she said.
They were standing close to the broken wall of the cottage. It had a
wonderfully romantic air in the night air. It was so lonely, and so
independent as well. The storms that must beat around it on wild nights,
the screams of the birds, the battering roar of the waves, and then to
sink into that silence with only the voice of the bell for its company.
But Dunbar was no poet--a ruined cottage was a ruined cottage to him.
"I don't like this mist," he said. "It's made me a little uncertain of
my bearings. I wonder if you'd mind, Hesther, waiting here for five
minutes while I go and see----"
"Oh no, we'll all stick together," she interrupted. "Why should we
separate? Why, I'm more sure-footed than you are, David. You're trying
to mother me again."
"No, I'm not," he answered doggedly; "but I'm really not quite sure of
the way down, and if we got in a mess half way it would be much worse
your being there. Really these paths can be awfully nasty. I want to be
_sure_ of my way before you come--really Hesther----"
She saw that it was important to him. She laughed.
"It's stupid, when I'm a better climber than you are. But if you like
it--you're the commander of this expedition."
She seated herself on a stone near the pony. The two men walked off. The
sea mist was very faint, blowing in little wisps like tattered lawn, not
obscuring anything but rendering the whole scene ethereal and unreal.
Suddenly, however, as though out of friendly interest, the stars, that
had been quite obscured, again appeared, twinkling, humorous eyes
looking down over the wall of heaven.
"We should be all right," Dunbar said as the two men set off; "we are up
to time. The boat is bound to be there. It's lucky the fog hasn't come.
That's a contingency I never thought of. The path down to the Cove is
off here, to the right of the cottage somewhere. I've studied every inch
of the country round here."
The path appeared. "Tell me, did you have a queer time with Crispin--the
elder one, I mean?"
"I've never had so strange a conversation with any one," said Harkness.
"Madness is a queer thing when you are in actual contact with it,
because we have, every one of us, enough madness in ourselves to wonder
whether some one else _is_ so mad after all. He talked the most awful
nonsense, and _dangerous_ nonsense too, but there was a kind of theory
behind it, something that almost held it all together. A sort of pathos
too, so that you felt, in spite of yourself, sorry for the man."
But Dunbar was no analyser of human motives. He despised fine shades,
and was a man of action. "Sorry for him! Just about as sorry as you are
for a spider that is spinning a nest in your clothes cupboard. Sorry! He
wants crushing under foot like a white slug, and that he'll get before
I've finished with him. Why, man, he's murderous! He loves torture and
slow fire like the old Spaniards in the Inquisition. There's so little
to catch on to--that's the trouble; but I bet that if he had caught us
helping Hesther out of that house to-night there would be something to
catch on to! Why, if we were to fall into his hands now! Ugh! it doesn't
bear thinking of!"
"Oh yes, of course," Harkness agreed. "He's dangerously mad. He'll be in
an asylum before many days are out. If ever I have been justified in any
action of my life it has been this, in helping that poor girl out of the
hands of those two men. All the same . . . oh! it's sad, Dunbar! There
is something so tragic in madness, whether it's dangerous or
no--something captive, like a bird in a cage, and something common to us
all. . . ."
"Well, if you think that the kind of things that Crispin Senior is after
are common to us all you must have a pretty low view of humanity. The
beastly swine! Something pathetic? Why, you're a curious fellow,
Harkness, to feel pathos in that situation."
"You may hate it and detest it, you _must_ confine it because it's
dangerous to the community, but you can pity it all the same. His
eyes--that longing to escape."
But Dunbar had found the cleft. They were now right above the sea.
Although there was so slight a wind, the waves were breaking noisily on
the shore. The stars had gone again, but the edge of the cliff was
clear, and far below it a thin line of ragged white leapt to the eye,
vanished, and leapt again.
"Here's the path down," said Dunbar. "There isn't much light, but
enough, I fancy. We'll both go down so that we can be sure of our way
when we come back with Hesther, and we may be both needed to help her.
The path's all right, though. It's slippery after wet weather, but
there's been no rain for days. Can you make it out clearly enough?"
"Yes," Harkness said, but he felt anything but happy. Of all the things
that he had done that evening this was the one that he liked least. He
had a very poor head for heights, growing dizzy under any provocation;
the angry snarl of the sea bewildered him, and little breaths of vapour
curled about him changing from moment to moment the form and shape of
the scene. He would have liked to suggest to Dunbar that there was no
need for him to go down this first time, but, coward though he might be,
he had come down to Treliss to beat that cowardice.
Certainly the adventures of that night were giving him every
opportunity. He went to the edge and looked over. The sea banged up to
him, and the grey curved shadow of the Cove seemed to be miles below
him. The little path ran on the edge of the cliff between two
precipitous slopes, and its downward curve was sharp.
He pulled himself together, thinking of Hesther waiting there by the
cottage alone. Dunbar had already started; he followed.
When he had gone a little way his knees began to wobble, his legs taking
on a strange life of their own. His imagination had all his days been
dangerous for him in any crisis, because he always saw more than was
truly there: now the sea breeze blew on either side of him, the path was
so narrow that there was not room to plant his two feet at the same
time, the dim shadow light confused his eyes and the roar of the sea
leapt at him like a wild animal.
However he pressed forward, looking neither to right nor to left, and,
with what thankfulness, he felt the wet sand yield beneath him and saw
the boat drawn up under an overhanging rock only a few feet away from
him!
"There it is," said Dunbar, eyeing the boat with intense satisfaction.
"Now I think we're all right. I don't see what's going to stop us. We'll
be across there in half an hour and then have a good hour before the
train." He held out his hand.
"Harkness, I simply can't tell you what I think of your doing all this
for us. Coming down here just to have a holiday, and then taking all
these risks for people you'd never seen before. It's fine of you and
I'll never forget it."
"It's nothing at all," said Harkness, blushing, as he always did when
himself was at all in discussion. "As a matter of fact, I've had what
has been, I suppose, the most interesting evening of my life, and I
daresay it isn't all over yet."
"There's not much fear of their catching us now," said Dunbar; "but
you've been in more real actual danger than you imagine. As I said just
now, anything might have happened to us if he had caught us. You don't
know how remote that house is. He could do what he pleased without any
one being the wiser, and be off in the morning leaving our corpses
behind him. The only servants in that house are those two Japs."
"There's Jabez," said Harkness.
"Jabez is outside and is only temporary. He wouldn't have stayed after
to-morrow anyway. He hates the man. Fine fellow, Jabez. I don't know how
I would have managed this affair without him. He fell in love with
Hesther. He'd do anything for her. And then like the rest of the
neighbourhood he detested the Japanese.
"They are funny conservative people these Cornishmen. Whatever they may
pretend, they've no use for foreigners and especially foreigners like
Crispin."
They stood a moment listening to the sea.
"The tide's going out," said Dunbar. "I was a little anxious lest I'd
pulled the boat up high enough this afternoon, and then, of course, some
one might have come along and taken a fancy to it. However, I was pretty
safe. No one ever comes down into this cove. But we've taken a lot of
chances to-night and everything's come off. The Lord's on our side--as
He well may be considering the kind of characters the Crispins have."
He looked at Harkness. "Hullo, you're shivering. Are you cold?"
"No," said Harkness, "I suddenly got the creeps. Some one walking over
my grave, I suppose. I feel as though Crispin had followed us and was
listening to every word we were saying. I could swear I could see his
horrid red head poking over that rock now. However, to tell you the
exact truth, Dunbar, I didn't care overmuch for coming down that bit of
rock just now. I'm not much at heights."
"What! that path!" cried Dunbar. "That's nothing. However, there's no
need for both of us to go back. You can stay by the boat."
But a sudden determination flamed up in Harkness that it should be he,
and none other, that should fetch Hesther Crispin.
"No, I'll go. There's no need for you to come though. We'll be back here
in ten minutes. I'll see that she gets down all right."
"Very well," said Dunbar. "But look after her. She's not so good a
climber as she thinks she is."
So Harkness started off. He waved his hand to Dunbar who was now busied
with the boat, and began his climb. He stumbled over the wet rocks,
nearly fell once or twice, and then came to the little path. His thought
now was all of Hesther. He played with his imagination, picturing to
himself that he was going right out of the world to some unknown heights
where she awaited him, having chosen him out of all the world, and there
they would live together, alone, happy always in one another's
company. . . .
What a fool he was when she was married, and, even if she freed herself
from that horrid encumbrance, had that boy down there in the Cove
waiting for her. But he could not help his own state. It did no harm. He
told no one. It was so new for him, this rich thrilling tingle of
emotion at the thought of some other human being, something so different
from his love for his sisters and his admiration for his friends. And
to-night from first to last there had been all the time this same
_tingling_ of experience. From his first getting into the train until
now he had seemed to be in direct contact with life, contact with all
the wrappers off, with nothing in between him and it!
That he must never lose again. After this night he must never slip back
to that old half-life with its dilettante pleasures, its mild
disappointments, its vague sense of exile. He could not have Hesther for
himself, but, at least, he could live the full life that she and her
country had shown to him.
"Ours is a great wild country. . . ." Never back to the level plains
again!
Full of these fine brave exulting thoughts he had climbed a very
considerable way when--suddenly the path was gone. There was no path, no
rocks, no hillside, no Cove, no sea, no stars--nothing. He was standing
on air. The fog in one second had crept upon him. Not the thin glassy
mist of twenty minutes ago but a thick, dense, blinding fog that hemmed
in like walls of wadding on every side. In the sudden panic his legs
gave way and he fell on to his knees and hands, clutching both sides of
the narrow path, staring desperately before him. He heard the Liddon
bell, as it seemed, quite close to his side, ringing down upon him.
IV
His first thought was of Hesther--then of Dunbar. Here they were all
three of them, separated. The fog might last for hours.
He called, "Dunbar! Dunbar! Dunbar!"
The bell echoed him, mocking him, "Dunbar! Dunbar! Dunbar!"
Very cautiously he climbed upon his feet, steadying himself. The wind
seemed completely to have died, and the sea sent up now only a faint
rustle, like the mysterious movement of some hidden woman's dress, but
the fog was so thick that it seemed to embrace Harkness ever more
tightly--and it was cold with a bitter piercing chill. Harkness called
again, "Dunbar! Dunbar!" listened, and then, as there was no kind of
answer, began to move slowly forward.
Once, many years before, when a small boy at his private school, there
had been an hour that every week he had feared beforehand with a panic
dread. This had been the time of the fire-escape practice, when the
boys, from some second floor window, were pushed down, feet foremost,
into a long canvas funnel through which they slipped safely to the
ground. The passing through this funnel was only of a moment's duration,
but that moment to Harkness had been terrible in its nightmare stifling
sense, pressing blinding confinement. Something of that he felt now. He
seemed to be compelled to push against blankets of cold damp
obstruction. The Fog assumed a personality, and it was a personality
strangely connected in Harkness's confused brain with that little
red-headed man who seemed now always to be pursuing him. He was
somewhere there in the fog; it was part of his game that he was playing
with Harkness, and he could hear that sweet melodious voice whispering:
"Pain, you know. Pain. That's the thing to teach you what life really
means. You'll be thankful to me before I've done with you. You shouldn't
have interfered with my plans, you know. I warned you not to."
He tried to drive down his fancies and to control his body. That was his
trouble--that every limb, every nerve, every muscle, seemed to be
asserting its own independent life. His legs now--they belonged to him,
but never would you have supposed it. His arms tugged away from him as
though striving to be free. He was not trained for this kind of thing--a
cultured American gentleman with two sisters who read papers to women's
clubs in Oregon.
He beat down his imagination. He had been crawling on his hands and his
knees, and now he put out one hand and touched space. His heart gave a
sickening bound and lay still. Which way went the path, to right or to
left? He tried to throw his memory back and recapture the shape of it.
There had been a sharp curve somewhere as it bent out towards the sea,
but he did not know how far now he had gone. He strained with his eyes
but could see nothing but the wall of grey. Should he wait there until
the fog cleared or Dunbar came to him: but the fog might be there for
hours, and Dunbar might never come. No, he must not wait. The thought of
Hesther alone in the fog, fearing every moment recapture by the
Crispins, filled with every terror that her loneliness could breed in
her, spurred him on. He _must_ reach her, whatever the risk.
Stretching his arm at full length he touched the path again, but there
was an interval. Had there been any break in the path when he came down
it? He could not remember any. He felt backwards with his hand and found
the curve, crept forward, then his foot slipt and his leg slid over the
edge. He waited to stop the hammering of his heart, then, balancing
himself, pulled it back then forward again.
Lucky for him that there was no wind, but again not lucky because had
there been wind the fog might have been blown out of its course: as it
was, with every instant it seemed to grow thicker and thicker.
Then he grew calmer. He must soon now be reaching the top, and happiness
came to him when he thought that for a time at least he would be
Hesther's only protection. On him, until Dunbar reached them, she would
have absolutely to rely. She would be cold and he must shelter her, and
at the thought of her proximity to him, he with his arm around her,
wrapping her with his coat; holding perhaps her hand in his, he was,
himself, suddenly warm, and his body pulled together and was taut and
strong.
He fancied that he might walk now. Very carefully he pulled himself up,
stood on his feet, stepped forward--and fell.
V
He screamed, and as he did so the Fog seemed to put its clammy hand
against his mouth, filling it with boneless fingers. This was the
end--this death. All space was about him and a roar of air sweeping up
to meet him.
Then dimly there came to his brain the message, thrown to him like a
life-line, that he was not falling in space but was slipping down a
slope. He lurched out with his hands, caught some thick tufts of grass,
and held. His legs slid forward and then dangled. With all his
forces--and the muscles of his arms were but weak--he pulled himself
upward and then held himself there, his legs hanging over space.
While the tufts held, and so long as his arms had the strength, he could
stay. How long might that be? Sickness attacked him, a kind of
sea-sickness. Tears were in his eyes, and an intense self-pity seized
him. What a shame that such an end should come to a man who had meant no
harm to any one, whose life had yet such possibilities. He thought of
his sisters. How they would miss him! He had been tiresome sometimes,
and been restless at home, and pulled them up sharply when they had said
things that he thought stupid, but now only his good points would be
remembered. He had been kind to them; he had a warm heart. He--and here
his brain, working it seemed through his aching, straining arms, began
suddenly to whirl like a top, flinging in front of his eyes a succession
of the most absurd pictures--days in spring woods gathering flowers, his
mother and father laughing at something childish that he had said, a bar
of music from some musical comedy, Erda appearing before Wotan in
_Siegfried_, a night when he had come to a dinner party and had
forgotten to wear a dress tie, the moment when once before an operation
he had been wheeled into the operating theatre, the day when he had
plucked up his courage and decided that he could buy the Whistler
"Little Mast," the grave, anxious, kindly eyes of Strang as he leant
across the etching table, a morning when he had run for an omnibus up
Shaftesbury Avenue and missed it, and the conductor had laughed, that
hour with Maradick at the club, lights, scents, the cold fog drowning
his mouth, his nose, his eyes--then chill space, a roaring wind and
silence. . . .
How strange after that--and hours afterwards it seemed although it must
have been seconds--to find that he was still living, that his arms were
aching as though they were one extended toothache, and that he was still
holding to those tufts of grass. He had a kind of marvel at his
endurance, and now, suddenly, a wonder as to why he was doing this. Was
it worth while? How stupid this energy! How much better to let himself
go and to sleep, to sleep. How delicious to sleep and be rid of the
ache, the cold, the clammy fog!
With that, one of the grass tufts to which he was clinging lurched
slightly, and his whole soul was active in its energy to preserve that
life that but now he had thought to throw away. With a struggle to which
he would have supposed he could not have risen he drew his body up
against the slope so that the earth to which he was clinging might the
better restrain his weight. Then resting there, his fingers digging deep
into the soil of the cliff, his head pressed against the rock, he
uttered a prayer:
"O Lord, help me now. I have a life that has been of little use to the
world, but I have, in this very day, seen better the uses to which I may
put it. Help me from this, give me strength to live and I will try to
leave my idleness and my selfishness and meanness and be a worthier man.
O Lord, I know not whether Thou dost exist or not, but, if Thou art near
me, help me at least now to bear my death worthily, if it must be that,
and to live my life to some real purpose if I am to have it back again.
Amen." Then he repeated the Lord's Prayer. After that he seemed to be
quieted; a great comfort came to him so that he no longer had any
anxiety, his heart beat tranquilly, and he only rested there, passive
for the issue. "If death comes," he thought to himself, "I believe that
it will be very swift. I shall feel no more than I felt just now when I
first tumbled. I shall not have so much pain as with a toothache. I am
leaving no one in the whole world whose existence will be empty because
I have gone. Hesther after to-night I shall never, in any case, see
again, and I am fortunate because, before I die, I have been able to
feel the reality of life, what love is, and caring for others more than
myself." He was quite tranquil. The tuft of grass tugged again. His legs
were numb, and he had the curious fancy that one of his boots had
slipped off, and that one foot, as light as a feather, was blowing
loosely in the air.
Then it seemed to him--and now it was as though he were half asleep,
working in a dream--that some one was, very gently, pushing him upwards.
At least he was rising. His hands, one by one, left their tufts of grass
and caught higher refuge, first a projecting rock, then a thick hummock
of soil, then a bunch of sea-pinks. In another while, his heart now
beating again with a new excited anticipation, his head lurched forward
on the earth into space. With a last frantic urge he pulled all his body
together and lay huddled on the path safe once more.
He had now a new trouble because his body refused to move. He had no
body, nothing that he could count upon for action. He tried to find his
connection with it, endeavoured to rest upon his knees, but it was as
though he had been all dissipated into the fog and was turned, himself
now, into mist and vapour. Then this passed, and once more he crawled
forward.
He turned a corner and met again the Liddon bell. It was strange how
deeply this voice reassured him. He had been all alone in a world
utterly dead. He had not had, like Hardy's hero, the sight of the
crustacean to connect him with eternal life. But this sudden,
melancholy, lowing sound like a creature deserted, crying for its mate,
brought him once more into reality. The bell was insistent and very
loud. It swung through the fog up to him, ringing in his ear, then
fading away again into distance. He spoke aloud as men do when they are
in desperate straits: "Well, old bell," he cried, "I'm not beaten yet,
you see. They've done what they can to finish me, but I'm back again.
You don't get rid of me so easily as that, you know. You can come and
look, if you like. Here I am, company for you after all."
There was a little breeze blowing now in his eyes and this cheered him.
If only the wind rose the fog would move and all might yet be well. His
clothes were torn, his hands bleeding, his hat gone. He crawled into a
sitting position, shook his fist in the air, and cried:
"You old devil, you're there, are you! It's your game all this. You're
seeing whether you can finish me. But I'll be even with you yet." And it
did indeed seem to him that he could see through the mist that red head
sticking out like a furze bush on fire. The hair, the damp pale face,
the melancholy eyes, and then the voice:
"It's only a theory, of course, Mr. Harkness. My father, who was a most
remarkable man. . . ."
The thought of Crispin enraged him, and the rage drove him on to his
feet. He was standing up and moving forward quite briskly. He moved like
a blind man, his hands before him as though he were expecting at every
moment to strike some hard, sharp substance, but whereas before the fog
had seemed to envelope him, strangling him, penetrating into his very
heart and vitals, now it retreated from before him like a moving wall.
The incline was now less sharp, and now less sharp again. Little pebbles
rolled from beneath his feet, and he could hear them fall over down into
distant space, but he had no longer any fear. He was on level ground. He
knew that the down was spreading about him. He called out, "Hesther!
Hesther!" not realising that this was the first time he had spoken her
name. He called it again, "Hesther! Hesther!" and again and again,
always moving as he fancied forward.
Then, as though it had been hurled at him out of some gigantic distance,
the rugged wall of the cottage pierced the sky. He saw it, then herself
patiently seated beneath it. In another moment he was kneeling beside
her, both her hands in his, his voice murmuring unintelligible words.
VI
She was so happy to see him. His face was close to hers and for the
first time he could really see her, her large, grave, questioning eyes,
her child's face, half developed, nothing very beautiful in her
features, but to him something inexpressibly lovely for which all his
life he had been waiting.
She was damp with the fog, and the first thing he did was to take off
his coat and try to put it around her. But she stood up resisting him.
"Oh no, I'm not cold. I'm not really. And do you think I'll let you?
Why, you! What have you done? Your hands are all torn and your face!"
She was very close to him. She put up her hand and touched his face. It
needed to muster everything that he had in him not to put his arms
around her. He conquered himself. "That's nothing," he said; "I had some
trouble climbing up from the cliff. I was just half-way up when the fog
came on. It wasn't much of a path in any case."
She stood with her hand on his arm. "Oh, what shall we do? We shall
never find the boat now. The fog will clear and we will be caught. We
can't move from here while it lasts."
"No," he said firmly, "we can't move. This is the place where Dunbar
will expect us. He'll turn up here at any moment. Meanwhile, we must
just wait for him. Is the pony all right?"
"I don't know what I'd have done without the pony," she said. "When the
fog came up I was terrified. I didn't know what I'd better do. I called
your names, but, of course, you didn't hear. And then it got colder and
colder and I kept thinking that I was seeing Them. His red hair. . . ."
She suddenly, shivering, put her hand on his arm. "Oh, don't let them
find us," she said; "I couldn't go back to that. I would rather kill
myself. I _would_ kill myself if I went back. What they are--oh! you
don't know!"
He took her hand and held it firmly. "Now see here, we don't know how
long Dunbar will be, or how long the fog will last, or anything. We
can't do anything but stay here, and it's no good if we stay here and
think of all the terrible things that may happen. The fog can't last for
ever. Dunbar may come any minute. What we have to do is to sit down on
this stone here and imagine we are sitting in front of our fire at home
talking like old friends about--oh well, anything you like--whatever old
friends do talk about. Can your imagination help you that far?"
He saw that she was at the very edge of her nerves; a step further and
she would topple over into wild hysteria; he knew enough already about
her character to be sure that nothing would cause her such self-scorn
and regret as that loss of self-control. He was not very sure of his own
control; everything had piled up upon him pretty heavily during the last
hour; but she was such a child that he had an immense sense of
responsibility as though he had been fifteen years older at least.
"I haven't very much imagination," she said, in a voice hovering between
laughter and tears. "Father always used to tell me that was my chief
lack. And we _are_ old friends, as we said a while ago, even though we
have just met."
"That's right," he said. "Now we will have to sit rather close together.
There's only one stone and the grass is most awfully wet. Every three
minutes or so I'll get up and shout Dunbar's name in case he is
wandering about quite close to us."
He stood up and, putting his hands to his mouth, shouted with all his
might: "Dunbar! Dunbar! Dunbar!"
He waited. There was no answer. Only the fog seemed to grow closer. He
turned to her and said:
"Don't you think the fog's clearing a little?"
She shook her head. There was still a little quaver in her voice: "I'm
afraid not. You're saying that to cheer me up. You needn't. I'm not
frightened. Think how lucky I am to have you with me. You mightn't have
come back. You might have missed your way for hours."
When he thought of how nearly he had missed his way for ever and ever he
trembled. He mustn't let his thoughts wander in those paths; he was here
to make her feel happy and safe until Dunbar came. They sat down on the
stone together, and he put his arm around her to hold her there and to
keep her warm.
"Now what shall we talk about?" she asked him.
"Ourselves," he answered her. "We have a splendid opportunity. Here we
are, cut off by the fog, away from every one in the world. We know
nothing about one another, or almost nothing. We can scarcely see one
another's faces. It is a wonderful opportunity."
"Well, you tell me about yourself first."
"Ah! there's the trouble. I'm so terribly dull. I've never been or
thought or said anything interesting. I'm like thousands and thousands
of people in this world who are simply shadows to everybody else."
"Remember we're to tell the truth," she said. "No one ever honestly
thinks that about themselves--that they are just shadows of somebody
else. Every one has their own secret importance for themselves--at
least, every one in our village had. People you would have supposed had
_nothing_ in them, yet if you talked to them you soon saw that they
fancied that the world would end if they weren't in it to make it go
round."
"Well, honestly, that isn't my opinion of myself," Harkness answered. "I
don't think that I help the world to go round at all. Of course, I think
that there have to be all the ordinary people in it like myself to
appreciate all the doings and sayings of the others, the geniuses--to
make the audience. There are so many things I don't care for."
"What _do_ you care for?"
"Oh, different things at different times--not permanently for much.
Pictures--especially etchings--music, travel. But never very deeply or
urgently, except for the etchings. . . . Until to-night," he suddenly
added, lowering his voice.
"Until to-night?"
"Yes, ever since I left Paddington--let me see--how many hours ago? It's
now about two o'clock, I suppose." He looked at his watch. "Ten minutes
to two. Nearly nine hours. Ever since nine hours ago. I've felt a new
kind of energy, a new spirit, the thrill, the excitement that all my
life I've wanted to have but that never came until now. Being really
_in_ life instead of just watching it like a spectator."
She put her hand on his. "I am so glad you're here. Do you know I used
to boast that I never could be frightened by anything? But these last
weeks--all my courage has gone. Oh, why has this fog come? We were
getting on so well, everything was all right--and now I know they'll
find us, I know they'll find us. I'm sure he's just behind there,
somewhere, hiding in the fog, listening to us. And perhaps David is
killed. I can't bear it. I can't bear it!"
She suddenly clung to him, hiding her face in his coat. He soothed her
just as he would his own child, as though she had been his child all her
life. "Hesther! Hesther! You mustn't. You mustn't break down. Think how
brave you've been all this time. The fog can clear in a moment and then
we'll still have time to catch the train. Anyway the fog's a protection.
If Crispin were after us he'd never find us in this. Don't cry, Hesther.
Don't be unhappy. Let's just go on talking as though we were at home.
You're quite safe here. No one can touch you."
"Yes, I'm safe," she whispered, "so long as you're here." His heart
leapt up. He forced himself to speak very quietly:
"Now I'll tell you about _myself._ It will be soon over. I grew up in a
place called Baker in Oregon in the United States. It is a long way from
anywhere, but all the big trains go through it on the way out to the
Pacific coast. I grew up there with my two sisters and my father. I lost
my mother when I was very young. We had a funny ramshackle old house
under the mountains, full of books. We had very long winters and very
hot summers. I went to a place called Andover to school. Then my father
died and left me some money, and since then--oh! since then I dare not
tell you what a waste I have made of my life, never settling anywhere,
longing for Europe and the old beautiful things when I was in America
and longing for the energy and vitality of America when I was in Europe.
That's what it is to be really cosmopolitan--to have no home anywhere.
"The only intimate friends I have are the etchings, and I sometimes
think that they also despise me for the idle life I lead."
He could see that she was interested. She was quietly sitting, her head
against his shoulder, her hand in his just as a little girl might listen
to her elder brother.
"And that's all?" she asked.
"Yes. Absolutely all. I'm ashamed to let you look at so miserable a
picture. I have been like so many people in the world, especially since
the war. Modern cleverness has taken one's beliefs away, modern
stupidity has deprived one of the possibility of hero-worship. No God,
no heroes any more. Only one's disappointing self. What is left to make
life worth while? So you think while you are on the bank watching the
stream of life pass by. It is different if some one or something pushes
you in. Then you must fight for existence for your own self or, better
still, for some one else. They who care for something or some one more
than themselves--some cause, some idea, some prophecy, some beauty, some
person--they are the happy ones." He laughed. "Here I am sitting in the
middle of this fog, a useless selfish creature who has suddenly
discovered the meaning of life. Congratulate me."
He felt that she was looking up at him. He looked down at her. Their
eyes stared at one another. His heart beat riotously, and behind the
beating there was a strange pain, a poignant longing, a deep, deep
tenderness.
"I don't understand everything you say," she replied at last. "Except
that I am sure you are doing an injustice to yourself when you give such
an account. But what you say about unselfishness I don't agree with. How
is one unselfish if one is doing things for people one loves? I wasn't
unselfish because I worked for the boys. I had to. They needed it."
"Tell me about your home," he said.
She sighed, then drew herself a little away from him, as though she were
suddenly determined to be independent, to owe no man anything.
"Mother died when I was very young," she said. "I only remember her as
some one who was always tired, but very, very kind. But she liked the
boys better. I remember I used to be silly and feel hurt because she
liked them better. But the day before she died she told me to look after
them, and I was so proud, and promised. And I have tried."
"Were they younger than you?"
"Yes. One was three years younger and the other five. I think they cared
for me, but never as much as I did for them."
She stopped as though she were listening. The fog was now terribly thick
and was in their eyes, their nostrils, their mouths. They could see
nothing at all, and when he jumped to his feet and called again,
"Dunbar! Dunbar! Dunbar!" he knew that he vanished from her sight. He
could feel from the way that she caught his hand and held it when he sat
down again how, for a moment, she had lost him.
"It's always that way, isn't it?" she went on, and he could tell from an
undertone in her voice that this talking was an immense relief to her.
She had, he supposed, not talked to any one for weeks.
"Always what way?" he asked.
"That if you love some one very much they don't love you so much. And
then the same the other way."
"Very often," he agreed.
"I'm sure that's what I did wrong at home. Showed them that I cared for
them too much. The boys were very good, but they were boys, you know,
and took everything for granted as men do." She said this with a very
old world-wise air. "They were dear boys--they were and are. But it was
better before they went to school, when they needed me always.
Afterwards when they had been to school they despised girls and thought
it silly to let girls do things for them. And then they didn't like
being at home--because father drank."
She dropped her voice here and came very close to him.
"Do you know what it is to hate and love the same person? I was like
that with father. When he had drunk too much and broke all the
things--when we had so few anyway--and hit the boys, and did things--oh,
dreadful things that men do when they're drunk, then I hated him. I
didn't love him. I didn't want to help him--I just wanted to get away.
And before--before he drank so much he was so good and so sweet and so
clever. Do you know that my father was one of the cleverest doctors in
the whole of England? He was. If he hadn't drunk he might have been
anywhere and done anything. But sometimes when he _was_ drunk and the
boys were away at school, and the house was in such a mess, and the
servant wouldn't stay because of father, I felt I couldn't go on--I
_couldn't!_--and that I'd run down the road leaving everything as it
was, into the town and hide so that they'd never find me. . . . And
now," she suddenly broke out, "I have run away--and see what I've made
of it!"
"It isn't over yet," he said to her quietly. "Life's just beginning for
you."
"Well, anyway," she answered, with a sudden resolute calm that made her
seem ever so much older and more mature, "I've helped the boys to start
in life, and I won't have to go back to all that again--that's
something. It's fine to love some one and work for them as you said just
now, but if it's always dirty, and there's never enough money, and the
servants are always in a bad temper, and you never have enough clothes,
and all the people in the village laugh at you because your father
drinks, then you want to stop loving for a little while and to escape
anywhere, anywhere to anybody where it isn't dirty. Love isn't
enough--no, it isn't--if you're so tired with work that you haven't any
energy to think whether you love or not."
She hesitated there, looking away from him, and said so softly that he
with difficulty caught her words: "I will tell you one thing that you
won't believe, but it's true. I wanted to go to Crispin."
He turned to look at her in amazement.
"You _wanted_ to go?"
"Yes. I know you thought that I went for the boys and father. I know
that David thinks that too. Of course that was true a little. He
promised me that they should have everything. It was a relief to me that
I needn't think of them any more. But it wasn't only that. I wanted to
go. I wanted to be free."
"To be free!" Harkness cried. "My God! What freedom! I can understand
your wanting to escape, but with _such_ men. . . ."
She turned round upon him eagerly. "You don't know what he can be
like--the elder Crispin, I mean. And to a girl, an ignorant, conceited
girl. Yes, I was conceited, that was the cause of everything. Father had
all sorts of books in his room, I used to read everything I could
see--French and German in a kind of way, and secretly I was very proud
of myself. I thought that I was more learned than any one I knew, and I
used to smile to myself secretly when I overheard people saying how good
I was to the boys, and how unselfish, and I would think, 'That's not
what I am at all. If you only knew how much I know, and the kind of
things, you'd be surprised.'
"I was always thinking of the day when I would escape and marry. I
fancied I knew everything about marriage from the books that I had read
and from the things that father said when he was drunk. I hadn't a nice
idea of marriage at all. I thought it was old-fashioned to fall in love,
but through marriage I could reach some fine position where I could do
great things in the world, and always in my mind I saw myself coming one
day back to my village and every one saying: 'Why, I had not an idea she
was like _that._ Fancy all the time she was with us we never knew she
was clever like this.'"
She laughed like a child, a little maliciously, very simply and
confidingly. He saw that she had for the moment forgotten her danger,
and was sitting there in the middle of a dense fog on a lonely moor at a
quarter-past two in the morning with an almost complete stranger as
though she were giving him afternoon tea in the placid security of a
London suburb. He was glad; he did not wish to bring back her earlier
terror, but for himself now, with every moment that passed, he was
increasingly anxious. Time was flying; now they could never catch that
train. And above all, what could have happened to Dunbar? He must surely
have found them by now had some accident not come to him. Perhaps he had
slipped as Harkness had done and was now lying smashed to pieces at the
bottom of that cliff. But what could he, Harkness, do better than this?
While the fog was so dense it was madness to move off in search of any
one. And if the fog lasted were they to sit there until morning and be
caught like mice in a kitchen?
And beneath his anxiety, as his arm held the child at his side, there
was that strange mixture of triumph and pain, of some odd piercing
loneliness and a deep burning satisfaction. Meanwhile her hand rested in
his, soft and warm like the touch of a bird's breast.
"When Mr. Crispin came--the elder, the father--and talked to me I was
flattered. No one before had ever talked to me as he did about his
travels and his collections and the grand people he knew, just as though
I were as old as he was. And then David--Mr. Dunbar--was always asking
me to marry him. I'd known him all my life, and I liked him better than
any one else in the whole world; but just because I'd always known him
he wasn't exciting. He was the last person I wanted to marry. Then Mr.
Crispin made father drink and I hated him for that, and I hated father
for letting him do it. I went up to Mr. Crispin's house and told him
what I thought of him, and he talked and talked and talked, all about
having power over people for their good and hurting them first and
loving them all afterwards. I didn't understand most of it, but the end
of it was that he said that if I would marry his son he would leave
father alone and would give me everything. I should see the world and
all life, and that his son loved me and would be kind to me.
"After that it was the strangest thing. I don't say that he hypnotised
me. I knew that he was bad. Every one in the place was speaking about
him. He had done some cruel thing to a horse, and there was a story,
too, about some woman in the village. But I thought that I knew better
than all of them, that I would save father and the boys and be grand
myself--and then I would show David that he wasn't the only one who
cared for me.
"And so--I consented. From the moment I promised I was terrified. I knew
that I had done a terrible thing. But it was too late. I was already a
prisoner. That is a hysterical thing to say, but it is true. They never
let me out of their sight. I was married very quickly after that. I
won't say anything about the first week of my marriage except that I
didn't need books any more to teach me. I knew the sin I'd committed.
But I was proud--I was as proud as I was frightened. I wasn't going to
let any one know what a terrible position I was in--and especially
David. When we went to Treliss, David came too and waited. In my heart I
was so glad he was there.
"You don't know what went on in that house. The younger Crispin wasn't
unkind. He was simply indifferent. He thought of nothing and nobody but
his father. His father mocked him, despised him, scorned him, but he
didn't care. He follows his father like a dog. At first you know I
thought I could make a job of it, carrying it through. And then I began
to understand.
"First one little thing, then another. The elder Crispin was always
talking, floods of it. He was always looking at me and smiling at me.
After two days in the house with him I hated him as I hadn't known I
could hate any one. When he touched me I trembled all over. It became a
kind of duel between us. He was always talking nonsense about making me
love him through pain--and his eyes never said what his mouth said. They
were like the eyes of another person caught there by mistake.
"Then one day I came into the library upstairs and found him with a dog.
A little fox-terrier. He had tied it to the leg of the table and was
flicking it with a whip. He would give it a flick, then stand back and
look at it, then give it another flick. The awful thing was that the dog
was too frightened to howl, too terrified to know that it was being hurt
at all. He was smiling, watching the dog very carefully, but his eyes
were sad and unhappy. After that there were many signs. I knew then two
things, that he was raving crazy mad and that I was a prisoner in that
house. They watched me night and day. I had no money. My only hope of
escape was through David who was always getting word to me, begging me
to let him help me. But I still had my pride, although it was nearly
beaten. I wouldn't yield until--until the night before you came, then
something happened, something he tried to do; the younger Crispin
stopped him that time, but another time--well, there mightn't be any one
there. That settled it all. I let David know through you that I would
go. I _had_ to go. I couldn't risk another moment. I couldn't risk
another moment, I tell you." She suddenly sprang up, caught at
Harkness's hands in an agony, crying:
"Don't stay here! Don't stay here! They can find us here! We're going to
be caught again. Oh, please come! Please! Please!"
She was suddenly crazy with terror. Had he not held her with all his
force she would have rushed off into the fog. She struggled in his arms,
pulling and straining, crying, not knowing what she said. Then suddenly
she relaxed, would have tumbled had he not held her, and murmuring, "I
can't any more--oh, I can't any more!" collapsed, so that he knew she
had fainted.
VII
He sat down on the stone, laying her in his arms as though she were his
child. He was, himself, not strongly built, but she was so slight in his
hold that he could not believe that she was a woman. He murmured words
to her, stroked her forehead with his hand; she stirred, turning towards
him, and resting her head more securely on his breast. Then her hand
moved to his cheek and lay against it.
At last after a long while she raised her head, looked about her, stared
up at him as though she had just awoken, turned and kissed him on the
cheek. She murmured something--he could not catch the words--then
nestled down into his arms as though she would sleep.
There began for him then, sitting there, staring out into the unblinking
fog, his hardest test. As surely as never before in his life had he
known what love truly was, so did he know it now. This child in her
ignorance, her courage, her hard history, her contact with the worst
elements in human nature, her purity, had found her way into the
innermost recesses of his heart. He saw as he sat there, with a strange
almost divine clarity of vision, both into her soul and into his own. He
knew that when she faced life again he would be the first to whom she
would turn. He knew that with one word, one look, he could win her love.
He knew that she had also never felt what love was. He knew that the
circumstances of this night had turned her towards him as she would
never have been turned in ordinary conditions. Yes, he knew this
too--that had they met in everyday life she would never have loved him,
would not indeed have thought of him twice.
He was not a man about whom any one thought twice. With the exception of
his sisters no woman had ever loved him; this child, driven to terrified
desperation by the horrors of the last weeks had been wakened to full
womanhood by those same horrors, and he had happened to be there at the
awakening. That was all. And yet he knew that so honest was she, and
good and true, that did she once go to him she would stay with him. He
saw steadily into the future. He saw her freedom from the madman to whom
she was married, then her union with himself. His happiness, and her
gradual discovery of the kind of man that he was. Not bad--oh no--but
older, far older than herself in many other ways than years, tired so
easily, caring nothing for all the young things in life, above all a man
in the middle state, solitary from some elemental loneliness of soul. It
was true that to-night had shown him a new energy of living, a new
happiness, a new vigour, and he would perhaps after to-night never be
the same man as he was before. But it was not enough. No, not enough for
this young girl just beginning life, so ignorant of it, so trustful of
him that she would follow the path that he pointed out. And for himself!
How often he had felt like Nejdanov in _Virgin Soil_ that "everything
that he had said or done during the day seemed to him so utterly false,
such useless nonsense, and the thing that ought to be done was nowhere
to be found . . . unattainable . . . in the depths of a bottomless pit."
Well, of to-night that was not true. What he had done was useful, was
well done. But to-morrow how would he regard it? Would it not seem like
senseless melodrama, the mad Crispins, his fall from the cliff, this
eternal fog? How like his history that the most conclusive and eternal
acts of his life should take place in a fog! And this girl whom he loved
so dearly, if he married her and kept her for himself would not his
conscience, that eternal tiresome conscience of his, would it not for
ever reproach him, telling him that he had spoilt her life, and would
not he be for ever watching to catch that moment when she would realize
how dull, how old, how negative he was? No, he could not . . . he could
not . . .
Then there swept over him all the fire of the other impulse. Why should
he not, at long last, be happy? Could any man in the world be better to
her than he would be? After all he was not so old. Had he not known when
he shared in that dance round the town that he could be part of life,
could feel with the common pulse of humanity? Did young Dunbar know life
better than he? With him she had lived always and yet did not love him.
And then he knew with a flash like lightning through the fog that at
this moment, when she was waking to life and was trusting him, he could
by only a few words, lead her to love Dunbar. She had always seen him in
a commonplace, homely, familiar light, but he, Harkness, if he liked,
could show her quite another light, could turn all this fresh romantic
impulse that was now flowing towards himself into another channel.
But why should he? Was that not simply sentimental idealism? Dunbar was
no friend of his, he had never seen him before yesterday, why should he
give up to him the only real thing that his life had yet known?
But it was not sentimental, it was not false. Youth to youth. In years
he was not so old, but in his hesitating, quixotic, undetermined
character there were elements of analysis, self-questioning, regret,
that would make any human being with whom he was intimately related
unhappy.
Sitting there, staring out into the fog, he knew the truth--that he was
a man doomed to be alone all his days. That did not mean that he could
not make much of his life, have many friends, much good fortune--but in
the last intimacy he could go to no one and no one could go to him.
He bent down and kissed her forehead. She stirred, moved, sat up,
resting back against him, her feet on the ground.
"Where am I?" she whispered. "Oh yes." She clung to his arm. "No one has
come? We are still alone?"
"No," he answered her gently, "no one has come. We are still alone."
VIII
"What time is it?" she asked.
He looked at his watch. "Half-past two."
"We have missed that train now."
"I don't know. And anyway there's probably another."
"And David?"
"He's lost his way in the fog. He'll turn up at any moment." He stood up
and shouted once again:
"Dunbar! Dunbar! Dunbar!"
No answer.
He stood over her looking down at her as she sat with drooping head. She
looked up at him. "I'm ashamed at the way I've behaved," she said,
"fainting and crying. But you needn't be afraid any more. I shan't give
in again."
Indeed, he seemed to see in her altogether a new spirit, something finer
and more secure. She put out her hand to him.
"Come and sit down on the stone again as we were before. It's better for
us to talk and then we don't frighten ourselves with possibilities.
After all, we can't _do_ anything, can we, so long as this horrid fog
lasts? We must just sit here and wait for David."
He sat down, put his arm around her as he had done before. The moment
had come. He had only now to speak and the result was certain--the whole
of his future life and hers. He knew so exactly what he would say. The
words were forming on his lips.
"Hesther dear, I've known you so short a time, but nevertheless I love
you with all my heart and being. When you are rid of this horrible man
will you marry me? I will spend all my life in making you happy----"
And she, oh, without an instant's doubt, would say "Yes," would hide in
his arms, and rest there as though secure, yes, utterly secure for life.
But the battle was over. He would not begin it again. He clipped the
words back and sat silent, one hand clenched on his knee.
It was as though she were waiting for him to speak. Their silence was
packed with anticipation. At last she said:
"What is the matter? Is there something you're afraid of that you don't
like to tell me? You needn't mind. I'm through my fear."
"No, there's nothing," he answered. At last he said: "There _is_ one
thing I'd like to say to you. I suppose I've no right to speak of it
seeing how recently I've known you, but I guess this night has made us
friends as months of ordinary living never would have made us."
"Yes, you're right in that," she answered. He knew what she was
expecting him to say.
"Well, it's about Dunbar." He could feel her hand jump in his. "He loves
you so much--so terribly. He isn't a man, I should think, to say very
much about his feelings. I've only known him for an hour or two, and he
wouldn't have said anything to me if he hadn't _had_ to. But from the
little he did say I could see what he feels. You're in luck to have a
man like that in love with you."
She took her hand out of his, then, very quietly but very stiffly,
answered:
"But I've known him all my life, you know."
"That's just why I'm speaking about him," Harkness answered.
"It's rather strange to have the friend of your life explained to you by
some one who has known him only for an hour or two." She laughed a
little angrily.
"But that's just why I'm speaking," he answered. "When you've known some
one all your life you can't see them clearly. That's why one's own
family always knows so little about one. You can't see the wood for the
trees. In the first minutes a stranger sees more. I don't say that I
know Dunbar as _well_ as you do--I only say that I probably see things
in him that you don't see."
They had been so close to one another during this last hour that he felt
as though he could see, as through clear water, deep into her mind.
He knew that, during those last minutes, she had been struggling
desperately. She came up to him victorious and, smiling and putting her
hand into his, said:
"Tell me what _you_ think about him."
"Simply that he seems to me a wonderful fellow. He seems to you, I
expect, a little dull. You've always laughed at him a bit, and for that
very reason, and because he's loved you for so long, he's tongue-tied
when you're there and shy of showing you what he really thinks about
things. He has immense qualities of character--fidelity, honesty,
devotion, courage--things simply beyond price, and if you loved him and
showed him that you did you'd probably see quite new things--fun and
spontaneity and imagination--things that he had always been afraid to
show you until now."
Her hand trembled in his.
"You speak," she said, "as though you thought that you were so much
older than both of us. I don't feel that you are. Can't you----" she
broke off. He knew what she would say.
"My dear," and his voice was eloquently paternal, "I _am_ older than
both of you--years and years older. Not physically, perhaps, so much,
but in every other kind of way. I am an old fogey, nothing else. You've
both of you been kind to me to-night, but in the morning, when ordinary
life begins again, you'll soon see what a stuffy old thing I am. No, no.
Think of me as your uncle. But don't miss--oh, don't miss!--the love of
a man like Dunbar. There's so little of that unselfish devoted love in
the world, and when it comes to you it's a crime to miss it."
"But you can't force yourself to love any one!" she cried, sharply.
"No, you can't force yourself, but it's strange what seeing new
qualities in some one, looking at some one from another angle, will do.
Try and look at him as though you'd met him for the first time, forget
that you've known him always. I tell you that he's one in a million!"
"Yes, he's good," she answered softly. "He's been wonderful to me
always. If he'd been less wonderful perhaps--I don't know, perhaps I'd
have loved him more. But why are we talking about it? Aren't I married
as it is?"
"Oh that!" He made a little gesture of repulsion. "We must get rid of
that at once."
"It won't be very difficult," she answered, dropping her voice to a
whisper. "He hasn't been faithful to me--even during these weeks."
He put his arm round her and held her close as though he were truly her
father. "Poor child!" he said, "poor child!"
She trembled in his arms.
"You----" she began. "You----? Don't you----?" She could say no more.
"I'm your friend," he answered, "to the end of life. Your old avuncular
friend. That's my job. Think of your _young_ friend freshly. See what a
fellow he is. I tell you that's a man!"
She did not answer him, but stayed there hiding her head in his coat.
There was a long silence, then, stroking her hair, he said:
"Hesther dear. I'm going to try once again." He got up and, putting his
hands trumpet-wise to his mouth, shouted through the fog:
"Dunbar! Dunbar! Dunbar!"
This time there was an answer, clear and definite. "Hallo! Hallo!
Hallo!" He turned excitedly to her. She also sprang to his feet. "He's
there! I can hear him!"
"Dunbar! Dunbar!"
The answer came more clearly: "Hallo! Hallo! Hallo!"
They continued to exchange cries. Sometimes the reply was faint. Once it
seemed to be lost altogether. Then suddenly it was close at hand. A
ghostly figure was shadowed.
Dunbar came running.
IX
He caught their hands in his. He was breathless. He sank down on the
stone beside them:
"Give me a minute. . . . I'm done. Lord! this filthy fog. . . . Where
haven't I been?" He panted, staring up at them with wide distracted
eyes.
"Do you realize? I've failed. It's no use our crossing in that boat now
even if we could find it. We've missed that train. We're done."
"Nonsense," Harkness broke in. "Why, man, what's happened to you? This
isn't like you to lose your courage. We're not done or anything like it.
In the first place we're all together again. That's something in a fog
like this. Besides so long as we stick together we're out of their
power. They can't force us, all of us, back into that house again. So
long as we're out of that house we're safe."
"Oh, are we?" said Dunbar. "Little you know that man. I tell you we're
not safe--or Hesther's not safe--until we're at least a hundred miles
away. But forgive me," he looked up at them both, smiling, "you're quite
right, Harkness. I haven't any right to talk like this. But you don't
know what a time I've had in that fog."
"I had a little bit of a time myself," said Harkness.
"Well in the first place," went on Dunbar, "I was terrified about you. I
knew that you didn't know these cliffs well. When the fog started I
called to you to come back, but you didn't hear me, of course. I was an
idiot to let you start out at all.
"And then, when it came to myself climbing them I wasn't very
successful. I was nearly over the edge fifty times at least. But at last
when I _did_ get to the top the ridiculous thing was that I started off
in the wrong direction. There I was only five minutes from the cottage
and the pony and Hesther; I know the place like my own hand, and yet I
went in the wrong direction.
"God knows where I got to. I was nearly over into the sea twice at
least. I kept calling your names, but the only thing I heard in answer
was that beastly bell. I never went very far, I imagine, because when I
heard your voice at last, Harkness, I was quite close to it. But just to
think of it! Every other emergency in the world I'd considered except
just this one! It simply never entered my head."
"Well now," said Harkness, "let's face the facts. It's too late for that
train. Is there any other that we can catch?"
"There's one at six, but I don't see ourselves hanging about here for
another three hours, nor, if the fog doesn't lift, can Hesther get down
into that cove. I'm not especially anxious to try it myself as a matter
of fact."
"No, nor I," said Harkness, smiling. "Then we count the boat out. There
aren't many other things we can do. We can take the pony and follow him.
He'll lead us straight back to Treliss to whatever stables he came
from--a little too close to the Crispin family, I fancy. Secondly, we
can wait here until the fog clears; that _may_ be in three minutes time,
it may be to-morrow. You both know more about these sea-fogs down here
than I do, but, from the look of it, it's solid till Christmas."
"A heat fog this time of year," said Dunbar, "within three miles of the
sea can last for twenty-four hours or longer--not as thick as this
though--this is one of the thickest I've ever seen."
"Well then," continued Harkness, "it isn't much good to wait until it
clears. The only thing remaining for us is to walk off somewhere. The
question is, where? Is there any garage within a mile or two or any
friend with a car? It isn't three o'clock yet. We still have time."
"Yes," said Dunbar, "there is. I've had it in my mind all along as an
alternative. Indeed it was the first thing of all that I thought of.
Three miles from here there's a village, Cranach. The rector of Cranach
is a sporting old man called Banting. During the last week or two we've
made friends. He's sixty or so, a bachelor, and he's got a car. Not much
of a car, but still it's something. I believe if we go and appeal to
him--we'll have to wake him up, of course--he'll help us. I know that he
disapproves strongly of the Crispins. I thought of him before, as I say,
but I didn't want to involve him in a row with Crispin. However, now, as
things have gone, it's got to be. I can think of no other alternative."
"Good," said Harkness, "that settles it. Our only remaining difficulty
is to find our way there through this fog."
"I can start straight," said Dunbar. "Left from the cottage and then
straight ahead. Soon we ought to leave the Downs and strike some trees.
After that it's across the fields. I don't think I can miss it."
"What about the pony?" asked Hesther.
"We'll have to leave him. He must be there for Jabez in the morning or
Jabez will have to pay for both the pony and the cart."
They started off. The character of the fog seemed now slightly to have
changed. It was certainly thicker in some places than in others. Here it
was an impenetrable wall, but there it seemed to be only a gauze
covering hanging before a multitude of changing scenes and persons. Now
it was a multitude of armed men advancing, and you could be sure that
you heard the clang of shield on shield and a thousand muffled steps.
Now it was horses wheeling, their manes tossing, their tails flying, now
secret furtive figures that moved and peered, stopped, bending forward
and listening, then moved on again.
All the world was stirring. A breeze ran along the ground, rustling the
short thin grass. Sea-gulls were circling the mist crying. A ship at sea
was sounding its horn. Figures seemed to press in on every side.
They linked arms as they went, stumbling over the tussocks at every
step. It was strange how the sudden vanishing of the cottage left them
forlorn. It had been their one sure substantial hold on life. They were
in their own world while they could touch those ruined stones, but now
they walked in air.
Nevertheless Dunbar walked forward confidently. He thought that he
recognised this landmark and that. "Now we veer a bit to the left," he
said. "We should be off the moor in another step."
They walked forward. Suddenly Hesther pulled back, crying. "Look out!
Look out!" Another instant and they would have walked forward into
space. The mist here twisted up into thinning spirals as though to show
them what they had escaped; they could just see the sharp black line of
the cliff. Far, far beneath them the sea purred like a cat.
They stopped where they were as though fixed like images into the wall
of the fog.
Dunbar whispered: "That's awful. Another moment. . . ."
It was Hesther who pulled them together again. "Let's turn sharp about,"
she said, "and walk straight in front of us. At least we escape the
sea."
They turned as she had said and then walked forward, but in the minds of
all of them there was the same thought. Some one was playing with them,
some one like an evil Will-o'-the-wisp was leading them, now here, now
there. Almost they could see his red poll gleaming through the fog and
could hear his silvery voice running like music up and down the scale of
the mist.
They were, three of them, worn with the events of the night. They were
beginning to walk somnambulistically. Harkness found in himself now a
strange kind of intimacy with the Fog.
Yes, spell it with a capital letter. The Fog. The FOG. Some emanation of
himself, rolling out of him, friendly and also hostile. He and Crispin
were of the Fog together. They had both created it, and as they were the
good and evil of the Fog so was all Life, shapeless, rolling hither and
thither, but having in its elements Good and Evil in eternal friendship
and eternal enmity.
Every part of his body was aching. His legs were so weary that they
dragged with him, protesting; his eyes were for ever closing, his head
nodding. He stumbled as he walked, and at his side, step by step in time
the Fog accompanied him, a mountainous grey-swathed giant.
He was talking, words were for ever pouring from him, words mixed with
fog, so that they were damp and thick before ever they were free. "In
life there are not, you know, enough moments of clear understanding.
Between nations, between individuals, those moments are too often
confused by winds that, blowing from nowhere in particular, ruffle the
clear water where peace of mind and love of soul for soul are
reflected. . . . Now the waters are clear. Let us look down."
Yes, he had read that somewhere. In one of Galleon's books perhaps? No
matter. It meant nothing. "A fine sentiment. What it means. . . . Well,
no matter. Don't you smell roses? Roses out here on the moor. If it
wasn't for the fog you'd smell them--ever so many. And so he tore the
'Orvieto' into shreds. Little scraps flying in the air like goose
feathers. What a pity! Such a beautiful thing. . . ."
"Hold up," cried Dunbar. "You're asleep, Harkness. You'll have us all
down."
He pulled together with a start, and opening his eyes wide and staring
about him saw only the disgusting fog.
"This fog is too much of a good thing. Don't you think so? I guess we
could blow it away if we all tried hard enough? You think Americans
always say 'I guess,' don't you? The English books always make them. But
don't you believe it. We only do it to please the English. They like it.
It satisfies their vanity."
He seemed to be climbing an enormous endless staircase. He mounted
another step, two, and suddenly was wide awake.
"What nonsense I'm talking! I've been half asleep. This fog gets into
your brain." He felt Hesther's arm within his. He patted her hand
encouragingly. "It's all right, Hesther. We'll be out of this soon. Just
another minute or two."
"By Jove, you're right," Dunbar cried; "these are trees."
And they were. A whole row of them. Crusoe was not more glad to see the
footprint on the sand than were those three to see those trees. "Now I
know where we are!" Dunbar cried triumphantly. "Here's the bridge and
here's the lane. What luck to have found it!"
The trees seemed to step forward and greet them, each one tall and
dignified, welcoming them to a happier country. They were on a road and
had no longer the turf beneath their feet. The fog here was truly
thinner so that very dimly they could see the mark of the hedge like a
clothes-line in mid-air.
They moved now much more rapidly, and in their hearts was an intense, an
eager relief. The fog thinned until it was a wall of silver. Nothing was
distant, but it was a world of tangible reality. They could kick pebbles
with their feet, could hear sheep moving on the farther side of the
hedge.
"This is better," said Dunbar. "We'll get out of this yet. Cranach is
only a mile or so from here. I know this lane well. And the fog's going
to lift at last."
Even as he spoke it swept up, thick and grey deeper than before. The
trees disappeared, the hedges. They had once more to grope for one
another's hands and walk close.
Harkness could feel from the way that Hesther leaned against him, and
the drag of her feet, that she was near the end of her endurance. She
said nothing. Only walked on and on.
They were all now silent. They must have walked it seemed to them, for
miles. An endless walk that had no beginning and no end. And then
Harkness was strangely aware--how, he never knew--that Dunbar and
Hesther were drawing closer together.
He felt that new relation that he had in a way created beginning to grow
between them. She drew away from Harkness ever so slightly. Then
suddenly he knew that Dunbar had put his arm round her and was holding
her up. She was so weary that she did not know what she was doing--but
for that quiet, resolute, determined boy it must have been a moment of
great triumph, the first time in their two lives that she had in any way
surrendered to him or allowed him to care for her. Harkness was once
more alone.
They walked and walked and walked. They did not know where they were
walking, but in their minds they were sure it was straight to Cranach.
Suddenly, after, as it seemed, hours of silence in a dead world, Dunbar
cried:
"We're there. Oh, thank God! we're there. This is the rectory wall."
A wall was before them and an open gate. They walked through the gate,
only dimly seen, stumbled where the lawn rose from the gravel, then
forward again, down on to the gravel again. The door was open.
Like somnambulists they walked forward. The door closed behind them.
Like somnambulists awakened they saw lights, a dim hall where flags
waved.
For Harkness there was something familiar--quite close to him, the
chatter-chatter of a clock, like a coughing dog. Familiar? He stared.
Some one was standing, looking at him and smiling.
With sudden agony in his voice, as a man cries in a terrible dream,
Harkness shouted:
"Out, Dunbar! Back! Back! Run for your life!"
But it was too late.
That voice of exquisite melody greeted them:
"I had no idea that of your own free will you would return. My son only
a quarter of an hour ago departed in search of you. I welcome you back."