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Title: The Dweller on the Threshold

Author: Robert Smythe Hichens

Release Date: November 27, 2004  [eBook #14176]

Language: English

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THE DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD

by

ROBERT HICHENS

Author of _The Garden of Allah_, _Bella Donna_, _Egypt and Its
Monuments_, _The Holy Land_, etc.

1911







I


When Evelyn Malling, notorious because of his sustained interest in
Psychical Research and his work for Professor Stepton, first met the
Rev. Marcus Harding, that well-known clergyman was still in the full
flow of his many activities. He had been translated from his labors in
Liverpool to a West End church in London. There he had proved hitherto
an astonishing success. On Hospital Sundays the total sums collected
from his flock were by far the largest that came from the pockets of
any congregation in London. The music in St. Joseph's was allowed by
connoisseurs, who knew their Elgar as well as their Goss, their Perosi
as well as their Bach, and their Wesley, to be remarkable. Critical
persons, mostly men, who sat on the fence between Orthodoxy and Atheism,
thought highly of Mr. Harding's sermons, and even sometimes came down
on his side. And, of all signs surely the most promising for a West End
clergyman's success, smart people flocked to him to be married, and Arum
lilies were perpetually being carried in and out of his chancel, which
was adorned with Morris windows. He was married to a woman who managed
to be admirable without being dull, Lady Sophia, daughter of the late
Earl of Mansford, and sister of the present peer. He was comfortably off.
His health as a rule was good, though occasionally he suffered from some
obscure form of dyspepsia. And he was still comparatively young, just
forty-eight.

Nevertheless, as Evelyn Malling immediately perceived, Mr. Harding was
not a happy man.

In appearance he was remarkable. Of commanding height, with a big frame,
a striking head and countenance, and a pair of keen gray eyes, he looked
like a man who was intended by nature to dominate. White threads appeared
in his thick brown hair, which he wore parted in the middle. But his
face, which was clean-shaven, had not many telltale lines. And he did not
look more than his age.

The sadness noted by Malling was at first evasive and fleeting, not
indellibly fixed in the puckers of a forehead, or in the down-drawn
corners of a mouth. It was as a thin, almost impalpable mist, that can
scarcely be seen, yet that alters all the features in a landscape ever
so faintly. Like a shadow it traveled across the eyes, obscured the
forehead, lay about the lips. And as a shadow lifts it lifted. But it
soon returned, like a thing uneasy that is becoming determined to
discover an abiding-place.

Malling's first meeting with the clergyman took place upon Westminster
Bridge on an afternoon in early May, when London seemed, almost like
a spirited child, to be flinging itself with abandon into the first
gaieties of the season. Malling was alone, coming on foot from Waterloo.
Mr. Harding was also on foot, with his senior curate, the Rev. Henry
Chichester, who was an acquaintance of Malling, but whom Malling had
not seen for a considerable period of time, having been out on his estate
in Ceylon. At the moment when Malling arrived upon the bridge the two
clergymen were standing by the parapet on the Parliament side, looking
out over the river. As he drew near to them the curate glanced suddenly
round, saw him, and uttered an involuntary exclamation which attracted
Mr. Harding's attention.

"Telepathy!" said Chichester, shaking Malling by the hand. "I believe I
looked round because I knew I should see you. Yet I supposed you to be
still in Ceylon." He glanced at the rector rather doubtfully, seemed to
take a resolution, and with an air almost of doggedness added, "May I?"
and introduced the two men to one another.

Mr. Harding observed the new-comer with an interest that was
unmistakable.

"You are the Mr. Malling of whom Professor Stepton has spoken to me," he
said,--"who has done so much experimental work for him?"

"Yes."

"The professor comes to my church now and then."

"I have heard him say so."

"You saw we were looking at the river? Before I came to London I was at
Liverpool, and learned there to love great rivers. There is something in
a great river that reminds us--"

He caught his curate's eye and was silent.

"Are you walking my way?" asked Malling. "I am going by the Abbey and
Victoria Street to Cadogan Square."

"Then we will accompany you as far as Victoria Station," said the rector.

"You don't think it would be wiser to take a hansom?" began Chichester.
"You remember--"

"No, no, certainly not. Walking always does me good," rejoined Mr.
Harding, almost in a tone of rebuke.

The curate said nothing more, and the three men set out toward Parliament
Square, Malling walking between the two clergymen.

He felt embarrassed, and this surprised him, for he was an extremely
self-reliant man and entirely free from shyness. At first he thought that
possibly his odd discomfort arose from the fact that he was in company
with two men who, perhaps, had quite recently had a difference which they
were endeavoring out of courtesy to conceal from him. Perhaps there had
been a slight quarrel over some parish matter. Certainly when he first
spoke with them there had been something uneasy, a suspicion of strain,
in the manner of both. But then he remembered how, before Chichester had
turned round, they had been leaning amicably above the river.

No, it could not be that. He sought mentally for some other reason. But
while he did so he talked, and endeavored to rid himself promptly of the
unwelcome feeling that beset him.

In this effort, however, he did not at first succeed. The "conditions"
were evidently unsatisfactory. He wondered whether if he were not walking
between the two men he would feel more comfortable, and presently, at a
crossing, he managed to change his place. He was now next to Mr. Harding,
who had the curate on his other side, and at once he felt more at his
ease. The rector of St. Joseph's led the conversation, in which Malling
joined, and at first the curate was silent. But presently Malling noticed
a thing that struck him as odd. Chichester began to "chip in" now and
then, and whenever he did so it was either to modify what Mr. Harding
had just said, or to check him in what he was saying, or abruptly to
introduce a new topic of talk. Sometimes Mr. Harding did not appear to
notice these interruptions; at other times he obviously resented them;
at others again he yielded with an air of anxiety, almost of fear, to
his curate's attenuations or hastened to follow his somewhat surprising
leads down new conversational paths. Malling could not understand
Chichester. But it became evident to him that for some reason or other
the curate was painfully critical of his rector, as sometimes highly
sensitive people are critical of members of their own family. And Mr.
Harding was certainly aware of this critical attitude, and at moments
seemed to be defiant of it, at other moments to be almost terrorized
by it.

All that passed, be it noted, passed as between gentlemen, rather
glided in the form of nuance than trampled heavily in more blatant
guise. But Evelyn Malling was a highly trained observer and a man in
whom investigation had become a habit. Now that he was no longer ill at
ease he became deeply interested in the relations between the two men
with whom he was walking. He was unable to understand them, and this
fact of course increased his interest. Moreover he was surprised by the
change he observed in Chichester.

Although he had never been intimate with Henry Chichester, he had known
him fairly well, and had summed him up as a very good man and a decidedly
attractive man, but marred, as Malling thought, by a definite weakness of
character. He had been too amiable, too ready to take others on their own
valuation of themselves, too kind-hearted, and too easily deceived. The
gentleness of a saint had been his, but scarcely the firmness of a saint.
Industrious, dutiful, and conscientious, he had not struck Malling as a
man of strong intellect, though he was a cultivated and well-educated
man. Though not governed by his own passions,--when one looked at him one
had been inclined to doubt whether he had any,--he had seemed prone to be
governed by those about him, at any rate in little matters of every day.
His charm had consisted in his transparent goodness, and in an almost gay
kindliness which had seemed to float round him like an atmosphere. To
look into his face had been to look at the happiness which comes only to
those who do right things, and are at peace with their own souls.

What could have happened to change this charming, if too pliant,
personality into the critical, watchful, almost--so at moments it seemed
to Malling--aggressive curate who was now, always in a gentlemanly way,
making things rather difficult for his rector?

And the matter became the more mysterious when Malling considered Mr.
Harding. For here was a man obviously of dominant personality. Despite
his fleeting subservience to Chichester, inexplicable to Malling, he was
surely by far the stronger of the two, both in intellect and character.
Not so saintly, perhaps, he was more likely to influence others. Firmness
showed in his forcible chin, energy in the large lines of his mouth,
decision in his clear-cut features. Yet there was something contradictory
in his face. And the flitting melancholy, already remarked, surely hinted
at some secret instability, perhaps known only to Harding himself,
perhaps known to Chichester also.

When the three men came to the turning at the corner of the Grosvenor
Hotel, Chichester stopped short.

"Here is our way," he said, speaking across Mr. Harding to Malling.

The rector looked at Malling.

"Have you far to go?" he asked, with rather a tentative air.

"I live in Cadogan Square."

"Of course. I remember. You told us you were going there."

"Good-by," said Chichester. "We are taking the underground to South
Kensington."

"I think I shall walk," said the rector.

"But you know we are due--"

"There is plenty of time. Tell them I shall be there at four."

"But really--"

"Punctually at four. I will walk on with Mr. Malling."

"I really think you had better not," began Chichester. "Over-exertion--"

"Am I an invalid?" exclaimed Mr. Harding, almost sharply.

"No, no, of course not. But you remember that yesterday you were not
quite well."

"That is the very reason why I wish to walk. Exercise always does my
dyspepsia good."

"Let us all walk," said the curate, abruptly.

But this was obviously not Mr. Harding's intention.

"I want you to go through the minutes and the accounts before the
meeting," he said, in a quieter but decisive voice. "We will meet at the
School at four. You will have plenty of time if you take the train. And
meanwhile Mr. Malling and I will go on foot together as far as Cadogan
Square."

Chichester stood for a moment staring into Mr. Harding's face, then he
said, almost sulkily:

"Very well. Good-by."

He turned on his heel, and was lost in the throng near the station.

It seemed to Malling that an expression of relief overspread his
companion's face.

"You don't mind my company for a little longer, I hope?" said the rector.

"I shall be glad to have it."

They set out on their walk to Cadogan Square. After two or three minutes
of silence the rector remarked:

"You know Chichester well?"

"I can hardly say that. I used to meet him sometimes with some friends of
mine, the Crespignys. But I haven't seen him for more than two years."

"He's a very good fellow."

"An excellent fellow."

"Perhaps a little bit limited in his outlook. He has been with me at St.
Joseph's exactly two years."

The rector seemed about to say more, then shut his large mouth almost
with a snap. Malling made no remark. He was quite certain that snap was
merely the preliminary to some further remark about Chichester. And so it
proved. As they came to St. Peter's Eaton Square, the rector resumed:

"I often think that it is a man's limitations which make him critical
of others. The more one knows, the wider one's outlook, the readier
one is to shut one's eyes to the foibles, even to the faults, of one's
neighbors. I have tried to impress that upon our friend Chichester."

"Doesn't he agree with you?"

"Well--it's difficult to say, difficult to say. Shall we go by Wilton
Place, or--?"

"Certainly."

"Professor Stepton has talked to me about you from time to time, Mr.
Malling."

"He's a remarkable man," said Malling almost with enthusiasm.

"Yes. He's finding his way to the truth rather by the pathway of science
than by the pathway of faith. But he's a man I respect. And I believe
he'll get out into the light. You've done a great deal of work for him, I
understand, in--in occult directions."

"I have made a good many careful investigations at his suggestion."

"Exactly. Now"--Mr. Harding paused, seemed to make an effort, and
continued--"we know very little even now, with all that has been done,
as to--to the possibilities--I scarcely know how to put it--the
possibilities of the soul."

"Very little indeed," rejoined Malling.

He was considerably surprised by his companion's manner, but was quite
resolved not to help him out.

"The possibilities of one soul, let us say, in connection with another,"
continued the rector, almost in a faltering voice. "I often feel as if
the soul were a sort of mysterious fluid, and that when we what is called
influence another person, we, as it were, submerge his soul fluid in our
own, as a drop of water might be submerged in an ocean."

"Ah!" said Malling, laconically.

Mr. Harding shot a rather sharp glance at him.

"You don't object to my getting on this subject, I hope?" he observed.

"Certainly not."

"Perhaps you think it rather a strange one for a clergyman to select?"

"Oh, no. I have known many clergymen deeply interested in Stepton's
investigations."

Mr. Harding's face, which had been cloudy, cleared.

"It seems to me," he said, "that we clergymen have a special reason
for desiring Stepton, and all Stepton's assistants, to make progress.
It is true, of course, that we live by faith. And nothing can be more
beautiful than a childlike faith in the Great Being who is above all
worlds, in the _anima mundi_. But it would be unnatural in us if we did
not earnestly desire that our faith be proved, scientifically proved,
to be well-founded. I speak now of the faith we Christians hold in a
life beyond the grave. I know many people who think it very wrong in a
clergyman to mix himself up in any occult experiments. But I don't agree
with them."

It was now Malling's turn to look sharply at his companion.

"Have you made many experiments yourself, may I ask?" he said very
bluntly.

The clergyman started, and was obviously embarrassed by the question.

"I! Oh, I was speaking generally. I am a very busy man, you see. What
with my church and my parish, and one thing and another, I get very
little time for outside things. Still I am greatly interested, I confess,
in all that Stepton is doing."

"Does Mr. Chichester share your interest?" said Malling.

"In a minor degree, in a minor degree," answered the rector, rather
evasively.

They were now in Sloane Street and Malling said:

"I must turn off here."

"I'll go with you as far as your door if you've no objection," said the
rector, who seemed very loath to leave his companion. "It's odd how men
change, isn't it?"

"As they grow older? But surely development is natural and to be
expected?"

"Certainly. But when a man changes drastically, sheds his character and
takes on another?"

"You are talking perhaps of what is called conversion?"

"Well, that would be an instance of what I mean, no doubt. But there
are changes of another type. We clergymen, you know, mix intimately with
so many men that we are almost bound to become psychologists if we are
to do any good. It becomes a habit with many of us to study closely our
fellow-men. Now I, for instance; I cannot live at close quarters with a
man without, almost unconsciously, subjecting him to a minute scrutiny,
and striving to sum him up. My curates, for example--"

"Yes?" said Malling.

"There are four of them, our friend Chichester being the senior one."

"And you have 'placed' them all?"

"I thought I had, I thought so--but--"

Mr. Harding was silent. Then, with a strange abruptness, and the air of a
man forced into an action against which something within him protested,
he said:

"Mr. Malling, you are the only person I know who, having been acquainted
with Henry Chichester, has at last met him again after a prolonged
interval of separation. Two years, you said. People who see a man from
day to day observe very little or nothing. Changes occur and are not
noticed by them. A man and his wife live together and grow old. But does
either ever notice when the face of the other begins first to lose its
bloom, to take on that peculiar, unmistakable stamp that the passage of
the years sets on us all? Few of us really see what is always before us.
But the man who comes back--he sees. Tell me the honest truth, I beg of
you. Do you or do you not, see a great change in Henry Chichester?"

The rector's voice had risen while he spoke, till it almost clamored for
reply. His eyes were more clamorous still, insistent in their demand upon
Malling. Nevertheless voice and eyes pushed Malling toward caution.
Something within him said, "Be careful what you do!" and, acting
surprise, he answered:

"Chichester changed! In what way?"

The rector's countenance fell.

"You haven't observed it?"

"Remember I've only seen him to-day and walking in the midst of crowds."

"Quite true! Quite true!"

Mr. Harding meditated for a minute, and then said:

"Mr. Malling, I daresay my conduct to-day may surprise you. You may think
it odd of me to be so frank, seeing that you and I have not met before.
But Stepton has told me so much about you that I cannot feel we are quite
strangers. I should like you to have an opportunity of observing Henry
Chichester without prejudice. I will say nothing more. But if I invite
you to meet him, in my house or elsewhere, will you promise me to come?"

"Certainly, if I possibly can."

"And your address?"

Malling stopped and, smiling, pointed to the number outside a house.

"You live here?"

Mr. Harding took a small book and a pencil from his pocket and noted down
the address.

"Good-by," he said. "I live in Onslow Gardens--Number 89."

"Thank you. Good-by."

The two men shook hands. Then Mr. Harding went on his way toward South
Kensington, while Malling inserted his latch-key into the door of Number
7b, Cadogan Square.




II


Evelyn Malling was well accustomed to meeting with strange people and
making investigations into strange occurrences. He was not easily
surprised, nor was he easily puzzled. By nature more skeptical than
credulous, he had a cool brain, and he was seldom, if ever, the victim
of his imagination. But on the evening of the day in question he found
himself continually dwelling, and with a curiously heated mind, upon the
encounter of that afternoon. Mr. Harding's manner in the latter part of
their walk together had--he scarcely knew why--profoundly impressed him.
He longed to see the clergyman again. He longed, almost more ardently, to
pay a visit to Henry Chichester. Although the instinct of caution, which
had perhaps been developed in him by his work among mediums, cranks of
various kinds, and charlatans, had prevented him from letting the rector
know that he had been struck by the change in the senior curate, that
change had greatly astonished him. Yet was it really so very marked? He
had noticed it before his attention had been drawn to it. That he knew.
But was he not now, perhaps, exaggerating its character, "suggestioned"
as it were by the obvious turmoil of Mr. Harding? He wondered, and was
disturbed by his wonderment. Two or three times he got up, with the
intention of jumping into a cab, and going to Westminster to find out
if Professor Stepton was in town. But he only got as far as the hall.
Then something seemed to check him. He told himself that he was in no
fit condition to meet the sharp eyes of the man of science, who delighted
in his somewhat frigid attitude of mind toward all supposed supernormal
manifestations, and he returned to his study and tried to occupy himself
with a book.

On the occasion of his last return, just as he was about to sit down,
his eyes chanced to fall on an almanac framed in silver which stood on
his writing-table. He took it up and stared at it. May 8, Friday--May 9,
Saturday--May 10, Sunday. It was May 9. He put the almanac back on the
table with a sudden sense of relief. For he had come to a decision.

To-morrow he would attend morning service at St. Joseph's.

Malling was not a regular church-goer. He belonged to the Stepton breed.
But he was an earnest man and no scoffer, and some of his best friends
were priests and clergymen. Nevertheless it was in a rather unusual
go-to-meeting frame of mind that he got into a tail-coat and top hat, and
set forth in a hansom to St. Joseph's the next morning.

He had never been there before. As he drew near he found people flowing
toward the great church on foot, in cabs and carriages. Evidently Mr.
Harding had attractive powers, and Malling began to wonder whether he
would have any difficulty in obtaining the seat he wanted, in some corner
from which he could get a good view both of the chancel and the pulpit.
Were vergers "bribable"? What an ignoramus he was about church matters!

He smiled to himself as he paid the cabman and joined the stream of
church-goers which was passing in through the open door.

Just as he was entering the building someone in the crowd by accident
jostled him, and he was pushed rather roughly against a tall lady
immediately before him. She turned round with a startled face, and
Malling hastily begged her pardon.

"I was pushed," he said. "Forgive me."

The lady smiled, her lips moved, doubtless in some words of conventional
acceptance, then she disappeared in the throng, taking her way toward
the left of the church. She was a slim woman, with a white streak in her
dark hair just above the forehead. Her face, which was refined and
handsome, had given to Malling a strong impression of anxiety. Even when
it had smiled it had looked almost tragically anxious, he thought. The
church was seated with chairs, and a man, evidently an attendant, told
him that all the chairs in the right and left aisles were free. He made
his way to the right, and was fortunate enough to get one not far from
the pulpit. Unluckily, from it he could only see the left-hand side of
the choir. But the preacher would be full in his view. The organ sounded;
the procession appeared. Over the heads of worshipers--he was a tall
man--Malling perceived both Mr. Harding and Chichester. The latter took
his place at the end of the left-hand row of light-colored oaken stalls
next to the congregation. Malling could see him well. But the rector was
hidden from him. He fixed his eyes upon Chichester.

The service went on its way. The music was excellent. A fair young man,
who looked as if he might be a first-rate cricketer, one of the curates
no doubt, read the lessons. Chichester intoned with an agreeable light
tenor voice. During the third hymn, "Fight the Good Fight," Mr. Harding
mounted into the pulpit. He let down the brass reading-desk. He had no
notes in his hands. Evidently he was going to preach extempore. After
the "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost"
had been pronounced, Malling settled himself to listen. He felt tensely
interested. Both Mr. Harding and Chichester were now before him, the
one as performer--he used the word mentally, with no thought of
irreverence--the other as audience. He could study both as he wished to
study them at that moment.

Chichester was a small, cherubic man, with blue eyes, fair hair, and neat
features, the sort of man who looks as if when a boy he must have been
the leading choir-boy in a cathedral. There was nothing powerful in his
face, but much that was amiable and winning. His chin and his forehead
were rather weak. His eyes and his mouth looked good. Or--did they?

Malling found himself wondering as Mr. Harding preached.

And was Mr. Harding the powerful preacher he was reputed to be?

At first he held his congregation. That was evident. Rows of rapt faces
gazed up at him, as he leaned over the edge of the pulpit, or stood
upright with his hands pressed palm downward upon it. But it seemed to
Malling that he held them rather because of his reputation, because of
what they confidently expected of him, because of what he had done in
the past, than because of what he was actually doing. And presently they
slipped out of his grasp. He lost them.

The first thing that is necessary in an orator, if he is to be successful
with an audience, is confidence in himself, a conviction that he has
something to say which is worth saying, which has to be said. Malling
perceived that on this Sunday morning Mr. Harding possessed neither
self-confidence nor conviction; though he made a determined, almost a
violent, effort to pretend that he had both. He took as the theme of his
discourse self-knowledge, and as his motto--so he called it---the words,
"Know thyself." This was surely a promising subject. He began to treat it
with vigor. But very soon it became evident that he was ill at ease, as
an actor becomes who cannot get into touch with his audience. He stumbled
now and then in his sentences, harked back, corrected a phrase, modified
a thought, attenuated a statement. Then, evidently bracing himself up,
almost aggressively he delivered a few passages that were eloquent
enough. But the indecision returned, became more painful. He even
contradicted himself. A "No, that is not so. I should say--" communicated
grave doubts as to his powers of clear thinking to the now confused
congregation. People began to cough and to shift about in their chairs. A
lady just beneath the pulpit unfolded a large fan and waved it slowly to
and fro. Mr. Harding paused, gazed at the fan, looked away from it, wiped
his forehead with a handkerchief, grasped the pulpit ledge, and went on
speaking, but now with almost a faltering voice.

The congregation were doubtless ignorant of the cause of their pastor's
perturbation, but Malling felt sure that he knew what it was.

The cause was Henry Chichester.

On the cherubic face of the senior curate, as he leaned back in his
stall while Mr. Harding gave out the opening words of the sermon, there
had been an expression that was surely one of anxiety, such as a master's
face wears when his pupil is about to give some public exhibition. That
simile came at once into Malling's mind. It was the master listening to
the pupil, fearing for, criticizing, striving mentally to convey help to
the pupil. And as the sermon went on it was obvious to Malling that the
curate was not satisfied with it, and that his dissatisfaction was, as
it were, breaking the rector down. At certain statements of Mr. Harding
looks of contempt flashed over Chichester's face, transforming it.
The anxiety of the master, product of vanity but also of sympathy,
was overlaid by the powerful contempt of a man who longs to traverse
misstatements but is forced by circumstances to keep silence. And so
certain was Malling that the cause of Mr. Harding's perturbation lay in
Chichester's mental attitude, that he longed to spring up, to take the
curate by the shoulders and to thrust him out of the church. Then all
would be well. He knew it. The rector's self-confidence would return and,
with it, his natural powers.

But now the situation was becoming painful, almost unbearable.

With every sentence the rector became more involved, more hesitating,
more impotent. The sweat ran down his face. Even his fine voice was
affected. It grew husky. It seemed to be failing. Yet he would not
cease. To Malling he gave the impression of a man governed by a secret
obstinacy, fighting on though he knew it was no use, that he had lost
the combat. Malling longed to cry out to him, "Give it up!"

The congregation coughed more persistently, and the lady with the fan
began to ply her instrument of torture almost hysterically.

Suddenly Malling felt obliged to look toward the left of the crowded
church. Sitting up very straight, and almost craning his neck, he stared
over the heads of the fidgeting people and met the eyes of a woman, the
lady with the streak of white hair against whom he had pushed when
coming in.

There was a look almost of anguish on her face. She turned her eyes
toward Mr. Harding. At the same instant the rector saw Mailing in the
congregation. He stopped short, muttered an uneven sentence, then,
forcing his voice, uttered in unnaturally loud tones the "Now to God the
Father," et cetera.

Henry Chichester rose in his stall with an expression of intense
thankfulness, which yet seemed somehow combined with a sneer.

The collection was made.

Before the celebration some of the choir and two of the clergy, of whom
Mr. Harding was one, left the church. Henry Chichester and the fair,
athletic-looking curate remained. Mailing took his hat and made his way
slowly to the door. As he emerged a young man stopped him and said:

"If you please, sir, the rector would like to speak to you if you could
wait just a moment. You are Mr. Malling, I believe."

"Yes. How could you know?"

"Mr. Harding told me what you were like, sir, and that you were wearing
a tie with a large green stone in it. Begging your pardon, sir."

"I will wait," said Malling, marveling at the rector's rapid and accurate
powers of observation.

Those of the congregation who had not remained for the celebration were
quickly dispersing, but Malling now noticed that the lady with the white
lock was, like himself, waiting for some one. She stood not far from him.
She was holding a parasol, and looking down; she moved its point to and
fro on the ground. Several people greeted her. Almost as if startled she
glanced up quickly, smiled, replied. Then, as they went on, she again
looked down. There was a pucker in her brow. Her lips twitched now and
then.

Suddenly she lifted her head, turned and forced her quivering mouth to
smile. Mr. Harding had come into sight round the corner of the church.

"Ah, Mr. Malling," he said, "so you have stayed. Very good of you.
Sophia, let me introduce Mr. Malling to you--my wife, Lady Sophia."

The lady with the white lock held out her hand.

"You have heard Professor Stepton speak of Mr. Malling, haven't you?"
added the rector to his wife.

"Indeed I have," she answered.

She smiled again kindly, and as if resolved to throw off her depression
began to talk with some animation as they all walked together toward the
street. Directly they reached it the rector said:

"Are you engaged to lunch to-day, Mr. Malling?"

"No," answered Malling.

Lady Sophia turned to him and said:

"Then I shall be informal and beg you to lunch with us, if you don't mind
our being alone. We lunch early, at one, as my husband is tired after his
morning's work and eats virtually nothing at breakfast."

"I shall be delighted," said Malling. "It's very kind of you."

"We always walk home," said the rector.

He sighed. It was obvious that he was in low spirits after the failure of
the morning, but he tried to conceal the fact, and his wife tactfully
helped him. Malling praised the music warmly, and remarked on the huge
congregation.

"I scarcely thought I should find a seat," he added.

"It is always full to the doors in the morning," said Lady Sophia, with a
cheerfulness that was slightly forced.

She glanced at her husband, and suddenly added, not without a decided
touch of feminine spite:

"Unless Mr. Chichester, the senior curate, is preaching."

"My dear Sophy!" exclaimed Mr. Harding.

"Well, it is so!" she said, with a sort of petulance.

"Perhaps Mr. Chichester is not gifted as a preacher," said Malling.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said the rector.

"My husband never criticizes his--swans," said Lady Sophia, with delicate
malice, and a glance full of meaning at Malling. "But I'm a woman, and my
principles are not so high as his."

"You do yourself an injustice," said the rector. "Here we are."

He drew out his latch-key.

Before lunch Malling was left alone for a few minutes in the drawing-room
with Lady Sophia. The rector had to see a parishioner who had called and
was waiting for him in his study. Directly her husband had left the room
Lady Sophia turned to Malling and said:

"Had you ever heard my husband preach till this morning?"

"No, never," Mailing answered. "I'm afraid I'm not a very regular
church-goer. I must congratulate you again on the music at St. Joseph's.
It is exceptional. Even at St. Anne's Soho--"

Almost brusquely she interrupted him. She was obviously in a highly
nervous condition; and scarcely able to control herself.

"Yes, yes, our music is always good, of course. So glad you liked it.
But what I want to say is that you haven't heard my husband preach this
morning."

Malling looked at her with curiosity, but without astonishment. He might
have acted a part with her as he had the previous day with her husband.
But, as he looked, he came to a rapid decision, to be more frank with the
woman than he had been with the man.

"You mean, of course, that your husband was not in his best vein," he
said. "I won't pretend that I didn't realize that."

"You didn't hear him at all. He wasn't himself--simply."

She sat down on a sofa and clasped her hands together.

"I cannot tell you what I was feeling," she added. "And he used to be so
full of self-confidence. It was his great gift. His self-confidence
carried him through everything. Nothing could have kept him back if--"

Suddenly she checked herself and looked, with a sort of covert inquiry,
at Malling.

"You must think me quite mad to talk like this," she said, with a return
to her manner when he first met her.

"Shall I tell you what I really think?" he asked, leaning forward in the
chair he had taken.

"Yes, do, do!"

"I think you are very ambitious for your husband and that your ambition
for him has received a perhaps mysterious--check."

Before she could reply the door opened and Mr. Harding reappeared.

At lunch he carefully avoided any reference to church matters, and
they talked on general subjects. Lady Sophia showed herself a nervously
intelligent and ardent woman. It seemed to Malling obvious that she was
devoted to her husband, "wrapped up in" him--to use an expressive phrase.
Any failure on his part upset her even more than it did him. Secretly she
must still be quivering from the public distresses of the morning. But
she now strove to aid the rector's admirable effort to be serene, and
proved herself a clever talker, and well informed on the events of the
day. Of her Malling got a fairly clear impression.

But his impression of her husband was confused and almost nebulous.

"Do you smoke?" asked Mr. Harding, when lunch was over.

Malling said that he did.

"Then come and have a cigar in my study."

"Yes, do go," said Lady Sophia. "A quiet talk with you will rest my
husband."

And she went away, leaving the two men together.

Mr. Harding's study looked out at the back of the house upon a tiny strip
of garden. It was very comfortably, though not luxuriously, furnished,
and the walls were lined with bookcases. While his host went to a drawer
to get the cigar-box, Malling idly cast his eyes over the books in the
shelves nearest to him. He always liked to see what a man had to read.
The first book his eyes rested upon was Myers's "Human Personality."
Then came a series of works by Hudson, including "Psychic Phenomena,"
then Oliver Lodge's "Survival of Man," "Man and the Universe," and "Life
and Matter." Farther along were works by Lowes Dickinson and Professor
William James, Bowden's "The Imitation of Buddha" and Inge's "Christian
Mysticism." At the end of the shelf, bound in white vellum, was Don
Lorenzo Scupoli's "The Spiritual Combat."

A drawer shut, and Mailing turned about to take the cigar which Mr.
Harding offered him.

"The light is rather strong, don't you think?" Mr. Harding said, when the
two men had lit up. "I'll lower the blind."

He did so, and they sat down in a sort of agreeable twilight, aware of
the blaze of an almost un-English sun without.

Malling settled down to his cigar with a very definite intention to
clear up his impressions of the rector. The essence of the man baffled
him. He had known more about Lady Sophia in five minutes than he knew
about Mr. Harding now, although he had talked with him, walked with him,
heard him preach, and watched him intently while he was doing so. His
confusion and distress of the morning were comprehended by Malling. They
were undoubtedly caused by the preacher's painful consciousness of the
presence and criticism of one whom, apparently, he feared, or of whose
adverse opinion at any rate he was in peculiar dread. But what was the
character of the man himself? Was he saint or sinner, or just ordinary,
normal man, with a usual allowance of faults and virtues? Was he a man
of real force, or was he painted lath? The Chichester episodes seemed
to point to the latter conclusion. But Malling was too intelligent to
take everything at its surface value. He knew much of the trickery of
man, but that knowledge did not blind him to the mystery of man. He
had exposed charlatans. Yet he had often said to himself, "Who can ever
really expose another? Who can ever really expose himself?" Essentially
he was the Seeker. And he was seldom or never dogmatic. A friend of his,
who professed to believe in transmigration, had once said of him, "I'm
quite certain Malling must have been a sleuth-hound once." Now he wished
to get on a trail.

But Mr. Harding, who on the previous day had been almost strangely frank
about Henry Chichester, to-day had apparently no intention to be frank
about himself. Though he had desired Malling's company, now that they
were together alone he showed a reserve through which, Malling believed,
he secretly wanted to break. But something held him back. He talked of
politics, government and church, the spread of science, the follies of
the day. And Malling got little nearer to him. But presently Malling
happened to mention the modern craze for discussing intimately, or, as a
Frenchwoman whom he knew expressed it, "_avec un luxe de détail_,"
matters of health.

"Yes, yes," responded Mr. Harding. "It is becoming almost objectionable,
almost indecent. At the same time the health of the body is a very
interesting subject because of its effect upon the mind, even, so it
seems sometimes, upon the very nature of a man. Now I--" he struck the
ash off the end of his cigar--"was, I might almost say, the victim of my
stomach in the pulpit this morning."

"You were feeling ill?"

"Not exactly ill. I have a strong constitution. But I suffer at times
from what the doctors call nervous dyspepsia. It is a very tiresome
complaint, because it takes away for the time a man's confidence in
himself, reduces him to the worm-level almost; and it gives him absurd
ideas. Now this morning in the pulpit I had an attack of pain and
uneasiness, and my nerve quite gave out. You must have noticed it."

"I saw that you were troubled by something."

"Something! It was that. My poor wife was thoroughly upset by it. You
know how sensitive women are. To hold a crowd of people a man must be
strong and well, in full possession of his powers. And I had a good
subject."

"Splendid."

"I'll treat it again--treat it again."

The rector shifted in his chair.

"Do you think," he said after a pause, "that it is possible for another,
an outsider, to know a man better than he knows himself?"

"In some cases, yes," answered Malling.

"But--as a rule?"

"There is the saying that outsiders see most of the game."

"Then why should we mind when all are subject to criticism!" exclaimed
Mr. Harding, forcibly.

Evidently he was startled by his own outburst, for instantly he set about
to attenuate it.

"What I mean is that men ought not to care so much as most of them
undoubtedly do what others think about them."

"It certainly is a sign of great weakness to care too much," said
Malling. "But some people have a quite peculiar power of impressing their
critical thoughts on others. These spread uneasiness around them like an
atmosphere."

"I know, I know," said the rector, with an almost hungry eagerness. "Now
surely one ought to keep out of such an atmosphere, to get out of it, and
to keep out of it."

"Why not?"

"But--but--how extraordinary it is, the difficulty men have in getting
away from things! Haven't you noticed that?"

"Want of moral strength," said Mailing, laconically.

"You think so?"

"Don't you?"

At this moment there was a knock at the door. Mr. Harding started.

"How impossible it is to get a quiet moment," he said with acute
irritation. "Come in!" he called out.

The footman appeared.

"Mr. Chichester has called to see you, sir."

The rector's manner changed. He beckoned to the man to come into the room
and to shut the door. The footman, looking surprised, obeyed.

"Where is he, Thomas?" asked Mr. Harding, in a lowered voice. "In the
hall?"

"No, sir. As you were engaged I showed him up into the drawing-room."

"Oh, very well. Thank you. You can go."

The footman went out, still looking surprised.

Just as he was about to close the door his master said:

"Wait a moment!"

"Sir?"

"Was her ladyship in the drawing-room?"

"No, sir. Her ladyship is lying down in the boudoir."

"Ah. That will do."

The footman shut the door.

Directly he was gone the rector got up with an air of decision.

"Mr. Malling," he said, "perhaps I ought to apologize to you for treating
you with the abruptness allowable in a friend, but surprising in an
acquaintance, indeed in one who is almost a stranger. I do apologize. My
only excuse is that I know you to be a man of exceptional trend of mind
and unusual ability. I know this from Professor Stepton. But there's
another thing. As I told you yesterday, you are the only person of my
acquaintance who, having been fairly intimate with Henry Chichester, has
not seen anything of him during the two years he has been with me as my
coadjutor. Now what I want you to do is this: will you go upstairs and
spend a few minutes alone with Chichester? Tell him I am detained, but
am coming in a moment. I'll see to it that you are not interrupted. I'll
explain to my wife. And, of course, I rely on you to make the matter
appear natural to Chichester, not to rouse his--but I am sure you
understand. Will you do this for me?"

"Certainly," said Malling, with his most prosaic manner. "Why not?"

"Why not? Exactly. There's nothing objectionable in the matter. But--"
Mr. Harding's manner became very earnest, almost tragic. "I'll ask you
one thing--afterward you will tell me the truth, exactly how Chichester
impresses you now in comparison with the impression you got of him two
years ago. You--you have no objection to promising to tell me?"

Malling hesitated.

"But is it quite fair to Chichester?" he said. "Suppose I obtained, for
instance, a less favorable, or even an unfavorable impression of him
now? You are his rector. I hardly think--"

The rector interrupted him.

"I'll leave it to you," he said. "Do just as you please. But, believe me,
I have a very strong reason for wishing to know your opinion. I need it.
I need it."

There was a lamentable sound in his voice.

"If I feel it is right I will give it to you," said Malling.

The rector opened the door of the study.

"You know your way?"

"Yes."

Malling went upstairs. Mr. Harding stood watching him from below till he
disappeared.




III


When Malling opened the door of the drawing-room Chichester was standing
by one of the windows, looking out into Onslow Gardens. He turned round,
saw Malling, and uttered an exclamation.

"You are here!"

His light tenor voice sounded almost denunciatory, as if he had a right
to demand an explanation of Malling's presence in Mr. Harding's house,
and as he came away quickly from the window, he repeated, with still more
emphasis:

"You are here!"

"Lunching--yes," replied Malling, imperturbably.

He looked at Chichester and smiled.

"You have no objection, I hope?"

His words and manner evidently brought the curate to a sense of his own
unconventionality. He held out his hand.

"I beg your pardon. Your coming in surprised me. I had no idea"--his blue
eyes went searchingly over Malling's calm face--"that you could be here.
I thought you and the rector were complete strangers till I introduced
you yesterday."

"So we were."

Malling sat down comfortably on a sofa. His action evidently recalled
Chichester's mind to the fact that he was to see the rector.

"Isn't the rector coming to see me?" he asked.

"Almost directly. He's busy for a few minutes. We were smoking together
in his study."

"You seem to--you seem to have made great friends!" said Chichester, with
a sort of forced jocularity.

"Great friends! They're hardly made in a moment. I happened to be at
church this morning--"

"At church--where?" exclaimed the curate.

"At St. Joseph's. And Mr. Harding kindly asked me to lunch."

"You were at church at St. Joseph's this morning?" said Chichester.

He sat down by Malling and stared into his face.

"Did you--did you stay for the sermon?"

"Certainly. I came for the sermon. I had never heard Mr. Harding preach."

"No? No? Well, what did you think of it? What did you think of it?"

The curate spoke nervously, and seemed to Malling to be regarding him
with furtive anxiety.

"It was obvious that Mr. Harding wasn't in good form this morning,"
Malling said. "He explained the matter after lunch."

"He _explained_ the matter!" said Chichester, with a rising voice, in
which there was an almost shrill note of suspicion.

"Yes. He told me he was often the victim of nervous dyspepsia, and that
he had an attack of it while in the pulpit this morning."

"He told you it was nervous dyspepsia!"

"I have just said so."

The curate looked down.

"I advised him not to walk all the way home yesterday," he said gloomily.
"You heard me."

"You think it was that?"

"He never will take advice from any one. That's his--one of his great
faults. Whatever he thinks, whatever he says, must be right. You, as a
layman, probably have no idea how a certain type of clergyman loves
authority."

This remark struck Malling as in such singularly bad taste--considering
where they were, and that one of them was Mr. Harding's guest, the other
his curate--that only his secret desire to make obscure things clear
prevented him from resenting it.

"It is one of the curses of the Church," continued Chichester, "this
passion for authority, for ruling, for having all men under one's feet as
it were. If men would only listen, take advice, see themselves as they
really are, how much finer, how much greater, they might become!"

"See themselves as others see them! Eh?" said Malling. "But do you mean
that a rector should depend on his curate's advice rather than on his own
judgment?"

"And why not?" said Chichester. "Rector--curate--archbishop--what does it
matter? The point is not what rank in the hierarchy a man has, but what,
and how, does he see? A street boy may perceive a truth that a king is
blind to. At that moment the street boy is greater than the king. Do you
deny it?"

"No," said Malling, amazed at the curate's excitement, but showing no
astonishment.

"But it's a terrible thing to see too clearly!" continued Chichester,
almost as if talking to himself, absorbed. "A terrible thing!"

He looked up at Malling, and almost solemnly he said:

"Are you still going on with all those investigations?"

"When I have any spare time, I often spend some of it in that sort of
work," answered Malling, lightly.

It was his way to make light of his research work, and indeed he seldom
mentioned it unless he was forced to do so.

"Do you think it is right?" said Chichester, earnestly.

"Right?"

"To strive to push one's way into hidden regions."

"If I didn't think it right I shouldn't do it," retorted Malling, but
without heat.

"And--for clergymen?" questioned Chichester, leaning forward, and
dropping his small, thin hands down between his knees.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think it right for clergymen to indulge themselves--for it is
indulgence--in investigations, in attempts to find out more than God
has chosen to reveal to us?"

The man of science in Malling felt impatient with the man of faith in
Chichester.

"Does it never occur to you that the _anima mundi_ may have hidden
certain things from the minds of mortals just in order to provide them
with a field to till?" he said, with a hint of sarcasm. "Wasn't the fact
that the earth revolves round the sun, instead of the sun round the
earth, hidden from every living creature till Galileo discovered it? Do
you think Galileo deserved our censure?"

"Saul was punished for consulting the witch of Endor," returned
Chichester. "And the Roman Catholic Church forbids her children to deal
in occult things."

"You can't expect a man like me, a disciple of Stepton, to take the Roman
Catholic view of such a matter."

"You are not a clergyman," said Chichester.

Malling could not help smiling.

"You think the profession carries with it certain obligations," he said.
"No doubt it does. But I shall never believe that one of them is to shut
your eyes to any fact in the whole scheme of Creation. Harm can never
come from truth."

"If I could believe that!" Chichester cried out.

"Do you mean to tell me you don't believe it?"

Chichester looked at Malling for quite a minute without replying. Then he
got up, and said, with a changed voice and manner:

"If the rector doesn't come to see me I shall have to go. Sunday is not a
holiday, you know, for us clergymen."

He drew out his watch and looked at it.

"I shall have to go. I'm taking the Children's Service."

Malling got up too.

"Is it getting late?" he said. "Perhaps--"

At this moment the door was gently opened and Mr. Harding appeared.

"Oh, Chichester," he said. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. What is
it? Would you like to come to my study?"

"I must be off," said Malling. "May I say good-by to Lady Sophia? Or
perhaps she is resting and would rather not be disturbed."

"I'm sure she would wish to say good-by to you," said the rector. "I'll
just ask her."

He shot a quick glance from one man to the other and went out of the
room, leaving the door open behind him.

Directly he was gone the curate said: "It has been such a pleasure to me
to renew my acquaintance with you, Mr. Malling. Are you going to be long
in London?"

"All the season, I think."

"Then I hope we may meet again soon, very soon."

He hesitated, put one hand in his pocket, and brought out a card-case.

"I should like to give you my address."

"And let me give you mine."

They exchanged cards.

"I expect you'll be very busy," said the curate, rather doubtfully.

Then he added, like a man urged on by some strong, almost overpowering
desire to do a thing not quite natural to him:

"But I wish you could spare an evening to come to dine with me. I live
very modestly, of course. I'm in rooms, in Hornton Street--do you know
it?--near Campden Hill?--Number 4a--as you'll see on my card. I wonder--"

"I shall be delighted to come."

"When?"

"Whenever you are kind enough to ask me."

"Could you come on Wednesday week? It's so unfortunate, I have such a
quantity of parish engagements--that is my first evening free."

"Wednesday week, with pleasure."

"At half after seven?"

"That will suit me perfectly."

"And"--he looked toward the door--"I shall be greatly obliged to you if
you won't mention to the rector the fact that you are coming. He--"

"My wife's in the boudoir," said Mr. Harding, coming into the room at
this moment.

He stood by the door.

Malling shook hands with Chichester, and went to say good-by to his
hostess.

Mr. Harding shut the drawing-room door.

"This is the way," he said. "Well, Mr. Malling? Well?"

"You mean you want to know--?"

"Your impression of Chichester."

The rector stopped on the landing.

"Do you find him much changed?"

Malling shrugged his shoulders.

"Possibly--a little. He may have become rather firmer in manner, a trifle
more decisive."

"Firmer! More decisive, you say!"

"But surely that is only natural, working--as he has done, I understand,
under a man such as yourself for two years."

"Such as myself! Then you think he's caught something of my manner and
way of looking at things? You think--"

"Really, it's difficult to say," interrupted Malling. "He's developed, no
doubt. But very few people don't. I suppose you've trained him."

"I!" said the rector. "I train a man like Chichester!"

In his voice there was a bitter irony.

"Is that you, Mr. Malling?" said the voice of Lady Sophia. "I was lying
down with a book. This is my little room."

She looked pale, almost haggard, as the sunshine fell upon her through
the open window.

Malling took his leave at once and she did not attempt to detain him.

"I hope you'll come again," she said, as they shook hands. "Perhaps on
another Sunday morning, to church and lunch. I'll let you know."

She said the last words with a significance which made Malling understand
that she did not wish him to come to church at St. Joseph's again till
she gave him the word.

The rector let him out of the house. Not another word was spoken about
Henry Chichester. As his guest walked away the rector stood, bareheaded,
looking after him, then, as Malling turned the corner of the gardens,
with a heavy sigh, and the unconscious gesture of a man greatly troubled
in mind, he stepped back into his hall and shut the door behind him.




IV


A week later, Mailing paid a visit to Professor Stepton. He had heard
nothing of the Hardings and Chichester since the day of the luncheon in
Onslow Gardens, but they had seldom been absent from his thoughts, and
more than once he had looked at the words, "Dine with H.C." in his book
of engagements, and had found himself wishing that "Hornton Street,
Wednesday" was not so far distant.

The professor lived in Westminster, in a house with Adam ceilings, not
far from the Houses of Parliament. He was unmarried, and Malling found
him alone after dinner, writing busily in his crowded library. He had but
recently returned from Paris, whither he had traveled to take part in a
series of "sittings" with the famous medium, Mrs. Groeber.

In person the professor was odd, without being specially striking. He
was of medium height, thin and sallow, with gray whiskers, thick gray
hair, bushy eyebrows, and small, pointed and inquiring features which
gave him rather the aspect of a prying bird. His eyes were little and
sparkling. His mouth, strangely enough, was ecclesiastical. He nearly
always wore very light-colored clothes. Even in winter he was often
to be seen clad in yellow-gray tweeds, a yellow silk necktie, and a
fawn-colored Homburg hat. And no human being had ever encountered him
in a pair of boots unprotected by spats. One peculiarity of his was that
he did not possess a walking-stick, another that he had never--so at
least he declared--owned a pocket-handkerchief, having had no occasion
to use one at any moment of his long and varied life. When it rained he
sometimes carried an umbrella, generally shut. At other times he moved
briskly along with his arms swinging at his sides.

As Malling came in he looked up and nodded.

"Putting down all about Mrs. Groeber," he observed.

"Anything new or interesting?" asked Malling.

"Just the usual manifestations, done in full light, though."

He laid aside his pen, while Malling sat down.

"A letter from Flammarion this morning," he said. "But all about Halley's
comet, of course. What is it?"

Now the professor's "What is it?" was not general, but particular, and
was at once understood to be so by Malling. It did not mean "Why have you
come?" but "Why are you obsessed at this moment, and by what?"

"Let's have the mystery," he added, leaning his elbows on his just dried
manuscript, and resting his sharp little chin on his doubled fists.

Yet Malling had hinted at no mystery, and had come without saying he was
coming.

"You know a clergyman called Marcus Harding?" said Malling.

"Of St. Joseph's. To be sure, I do."

"Do you know also his senior curate, Henry Chichester?"

"No."

"Have you heard of him?"

"Oh dear, yes. And I fancy I've seen him at a distance."

"You heard of him from Harding, I suppose."

"Exactly, and Harding's wife."

"Oh, from Lady Sophia!"

"Who hates him."

"Since when?" said Malling, emphatically.

"I couldn't say. But I was only aware of the fact about a month ago."

"Have you any reason to suppose that Harding has been making any
experiments?"

"In church music, biblical criticism, or what?"

"Say in psychical research?"

"No."

"Or that Chichester has?"

"No."

"Hasn't Harding ever talked to you on the subject?"

"He has tried to," said the professor, rather grimly.

"And you didn't encourage him?"

"When do I encourage clergymen to talk about psychical research?"

Malling could not help smiling.

"I have some reason--at least I believe so--to suppose that Harding and
his curate Chichester have been making some experiments in directions
not entirely unknown to us," he observed. "And what is more"--he
paused--"what is more," he continued, "I am inclined to think that
those experiments may have been crowned with a success they little
understand."

Down went the professor's fists, his head was poked forward in Malling's
direction, and his small eyes glittered almost like those of a glutton
who sees a feast spread before him.

"The experiments of two clergymen in psychical research crowned with
success!" he barked out.

"If so, I shall see what I can do in the pulpit--the Abbey pulpit!"

He got up, and walking slightly sidewise, with his hands hanging, and his
fingers opening and shutting, went over to a chair close to Malling's.

"Get on!" he said.

"I'm going to. I want your advice."

When Malling had finished what he had to say, the professor, who had
interrupted him two or three times to ask pertinent questions, put his
hands on his knees and thrust his head forward.

"You said you wanted advice," he said. "What about?"

"I wish you to advise me how I had better proceed."

"You really think the matter important?" asked the professor.

Malling looked slightly disconcerted.

"You don't?" he said.

"You are deducing a great deal from not very much. That's certain,"
observed the professor.

"You never knew Chichester," retorted Malling. "I did--two years ago."

"Suppose you are right, suppose these two reverend gentlemen have done
something such as you suppose--and that there has been a result, a
curious result, what have we to do with it? Tell me that."

"You mean that I have no right to endeavor to make a secret investigation
into the matter. But I'm positive both the men want help from me. I don't
say either of them will ask it. But I'm certain both of them want it."

"Two clergymen!" said the professor. "Two clergymen! That's the best of
it--if there is an it, which there may not be."

"Harding spoke very warmly of you."

"Good-believing man! Now, I do wonder what he's been up to. I do
wonder. Perhaps he'd have told me but for my confounded habit of
sarcasm, my way of repelling the amateur--repelling!" His arms flew out.
"There's so much silliness beyond all bearing, credulity beyond all the
patience of science. Table-turning women, feminine men! 'The spirits
guide me, Professor, in every smallest action of my life!'--Wuff!--the
charlatan battens and breeds. And the bile rises in one till Carlyle on
his worst day might have hailed one as a brother bilious, and so
denunciatory--Jeremiah nervously dyspeptic! And when you opened your
envelop and drew out a couple of clergymen, really, really! But perhaps
I was in a hurry! Clergymen in a serious fix, too, because of unexpected
and not understood success! And I talk of repelling the _amateur_!"

Suddenly he paused and, with his bushy eyebrows twitching, looked
steadily at Malling.

"I leave it to you," he said. "Take your own line. But don't forget that,
if there's anything in it, development will take place in the link. The
link will be a center of combat. The link will be an interesting field
for study."

"The link?" said Malling, interrogatively.

"Goodness gracious me! Her ladyship! Her ladyship!" cried out the
professor. "What are you about, Malling?"

And he refused to say another word on the matter till Malling, after much
more conversation on other topics, got up to go. Then, accompanying him
to the front door, the professor said:

"You know _I_ think it's probably all great nonsense."

"What?"

"Your two black-coated friends. You bustle along at such a pace.
Remember, I have made more experiments than you have, and I have never
come upon an exactly similar case. I don't know whether such a thing
can be. No more do you--you've guessed. Now, guessing is not at all
scientific. At the same time you've proved you can be patient. If there
is anything in this it's profoundly interesting, of course."

"Then you advise me--?"

"If in doubt, study Lady Sophia. Good night."

As Malling went away into the darkness he heard the professor snapping
out to himself, as he stood before his house bareheaded:

"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings! _Très bien!_ But--reverend
gentlemen of St. Joseph's! I shall have to look for telergic power in my
acquaintance Randall Cantuar, when I want it! By Jove!"

"If in doubt, study Lady Sophia." As Malling thought over these
parting words, he realized their wisdom and wondered at his own
short-sightedness.

He had sent his cards to Onslow Gardens after the luncheon with the
Hardings. He wished now he had called and asked for Lady Sophia. But
doubtless he would have an opportunity of being with her again. If she
did not offer him one, he would make one for himself.

He longed to see her with Henry Chichester.

During the days that elapsed before "Hornton Street, Wednesday" he
considered a certain matter with sedulous care. His interview with
Stepton had not been fruitless. Stepton always made an effect on his
mind. Casual and jerky though his manner was, obstinate as were his
silences at certain moments, fragmentary as was his speech, he had a
way of darting at the essential that set him apart from most men. Malling
remembered a horrible thing he had once seen in the Sahara, a running
gazelle killed by a falcon. The falcon, rising high in the blue air,
had followed the gazelle, had circled, poised, then shot down and, with
miraculous skill, struck into the gazelle's eye. Unerringly from above
it had chosen out of the vast desert the home for its cruel beak.
Somewhat in similar fashion, so Malling thought, Stepton rose above
things, circled, poised, sank, and struck into the heart of the truth
unerringly.

Perhaps he was able to do this because he was able to mount, falconwise!

Malling would have given a good deal to have Stepton with him in this
affair, despite the professor's repellent attitude toward the amateur.
Well, if there really was anything in it, if strangeness rose out of the
orthodox bosom of St. Joseph's, if he--Malling--found himself walking in
thick darkness, he meant to bring Stepton into the matter, whether at
Stepton's desire or against it. Meanwhile he would see if there was
enlightenment in Hornton Street.

On the Wednesday the spell of fine weather which had made London look
strangely vivacious broke up, and in the evening rain fell with a gentle
persistence. Blank grayness took the town. A breath as of deep autumn was
in the air. And the strange sadness of cities, which is like no other
sadness, held the spirit of Evelyn Malling as he walked under an umbrella
in the direction of Kensington High Street. He walked, to shake off
depression. But in his effort he did not succeed. All that he saw
deepened his melancholy; the soldiers starting out vaguely from barracks,
not knowing what to do, but free for a time, and hoping, a little
heavily, for some adventure to break the military monotony of their
lives; the shopgirls, also in hope of something to "take them out of
themselves"--pathetic desire of escape from the little prison, where the
soul sits, picking its oakum sometimes, in its cell of flesh!--young
men making for the parks, workmen for the public houses, an old woman,
in a cap, peering out of an upper window in Prince's Gate; Italians with
an organ, and a monkey that looked as if it were dying of nostalgia;
women hurrying--whither?--with anxious faces, and bodies whose very
shapes, and whose every movement, suggested, rather proclaimed, worry.

Malling knew it was the rain, the possessive grayness, which troubled his
body to-night, and through his body troubled his spirit. His nostrils
inhaled the damp, and it seemed to go straight into his essence, into the
mystery that was he. His eyes saw no more blue, and it was as if they
drew a black shutter over all the blue in his heart, blotting it out.
People became doomed phantoms, because the weather had changed and
because London knows how to play Cassandra to the spirit of many a man.
To Malling, as he presently turned to the right, Hornton Street looked
like an alley leading straight to the pit of despair, and when he tapped
on the blistered green door of the small house where the curate lived, it
was as if he tapped seeking admittance to all the sorrowful things that
had been brought into being to beset his life with blackness.

A neat servant-girl opened the door. There was a smell of roast mutton in
the passage. So far well. Malling took off his hat and coat, hung them up
on a hook indicated by the plump red hand of the maid, and then followed
her upstairs. The curate was in possession of the first floor.

Malling knew that it would be a case of folding-doors and perhaps of
curtains of imitation lace. It was a case of folding-doors. But there
was a dull green hue on the walls that surely bespoke Henry Chichester's
personal taste. There were bookcases, there were mezzotints, there were
engravings of well-known pictures, and there were armchairs not covered
with horsehair. There was also a cottage piano, severely nude. In the
center of the room stood a small square table covered with a cloth and
laid for two persons.

"I'll tell Mr. Chichester, sir."

The maid went out. From behind the folding-doors came to Malling's ears
the sound of splashing water, then a voice saying, certainly to the maid,
"Thank you, Ellen, I will come." And in three minutes Chichester was in
the room, apologizing.

"I was kept late in the parish. There's a good deal to do."

"You're not overworked?" asked Malling.

"Do I look so?" said Chichester, quickly.

He turned round and gazed at himself in an oval Venetian mirror which
was fixed to the wall just behind him. His manner for a moment was oddly
absorbed as he examined his face.

"London life tells on one, I suppose," he said, again turning. "We
change, of course, in appearance as we go on."

His blue eyes seemed to be seeking something in Malling's impenetrable
face.

"Do you think," he said, "I am much altered since we used to meet two
years ago? It would of course be natural enough if I were."

Malling looked at him for a minute steadily.

"In appearance, you mean?"

"Of course."

"To-night it seems to me that you have altered a good deal."

"To-night?" said the curate, as if with anxiety.

"If there is any change,--and I think there is,--it seems to me more
apparent to-night than it was when I saw you the other day."

Ellen, the maid, entered the room bearing a tray on which was a
soup-tureen.

"Oh, dinner!" said Chichester. "Let us sit down. You won't mind simple
fare, I hope. We are having soup, mutton,--I am not sure what else."

"Stewed fruit, sir," interpolated Ellen.

"To be sure! Stewed fruit and custard. Open the claret, Ellen, please."

"Have you been in these rooms long?" asked Malling, as they unfolded
their napkins.

"Two years. All the time I have been at St. Joseph's. The rector told me
of them. The curate who preceded me had occupied them."

"What became of him?"

"He has a living in Northampton now. But when he left he had nothing in
view."

"He was tired of work at St. Joseph's?"

"I don't think he got on with the rector."

The drip of the rain became audible outside, and a faint sound of
footsteps on the pavement.

"Possibly I shall not stay much longer," he added.

"No doubt you'll take a living."

"I don't know. I don't know. But, in any case, I may not stay much
longer--perhaps. That will do, Ellen; you may go and fetch the mutton.
Put the claret on the table, please."

When the maid was gone, he added:

"One doesn't want a servant in the room listening to all one says. As
she was standing behind me I had forgotten she was here. How it rains
to-night! I hate the sound of rain."

"It is dismal," said Malling, thinking of his depression while he had
walked to Hornton Street.

"Do you mind," said the curate, slightly lowering his voice, "if I speak
rather--rather confidentially to you?"

"Not at all, if you wish to--"

"Well, now, you are a man of the world, you've seen many people. I wish
you would tell me something."

"What is it?"

Ellen appeared with the mutton. As soon as she had put it on the table
and departed, Chichester continued:

"How does Mr. Harding strike you? What impression does he make upon you?"

Eagerness, even more, something that was surely anxiety, shone in his
eyes as he asked the question.

"He's a very agreeable man."

"Of course, of course! Would you say he was a man to have much power over
others, his fellow-men?"

"Speaking quite confidentially--"

"Nothing you say shall ever go beyond us two."

"Then--I don't know that I should."

"He doesn't strike you as a man of power?"

"In the pulpit?"

"And out of it--especially out of it?"

"He may have been. But--perhaps he has lost in power. Dispersion, you
know, does not make for strength."

Suddenly the curate became very pale.

"Dispersion--you say!" he almost stammered.

As if to cover some emotion, he looked at Malling's plate, and added:

"Have some more? You won't? Then--"

He got up and rang the bell. Ellen reappeared, cleared away, and put the
stewed fruit and custard on the table.

"Bring the coffee in ten minutes, Ellen. I won't ring."

"Very well, sir."

"Dispersion," said Chichester to Malling in a firmer voice, as Ellen
disappeared.

"Concentration makes for strength. Mr. Harding seems to me mentally--what
shall I say?--rather torn in pieces, as if preyed upon by some anxiety.
Now, if you'll allow me to be personal, I should say that you have
greatly gained in strength and power since I knew you two years ago."

"You--you observe a difference?" asked Chichester, apparently in great
perturbation.

"A striking difference."

"And--and would you say I looked a happier, as well as a--a stronger
man?"

"I couldn't with truth say that."

"Very few of us are happy," said Chichester, with trembling lips. "Poor
miserable sinners as we are! And we clergymen, who set up to direct
others--" he broke off.

He seemed greatly, strangely, moved.

"You must forgive me. I have had a very hard day's work!" he murmured.
"The coffee will do me good. Let us sit in the armchairs, and Ellen can
clear away. I wish I had two sitting-rooms."

He rang to make Ellen hurry. Till she came Malling talked about Italian
pictures and looked at the curate's books. When she had cleared away,
left the coffee, and finally departed, he sat down with an air of
satisfaction. Chichester did not smoke, but begged Malling to light
up, and gave him a cigar.

"Coffee always does one good," he said. "It acts directly on the heart,
and seems to strengthen the whole body. I have had a trying day."

"You look tired," said Malling.

The fact was that Chichester had never recovered the color he had so
suddenly lost when they were discussing Mr. Harding.

"It's no wonder if I do," rejoined Chichester, in a voice that sounded
hopeless.

He drank some coffee, seemed to make a strong effort to recover himself,
and, with more energy, said:

"I asked you here because I wanted to renew a pleasant acquaintanceship,
but also--you won't think me discourteous, I know--because--well, I had
a purpose in begging you to come."

"Won't you tell me what it is?"

The curate shifted in his armchair, clasped and unclasped his hands.
A mental struggle was evidently going on within him. Indeed, during
the whole evening Malling had received from him a strong impression of
combat, of confusion.

"I wanted to continue the discussion we began at Mr. Harding's the other
day. You remember, I asked you not to tell him you were coming?"

"Yes."

"I think it's best to keep certain matters private. People so easily
misunderstand one. And the rector has rather a jealous nature."

Malling looked at his companion without speaking. At this moment he
was so strongly interested that he simply forgot to speak. Never, even
at a successful sitting when, the possibility of trickery having been
eliminated, a hitherto hidden truth seemed about to lift a torch in the
darkness and to illumine an unknown world, had he been more absorbed by
the matter in hand. Chichester did not seem to be struck by his silence,
and continued:

"And then not every one is fitted to comprehend properly certain matters,
to see things in their true light. Now the other day you said a thing
that greatly impressed me, that I have never been able to get out of my
mind since. You said, 'Harm can never come from truth.' I have been
thinking about those words of yours, night and day, night and day. Tell
me--did you mean them?"

The question came from Chichester's lips with such force that Malling was
almost startled.

"Certainly I meant them," he answered.

"And if truth slays?"

"And is death the worst thing that can happen to a man, or to an
idea--some wretched fallacy, perhaps, that has governed the minds of
men, some gross superstition, some lie that darkens counsel?"

"You think if a man lives by a lie he is better dead?"

"Don't you think so?"

"But don't we all need a crutch to help us along on the path of life?"

"What! You, a clergyman, think that it is good to bolster up truth with
lies?" said Malling, with genuine scorn.

"I didn't say that."

"You implied it, I think."

"Perhaps if you had worked among men and women as much as I have you
would know how much they need. If you went abroad, say to Italy, and saw
how the poor, ignorant people live happily oftentimes by their blind
belief in the efficacy of the saints, would you wish to tear it from
them?"

"I think we should live by the truth, and I would gladly strike away a
lie from any human being who was using it as a crutch."

"_I_ thought that once," said Chichester.

The words were ordinary enough, but there was something either in the
way they were said, or in Chichester's face as he said them, that made
Malling turn cold.

To cover his unusual emotion, which he was ashamed of, and which he
greatly desired to hide from his companion, he blew out a puff of cigar
smoke, lifted his cup, and drank the rest of his coffee.

"May I have another cup?" he said. "It's excellent."

The coffee-pot was on the table. Chichester poured out some more.

"I will have another cup, too," he said. "How it wakes up the mind."

He glanced at Mailing and added:

"Almost terribly sometimes."

"Yes. But--going back to our subject--don't you still think that men
should live by the truth?"

"I think," began Chichester--"I think--"

It seemed as if something physical prevented him from continuing. He
swallowed, as if forcing something down his throat.

"I think," he got out at last, "that few men know how terrible the face
of truth can be."

His own countenance was contorted as he spoke, as if he were regarding
something frightful.

"I think"--he turned right round in his chair to confront Malling
squarely--"that _you_ do not know."

For the first time he completely dominated Malling, Chichester the
gentle, cherubic clergyman, whom Malling had thought of as good, but
weak, and certainly as a negligible quantity. He dominated, because at
that moment he made Malling feel as if he had some great possession of
knowledge which Malling lacked.

"And you?" said Malling. "Do you know?"

The curate's lips worked, but he made no answer.

Malling was aware of a great struggle in his mind, as of a combat in
which two forces were engaged. He got up, walked to the window, and
stood as if listening to the rain.

"If only Stepton were here!" thought Malling.

There was a truth hidden from him, perhaps partly divined, obscurely half
seen, but not thoroughly understood, as a whole invisible. Stepton would
be the man to elucidate it, Malling thought. It lured him on, and baffled
him.

"How it rains!" said the curate at last, without turning.

He bent down and opened the small window. The uneasy, almost sinister
noise of rain in darkness entered the room, with the soft smell of
moisture.

"Do you mind if we have a little air?" he added.

"I should like it," said Malling.

Chichester came back and sat down again opposite Malling. His
expression had now quite changed. He looked calmer, gentler, weaker,
and much more uninteresting. Crossing his legs, and folding his thin
hands on his knees, he began to talk in his light tenor voice. And
he kept the conversation going on church music, sacred art in Italy,
and other eminently safe and respectable topics till it was time for
Malling to go.

Only when he was letting his guest out into the night did he seem
troubled once more. He clasped Malling's hand in his, as if almost
unaware that he was doing so, and said with some hesitation:

"Are you--are you going to see the rector again?"

"Not that I know of," said Malling, speaking the strict truth, and
virtually telling a lie at the same time.

For he was determined, if possible, to see Mr. Harding, and that before
very long.

"If I may say so," Chichester said, shifting from one foot to another and
looking down at the rain-sodden pavement, "I wouldn't see him."

"May I ask you why?"

"You may get a wrong impression. Two years ago he was another man.
Strangers, of course, may not know it, not realize it. But we who have
lived with him do know it. Mr. Harding is going down the hill."

There was a note of deep sadness in his voice. Had he been speaking of
himself, of his own decadence, his tone could scarcely have been more
melancholy.

And for long Malling remembered the look in his eyes as he drew back to
shut his door.

In the rain Malling walked home as he had come. But now it was deep in
the night and his depression had deepened. He was a self-reliant man, and
not easily felt himself small, though he was not conceited. To-night he
felt diminished. The worm-sensation overcame him. That such a man as
Chichester should have been able to convey to him such a sensation was
strange, yet it was from Chichester that this mental chastisement had
come. For a moment Chichester had towered, and at that moment Malling
surely had dwindled, shrunk together, like a sheet of paper exposed to
the heat of a flame.

But that Chichester should have had such an effect on him--Malling!

If Mr. Harding was going down the hill, Chichester surely was not. He had
changed drastically since Malling had known him two years ago. In power,
in force, he had gained. He now conveyed the impression of a man capable,
if he chose, of imposing himself on others. Formerly he had been the wax
that receives the impress. But whereas formerly he had been a contented
man, obviously at peace with himself and with the world, now he was
haunted by some great anxiety, by some strange grief, or perhaps even by
some fear.

"Few men know how terrible the face of the truth can be."

Chichester had said that.

Was he one of the few men?

And was that why now, as Malling walked home in the darkness and rain, he
felt himself humbled, diminished?

For Malling loved knowledge and thought men should live by it. Had truth
a Medusa face, still would he have desired to look into it once, would
have been ready to endure a subsequent turning to stone.

That Chichester should perhaps have seen what he had not seen--that
troubled him, even humbled him.

Some words of Professor Stepton came back to his mind: "If there's
anything in it, development will take place in the link." And those last
words: "If in doubt, study Lady Sophia."

Mailing was in doubt. Why not follow Stepton's advice? Why not study Lady
Sophia?

He resolved to do it. And with the resolve came to him a sense of greater
well-being. The worm-sensation departed from him. He lifted his head and
walked more briskly.




V


On the night following the dinner in Hornton Street, Malling went to the
Covent Garden Opera House to hear "La Traviata." The well-worn work did
not grasp the attention of a man who was genuinely fond of the music of
Richard Strauss, with its almost miraculous intricacies, and who was
willingly captive to Debussy. He looked about the house from his stall,
and very soon caught sight of Lady Mansford, Lady Sophia's sister-in-law,
in a box on the Grand Tier. Malling knew Lady Mansford. He resolved to
pay her a visit, and as soon as the curtain was down, and Tetrazzini had
tripped before it, smiling not unlike a good-natured child, he made his
way upstairs, and asked the attendant to tap at a door on which was
printed, "The Earl of Mansford." The man did so, and opened the door,
showing a domestic scene highly creditable to the much maligned British
aristocracy--Lord Mansford seated alone with his wife, in evidently
amicable conversation.

After a few polite words he made Malling sit down beside her, and, saying
he would have a cigarette in the foyer, he left them together.

Lady Mansford was a pretty, dark woman, of the slightly irresponsible
and little-bird type. She willingly turned her charmingly dressed head
and chirped when noticed, and she was generally noticed because of her
beauty. Now she chirped of Ceylon, where Malling had been, and then, more
vivaciously, of Parisian milliners, where she had been. From these allied
subjects Malling led her on to a slightly different topic--religion.

"I went to St. Joseph's last Sunday week," he presently said.

"St. who--what?" said Lady Mansford, who was busy with her
opera-glasses, and had just noticed that Lady Sindon, a bird-like
rival of hers, had changed the color of her hair, fortunately to
her--Lady Sindon's--disadvantage.

"To St. Joseph's, to hear your brother-in-law preach."

"It doesn't do at all," murmured Lady Mansford. "It makes her look
Chinese."

"You said--?"

"Mollie Sindon. But what were you talking about? Do tell me." She laid
down her glasses.

"I was saying that I went to church last Sunday week."

"Why?"

"To hear your brother-in-law preach at St. Joseph's."

"Marcus!" exclaimed Lady Mansford.

She pursed her lips.

"I don't go to St. Joseph's. Poor Sophy! I'm sorry for her."

"I lunched with Lady Sophia after the service."

"Did you? Isn't it sad?"

"Sad! I don't quite understand?" said Malling, interrogatively.

"The change in him. Of course people say it's drink. Such nonsense! But
they must say something, mustn't they?"

"Is Mr. Harding so very much changed?"

"Do you mean to say you didn't notice it?"

"I never met him till within the last fortnight."

"He's transformed--simply. He might have risen to anything, with his
energy, his ambition, and his connections. And now! But the worst of it
is no one can make out why it is. Even Sophia and Isinglass--my husband,
you know!--haven't an idea. And it gets worse every day. Last Sunday I
hear his sermon was too awful, a mere muddle of adjectives, such as one
hears in Hyde Park, I believe. I never liked Marcus particularly. I
always thought him too autocratic, too determined to dominate. He had
that poor little Mr. Chichester--his curate--completely under his thumb.
Mr. Chichester couldn't call his soul his own. He worshiped Marcus. But
now they say even he is beginning to think that his god is of clay. What
can it be? Do you think Marcus is losing his mind?"

"Oh, I should hope not," returned Malling, vaguely. "Has it been going on
long?"

"Oh, for quite a time. But it all seemed to come on gradually--as things
_do_, you know! Poor Sophy has always adored him, and given way to him in
everything. In her eyes all that he does is right. She never says a word,
I believe, but she must be suffering the tortures of--_you_ know! There's
Winnie Rufford coming in! How astonishingly young she looks. Were you at
the Huntingham's ball? Well--"

Lady Mansford twittered no more about the Harding menage. But Malling
felt that his visit had not been fruitless.

After the opera he went to a party in Grosvenor Street where again he
managed to produce talk of the Hardings. It seemed that Lady Mansford
had not exaggerated very much. Among those who knew the Hardings a change
in the rector of St. Joseph's had evidently been generally noticed.
Malling took in to supper a Mrs. Armitage, a great friend of Lady
Sophia's, and she made no secret of the fact that Lady Sophia was greatly
distressed.

"I thought she would have been here to-night," Mrs. Armitage said. "But
she isn't. I suppose she felt she couldn't face it. So many of his
congregation are here, or so many who were in his congregation."

"The church was crammed to the doors last Sunday week when he preached,"
observed Malling.

"Was it? Curiosity, I suppose. It certainly can't have been the
intellectual merit of the sermon. I heard it was quite deplorable. But
last Sunday's, I was told, was worse still. No continuity at all, and
the church not full. People say the curate, Mr. Chichester, who often
preaches in the evening, is making a great effect, completely cutting out
his rector. And he used to be almost unbearably dull."

"Will you have a quail?"

"Please. You might give me two. My doctor says if I sit up late--thank
you!"

"I've never heard Mr. Chichester preach," said Malling.

"He seems to have come on marvelously, to be quite another man."

"Quite another man, does he?"

"Yes. It's very trying for the Hardings naturally. If it continues I
think there will have to be a change. I don't think things can go on as
they are. My friend Sophia won't be able to stand it."

"You mean--the contrast?"

"Between her husband and Mr. Chichester. She's very highly strung and
quite worships her husband; though, between you and me, _I_ think rather
in the slave spirit. But some women are like that. They can't admire a
man unless he beats them. Not that Mr. Harding ever dreamed of doing such
a thing to Sophia, of course. But his will had to be law in everything.
You know the type of man! It's scarcely my idea of what a clergyman
should be. I think a man who professes to direct the souls of others
should be more gentle and unselfish, especially to his wife. Another
quail? Well, really, I think perhaps I will. They are so absurdly small
this season, aren't they? There's scarcely anything on them."

So that minute fraction of the world that knew of the existence of the
Hardings began to utter itself concerning them, and Malling was fortified
in his original belief which he had expressed to Professor Stepton.

Among his many experiments made in connection with psychical research
those which had interested him the most had been those in which the
mystery of the human will had seemed to be deeply involved. Malling was
essentially a psychologist. And man was to him the great mystery, because
man contained surely something that belonged to, that was lent to, man,
as it were, by another, the mind beyond, the _anima mundi_. When Malling
drew mentally, or spiritually, very near to any man, however rude,
however humble, he always had the feeling that he was approaching holy
ground. Hidden beneath his generally imperturbable exterior, sunk beneath
the surface incredulity of his mind, there was the deep sense of mighty
truths waiting the appointed day of proclamation. Surely, he often
thought, if there is God in anything, in the last rays of the sunset,
in the silence of night upon the sea, in the waking of spring among the
forests and the gardens, in the song of the nightingale which knows
not lovers are listening, there is God in the will of man.

And when he made investigations into the action of will upon will, or
of will--as it seemed--upon matter, he was held, as he was not held by
the appearance of so-called spirit faces and spirit forms, even when
he could not connect these with trickery which he knew how to expose.
Perhaps, however, his incredulity in regard to these latter phenomena was
incurable, though he did not know it. For he knew nearly all the devices
of the charlatans. And when the so-called spirits came, the medium was
always entranced, that is, apparently will-less, and so to Malling not
interesting.

Now, from what Harding and Chichester had said to him, and from what
he had observed for himself, Malling believed that the two clergymen
must have had sittings together, probably with the usual tremendous
object of the ignorant amateur, that merely of communicating with the
other world. Considering who the two men were, Malling believed that in
all probability they had sat alone and in secret. He also felt little
doubt that from Mr. Harding's brain had come the suggestion of these
practices, that his will had led Chichester on to them. Although he
had not known the rector two years ago, he had gathered sufficient
testimony to the fact that he had been a man of powerful, even perhaps
of tyrannical, temperament, formed rather to rule than to be ruled. He
knew that Chichester, on the contrary, had been gentle, kindly, yielding,
and of somewhat weak, though of very amiable, nature. The physique of the
two men accorded with these former temperaments. Harding's commanding
height, large frame, big, powerful face and head, rather hard gray eyes,
even his large white teeth, his bony, determined hands, his firmly
treading feet, suggested force, a dominating will, the capacity, and
the intention, to rule. Henry Chichester's fleshly envelop, on the other
hand, cherubic, fair, and delicate, his blue eyes, small bones, the shape
of forehead and chin, the line of the lips, hinted at--surely more than
that, surely stated mildly--the existence within it of a nature retiring,
meek, and ready to be ruled by others. No wonder if Chichester had been,
as Lady Mansford had said, completely under the rector's thumb, no wonder
if he had been unable to "call his soul his own" and had "worshiped
Marcus."

Yes, if there had been these secret sittings by these two men, it was
Harding who had persuaded Chichester to take part in them. And what had
these sittings led to, what had been their result?

The ignorant outsider, the hastily skeptical, of course would say that
there could have been no result. Malling, knowing more, knew better. He
had seen strange cases of temporary confusion of a man's will brought
about by sittings, of what had seemed temporary change even of a man's
nature. When a hitherto sane man goes mad he often becomes the opposite
of what he was. Those whom he formerly loved he specially singles out
for hatred. That which he delighted to do he shrinks from with horror.
Once good-natured, he is now of an evil temper, once gentle, he is
fiercely obstinate, once gay, he cowers and weeps. So Malling had known
a man, while retaining his sanity, to be transformed by the apparently
trivial fact of sitting at a table with a friend, and placing his hands
upon it with the hands of another man. He himself had sat with an Oxford
friend,--who in later sittings became entranced,--and at the very first
experiment this man had said to him, "It's so strange, now that I am
sitting with you like this I feel filled with hatred toward you." This
hatred, which had come upon this man at every successive sitting, had
always faded away when the sitting was over. But was it certain that the
feelings generated in sittings never persisted after they were broken
up? Was it certain that in every case the waters that had been
mysteriously troubled settled into their former stillness?

Harding and Chichester, for instance! Had the strong man troubled the
waters of the weaker man's soul, and were those waters still agitated?
That was perhaps possible. But Malling thought it was possible also, and
he had suggested this to Professor Stepton, that the weaker man had
infused some of his weakness, his self-doubtings, his readiness to be
affected by the opinion of others, into his dominating companion. Malling
believed it possible that the wills of the two clergymen, in some
mysterious and inexplicable way, had mingled during their sittings, and
that they had never become completely disentangled. If this were so, the
result was a different Harding from the former Harding, and a different
Henry Chichester from the former Henry Chichester.

What puzzled Malling, however, was the fact, if fact it were, that the
difference in each man was not diminishing, but increasing.

Could they be continuing the sittings, if there had ever been sittings?
All was surmise. As the professor had said, he, Malling, was perhaps
deducing a good deal from very little. And yet was he? His instinct told
him he was not. Yet there might no doubt be some ordinary cause for the
change in Mr. Harding. Some vice, such as love of drink, or morphia,
something that disintegrates a man, might have laid its claw upon him.
That was possible. What seemed to Malling much more unaccountable was the
extraordinary change in the direction of strength in Chichester. And the
relations between the two men, if indeed the curate had once worshiped
his rector, were mysteriously transformed. For now, was it not almost as
if something of Harding in Chichester watched, criticized, Chichester in
Harding?

But now--to study Lady Sophia! For if there was really anything in
Malling's curious supposition, the woman must certainly be strangely
affected. He remembered the expression in her eyes when her husband
was preaching, her manner when she spoke of the curate as one of her
husband's swans.

And he longed to see her again. She had said that she hoped he would come
again to St. Joseph's and to her house, but he knew well that any such
desire in her had arisen from her wounded pride in her husband. She
wished Malling to know what the rector could really do. When she thought
that the rector had recovered his former powers, his hold upon the minds
of men, then she would invite Malling to return to St. Joseph's, but not
before.

And when would that moment come?

It might not come for weeks, for months. It might never come. Malling did
not mean to await it. Nevertheless he did not want to do anything likely
to surprise Lady Sophia, to lead her to think that he had any special
object in view in furthering his acquaintance with her.

While he was casting about in his mind what course to take, chance
favored him.

Four days later, when he was strolling round the rooms in Burlington
House, he saw not far in front of him the tall and restless figure of
a woman. She was alone. For some time Malling did not recognize her.
She did not turn sufficiently for him to see her face, and her almost
feverish movements, though they attracted and fixed his attention, did
not strike him as familiar. His thought of her, as he slowly followed
in the direction she was taking, was, "What a difficult woman that would
be to live with!" For the hands were never still; the gait was uneasy;
nervousness, almost a sort of pitiful irritation, seemed expressed by her
every movement.

In the big room this woman paused before the picture of the year, which
happened to be a very bad one, and Malling, coming up, at last recognized
her as Lady Sophia Harding.

He took off his hat. She seemed startled, but greeted him pleasantly, and
entered into a discussion of the demerits which fascinate the crowd.

"You prefer seeing pictures alone, perhaps?" said Malling, presently.

"Indeed I don't," she answered. "I was coming to-day with my husband. We
drove up together. But at the last moment he thought he remembered
something,--some appointment with Mr. Chichester,--and left me."

There were irony and bitterness in her voice.

"He said he'd come back and meet me in the tea-room presently," she
added.

"Shall we go there and wait for him?" asked Malling.

"But I'm afraid I'm taking up your time."

"I have no engagements this afternoon. I shall enjoy a quiet talk with
you."

"It's very good of you."

They descended, and sat down in a quiet corner. In the distance a few
respectable persons were slowly eating bath-buns with an air of fashion,
their duly marked catalogues laid beside them on marble.

Far-off waiters, standing with their knees bent, conversed in
undertones. A sort of subterranean depression, peculiar to this
fastness of Burlington House, brooded over the china and the provisions.

"It reminds me of the British Museum tearoom," said Lady Sophia. "Here is
tea! What a mercy! Modern pictures sap one's little strength."

She looked haggard, and was obviously on the edge of her nerves.

"Marcus might have come in," she added. "But of course he wouldn't--or
couldn't."

"Doesn't he care for pictures?"

She slightly shrugged her shoulders.

"He used to. But I don't know that he does now."

"I suppose he has a tremendous amount to do."

"He used to do much more at Liverpool. If a man wishes to come to the
front he mustn't sit in an armchair with folded hands."

There was a sharp sound of criticism in her voice which astonished
Malling. At the luncheon, only about a fortnight ago, she had shown
herself plainly as the adoring wife, anxious for her husband's success,
nervously hostile to any one who interfered with it, who stood between
him and the homage of his world. Now Malling noted, or thought he noted,
a change in her mental attitude. He was instantly on the alert.

"I'm sure that's the last thing Mr. Harding would do," he said.

She shot a glance at him out of her discontented dark eyes.

"Are you?" she said.

And sarcasm crept in the words. She gave to Malling at this moment the
impression of a woman so strung up as to be not her natural self, so
tormented by some feeling, perhaps long repressed, that her temperament
was almost furiously seeking an outlet, knowing instinctively, perhaps,
that only there lay its salvation.

"His record proves it," said Malling, with serenely smiling assurance.

Lady Sophia twisted her lips. The Academy tea was very strong. Perhaps
it had been standing. She drank a little, pulled at her long gloves
restlessly, and looked at Malling. He knew she was longing to confide
in somebody. If only he could induce her to confide in him!

"Oh, my husband's been a very active man," she said. "Everybody knows
that. But in this modern world of ours one must not walk, or even
run along, one must keep on rushing along if one intends to reach the
goal."

"And by that you mean--?"

"Mean! The topmost height of your profession, or business, of whatever
career you are in."

"You are ambitious," he said.

"Not for myself," she answered quickly. "I have no ambition for myself."

"But perhaps the ambition to spur on another successfully? That seems to
me the truest, the most legitimate ambition of the woman all men worship
in their hearts."

Suddenly tears started into her eyes. She was sitting opposite Malling,
the tea-table between them. Now she leaned forward across it. By nature
she was very sensitive, but she was not a self-conscious, woman. She was
not self-conscious now.

"It is much better to be selfish," she said earnestly. "That is where we
women make such a fatal mistake. Instead of trusting to ourselves, of
relying on ourselves, and of having a personal ambition, we seek always
another in whom we may trust; we are unhappy till we rely on another; it
is for another we cherish, we hug, ambition. And then, when all founders,
we realize too late what I dare say every man knows."

"What is that?"

"That we women are fools--fools!"

"For being unselfish?"

"For thinking we have power when we are impotent."

She made a gesture that was surely one of despair.

"No one--at any rate, no woman--has power for another," she added, with
almost terrible conviction. "That is all a legend, made up to please us,
I suppose. We draw a sword against darkness and think we are fighting.
Isn't it too absurd?"

With the last words she changed her tone, trying to make it light, and
she smiled.

"We take everything too seriously. That's the trouble!" she said. "And
men pretend we take nothing seriously."

"Very often they don't understand."

"Oh, please say never!" she exclaimed. "They never understand."

Suddenly Malling resolved on a very bold stroke.

"But I'm a man," he said, as if that obvious fact shattered her
contention.

"What has that got to do with it?" she said, in obvious surprise.

"Because I do not understand."

For a moment she was silent. He thought he read what was passing through
her mind, as he knew he had read her character. She was one of those
women who must be proud of their men, who love to be ruled, but only
by a conqueror, who delight to sink themselves, but in power, not in
impotence. And now she was confronted by the shipwreck not merely of
her hopes, but also of her belief. She saw a hulk drifting at the mercy
of the waves that, perhaps, would soon engulf it. But she was not only
despairing, she was raging too. For she was a woman with nervous force
in her, and it is force that rages in the moments of despair, seeking,
perhaps unconsciously, some means of action and finding none.

"Why should there not be some hope?" asked Malling, quietly.

"To-morrow is Sunday. If you go to morning church at St. Joseph's, and
then to evening church, you will see if there is any hope."

"To evening church?"

"Yes, yes."

She got up.

"You are going?"

"I must. Forgive me!"

She held out her hand.

"But--"

"No, don't come with me, please."

"If I go to St. Joseph's to-morrow, afterward may I see you again?"

"If you think it's worth while."

Her face twisted. Hastily she pulled down her veil, turned away and left
him.




VI


Malling went the next day to morning and evening service at St. Joseph's.
He was not invited to lunch in Onslow Gardens, and he did not see Lady
Sophia. On the whole, he was glad of this. He had enough to keep in his
mind that day. The matter in which he was interested seemed growing
before his eyes, like a thing coming out of the earth, but now beginning
to thrust itself up into regions where perhaps it would eventually be
hidden in darkness, with the great company of mysteries whose unraveling
is beyond the capacity of man.

He had now, he felt sure, a clear comprehension of Lady Sophia. Their
short interview at Burlington House had been illuminating. She was a
typical example of the Adam's-rib woman; that is, of the woman who,
intensely, almost exaggeratedly feminine, can live in any fullness only
through another, and that other a man. Through Mr. Harding Lady Sophia
had hitherto lived, and had doubtless, in her view, triumphed. Obviously
a woman not free from a nervous vanity, and a woman of hungry ambition,
her vanity and ambition had been fed by his growing notoriety, his
increasing success and influence. The rib had thrilled with the body to
which it belonged.

But that time of happy emotion, of admiration, of keen looking forward,
was the property of the past. Lawn sleeves, purple, perhaps,--for who
is more hopeful than this type of woman in the golden moments of
life?--perhaps even an archiepiscopal throne faded from before the eyes
they had gladdened--the eyes of faith in a man.

And a different woman was beginning to appear--a woman who might be as
critical as she had formerly been admiring, a woman capable of becoming
embittered.

On the Sunday of Malling's visit to Onslow Gardens, Mr. Harding's failure
in the pulpit had waked up in his wife eager sympathy and eager spite,
the one directed toward the man who had failed, the other toward the man
who, as Malling felt sure, had caused the failure.

In Burlington House that woman, whom men with every reason adore, had
given place to another less favorable toward him who had been her hero.

It seemed to Malling as if in the future a strange thing might happen,
almost as if it must happen: it seemed to him as if Chichester might
convey his view of his rector to his rector's wife.

"Study the link," Stepton had said. "There will be development in the
link."

Already the words had proved true. There had been a development in Lady
Sophia such as Malling had certainly not anticipated. Where would it end?
Again and again, as he listened to the morning and evening sermons,
Malling had asked himself that question; again and again he had recalled
his conversation at Burlington House with Lady Sophia.

In the morning at St. Joseph's Mr. Harding had preached to a church
that was half filled; in the evening Henry Chichester had preached to a
church that was full to the doors. And each of the clergymen in turn had
listened to the other, but how differently!

Mr. Harding had ascended to the pulpit with failure staring him in
the face, and whereas on the Sunday when Malling first heard him he
had obviously fought against the malign influence which eventually
had prevailed over him, this time he had not had the vigor to make a
struggle. Certainly he had not broken down. It might be said of him,
as it was once said of a nation, that he had "muddled through." He had
preached a very poor sermon in a very poor way, nervously, indeed,
almost timidly, and with the manner of a man who was cowed and hopeless.
The powerful optimism for which he had once been distinguished had
given way to an almost unhealthy pessimism, alien surely to the minds
of all believers, of all who profess to look forward to that life of
which, as Tolstoi long ago said, our present life is but a dream. Even
when he was uttering truths he spoke them as if he had an uneasy
suspicion that they were lies. At moments he seemed to be almost
pleading with his hearers to tolerate him, to "bear with him." Indeed,
several times during his disjointed remarks he made use of the latter
expression, promising that his discourse should be a short one. Very
carefully he included himself among those aware of sin, very humbly he
declared the unworthiness of any man to set himself up as a teacher and
leader of others.

Now, humility is all very well, but if carried to excess, it suggests
something less than a man. Mr. Harding almost cringed before his
congregation. Malling did not feel that his humility was a pretense.
On the contrary, it struck him as abominably real, but so excessive as
to be not natural in any thorough man in a normal condition of mind and
of body. It was the sort of humility that creates in the unregenerate a
desire to offer a good kicking as a corrective.

Very different was the effect created by Chichester's sermon in the
evening. Malling, aware though he had become of the great strengthening
of Chichester, was amazed when he heard him preach.

Often it is said of a very fine preacher that he preached as one
inspired. Chichester preached as one who knew. Never before had Malling
been so impressed with the feeling that he was listening to truth,
absolute truth, as he was while he listened to Chichester. There was
something, though, that was almost deadly about it. It pierced like a
lancet. It seared like a red-hot iron. It humbled almost too much.
Here was no exaggerated humility, no pleading to be borne with, no
cringing, and no doubt. A man who knew was standing up, and, with a
sort of indifference to outside opinion that was almost frightening,
was saying some of the things he knew about men, women--and surely God!

The subject was somewhat akin to that of the first sermon of Mr. Harding
which Malling had heard. The rector then had preached on self-knowledge.
The curate, now, preached on hypocrisy. Incidentally he destroyed his
rector's sermon, flung it away on the scrap-heap, and passed on. This was
not done viciously, but it was done relentlessly. Indeed, that was the
note of the whole sermon. It was relentless, as truth is relentless, as
death is relentless. And besides being terribly true, it was imaginative.
But the preacher almost succeeded in conveying the impression to his
congregation that what is generally called imagination is really vision,
that the true imagination is seeing what is, but is often hidden, knowing
what is, but is often unknown. The latter part of the sermon struck
Malling as very unusual, even as very daring.

The preacher had spoken of the many varieties of hypocrisy. Finally he
drew a picture of a finished hypocrite. And the man lived as a man lives
in the pages of a great writer. One could walk round him, one knew him.
And then Chichester treated him as the writer treats his creation; he
proceeded to show his hypocrite in action.

The man, happy, almost triumphant,--for he now often looked upon himself
with the eyes of others who knew him not,--was walking to his home on a
winter's evening along a country road, passing now and then rustics who
respectfully saluted him, neighbors who grasped his hand, children who
innocently smiled at him, women who whispered that he was a fine fellow,
the clergyman of his parish, who gave him God-speed upon his way as to
one who deserved that God should speed him because his way was right.
Snow was upon the ground. Such light as there was began to fade. It was
evident that the night, which was very still, was going to be very dark.
And the man stepped out briskly. Presently, at a lonely part of the road,
happening to look down, he saw footprints in the freshly fallen snow.
They were of feet that had recently passed on the way he was following.
They had attracted, they continued to attract, his attention, he knew not
why. And as he went on, his eyes were often upon them.

Presently he began to wonder about the feet which had made the prints he
saw. Did they belong to a man or a woman? The prints were too large to
have been made by the feet of a child. He gazed at them searchingly, and
made up his mind that it was a man who had recently trodden this road.
And what sort of man was it that thus preceded him not very far away? He
became deeply engrossed with this question. His mind revolved about this
unknown traveler, floating forward in surmises, till, by chance, he
happened to set his right foot in one of the prints left in the snow.
His foot exactly filled it. This fact, he knew not why, startled him.
He stopped, bent down, examined the snow closely, measured very carefully
his feet with the prints before him, now rather faintly discerned in
the gathering darkness. The prints might have been made by his own feet.
Having ascertained this, and reflected for a moment, he went forward, now
assailed by a growing curiosity as to the personality and character of
the stranger. But perhaps he was not a stranger. He might surely well be
a neighbor, an acquaintance, perhaps even a friend. The man meant, if
possible, to come up with him, whoever he was, and he now hurried along
with the intention of joining the unknown whose footprints were the same
as his own.

At this point in his sermon Chichester paused for a moment. And
Malling, who seldom felt any thrill at a séance, and who had often
remained calmly watchful and alert during manifestations which amazed
or terrified others, was aware of a feeling of cold, which seemed to
pass like a breath through his spirit. The congregation about him,
perhaps struck by the unusual form of the sermon, remained silent and
motionless, waiting. In his stall sat the rector with downcast eyes.
Malling could not at that moment discern his expression. His large
figure and important powerful head and face showed almost like those
of a carven effigy in the lowered light of the chancel. The choirboys
did not stir, and the small, fair man in the pulpit, raising his thin
hands, and resting them on the marble ledge, continued quietly, taking
up his sermon with a repetition of the last words uttered, "whose
footprints were the same as his own."

Again the cold breath went through Malling's spirit. He leaned slightly
forward and gazed at Chichester.

For some time the man thus went onward, following the footprints in
the snow, but not overtaking any one, and becoming momentarily more
eager to satisfy his curiosity. Then, on a sudden, he started, stopped,
and listened. It had now become very dark, and in this darkness, and
the great stillness of night, he heard the faint sound of a footfall
before him, brushing through the crisp snow, which lay lightly, and not
very deep, on the hard highroad leading to the village on the farther
outskirts of which his house was situated. He could not yet see any one,
but he felt sure that the person who made this faint sound was no other
than he in whose steps he had been treading. It would now be a matter of
only a minute or two to come up with him. And the man went on, but more
slowly, whether because he was now certain of attaining his object or
for some other reason.

The sound of the footfall persisted, and was certainly not far off. The
prints in the snow were so fresh that they seemed not quite motionless,
as if the snow were only now settling after the pressure it had just
suffered. The man slackened his pace. He did not like the sound which
he heard. He began to feel as if he by whom it was made would not prove
a companion to his taste. Yet his curiosity continued. There began within
him a struggle between his curiosity and another sensation, which was
of repugnance, almost of fear. And so equal were the combatants that
the lights of the village were in sight, and he had not decreased the
distance between himself and the other. Seeing the lights, however, his
curiosity got the upper hand. He slightly quickened his pace, and almost
immediately beheld the shape of a man relieved against the night, and
treading onward through the snow. And as the sound of the footsteps had
been disagreeable to his nerves, so the contours of the moving blackness
repelled him. He did not like the look of this man whose footprints were
the same as his own, and he decided not to join him. But, moving rather
cautiously, he gained a little upon him, in order to make sure, if
possible, whether or not he was a neighbor or an acquaintance.

The figure seemed somehow familiar to our man, indeed, oddly familiar.
Nevertheless, he was unable to identify it. As he followed it, more and
more certain did he become that he had seen it, that he knew it. And
yet--did he know it? Had he seen it? It was almost as if one part of him
denied while the other affirmed. He longed, yet feared, to see the face.
But the face never looked back. And so, one at a little distance behind
the other, they came into the village.

Here a strange thing occurred.

There were very few people about, but there were a few, and two or
three of them, meeting the person our man was following, greeted him
respectfully. But these same people, when immediately afterward they
encountered the other, who had known them for years, and whom they of
course knew, showed the greatest perturbation; one, a woman, even signs
of terror. They gave him no greeting, shrank from him as he passed,
and stared after him, as if bemused, when he was gone by. Their behavior
was almost incredible. But he was so set on what was before him that he
stopped to ask no questions.

The village was a long one. Always one behind the other, walking at an
even pace, the two men traversed it, approaching at last the outskirts,
where, separated from the other habitations, and surrounded by a garden
in which the trees were laden with snow, stood the house of the man who
now watched and followed, with a growing wonder and curiosity, combined
with an ever-growing repugnance, him who made the footprints, who had
been saluted by the villagers, whose figure and general aspect seemed in
somewise familiar to him, and yet whom he could not recognize. Where
could this person be going? The man asked himself, and came to a resolve
not to follow on into the darkness of the open country, not to proceed
beyond his own home, of which now he saw the lights, but to make an
effort to see the face of the other before the garden gate was reached.

In this attempt, however, he was destined to be frustrated. For as he
determinedly quickened his steps, so did the other, who gained the gate
of the garden, unlatched it, turned in, and walked on among the trees
going toward the principal door.

A visitor, then! The man paused by his garden gate, whence he could see
his house front, with the light from the window of his own sitting-room
streaming over the porch. The stranger stood before it, made a movement
as if searching in his pocket, drew out his hand, lifted it. The door
opened at once. He disappeared within, and the door closed after him.

He had opened the door with a key.

The man at the gate felt overcome by a sensation almost of horror,
which he could not explain to himself. It was not that he was horrified
by the certainly extraordinary fact of some one possessing a key to his
house, and using it in this familiar fashion. It was not even that he
was horrified at seeing a man, perhaps a stranger, disappearing thus
into his home by night, uninvited, unexpected. What horrified him was
that this particular man, whose footprints he had followed and measured
with his foot, whose footfalls he had heard, whose form he had seen
outlined against the night, should be within his house, where his wife
and his children were, and where his venerable mother was sitting beside
the fire. That this man should be there! He knew now that from the first
moment when he had been aware of his existence he had hated him, that his
subconscious mind had hated him.

But who was he? The natural thing would have been to follow quickly into
the house, to see who had entered, to demand an explanation. But he could
not do this. Why? He himself did not know why. But he knew that he dared
not do this. And he waited, expecting he knew not what; a cry, a summons,
perhaps, some manifestation that would force him to approach.

None came. Steadily the lights shone from the house. There was no sound
but the soft fall of a block of snow from an overladen fir branch in the
garden. The man began to marvel. Who could this be whose familiar entry
into his--_his_ home thus at night caused no disturbance? There were dogs
within: they had not barked. There were servants: apparently they had not
stirred. It was almost as if this stranger's permanence was accepted by
the household. A long, long time had slipped by.

The man at length, making an almost fierce effort, partly dominated the
unreasoning sense of horror which possessed him. He opened the gate,
stepped into the garden, and made his way slowly and softly toward the
house door. But suddenly he stopped. Through the unshuttered window of
his sitting-room, the room in which for years he had spent much of his
time, in which he had concocted many schemes to throw dust in the
eyes of his neighbors, and even of his own relatives, in which he had
learned very perfectly to seem what he was not, and to hide what he
really was, he perceived the figure of a man. It crossed the lighted
space slowly, and disappeared with a downward movement. He knew it was
the man he had been following and whom he had seen enter his house.

For a long while he remained where he was on the path of the garden.
The night deepened about him. A long way off, at the other end of the
village, a clock chimed the hours. In the cottages the lights were
extinguished. The few loungers disappeared from the one long street
vanishing over the snow. And the man never moved. A numb terror possessed
him. Yet, despite his many faults and his life of evil, he had never been
physically a coward. Always the light shone steadily from the window of
his study, making a patch of yellow upon the snow. Always the occupant
of the room must be seated tranquilly there, like an owner. For no figure
had risen, had repassed across the unshuttered space.

The man told himself again and again that he must go forward till
he gained the window, that he must at least look into the room; if he
dared not enter the house to confront the intruder, to demand an
explanation. But again and again something within him, which seemed to
be a voice from the innermost chamber of his soul, whispered to him not
to go, whispered to him to leave the intruder alone, to let the intruder
do what he would, but not to approach him, above all, not to look upon
his face. And the man obeyed the voice till a thing happened which roused
in him a powerful beast, called by many the natural man.

He saw his wife, whom he loved in his way, though he had tricked and
deceived her again and again, cross the window space, smiling, and
disappear with a downward movement, as the other had disappeared. Then
she rose into his range of vision, and stood for a moment so that he
could see her clearly, smiling, talking, making little gestures that
he knew, carrying her hand to her face, stretching it out, dropping it.
Finally she lifted it to her lips, half-closing her eyes at the same
time, took it away quickly, with a sort of butterfly motion, and
vanished, going toward the left, where the room door was.

So had she many and many a time bidden him, her husband, good night.
Instantly, with an impulse which seemed combined of rage and terror,
both now full of a driving force which was irresistible, the man sprang
forward to the window, seized the stone coping with his hands and stared
into his room.

Seated in a round chair at his writing-table, by a lamp with a green
shade, was the man who had entered his house. He was writing busily in
a book with a silver clasp that could be locked with a key, and he leaned
a little over the table with his head turned away. The shape of his head,
his posture, even the manner in which he used his pen as he traced line
after line in the book, made an abominable impression upon the man
staring in at the window. But the face--the face! He must see that! And
he leaned forward, trembling, but fiercely, and, pressing his own face
against the pane, he looked at the occupant of his room as men look
sometimes with their souls.

The man at the table lifted his head. He laid down the pen, blotted the
book in which he had been writing, shut it up, clasped it, locked it with
a tiny key, and put it carefully into a drawer of the table, which also
he locked. He got up, stood for an instant by the table with one hand
upon it, then turned slowly toward the window, smiling, as men smile to
themselves when they are thinking of their own ingenuities.

The man outside the window fell back into the snow as if God's hand had
touched him. He had seen his own face! So he smiled sometimes at the end
of a day, when he had finished writing down in his diary some of the
hidden things of his life.

He turned, and as the window through which he had been looking suddenly
darkened, he fled away into the night.

When the lights, which at St. Joseph's were always kept lowered during
the sermon, once more strongly illuminated the chancel, Mr. Harding
turned a ghastly face toward the pulpit. In the morning Chichester had
listened to him, as a man of truth might listen to a man who is trying
to lie, but who cannot deceive him. In the evening Mr. Harding had
listened to Chichester--how? What had been the emotions only shadowed
faintly forth in that ghastly face?

When Malling got home, he asked himself why Chichester had made such
an impression upon his mind. His story of the double, strange enough,
no doubt, in a sermon, could not surely have come upon Malling with any
of the force and the interest of the new. For years he had been familiar
with tales of ghosts, of voices, of appearances at the hour of death, of
doubles. Of course in the sermon there had been a special application of
the story. It had been very short. Chichester had suggested that if, as
by a miracle, the average self-contented man could look at himself with
the eyes of his soul full of subliminal self-knowledge and with the
bodily eyes, he would be stricken down by a great horror.

And he had spoken as a man who knew. Indeed, it seemed to Malling that he
had spoken as might have delivered himself the man who had followed his
double through the snow, who had looked in upon him by night from the
garden, if he had faced, instead of flying from, the truth; if he had
stayed, if he had persistently watched his double leading the life he had
led, if he had learned a great lesson that perhaps only his double could
teach him.

But if the man had stayed, what would have been the effect on the double?
Malling sat till deep in the night pondering these things.




VII


Lady Sophia had said to Malling that if he went to the two services at
St. Joseph's on the Sunday she would invite him to see her again. She
was as good as her word. In the middle of the week he received a note
from her, saying she would be at home at four on Thursday, if he was
able to come. He went, and found her alone. But as soon as he entered
the drawing-room and had taken her hand, she said:

"I am expecting Mr. Chichester almost immediately. He's coming to tea."

"I shall be glad to meet him," said Malling, concealing his surprise,
which was great.

Yet he did not know why it should be. For what more natural than that
Chichester should be coming?

"I heard of you at St. Joseph's," Lady Sophia continued. "A friend of
mine, Lily Armitage, saw you there. I didn't. I was sitting at the back.
I have taken to sitting quite at the back of the church. What did you
think of it?"

"Do you wish me to be frank, and do you mean the two sermons?"

She hesitated for an instant. Then she said:

"I do mean the sermons, and I do wish you to be frank."

"I thought Mr. Chichester's sermon very remarkable indeed."

"And my husband's sermon?"

Her lips twisted almost as if with contempt when she said the words, "my
husband's."

"Why doesn't Mr. Harding take a long rest?" said Malling, speaking
conventionally, a thing that he seldom did.

"You think he needs one?"

"He has a tiresome malady, I understand."

"What malady?"

"Doesn't he suffer very much from nervous dyspepsia?"

She looked at him with irony, which changed almost instantly into serious
reflection. But the irony returned.

"Now and then he has a touch of it," she said. "Very few of us don't have
something. But we have to go on, and we do go on, nevertheless."

"I think a wise doctor wo