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diff --git a/40027-8.txt b/40027-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a65e80a..0000000 --- a/40027-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7672 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's The Scarecrow and Other Stories, by G. Ranger Wormser - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Scarecrow and Other Stories - -Author: G. Ranger Wormser - -Release Date: June 18, 2012 [EBook #40027] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCARECROW AND OTHER STORIES *** - - - - -Produced by sp1nd, Mebyon, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - - THE SCARECROW - - AND OTHER STORIES - - BY G. RANGER WORMSER - - - NEW YORK - E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY - 681 FIFTH AVENUE - - COPYRIGHT, 1918, - BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY - - _All Rights Reserved_ - - Printed in the United States of America - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - THE SCARECROW 1 - - MUTTER SCHWEGEL 21 - - HAUNTED 37 - - FLOWERS 61 - - THE SHADOW 81 - - THE EFFIGY 105 - - THE FAITH 125 - - YELLOW 147 - - CHINA-CHING 163 - - THE WOOD OF LIVING TREES 187 - - BEFORE THE DAWN 211 - - THE STILLNESS 229 - - - - -THE SCARECROW AND - -OTHER STORIES - - - - -THE SCARECROW - - -"Ben--" - -The woman stood in the doorway of the ramshackle, tumble-down shanty. -Her hands were cupped at her mouth. The wind blew loose, whitish blond -wisps of hair around her face and slashed the faded blue dress into the -uncorseted bulk of her body. - -"Benny--oh, Benny--" - -Her call echoed through the still evening. - -Her eyes staring straight before her down the slope in front of the -house caught sight of something blue and antiquatedly military standing -waist deep and rigid in the corn field. - -"That ole scarecrow," she muttered to herself, "that there old scarecrow -with that there ole uniform onto him, too!" - -The sun was going slowly just beyond the farthest hill. The unreal light -of the skies' reflected colors held over the yellow, waving tips of the -corn field. - -"Benny--," she called again. "Oh--Benny!" - -And then she saw him coming toward her trudging up the hill. - -She waited until he stood in front of her. - -"Supper, Ben," she said. "Was you down in the south meadow where you -couldn't hear me call?" - -"Naw." - -He was young and slight. He had thick hair and a thin face. His features -were small. There was nothing unusual about them. His eyes were deep-set -and long, with the lids that were heavily fringed. - -"You heard me calling you?" - -"Yes, maw." - -He stood there straight and still. His eyelids were lowered. - -"Why ain't you come along then? What ails you, Benny, letting me shout -and shout that way?" - -"Nothing--maw." - -"Where was you?" - -He hesitated a second before answering her. - -"I was to the bottom of the hill." - -"And what was you doing down there to the bottom of the hill? What was -you doing down there, Benny?" - -Her voice had a hushed tenseness to it. - -"I was watching, maw." - -"Watching, Benny?" - -"That's what I was doing." - -His tone held a guarded sullenness. - -"'Tain't no such a pretty sunset, Benny." - -"Warn't watching no sunset." - -"Benny--!" - -"Well." He spoke quickly. "What d'you want to put it there for? What -d'you want to do that for in the first place?" - -"There was birds, Benny. You know there was birds." - -"That ain't what I mean. What for d'you put on that there uniform?" - -"I ain't had nothing else. There warn't nothing but your grand-dad's ole -uniform. It's fair in rags, Benny. It's all I had to put on to it." - -"Well, you done it yourself." - -"Naw, Benny, naw! 'Tain't nothing but an ole uniform with a stick into -it. Just to frighten off them birds. 'Tain't nothing else. Honest, -'tain't, Benny." - -He looked up at her out of the corners of his eyes. - -"It was waving its arms." - -"That's the wind." - -"Naw, maw. Waving its arms before the wind it come up." - -"Sush, Benny! 'Tain't likely. 'Tain't." - -"I was watching, maw. I seen it wave and wave. S'pose it should -beckon--; s'pose it should beckon to me. I'd be going, then, maw." - -"Sush, Benny." - -"I'd fair have to go, maw." - -"Leave your mammy? Naw, Ben; naw. You couldn't never go off and leave -your mammy. Even if you ain't able to bear this here farm you couldn't -go off from your mammy. You couldn't! Not--your--maw--Benny!" - -She could see his mouth twitch. She saw him catch his lower lip in under -his teeth. - -"Aw--" - -"Say you couldn't leave, Benny; say it!" - -"I--I fair hate this here farm!" He mumbled. "Morning and night;--and -morning and night. Nothing but chores and earth. And then some more of -them chores. And always that there way. So it is! Always! And the -stillness! Nothing alive, nothing! Sometimes I ain't able to stand it -nohow. Sometimes--!" - -"You'll get to like it--; later, mebbe--" - -"Naw! naw, maw!" - -"You will, Benny. Sure you will." - -"I won't never. I ain't able to help fretting. It's all closed up tight -inside of me. Eating and eating. It makes me feel sick." - -She put out a hand and laid it heavily on his shoulder. - -"Likely it's a touch of fever in the blood, Benny." - -"Aw--! I ain't got no fever!" - -"You'll be feeling better in the morning, Ben." - -"I'll be feeling the same, maw. That's just it. Always the same. Nothing -but the stillness. Nothing alive. And down there in the corn field--" - -"That ain't alive, Benny!" - -"Ain't it, maw?" - -"Don't say that, Benny. Don't!" - -He shook her hand off of him. - -"I was watching," he said doggedly. "I seen it wave and wave." - -She turned into the house. - -"That ole scarecrow!" She muttered to herself. "That there ole -scarecrow!" - -She led the way into the kitchen. The boy followed at her heels. - -A lamp was lighted on the center table. The one window was uncurtained. -Through the naked spot of it the evening glow poured shimmeringly into -the room. - -Inside the doorway they both paused. - -"You set down, Benny." - -He pulled a chair up to the table. - -She took a steaming pot from the stove and emptying it into a plate, -placed the dish before him. - -He fell to eating silently. - -She came and sat opposite him. She watched him cautiously. She did not -want him to know that she was watching him. Whenever he glanced up she -hurried her eyes away from his face. In the stillness the only live -things were those two pair of eyes darting away from each other. - -"Benny--!" She could not stand it any longer. -"Benny--just--you--just--you--" - -He gulped down a mouthful of food. - -"Aw, maw--don't you start nothing. Not no more to-night, maw." - -She half rose from her chair. For a second she leaned stiffly against -the table. Then she slipped back into her seat, her whole body limp and -relaxed. - -"I ain't going to start nothing, Benny. I ain't even going to talk about -this here farm. Honest--I ain't." - -"Aw--this--here--farm--!" - -"I've gave the best years of my life to it." - -She spoke the words defiantly. - -"You said that all afore, maw." - -"It's true," she murmured. "Terrible true. And I done it for you, Benny. -I wanted to be giving you something. It's all I'd got to give you, -Benny. There's many a man, Ben, that's glad of his farm. And grateful, -too. There's many that makes it pay." - -"And what'll I do if it does pay, maw? What'll I do then?" - -"I--I--don't know, Benny. It's only just beginning, now." - -"But if it does pay, maw? What'll I do? Go away from here?" - -"Naw, Benny--. Not--away--. What'd you go away for, when it pays? After -all them years I gave to it?" - -His spoon clattered noisily to his plate. He pushed his chair back from -the table. The legs of it rasped loudly along the uncarpeted floor. He -got to his feet. - -"Let's go on outside," he said. "There ain't no sense to this here -talking--and talking." - -She glanced up at him. Her eyes were narrow and hard. - -"All right, Benny. I'll clear up. I'll be along in a minute. All right, -Benny." - -He slouched heavily out of the room. - -She sat where she was, the set look pressed on her face. Automatically -her hands reached out among the dishes, pulling them toward her. - -Outside the boy sank down on the step. - -It was getting dark. There were shadows along the ground. Blue shadows. -In the graying skies one star shone brilliantly. Beyond the mist-slurred -summit of a hill the full moon grew yellow. - -In front of him was the slope of wind-moved corn field, and in the -center of it the dim, military figure standing waist deep in the corn. - -His eyes fixed themselves to it. - -"Ole--uniform--with--a--stick--into--it." - -He whispered the words very low. - -Still--standing there--still. The same wooden attitude of it. His same, -cunning watching of it. - -There was a wind. He knew it was going over his face. He could feel the -cool of the wind across his moistened lips. - -He took a deep breath. - -Down there in the shivering corn field, standing in the dark, blue -shadows, the dim figure had quivered. - -An arm moved--swaying to and fro. The other arm began--swaying--swaying. -A tremor ran through it. Once it pivoted. The head shook slowly from -side to side. The arms rose and fell--and rose again. The head came up -and down and rocked a bit to either side. - -"I'm here--" he muttered involuntarily. "Here." - -The arms were tossing and stretching. - -He thought the head faced in his direction. - -The wind had died out. - -The arms went down and came up and reached. - -"Benny--" - -The woman seated herself on the step at his side. - -"Look!" He mumbled. "Look!" - -He pointed his hand at the dim figure shifting restlessly in the quiet, -shadow-saturated corn field. - -Her eyes followed after his. - -"Oh--Benny--" - -"Well--" His voice was hoarse. "It's moving, ain't it? You can see it -moving for yourself, can't you? You ain't able to say you don't see it, -are you?" - -"The--wind--" She stammered. - -"Where's the wind?" - -"Down--there." - -"D'you feel a wind? Say, d'you feel a wind?" - -"Mebbe--down--there." - -"There ain't no wind. Not now--there ain't! And it's moving, ain't it? -Say, it's moving, ain't it?" - -"It looks like it was dancing. So it does. Like as if it -was--making--itself--dance--" - -His eyes were still riveted on those arms that came up and down--; up -and down--; and reached. - -"It'll stop soon--now." He stuttered it more to himself than to her. -"Then--it'll be still. I've watched it mighty often. Mebbe it knows I -watch it. Mebbe that's why--it--moves--" - -"Aw--Benny--" - -"Well, you see it, don't you? You thought there was something the matter -with me when I come and told you how it waves--and waves. But you seen -it waving, ain't you?" - -"It's nothing, Ben. Look, Benny. It's stopped!" - -The two of them stared down the slope at the dim, military figure -standing rigid and waist deep in the corn field. - -The woman gave a quick sigh of relief. - -For several moments they were silent. - -From somewhere in the distance came the harsh, discordant sound of bull -frogs croaking. Out in the night a dog bayed at the golden, full moon -climbing up over the hills. A bird circled between sky and earth -hovering above the corn field. They saw its slow descent, and then for a -second they caught the startled whir of its wings, as it flew blindly -into the night. - -"That ole scarecrow!" She muttered. - -"S'pose--" He whispered. "S'pose when it starts its moving like -that;--s'pose some day it walks out of that there corn field! Just -naturally walks out here to me. What then, if it walks out?" - -"Benny--!" - -"That's what I'm thinking of all the time. If it takes it into its head -to just naturally walk out here. What's going to stop it, if it wants to -walk out after me; once it starts moving that way? What?" - -"Benny--! It couldn't do that! It couldn't!" - -"Mebbe it won't. Mebbe it'll just beckon first. Mebbe it won't come -after me. Not if I go when it beckons. I kind of figure it'll beckon -when it wants me. I couldn't stand the other. I couldn't wait for it to -come out here after me. I kind of feel it'll beckon. When it beckons, -I'll be going." - -"Benny, there's sickness coming on you." - -"'Tain't no sickness." - -The woman's hands were clinched together in her lap. - -"I wish to Gawd--" She said--"I wish I ain't never seen the day when I -put that there thing up in that there corn field. But I ain't thought -nothing like this could never happen. I wish to Gawd I ain't never seen -the day--" - -"'Tain't got nothing to do with you." - -His voice was very low. - -"It's got everything to do with me. So it has! You said that afore -yourself; and you was right. Ain't I put it up? Ain't I looked high and -low the house through? Ain't that ole uniform of your grand-dad's been -the only rag I could lay my hands on? Was there anything else I could -use? Was there?" - -"Aw--maw--!" - -"Ain't we needed a scarecrow down there? With them birds so awful bad? -Pecking away at the corn; and pecking." - -"'Tain't your fault, maw." - -"There warn't nothing else but that there ole uniform. I wouldn't have -took it, otherwise. Poor ole Pa so desperate proud of it as he was. Him -fighting for his country in it. Always saying that he was. He couldn't -be doing enough for his country. And that there ole uniform meaning so -much to him. Like a part of him I used to think it,--and--. You wanting -to say something, Ben?" - -"Naw--naw--!" - -"He wouldn't even let us be burying him in it. 'Put my country's flag -next my skin'; he told us. 'When I die keep the ole uniform.' Just like -a part of him, he thought it. Wouldn't I have kept it, falling to pieces -as it is, if there'd have been anything else to put up there in that -there corn field?" - -She felt the boy stiffen suddenly. - -"And with him a soldier--" - -He broke off abruptly. - -She sensed what he was about to say. - -"Aw, Benny--. That was different. Honest, it was. He warn't the only one -in his family. There was two brothers." - -The boy got to his feet. - -"Why won't you let me go?" He asked it passionately. "Why d'you keep me -here? You know I ain't happy! You know all the men've gone from these -here parts. You know I ain't happy! Ain't you going to see how much I -want to go? Ain't you able to know that I want to fight for my country? -The way he did his fighting?" - -The boy jerked his head in the direction of the figure standing waist -deep in the corn field; standing rigidly and faintly outlined beneath -the haunting flood of moonlight. - -"Naw, Benny. You can't go. Naw--!" - -"Why, maw? Why d'you keep saying that and saying it?" - -"I'm all alone, Benny. I've gave all my best years to make the farm pay -for you. You got to stay, Benny. You got to stay on here with me. You -just plain got--to! You'll be glad some day, Benny. Later--on. You'll be -right glad." - -She saw him thrust his hands hastily into his trouser pockets. - -"Glad?" His voice sounded tired. "I'll be shamed. That's what I'll be. -Nothing, d'you hear, nothing--but shamed!" - -She started to her feet. - -"Benny--" A note of fear shook through the words. "You -wouldn't--wouldn't--go?" - -He waited a moment before he answered her. - -"If you ain't wanting me to go--; I'll stay. Gawd! I guess I plain got -to--stay." - -"That's a good boy, Benny. You won't never be sorry--nohow--I promise -you!--I'll be making it up to you. Honest, I will!--There's lots of -ways--I'll--!" - -He interrupted her. - -"Only, maw--; I won't let it come after me. If it beckons -I--got--to--go--!" - -She gave a sudden laugh that trailed off uncertainly. - -"'Tain't going to beckon, Benny." - -"It if beckons, maw--" - -"'Tain't going to, Benny. 'Tain't nothing but the wind that moves it. -It's just the wind, sure. Mebbe you got a touch of fever. Mebbe you -better go on to bed. You'll be all right in the morning. Just you wait -and see. You're a good boy, Benny. You'll never go off and leave your -maw and the farm. You're a fine lad, Benny." - -"If--it--beckons--" He repeated in weary monotone. - -"'Tain't, Benny!" - -"I'll be going to bed," he said. - -"That's it, Benny. Good night." - -"Good night, maw." - -She stood there listening to his feet thudding up the stairs. She heard -him knocking about in the room overhead. A door banged. She stood quite -still. There were footsteps moving slowly. A window was thrown open. - -She looked up to see him leaning far out over the sill. - -Her eyes went down the slope of the moonlight-bathed corn field. - -Her right hand curled itself into a fist. - -"Ole--scarecrow--!" - -She half laughed. - -She waited there until she saw the boy draw away from the window. She -went into the house and bolted the door behind her. Then she went up the -narrow steps. - -That night she lay awake for a long time. The heat had grown intense. -She found herself tossing from side to side of the small bed. - -The window shade had stuck at the top of the window. - -The moonlight trickled into the room. She could see the window-framed, -star-specked patch of the skies. When she sat up she saw the round, -reddish-yellow ball of the moon. - -She must have dozed, because she woke with a start. She felt that she -had had a fearful, evil dream. The horror of it clung to her. - -The room was like an oven. - -She thought the walls were coming together and the ceiling pressing -down. - -Her body was covered with sweat. - -She forced herself wide awake. She made herself get out of the bed. She -stood for a second uncertain. Then she went to the window. - -Not a breath of air stirring. - -The moon was high in the sky. - -She looked out across the hills. - -Down there to the left the acres of potatoes. Potatoes were paying. She -counted on a big harvest. To the right the wheat. Only the second year -for those five fields. She knew that she had done well with them. - -She thought, with a smile running over her lips, back to the time when -less than half of the place had been under cultivation. She remembered -her dream of getting the whole of her farm in work. She and the boy had -made good. She thought of that with savage complacency. It had been a -struggle; a bitter, hard fight from the beginning. But she had made good -with her farm. - -And there down the slope, just in front of the house, the corn field. -And in the center of it, standing waist deep in the corn, the -antiquated, military figure. - -The smile slid from her mouth. - -The suffocating heat was terrific. - -Not a breath of air. - -Suddenly she began to shake from head to foot. - -Her eyes wide and staring, were fixed on the moonlight-whitened corn -field; her eyes were held to the moonlight-streaked figure standing in -the ghostly corn. - -Moving-- - -An arm swayed--swayed to and fro. Backwards and forwards--backwards--The -other arm--swaying--A tremor ran through it. Once it pivoted. The head -shook slowly from side to side. The arms rose and fell--; and rose -again. The head came up and down, and rocked a bit to either side. - -"Dancing--" She whispered stupidly. "Dancing--" - -She thought she could not breathe. - -She had never felt such oppressive heat. - -The arms were tossing and stretching. - -She could not take her eyes from it. - -And then she saw both arms reach out, and slowly, very slowly, she saw -the hands of them, beckoning. - -In the stillness of the room next to her she thought she heard a crash. - -She listened intently, her eyes stuck to those reaching arms, and the -hands of them that beckoned and beckoned. - -"Benny--" She murmured--"Benny--!" - -Silence. - -She could not think. - -It was his talk that had done this--Benny's talk--He had said something -about it--walking out--If it should come--out--! Moving all over like -that--If its feet should start--! If they should of a sudden begin to -shuffle--; shuffle out of the cornfield--! - -But Benny wasn't awake. He--couldn't--see--it. Thank Gawd! If only -something--would--hold--it! If--only--it--would--stop--; Gawd! - -Nothing stirring out there in the haunting moon-lighted night. Nothing -moving. Nothing but the figure standing waist deep in the corn field. -And even as she looked, the rigid, military figure grew still. Still, -now, but for those slow, beckoning hands. - -A tremendous dizziness came over her. - -She closed her eyes for a second and then she stumbled back to the bed. - -She lay there panting. She pulled the sheets up across her face; her -shaking fingers working the tops of them into a hard ball. She stuffed -it between her chattering teeth. - -Whatever happened, Benny mustn't hear her. She mustn't waken, Benny. -Thank Heaven, Benny was asleep. Benny must never know how, out there in -the whitened night, the hands of the figure slowly and unceasingly -beckoned and beckoned. - -The sight of those reaching arms stayed before her. When, hours later, -she fell asleep, she still saw the slow-moving, motioning hands. - -It was morning when she wakened. - -The sun streamed into the room. - -She went to the door and opened it. - -"Benny--" She called. "Oh, Benny." - -There was no answer. - -"Benny--" She called again. "Get on up. It's late, Benny!" - -The house was quiet. - -She half dressed herself and went into his room. - -The bed had been slept in. She saw that at a glance. His -clothes were not there. -Down--in--the--field--because--she'd--forgotten--to--wake--him--. - -In a sudden stunning flash she remembered the crash she had heard. - -It took her a long while to get to the little closet behind the bed. -Before she opened it she knew it would be empty. - -The door creaked open. - -His one hat and coat were gone. - -She had known that. - -He had seen those two reaching arms! He had seen those two hands that -had slowly, very slowly, beckoned! - -She went to the window. - -Her eyes staring straight before her, down the slope in front of the -house, caught sight of something blue and antiquatedly military standing -waist deep and rigid in the corn field. - -"You ole scarecrow--!" She whimpered. "Why're you standing there?" She -sobbed. "What're you standing still for--_now_?" - - - - -MUTTER SCHWEGEL - - -He was tremendously disappointed. The house was empty. He had thought it -looked uninhabited from the outside. It made him a bit dreary to have -his people away like this. That uncertain feeling came over him again. -The uncertain feeling never quite left him of late. He was conscious of -it most of the time. It formed an intangible background to all his other -thought. - -He decided he would go down to the lodge presently. He was certain to -find Bennet at the lodge. And Bennet's wife; and Bennet's three -children. He grinned as he thought of Bennet chasing his children out of -his gardens. He could imagine the old gardener's gladness at his -homecoming. - -Going quickly up the last flight of stairs, he could see that the door -of his room stood ajar. He wondered at the yellow glow of light -trickling in a long narrow stream out into the dark of the hall. - -He went rushing along the corridor. - -He pushed the door open. - -The same old room. The familiar, faded wall paper. The high, mahogany -bed. The hunting print he had so cherished on the wall facing him. The -table just as he had left it; the books piled in neat stacks on its -polished surface. The lamp standing lighted among the books. The two -big arm chairs. - -He took a deep breath of surprise. - -Some one was seated in the chair facing from him. - -He saw the top of a man's head. He had a dim recognition of feet -sprawling from under the chair. On either arm of the chair rested a -man's hand. There was something he knew about those hands; the prominent -knuckles; the long, well made fingers. The heavy, silver signet ring on -the smallest finger of the left hand was a ring he had often seen. - -He crossed the room. - -"Otto--!" - -Standing there in front of Kurz, he wondered at the change in him. He -looked so much older. There was no trace left of the boyishness which he -had always associated with Otto Kurz. There were gray streaks in Kurz's -heavy hair; gray at the temples of the wide forehead; gray behind the -ears. The mustache and beard were threaded with grayed hairs. - -He was astonished to find Otto Kurz in his room. - -"Otto--! I had no idea that you would be here--!" - -He could not understand the rigid attitude of the man's great body; the -set mobility of the man's large hewn features. - -He moved a bit so as to stand directly in the line of those fixed -staring eyes. He wanted to interrupt the wooden expression of those -eyes. - -"Otto--It was good of you to come." - -Kurz's eyes raised themselves to meet his eyes. He quivered at the look -in Kurz's eyes. - -"My God!--What is it--?" - -The glazed, deadened eyes with the live, dumbed suffering behind them -widened. - -"Ach--Charlie--!" - -"What's happened, Otto?" - -"I--do--not--know. I was waiting, Charlie--for--you--to--come." - -"Good old Otto!" - -He saw Kurz's hand with the heavy, silver signet ring on the smallest -finger go up trembling to his beard. It was the old familiar gesture. - -"Good?--Did you say good of me, Charlie?" - -"Yes, yes!" He insisted eagerly. "Of course it was good of you to come -and meet me." - -"I--had--to--come." - -For he a second he wondered. - -"But how did you know?--Who told you?--I only just got here. No -one--knew. How could you have known I was coming?" - -He heard Kurz sigh; a long sigh that quavered at the end. - -"I--? Ach!--how--I--hoped--!" - -"That I would come?" - -"That you would come, Charlie." - -He could not fathom the look in Kurz's eyes. He had never seen a look -like that in those eyes. He thought that it was not a human look. - -"See here, Otto--What is it?" - -Kurz made a little, appealing gesture with his long, trembling hands. - -"Later--I--will--try--to--tell--you--" - -"Later?" - -Kurz nodded his great, shaggy head up and down. - -"How did you come in here, Charlie?" - -He was surprised at the question. - -"How? Why, with my latch key, of course!" - -He glanced over at the windows. The blinds were up. He could see the -dark pressing against the glass; pressing tightly so that it spread. He -started for the window. Kurz's voice stopped him. - -"And your family? You have then seen your family, Charlie?" - -He smiled. - -"No. Not yet. They weren't here when you came in, were they?" - -"No--no!--I--have--seen--no--one. I could not bring myself to go before -any one. There was an old man. He was going down the hall. I waited till -he passed. He must have come to light your lamp." - -"Well, old Otto--They're not here. I've hunted all through the house for -them. I rather think they must have gone down to Surrey. They've taken -the servants with them. After a bit we'll walk over to the lodge and ask -Bennet where my people are. That must have been Bennet you saw up here." - -"Then you do not know?" - -"Know what?" - -"About your family?" - -"But I just told you, Otto; they must've run down to our place in -Surrey. I only came up here to get a look at the old room. I'll go down -and ask Bennet presently." - -A quick moan escaped through Kurz's set lips. - -A sudden thought flashed to him. - -"You, Otto--How did you get in here?--With them all away?--With the -servants gone?" - -He saw the muscles of Kurz's face twitch horribly. - -"Ach--! You must not ask, Charlie. A little time, Charlie. There are -things I do not myself know. Later--I--will--try--to--tell--you." - -"Things you do not know, Otto?" - -Kurz's mouth twisted itself into a distorted grin. - -"I do not blame you for ridiculing me, Charlie. I always thought I knew -everything. Later--; you will see." - -"Why not tell me now?" - -"No--no--!" Kurz's voice whined frantically. "I do not know if you -yourself understand." - -"I was only trying to help you, old chap." - -"Help--! It is that I want. It is that which brought me here. It is -because I must have you help me." - -"You've only to say what you want." - -"Your help--" - -"You know I'll do whatever I can for you." - -"Yes--; I hoped that. I counted--on--your--help." - -He waited for Kurz to go on. Kurz sat there silent. The long, shaking -fingers fumbled at each other. - -"Well?" - -"Later." - -"All right--I don't know what you're driving at." - -"Are--you--sure--you--do--not--know--?" - -"But--If you don't want to tell me now; why, tell me in your own good -time, old fellow." - -"Yes. You are not angry? You do not care if I say it later?" - -"Of course I don't care." - -"Not--care--If--you--knew--; if--it--is--true--; you will care!" - -He could not make out what Kurz meant. - -"It's mighty nice seeing you," he said after a second's silence. "It's -been a long time. Years since I've seen you." - -"I came though, Charlie;--I had to come, Charlie." - -"I'm jolly well glad you did!" - -"You knew I would come." - -He drew his brows together in a perplexed frown. - -"I knew we would meet sometime." - -"Yes. Sometime." - -"And the sometime's now. Eh, Otto?" - -"Now?" Kurz's big body strained forward. "What--is--it, Charlie--; -this--now--?" - -The frown stayed over his eyes. - -"We were bound to come together again, old Otto. You and I were pretty -good pals back there at your university. What a time we two had -together! And old Mutter Schwegel! How old Mutter Schwegel fussed over -us! How she took care of us! It all seems like yesterday--!" - -Kurz got out of his chair. - -"Old Mutter Schwegel--;" he muttered. - -"Dear old Mutter Schwegel!" - -Kurz's eyes stole away from his face. - -"Later--I shall tell you of Mutter Schwegel too." - -"And the talks we used to have--! The nightlong talks. We settled the -affairs of the world nicely in those days. Didn't we, old Otto?" - -"The--affairs--of--the--world--" - -"And old Mutter Schwegel coming in to put out the light. And then -standing there to hear what we had to say of life and of death." - -"Of--life--and--of--death." - -"And not being able to tear herself away to go to bed. She thought we -were wise, Otto. She used to drink in every word we said. And then she'd -scold us for staying up all night. Old Mutter Schwegel. I've thought of -her often--" - -Kurz made a movement toward him. - -"And of me, Charlie?--You had thought of me?" - -"I say, rather--! Many a time--when they called me back from the -university--even after I went out to France--I thought of you." - -His mind was muddled a bit. He put it down to the excitement of his -coming home. That uncertain feeling came over him again quite strongly. -But he had thought of Otto. He remembered he had thought of Otto a lot. - -"And what was it you thought of me, Charlie?" - -It came back to him that there had been one time when he had thought of -Otto particularly. That one time when something tremendous had happened -to him. He could not quite think what. He knew he had been glad when he -thought of Otto because he had been spared inflicting the thing on him. - -He could not get it clear. - -He avoided looking at Kurz. - -"Why--; why, I wondered what you were doing. All that sort of thing. You -know what I mean." - -"Yes. I know. I did go into the army, Charlie. It was that sort of thing -you meant, Charlie?" - -He felt himself start. - -"I was afraid you would do that;" he said involuntarily. - -"Yes. I, too, was afraid." - -Kurz's voice was low. - -"You? Afraid?" - -"Ach, Charlie!--You know it. The fear it was not for myself!" - -He walked over to the window. He stood there looking down at the huge -boxwood hedges looming in thick gray bulks up from the smudging reach of -the heavily matted shadows. - -He turned. - -"You funked meeting me--in--war?" - -"Ach!--God forbid!--That--I--should--meet--you--in--war--!" - -"I too;" he said it quickly. "I too was afraid that I should come upon -you. It haunted me--; that fear I might harm you. It stayed with me--; -day and night. I shouldn't want to hurt you, Otto. I--I prayed." It came -back to him how often he had prayed it. "I always prayed that it might -never be you!" - -"Yes--; I know." - -He went and stood close beside Kurz. He found himself staring at Kurz -intently. - -"But you're here;--in England. I say, did they make you a prisoner? -Could my people get parole for you?" - -"No. I do not think they do that here in your country. I -do--not--need--parole, Charlie." - -"I thought perhaps--" - -"No--!" - -"But how did you get here, then?" - -"Charlie--; Charlie!--ach!--will--you--not--then--wait?" - -"Come, come, old Otto. You've got something to tell me. If you don't -want to say how you got here, why, all right. Only, you'd best get it -off your mind. Whatever it is you'd better come out and say what you -came to say." - -Kurz slid back into the chair again. - -The room was still. Heavy with silence. - -"Yes. I'll tell you--if I can. Charlie, it is hard to say." - -He tried to help Kurz. - -"It's about this war of ours; that's it, isn't it?" - -"About the war? Yes--!" - -"Then tell me." - -He saw Kurz's massive shoulders jerking. - -"How--can--I--tell--you--? I do not think you understand. I do not -even know if it is what I think it is. I cannot reason it out to -myself. The power of reasoning has left me. I had no other knowledge -than my reasoning. I do not know. Now, I do not know where I -am--or--what--I--am--" - -The maddened urge of Kurz's words struck him. - -"You're here, old Otto;" he said it reassuringly. "Here with me. In my -room. In England. You're with me, Otto!" - -"Yes--with--you." And then beneath his breath he whispered: -"Where--are--you--?" - -He caught the smothered insistence of that last sentence. He smiled, -forcing his lips to smile. - -"Standing right in front of you, old man. Waiting for you to say what -you came to--" - -Kurz interrupted him. - -"I--had--to come. I felt that I must come. I--came, Charlie. I got -myself here, Charlie." - -"Quite right, Otto." - -"I want you to know first that I thought of you. That I was, as you say -you were, afraid I might in some way injure you. I want to tell you that -first." - -"Good old sentimental Otto!" - -"Sentimental?--Ach!--I am not sentimental. But I do not think you can -understand how much you were to me back there at the university. I do -not think you yourself knew how much you joyed in things. How happy your -kind of thought made you." - -He laughed. - -"I always managed to have a rather corking time of it," he admitted. - -"You loved everything so," Kurz went on. "At night when we talked it was -you who believed in what you said. It was you who saw so clearly how -well all things of life were meant. It was always I who questioned." - -"But, I say, old Otto, your mind was so quick; so brilliant. You could -pick flaws where I never knew they existed." - -"It was you who had so much of faith, Charlie." - -"How we did talk;" he said it to himself. "Talk and talk until old -Mutter Schwegel, who was so keen for us, grew tired of listening and -came and turned out the lamp." - -"And how you spoke ever of your beliefs," Kurz's voice was hoarse. "It -was so easy for you to know. You never questioned. You believed. It -ended there, with your belief. You were so near to what you thought. It -was a part of you. I--I stood away from all things and from myself. I -would tell you that the mind should reason. I stayed outside with my -criticism, while you--ach, Charlie!--How you did know!" - -"And how you laughed at me for that!" - -"But now, I do not laugh!" Kurz protested with wearied eagerness. "Now I -come to you. I ask you if you know those things--now?" - -"What things, Otto?" - -"The things of life. The things of death." - -"I know what I always knew," he said slowly. "I know that life is meant -to live fully and understandingly and that death is meant to live on; -fully and understandingly." - -"And--you--do--understand--_now_?" - -"I understand that always." - -"You would not be afraid?" - -"Of what?" - -"Of--death?" - -"No." - -He stared out of the window. - -The dense, opaque shadows pressing down on the garden. The shadows -hanging loose and thick on the high, boxwood hedges. The dark, smooth, -night sky. - -And suddenly a faint tremor ran through him from head to foot. He -pressed his face close to the glass. His hands went up screening a small -space for his eyes. - -In the still block of shadows, in the black mass of them, he had seen -something; something had moved against the quiet clumping shadows. - -"I say," he whispered. "There's some one coming up through the garden." - -"Yes--yes." - -They were silent for a long time. - -Once he looked at Kurz huddled in the armchair; his face white and -drawn; his eyes staring before him. - -He thought he heard footsteps coming softly up the stairs; footsteps -that came lightly and hesitated and then came on again. - -"Charlie--!" Kurz stammered. "Charlie--!" - -He felt that some one was standing in the open doorway. - -He turned. - -His eyes took in the well known figure. The sweet face with its red -cheeks and its framing white hair. The short body. The blue eyes that -were fixed on him. - -"Mutter Schwegel!" He shouted. - -Kurz leaped to his feet. - -"What!" - -He started for the door. - -"Mutter Schwegel, who would have thought of your coming here. It has -been a long time. I say!--But I am glad." - -"Stop--!" Kurz's voice thundered behind him. - -He wheeled to look at Kurz. - -Kurz's eyes were riveted on the woman standing in the doorway. - -"Aren't you glad to see Mutter Schwegel?" He asked. "When we've been -talking of her all night?" - -Kurz was muttering to himself. - -"Mutter--Schwegel--;" Kurz mumbled. "Mutter Schwegel--! -It--is--that--I--wanted--to--tell--you--about--Mutter Schwegel. -It--is--as--I--thought. -It--is--ach!--it--is--then--that--way--with--us--!" - -He felt that the woman was coming into the room. - -He turned and looked at her. - -"Mutter--Schwegel--is--dead;" Kurz stammered. - -He saw that the old woman smiled. - -"She--is--dead. Dead--!" Kurz mumbled. - -He smiled back at her. - -"Dead--;" Kurz's voice droned shaking. - -He saw the old woman go to the table. - -He and Kurz watched her take the lamp up in her hands. He and Kurz saw -her fingers fumbling at the wick. Kurz's quivering face stood out in the -lamplight. The old woman was smiling quietly. - -They saw her try to put out the light. - -The lamp still burned. - -"Mutter-Schwegel--is--dead--!" Kurz's voice quavered; and then it -screamed. "Dead--," he shrieked; "we--are--all--of--us--dead--!" - -That uncertain feeling came over him. And suddenly it went quite from -him. - - - - -HAUNTED - - -He lived quite alone in the stone built shanty perched on the highest -pinnacle of the great sun bleached chalk cliffs. All about him, as far -as the eye could reach, lay the flat, salt marshes with their dank, -yellowed grasses. Against the inland horizon three, gaunt, thin-foliaged -trees reared themselves from the monotonously even soil. Overhead the -cloud splotched blue gray sky, and below him the changing, motion -pulled, current swirling depths of the blue green sea. And at all times -of the day and the night, the wild whirring of the sea gulls' wings and -the uncanny inhuman piercing sound of their shrieking. - -He had lived there since that day when the fisherman had pulled him half -drowned out of the sea. He could never remember where he had come from, -or what had happened. All that he ever knew was that far out by the nets -in the early morning they had come upon him and had brought him in to -shore. Naturally, the fishermen had questioned him; but his vagueness, -his absolute lack of belief that he had ever been anything before they -had snatched him from the waters, had frightened them so that since that -day they had left him severely alone. Fishing folk have strange, -superstitious ideas about certain things. He had borne the full weight -of their credulous awe. Perhaps because he, himself, thought as they -thought. That he was something come from the sea, and of the sea, and -always belonging to the sea. - -He had built himself the stone shanty upon the highest pinnacle of those -waste grown chalk cliffs; and he had stayed on and on, year in and year -out, close there to the sea. - -In winter for a livelihood he made baskets from the reeds he had picked -in the swamps about him. In the summer he sold the vegetables he grew in -the tiny truck garden behind his house. Somehow he managed to eke out a -living. - -The fishing folk in the small village at the foot of the cliffs saw him -come and go along their narrow streets, morose and taciturn. He never -spoke to any of them unless he had to. They in their turn avoided him -with their habitual superstitious uneasiness. He went to and fro between -his shanty and the village store when the need arose. The rest of the -time he sat in front of his iron bolted door staring and staring down at -the sea. - -Daybreak and noon. Evening and night he sat there. - -When the sky above was tinged with the first streaking colors of the -dawn he watched the ghostly gray expanse of the ocean. When the sun was -high in the heavens he looked steadily at the light-flecked spotted -swells of the waves. When the shadows began to creep up from the earth -he stared at the greater blackness that swam in glistening undulating -darkness to him from across the water. And at night his eyes strained -through the fitful gloom at the pitchy, turbulent sea. - -It was like that in all kinds of weather. The spring tides, with their -quick changes from calm to storm, and the slender silver crescent of the -new moon hanging just above the horizon. The long summer laziness of the -green ocean with its later gigantic flame-red moons and the wide yellow -streak of phosphorescent light that streamed in moving ripples to him; -the chill, lashing spray in autumn. The foam-covered seething breadth of -it in winter when the blackness of the low night skies and the darkness -of the high tides were as one menacing roaring turmoil churning itself -into white spumed frenzy. It always held him. - -He was a man of one idea: The sea. He was a man who drew his life from -one source: The sea. It had taken his body and had tried to drown it; -the sea had for that short time caught and gripped his soul. The slimy, -wet touch of it was seared into him. - -It fascinated him; it kept him near it so that he could not have gotten -away from it, had he had the courage to want to get away. It kept him -there as though he belonged to it; as though it knew he belonged to it; -and knew that he knew it. And always and ever the sea haunted him. - -The fishing men coming home late at night across the water had grown -used to steering their course by the unreal light that trickled out to -them from the shanty on the top of the cliffs. And in the dawn when they -pushed their smacks off from the long, hard beach to sail out to the -nets, they knew that from the high precipices above them the man was -watching. - -And outwardly they laughed at him; even when in their hearts they feared -the thing they thought he was. - -They could not understand him. They, who made their living from the sea, -could not understand how he could be content to live the way he was -living. They could not have known that he would infinitely rather have -died than to have taken one thing from out the sea from which he had -already filched his soul. - -His enslavement by it had made him understand it a lot better than they -understood it. - -And so he lived the stupid, hypnotized life of one who is held so -enchained and cowed that he could not think for himself, or of himself. -Until that day when he first met Sally. - -It was a sunny day late in the autumn that he stood in front of the -weather beaten wooden hut of the village store, his arms filled with -baskets. And as he stood there, Sally Walsh came from the store and out -into the street. - -She had seen the man a hundred times but she had never seen him so -close. She stopped short and stared quite frankly at the bigness of him; -at the heavily matted hair clinging so damply to his forehead; and at -the white face so strange to her beside the sun-burned faces she had -always seen. It was when, quite suddenly, he looked at her and she saw -the odd blue green sea colored eyes of him, that she started to hurry -on. - -She had gotten half way down the street when he overtook her. - -"D'you want--anything of--me?" He asked it, his blue green eyes going -quickly over her slight form, her small face, and resting for a second -curiously upon her masses of coiled golden hair. - -"I--? why--no." - -"You sure?" - -"Sure." - -She went on her way again and he stood there watching her go; then he -turned abruptly and walked slowly back to the store. - -It was not so long after that when he met her for the second time. - -She was on her knees in the yard in front of her father's house mending -the tar-covered fishing nets with quick deft fingers. He stopped at the -gate. Feeling the intensity of his blue green eyes upon her, she looked -up and saw him. - -She got to her feet. - -"It's a nice morning." - -She spoke to him first. - -"Yes"; he said. - -"You live up there?" She pointed a bare browned arm up toward the sun -bleached chalk cliffs. "By yourself?" - -"Yes." - -"You ain't got a boat?" - -"No." - -"They say you don't ever fish. Why don't you, Mister?" - -"I--I ain't the one to fish." - -"Want to help me with these here nets?" - -"I--I can't do--that." - -"It ain't hard, Mister." - -"I--can't--do--it." - -"Come on in; I'll show you how." - -He opened the gate and went into the yard and then he stood there just -looking down at her. - -"I wouldn't touch--no--net--" - -Her brows drew together in a puzzled frown. - -"You mean you don't like fishing?" - -Somehow he did not want her to know. - -"I--ain't--the--one--to--take--no--sea-thing--away--from--the--sea." - -"Oh;" she said, not understanding. - -They were silent a moment. - -"You sell baskets?" She asked him. - -"D'you want one?" - -"Mebbe. Got a medium-sized one?" - -"Got a lot." - -"Mebbe--I--could--use--one." - -"I'd like mighty well to--to give you one, little girl." - -"Why, I ain't a little girl, Mister. I--I thought--I'd mebbe--buy--" - -He interrupted her. - -"You'll not buy one off of me. I'll bring you one--; if you like." - -"A medium-sized one." - -"I'll bring it to you--; to-morrow." - -"Thanks." - -"Good-by, little girl." - -"Good-by, Mister." - -At the end of the street he turned to look back. - -She was on her knees working at her mending of the nets again. She -looked very small kneeling there on the hard brown earth with the -straggling lines of squat weather darkened shanties trailing behind her -out onto the edge of the yellow sanded beach, and the clear unbroken -blue of the autumn skies above. She glanced up and then she waved her -hand at him. - -He went slowly along the narrow pathway that wound through the sharp -crevices of the chalk cliffs to the back of his own stone built shanty. - -That night he stood staring out at the sea. The moon was on the wane. It -hung very low in the sky so that the red-gold streak of it seemed to dip -into the water. A cold northeast wind lashed over the waves. Dark -swollen purplish clouds raced together in an angry mass. The sea itself -was black but for the tossing gigantic waves with their dead white -crests of spraying foam. The pounding of them on the beach below him -vibrated in his ears. The sea-gulls were flying heavily close to the -earth; their inhuman, piercing shrieking filling the air. - -The little girl had spoken to him. - -He turned from the sea then. He went into his shanty. He bolted the -great iron bolts of the door and braced himself against it as if he were -shutting something out; something that he feared; something that was -certain to come after him. He crouched there shivering and shuddering. -The pounding of the sea was in his ears. The wind that came from the -ocean whistled and wailed shrilly around and around the house. He leaned -there; his back to the door; his hands pressing stiff fingered against -it; his lips moving, mumbling dumbly. His eyes, the color of the sea, -stared blindly before him. The rumbling roar of the rising tide; the -thundering boom of it. And in the sudden lull of the wind the hiss of -the seething spray. - -The sea was angry. - -He thought with a kind of paralyzing terror that it was angry with him. -It was calling to him. The lashing of the big waves demanded him. The -sonorous drumming of it. He had never before denied its call. The -persistent thudding of it there at the base of the chalk cliffs. It was -insisting that he belonged to it. The inhuman piercing shrieks of the -circling sea-gulls mocked him. They knew that he belonged to the sea. -How could he even think of that golden haired little girl who had spoken -to him-- - -The sea was angry. - -He tore at the iron bolts and flinging the door wide open he rushed out -to the edge of the chalk cliffs. And as he stood there the clouds -dwindled in a vaporous haze away from the skies. The thin red-gold line -of the waning moon grew brighter. The sea lay foam flecked and calm -beneath the dark heavens. And at the base of the chalk cliffs the water -lapped and lapped with a strange insidious sound. - -And the next day he sat there in front of his shanty, his reeds in his -hands, his fingers busy with his basket weaving; making big baskets and -small baskets; and his eyes, blue green and strained, were fixed on the -tranquil blue green of the water below him. - -For two days he sat there in front of his iron bolted door that now -swung wide open on its rusty hinges. - -The third day he stood upon the edge of the precipice. - -It was a gray fog drenched day. The mist dripped all about him. The -opaque veil of it shut out everything in wet obliteration. He stood -quite still knowing that beneath its dank dribbling thickness, the sea -churned wildly in its rising tide. - -And standing there motionless he heard a voice calling through the quiet -denseness of the fog. A voice coming from a distance and muffled by the -mist. He started. It was her voice calling to him from the narrow -pathway that wound up the chalk cliffs to the back of his shanty. - -"Mister--oh, Mister." - -He reached his hand out in front of him trying to break the saturating -cover of the fog. He went stumbling unseeingly toward the rear of the -house. - -"Mister--oh, Mister." - -The rear of the shanty. His feet sank down into the turned soil of the -truck garden. He stood still. - -"Here." - -"Mister;" the voice of her was nearer. "Where are--you--?" - -He could not see in front of him. He felt that she was close. - -"Here;--little girl." - -He saw the faint outline of her shadow then through the obliterating -denseness of the mist. - -"Some fog; ain't it, Mister?" - -"Stay where--you are. There's the precipice." - -"I ain't afraid of no precipice." - -"Stay--where--you--are!" - -He could hear the dripping of the mist over the window ledges. And then -he thought he heard, smothered by the weight of the fog, the pounding of -the sea. - -"You surprised to see me? But you ain't able to see me. Are you?" - -"No." - -"You ain't surprised?" - -Down there at the base of the chalk cliffs the sea was still; waiting. - -"You--shouldn't--have--come." - -"Why--you don't mean;--you ain't trying to tell -me;--you--don't--want--me--here?" - -Great beads of moisture trickled down across his eyes. - -"Little girl--; I just said you shouldn't have come. Not up here in this -kind of weather." - -"Oh, the weather!" She laughed. "I ain't the one to mind the weather, -Mister." - -Again he reached his hand out in front of him in an effort to rend the -suffocating thickness of the fog. His fingers touched her arm and closed -over it. From below him came the repeated warning roar of the waves. - -"Can you find your way home--by yourself--little girl?" - -"I ain't going home, Mister;--not yet. I came up here to get that basket -you said you had for me; you know, the medium sized one." - -"I'll give it to you--now." - -Her hand caught at his hand that lay on her arm. Her fingers fastened -themselves around his and held tightly. He had never felt anything like -that. The touch of them was cool and fresh, like sea weed that had just -drifted in from the sea. - -And then from far off across the water came the shrill, piercing shriek -of a gull. - -He felt her start. - -"That's only a sea-gull, little girl." - -"I know, Mister. But don't it sound strange; almost as if it were the -sea itself; calling for something." - -For a second he could not speak. - -"Why--;" his voice was hoarse, "Why d'you say that?" - -"I don't know. Sometimes I get to feeling mighty queer about that water -out there." - -"You mean--; why--you ain't afraid of it, little girl, are you?" - -"Afraid? There ain't nothing that I'm afraid of, Mister. Why, I'd go -anywhere and not be afraid--" - -He repeated her words very slowly to himself. - -"You'd--go--anywhere--and--not--be--afraid--" - -He thought then that the fog was lifting. A sickly, yellowish glow -filtered through the heavy grayness. He could see her more distinctly. - -"There's only one thing about the sea, Mister, that'd scare me, and -that's--" - -She broke off abruptly. - -"What, little girl?" - -"Why, Mister; why, I can't hardly say it. But there's Pa and there's my -brother, Will. If anything ever happened--; if the sea ever did anything -to Pa or Will, why--I guess, Mister, I'd just die." - -"Don't!" He said quickly. "Don't you talk like that." - -For a second they were silent. - -The sun was breaking through the dwindling thickness of the mist. He -could see it lifting in a faint gray line, uncovering the reach of the -flat salt marshes with their dank yellowed grasses; a thin silver net of -it hung for a second between the sky and the earth, and was gone. - -From the base of the chalk cliffs came the sound of the sea lapping and -lapping with insistent cunning. - -She dropped his hand and she stood there looking up to him, scanning his -white face with those childlike eyes of hers. - -"You live up here because of the sea, Mister?" - -"Yes." - -"You ever feel the sea's something--alive, like you and me?" - -"You--feel--that--too?" - -"Yes," she said slowly, "and I knew you felt it, because the first time -I saw you--why--you're somehow--something like the sea." - -His hands clinched at his sides. His breath came in quick rasping gasps. - -"I'll get your basket," he muttered. - -He rushed into his one room shanty and caught up the basket nearest to -him and went out again to her. - -She took the basket from him in silence. She slipped the handle of it on -to her arm. Her hands rubbed against each other; the fingers of them -twining and intertwining. - -"I'll be going now, Mister." - -"Yes." - -"I've got to be getting home before Pa and Will go out to the nets." - -"Good-by, little girl." - -"Good-by, Mister; and--thanks." - -He stood there and watched her go from the back of his stone built -shanty down the narrow winding path that lay along the sun bleached -chalk cliffs. She went quickly and lightly down the steep incline, her -small slender figure in its blue print dress, with the sun bringing out -the burnished glints in her golden hair. His eyes strained after her. In -a short while he lost her from sight. - -He went back to his basket making then. - -And as he sat there, his fingers weaving and bending the supple reeds, -mechanically working them into shape, he tried to shut out all thought -of her; to feel as though she had never come to him; to rivet his -attention upon the insistent pounding of the sea that hurled itself -again and again at the base of the chalk cliffs; calling and calling to -him. - -After a while the early deep blue dusk of the twilight came. - -He got stiffly to his feet. - -The long moving shadows were quivering in fantastic purpled patterns on -the ground about him. Great daubs of them clung in the crevices of the -chalk cliffs. A mat of shadows crept over the flat salt marshes and -through the dank yellowed grasses. There was a sudden chill in the wind -that came to him from off the water. A flock of screeching sea-gulls -wildly beating their wings, rose from the cliffs and whirred out toward -the open sea, the uncanny piercing sound of their shrieking coming -deafeningly back to him. - -He stood there staring at the ocean, his head well back; his nostrils -dilated; his blue green eyes strangely wide. - -Far in the distance against the graying horizon he could see the choppy -white capped waves racing over the smooth dark water. Even as he looked -the sea began to rise in great swollen billows. The wind too was rising. -He could hear the distant cry of it. - -His heart began to thump wildly. He knew what was going to happen; just -as he always knew. He could feel what the sea was going to do. - -He stood there undecided. - -A quick picture came to him of the storm. - -He had seen it all before. He had stood there on the chalk cliffs and -watched it all: Watched the shattered broken logs; the swirling sucking -water. The sea had held him under its spell; had compelled him to -witness its maddened, infuriated stalking of its prey. - -Her people were out there. Her Pa and her Will. Why had she told him -that? Why had she said if anything ever happened to them she would die? -Why? - -He could just make out the stiff sticks of the nets reaching thin and -dark from the surface of the gray water against the lighter gray skies; -and the boats rowing toward them. The boats with the fishermen. He could -see the slender patches of them rising and falling with the waves, going -slowly to the nets. He could distinguish the small, dark shadows of the -men, rowing. They had pulled him out of the sea in that early morning; -he who was something come from the sea, and of the sea; and always -belonging to the sea. - -To--betray--the--sea-- - -The waves were racing in to the shore. The thumping, deafening boom of -them there at the base of the chalk cliffs below him. - -He tried to tear his eyes away from it. It held him as it ever held him. -It kept him there as though he belonged to it. As though it knew he -belonged to it; and knew that he knew it. A strange uneasiness arose -within him. Even before he was conscious of it, he felt that the sea had -sensed it. Its insistent angry pounding threatened him. - -She had said that she would die. - -Below him the swirling, churning sea. - -He turned then and went very slowly down the narrow, winding path that -led along the sun bleached chalk cliffs. Through the deep blue dusk of -the evening he went, and the gray blotched reach of the flat salt -marshes with their dank yellowed grasses lay all about him; and overhead -the cloud spotted, moving gray of the sky, and beneath him the raging -sea that called to him; and called. - -He never stopped until he came to the weather darkened shanty where she -lived. - -He paused then at the gate. - -A lighted lamp was in one of the windows on the ground floor. The soft -glow of it streamed in a long ladder of light out to him in the -darkness. - -He opened the gate and went haltingly across the yard, and after a -moment's hesitation he knocked at the door. - -At the far end of the street the sea thudded over the yellow sanded -beach; the pale stretch of it coming out of the grayness in a long white -line. - -She answered his knock. - -The light from the lamp swept through the open doorway. - -Something in his face terrified her; something that she had never before -seen in those blue green eyes, the color of the sea. - -"What is it? What's happened?" - -He stood there just looking down at her. - -"Oh, Mister, tell me; please--what is it?" - -Her two hands went up to her throat and caught tightly at her neck. - -"There's--a--storm--" - -She looked out into the quiet, darkening evening. - -"A storm?" - -"There's a bad storm--; coming." - -He could hardly say the words. - -She stared up at him; her childlike eyes were very wide. - -"Will it--be--soon--?" - -He never took his blue green eyes from off her face. - -"It's coming--quick." - -"They're out--Pa--and--Will." - -He said it very quietly then. - -"That's why I'm here." - -"How can we--get them--back?" - -"Oh, little girl;" he muttered. "Little girl--" - -"How, Mister; how?" - -"I'll get a boat." - -"There's Sam Wilkins' smack--down there at the wharf. We could take -that." - -"Then--I'll go--after them." - -They went from the door together down the street and out onto the back -patch of the wharf. Through the grayness they could see the boat rocking -on the water at the farther end. The wail of the rising wind; the -pounding of the sea; and close to them the muffled, bumping sound of the -smack thrown again and again at the long wooden piles of the wharf. - -For a second they stood quite still. - -"I'm going," he said. - -Her arms went suddenly up around his neck. Her lips brushed across his. -He felt her body shivering. He caught and held her to him; and then he -let her go and went quickly to the end of the wharf and pulled the boat -alongside and stepped into it. - -He looked up at her standing there against the gray sky. He could see -the white patches of her face and her hands and the pale mass of her -hair that the wind had loosened. And down through the draggling grayness -he distinctly saw her childlike eyes searching for his. - -Before he could stop her she was in the boat. - -"Get--back." - -"I'm going." - -"Quick--get--back." - -"I'm going--with--you." - -"You can't--; you don't know." - -"I'm not afraid. Honest--I'm--not." - -"You don't know what it means!" - -"I'm--not--afraid." - -"Little girl--I ain't going--if you go." - -"You've got--to--go." - -He repeated her words. - -"I've--got--to--go." - -"If you don't take me with you;" he had never heard her voice like -that--"I'll come out myself. You can't leave me--you can't!" - -The rain began then. Great drops of it fell into his face. The whining -of the wind was terrific. - -"You--don't know what it--means." - -"I do know;--oh, God,--I do." - -He caught up his oars then. - -He rowed with all his strength. The whole thing was so strange to him. -Her going. Their being out on the water. The rowing. - -The waves rose in tremendous black swells all about them. The rain and -the spray drenched them. The wind rocked the small boat. The whistling -wail of it; the lowering cloud sprawled pitchy sky. - -He pulled in silence until they came to the nets. - -She stood up in the boat and called; again and again her voice rose into -the wind. - -"Sit down!" He told her. - -A distant shout answered her. - -He bent to his oars then till he came to the cluster of smacks on the -other side of the nets. - -"Pa--;" she cried. - -"Sally--! What you doing here?" - -"Pa--; there's a storm." - -"I can see that." - -"Pa--come on back--to shore." - -"You get on back, Sally. It'll blow over." - -She turned to him then. - -"You tell him;" she said it desperately. "You--tell--him." - -He waited until he got just alongside of the fishing smack. - -"It's going to be--a--bad--one." - -He said it slowly. - -He thought then that the angry swirling of the sea became more -infuriated; that the swell of the waves was greater. Far in the distance -he heard the inhuman, piercing shriek of the sea-gulls. - -"Who's that there, Sally?" - -"It's--me." - -He saw that both of the men in the smack leaned toward him. - -"What?" - -"It's--it's--me." - -"You!" - -"Go on back, Pa;--Will, make him--go on back. Get the others to -go;--please--Pa;--please." - -For answer he heard the man's shout to the other boats about the nets. - -"Storm--lads;--make--for--shore." - -He saw a moment's hesitation in that cluster of fishing smacks and then -one by one he watched them pull away from the nets and row toward the -beach. - -He reached out his hand and caught hold of the other boat's gunwale. - -"Make--the little girl--go--back with--you." - -"Come on, Sally. Hop across there. Pa'll help you." - -"We'll follow you, Pa." - -"All right." - -"Tell--the--little girl--to go with you!" - -"With--me?" - -"Tell--her!" - -"You go on, Pa. We'll come right after you." - -He felt the boat at his side give a quick lurch. His hand slipped into -the water. He could feel the sea pulling at it. His own smack rocked -perilously for a second. And then he saw the girl's father and brother -rowing toward the beach. - -"What--what'd--you--do--that--for?" - -She did not answer him. - -A wave broke over the bow of his boat. - -In the darkness he could see her crawling on her hands and knees along -the bottom of the smack to him. He reached down and caught her up in his -arms. - -"Will they get back--safe?" She whispered it. - -"Yes." - -"Sure?" - -"They're there--now." - -And then the storm broke. The lightning flashed in zigzagging, blindly -flares across the dark of the sky. The thunder rumbled in clattering -crescendo. The sea tore and swirled and sucked. Wave after wave broke -over the small boat. She rocked and pitched and swivelled. The oars were -washed away. The rain and the wind stung them with their fury. The spray -cut into their faces. From far off came the uncanny, inhuman, piercing -sound of the sea-gulls' shrieking. - -He knew then that the time had come. - -He held her very close to him. - -He had filched his soul from the sea. He who was something come from the -sea, and of the sea; and always belonging to the sea. - -He had betrayed the sea. - -"Little girl." - -"I'm not--afraid." - -"Little girl." - -"I couldn't stay on--without you. I always knew--always--that some time -you'd--go--back." - -"You're not--scared?" - -"Just--hold--me--tight." - -The foam covered seething breadth of the water churning itself into -white spumed frenzy. The dark, lowering skies. The black deep pull of -the sea. - -"Tighter--" - - - - -FLOWERS - - -The night wind brought him the smell of flowers. - -For a moment he fought against the smothering oppression of the thing he -hated; for a second the same struggle against its stifling weight. - -His eyes closed with the brows above them drawn and tight. His teeth -caught savagely at his lower lip, gnawing at it until the blood came. -His hands, the fingers wide spread, the veins purple and standing out, -moved slowly and tensely to his throat. - -How he dreaded it! How he abominated the thing! How he loathed the -subtle, insidious fragrance! How he abhorred flowers--flowers! - -With a tremendous, forcing effort he opened his eyes. - -The same garden. The same sweeping reach of flowers. Flowers as far as -he could see. Gigantic blossoming clumps of rhododendron. Slender, -fragile lilies of the valley showing white and faint on the deep green -leaves. Violets somewhere. He got the sickeningly sweet scent of them. -Early roses growing riotously. He detested the perfume of roses. - -Overhead the darkening sky that held in the west the thin gray crescent -of the coming moon. - -And all through the garden the first dull blue shadows of evening. -Shadows that blurred around the shapes of flowers; shadows that spread -over the flowers, smearing out the spotting color of them until they -were a gloom-splotched, ghostly mass. Shadows that brought out in all -its pungent power the assailing, suffocating smell of the flowers. - -He stood there waiting. - -He could feel his heartbeats throbbing in his temples. His breath came -in long racking gasps. His one thought was to breathe regularly. -One--two--He tried to think of something other than his breathing. The -intangible odor of the flowers choked him with their stealthy cunning. - -It was always like this at first. He had always to contend silently and -with all his strength against this illusive, abominated thing poured out -to him by the flowers. - -His strangling intaking of breath. One--two-- - -Never in all his life had he been without his horror of flowers; never -until now had he known why he hated them. Lately he had begun to wonder -if they hated him. - -It would be better when she came. - -They were her flowers. Her flowers that took all her time; all her -thoughts; all her caring and affection. Her flowers that grew all about -her. Her flowers that held her away from him. He hated her flowers. - -One. Two. - -It would be quite all right when she was there. - -Her flowers would not harm her. - -And then he heard the soft, uneven rustling of her skirts. - -He looked up to see her walking toward him down the long lane of her -flowers. Through the drenching grayness he could see that she wore the -same light dress that made her tall and clung to her in folds so that -her figure seemed to bend. He could distinguish the heavy shadowy mass -of her uncovered hair. Her eyes, set far apart and dark, fixed -themselves on him. A quick light flooded into them. In the dusk he saw -that her hands were clasped together and that they were filled with -lilies. - -"Throw them away," he said when she stood beside him. - -"They're so pretty," she told him, staring down at the lilies. "You'll -let me keep these; just this once?" - -"Throw them away," he repeated. "I can't stand the sight of them. You -know that. Why must you go on picking the things and picking them?" - -She shrugged her shoulders. Her eyes left his face. - -"I love them," she said simply. - -"Love?" He laughed. "How can you love flowers?" - -"Oh, but I can." - -"Well, I can't!" He had been wanting her to know that for a long while. - -"Why not?" She asked him. - -He could not bring himself to tell her why not. - -"Throw them away!" - -She let the lilies sift through her fingers one by one. And then the -last fell to the ground. - -"Are you satisfied?" - -"No," he said. "What good does it do, anyway? The next time it'll be the -same again. It always is." - -She reached out a hand and touched his arm. - -"But I never know when you're coming. If I knew I wouldn't be picking -flowers. I can't help having them in my hands when you come, if I don't -know, can I?" - -"It isn't that." - -He covered her hand lying on his arm with his hand. - -"What is it, then?" - -She pulled her fingers from under his and drew away a bit. - -He made up his mind to try and tell her. - -"It's the flowers. I should have told you long ago. Even at the -beginning when we first--When I first came here, I--" - -She interrupted him. - -"When was that? How long ago?" - -"How can I tell? Ages ago." - -"It does seem;" she said it slowly. "It does seem as if you had always -come here. I can't remember the time when you didn't come. It's strange, -isn't it? Because, you know, there was a time when you weren't here. -That was when I began with the flowers." - -"I wish you'd never begun," he muttered. "That's what I've got to say to -you. I hate flowers. I've always hated them! I never quite knew why till -I came here and found you loving them so much. You never think of -anything, or talk of anything but your flowers. If you must know, that's -why I hate them!" - -"How silly of you!" - -He thought she smiled. - -"It's not," he said. "There's nothing silly about it. I'd like to have -you think of other things. There're plenty of other things. I want you -to think of them. I--want--" - -He broke off abruptly. - -"What do you want?" - -"I--I--want--you--I can't say it!" - -For a little while they were silent. It grew darker. The shadows that -lay along the ground moved upward through the bushes of rhododendron. He -watched the fantastic mesh of them shifting there. The gray of the -crescent moon grew faintly yellow. His eyes roved over the shadow -splashed reach of flowers. The heavy odor of them sickened him. - -"If only you'd try to like them!" She said it wistfully. - -"It's no use. I couldn't." - -"If you worked among them the way I work, perhaps you could." - -"I tell you I couldn't!" - -"But they're so lovely." Her hand went out and touched a rose. "It's -taken me years to perfect this one. You can't see in this light. But -during the day--; why don't you ever come here during the day?" - -"I don't know," he told her quite truthfully. - -"During the day," she went on, "you ought to see it. It's yellow; almost -gold. And its center--That's quite, quite pink with the very middle bit -almost scarlet. I love this rose." - -He thought then that he could smell the particular fragrance of the one -rose permeating subtly through the odor of all those other flowers. She -loved that yellow and gold and scarlet rose. - -"Good heavens," he said, "do stop telling me how much you love your -flowers!" - -"If you were with them all the time--" - -He did not let her finish. - -"That's all you do, isn't it? Just care for your flowers all day long?" - -"Why, yes." She was surprised. "Of course it's all I do. It's all I care -about doing. It takes every minute of my time. You know that, don't -you?" - -"Yes, I know it." His tone was gruff. - -"Then why do you always talk about it like this?" She asked him. "I've -done it for years. Ever since I can remember. It's hard work, but I like -doing it. I don't think you know how alone I've always been. I'm afraid -you don't realize that. Not really, anyway. I've just never had anything -to care about until I started in with the flowers. I don't know if I -ought to tell you--" - -She stopped speaking quite suddenly. - -"What?" - -"I don't think you'd like to know what I was going to say." - -"Tell me," he insisted. - -"Well." She spoke slowly. "Sometimes I feel as though--It's so hard to -say. But sometimes I feel as if the flowers know how much I care -and--and as if they care too." - -"Why d'you say that?" - -"I don't quite know. Only they're living things; they are, aren't they?" - -"I suppose they are; but that's no reason for you to encourage yourself -in all those queer ideas about them." - -"Queer ideas?" - -"You know the sort of thing I mean." - -"I don't. What sort?" - -He thought then that her voice had a hurt sound drifting through it. - -"Loving them. For one thing." - -"But what can I do? What else have I to love? I've just told you how -much alone I am. All the time, really. The flowers are the only things I -have. I've just told you that." - -He waited a second. - -"You have me," he said. - -"You? But you hardly ever come. I'm so lonesome. You can't know what -that means. I am lonely. And you--Why, sometimes I think you're not -real. Not--even--real--" - -"Don't! For God's sake don't say that!" - -"I can't help it! I tell you, I can't. It's all right now. It's always -all right when you're here. But after you go--Nothing is real to me; -nothing but the flowers. And you don't want me to care for them. You -keep saying you hate them. They're all I've got. Won't you--can't you -see that?" - -"But--if--I--come--here--to--stay?" - -"To--stay?" - -"Would you want me here?" - -He saw her hands move upward until they lay in two white spots on her -breast. - -"Want you?--If--only--you--knew--" - -He waited a moment before he said it. - -"And you--could--love--me?" - -"I've always loved you." - -She spoke in a whisper. - -"I'll find a way." He told her. "There must be a way." - -"But how? How?" - -"I don't know. I never thought about it before. I never knew you cared. -I thought it was just the flowers. Nothing but the flowers. I hate the -flowers. The feel of them--the sight of them--the smell of them. I -couldn't ever come here without being suffocated. I was jealous of them; -fearfully jealous." - -"And--I--thought." Her voice was low. -"I--thought--that--because--I--feel--they--love--me;--because--I -love--them;--somehow--they--brought--you--here." - -"And when I come--" - -"When?" - -Her voice itself trailed to a whisper. - -"I will come to you! I--will!" - -"How--can--you--find--me?" - -"Somehow--I will!" - -"If--only--you--could. I am lonely. Terribly--lonely. -If--it--would--be--soon." - -"It--must--be--soon." - -"I'll--wait--for you--always. But--if you are--real--you'll--come--soon. -It's lonely--waiting. And--I--don't--even--know--if--you--are. -I--don't--even--know." - -The Reverend William Cruthers started from his chair. - -Some one had banged the window closed. Some one had lit the lamp on the -center table. Its yellow light trickled through the room and over the -scant old fashioned furniture and crept upwards across the booklined -walls. - -The room was stuffy and close. The smell of flowers had gone. - -"Billy!" - -He turned to see his sister rushing across the room to him. He stooped a -bit and caught her in his arms. - -"Why, Gina. I didn't know. Why didn't you write and tell me? Who brought -you up from the station?" - -The girl kissed him hastily and enthusiastically on either cheek. - -"A nice welcome home!" She laughed breathlessly. "I was just about to -make a graceful and silent exit." - -"But, Gina, I didn't know." - -"Of course you didn't know. You couldn't. I wouldn't write. I wanted to -surprise you. Aren't you surprised, Billy?" - -"Awfully," he conceded. - -"Awfully?" - -Her brows puckered. - -"Very much so, I mean." - -"You never do know just what you do mean. Do you, William?" - -"Naturally, I do." - -"It wouldn't be natural for you if you did." - -The girl slid away from him and went and perched herself comfortably on -the arm of the chair in which he had been sitting. Her hands were busy -with her hatpins and her eyes that peered up at him were filled with -laughter. - -"How did you get up from the station, Gina?" - -"Oh, such a lovely way, Billy! And so very energetic for me. I walked. -Now, what do you know about that?" - -He frowned a bit. - -"Very good for you, I don't doubt." He said it stiffly. "After all the -motoring you must have done with those friends of yours!" - -She had gotten her hat off. She sat dangling it by the brim. The -lamplight streaked over her hair. - -"Now, don't be nasty, William. And whatever you do, don't speak to me -as if I were a congregation. The Trents are perfectly lovely people, -even if they are terribly rich and not very Christian. And--and Georgie -Trent is a sweet boy; and," she added it hastily. "Wood Mills is a duck -of a place!" - -He thrust his hands into his coat pockets. - -"I never said it wasn't, Gina." - -She paid no attention to him. Her legs were crossed. Her one foot was -swinging to and fro. Her eyes were fixed speculatively on the foot. - -"And you ought to be very glad to have me here again. Suppose I'd -listened to Georgie and married him right off, instead of coming back -here. A nice fix you'd have been in. You know perfectly well no one in -all the world does for you as nicely as I do. You know that, don't you?" - -He smiled down at her. - -"To be sure I do." - -"As a matter of fact," she went on. "When I came in here you were half, -if not altogether, asleep in this chair." - -"I wasn't asleep, Gina." - -"Oh, that's what you always say. But I banged in and you didn't hear me. -I lighted the lamp and you didn't seem particularly conscious of it. And -the window. The window was wide open. I closed that for you. The wind -was bringing in just yards of those flower smells you hate so." - -"Was it, Gina?" - -"Huh--huh." - -"You smelled them, then?" - -His tone was strangely quiet. - -"Of course I did. Come and sit here, Billy." She wiggled herself into a -more comfortable position on the arm of the chair. "And tell your -onliest sister how much you love her." - -He went and sat beside her in the chair. He put his arm about her waist. - -"You're a dear child, Gina." - -"I know it!" She snuggled close to him. "And I've had the most divine -time, Billy. Wood Mills is a glorious place. There wasn't an awful lot -to do; but whatever we did was great fun." - -"You'd have a good time anywhere, little sister." - -"Would I?" - -Her eyes wavered about the room a bit hungrily. - -Something in her voice pulled his eyes up to her face. - -"Gina, what is it?" - -"Nothing, Billy." - -She felt his fingers tighten at her side. - -"Aren't you happy here, Gina?" - -"Of course I am, Billy!" Her head was thrown back so that the long line -of her throat showed in its firm molded whiteness. "Only, Billy, I -want--I don't think I even know what I want. Only just sometimes I feel -it. A want--that--perhaps--isn't--even--mine. It's for something;--well, -for something that doesn't feel here." - -He stroked her hand. - -"It's lonesome for you, Gina." - -"No, it isn't that. It's just; oh, I guess it's just that I worry about -you." - -"Me, Gina?" - -"Yes, Billy. Sometimes you look so--so starved. That's what makes me -think it's your want I feel--; yours that you want very -much--and--and--Billy, that you can't get hold of." - -"No, Gina! No!" - -She pressed her cheek against his. - -"Oh, Billy." She spoke quickly. "There was one place out there at Wood -Mills. You wouldn't have liked it. But it was too wonderful!" - -He drew a deep breath of relief at the sudden change in her voice. - -"What was it, Gina? Why wouldn't I have liked it?" - -She fidgeted a bit. - -"Why? Oh--because." - -"Because what, Gina?" - -"It was just one big estate, Billy. A girl owns it. She's an orphan. -She's very beautiful. She lives there all by herself except for a couple -of old servants. Claire Trent and I saw her once or twice when we rode -through the place. Claire says she's sort of queer. She doesn't bother -about people. She doesn't like them, Claire says. She spends all her -time around the place." - -"That sounds very strenuous, Gina." - -"Oh, it isn't, Billy. It's lovely. The estate is." - -"I've heard the places there are pretty." - -"Pretty! But this one, Billy;" in her enthusiasm she leaned eagerly -forward. "You couldn't imagine it! There are miles and miles. And the -whole thing; Claire says the whole year round; it's just one big mass of -flowers." - -In spite of himself he pulled his arm away from the girl's waist. - -"Oh, is it?" - -"Billy, I know you don't like flowers. But this! You've never seen -anything like this!" - -"There're probably lots and lots of places like it, little sister." - -"Oh, no!" Her tone was vehement. "There couldn't be. Not such a garden! -All rhododendrons and lilies of the valley--; is anything wrong, Billy?" - -"Nothing. Those flowers grow in all gardens at this time of the year." - -She stared into his blanched face and her brows drew together in a -puzzled frown. - -"Not like this, Billy. Really. I've never seen such rhododendrons or -such lilies. And the violets and roses!" - -He got to his feet suddenly. - -"What?" He asked hoarsely. "What flowers did you say?" - -"Why, rhododendrons--and lilies,--and--lilies. What is it, Billy?" - -"Go on, Gina. Go on!" - -"Billy!" - -"Lilies of the valley and violets, Gina--" - -"And roses;" she finished mechanically. - -"What kind of roses, Gina?" - -The puzzled frown left her face. - -"Glorious roses, Billy." She was enthusiastic again. "There've never -been roses like these. Why, there's one kind of a rose. It's known all -over now. It took her years and years to grow it." - -"What sort of a rose, Gina? What sort did you say?" - -"I didn't say, Billy. I don't even know the name of it. But it's a -yellow rose; almost gold. And its center is pink and--and scarlet." - -For a moment they were silent. - -"Did you see this--this woman, Gina--often?" - -"Oh, once or twice, Billy." - -"When, Gina?" - -"In the evenings; each time." - -"Where was she, Gina?" - -"Why, how strange you are, Billy." - -"Where, Gina? Tell me, d'you hear--tell me--where?" - -"In her garden, Billy. What's there to get so excited about?" - -He fought for his control then. - -"I'd like to know, Gina--where you saw her and--and--" - -The girl interrupted him. - -"I saw her in the evenings--in her garden. She used to walk -down--well--it looked like a long lane of flowers. To be exact, Billy, -it was always in the evening and kind of gray. So I couldn't see very -much except that she wore a light clingy sort of dress." - -She stopped for a second. - -"Yes, Gina?" - -His voice was more quiet now. - -"I told you she was a bit queer, didn't I?" - -"Queer? God! she--was--lonesome--Gina!" - -"Yes," the girl caught at his last words. "I'll bet she was lonesome. -Any one would be, living like that. That's what makes her queer I guess. -I saw her both times with my own eyes come down the garden with her -hands full of flowers. Both times I saw her stand quite still. And then -Claire and I would see her drop her flowers to the ground. That was the -funny part. She didn't throw them away. It wasn't that, you know." - -"No, Gina." - -"She'd, well, she'd drop them. One by one. As if--" - -"As if what, Gina?" - -"Oh, as if she were being made to do it." - -He went to his knees then. He buried his head in the girl's lap. - -She leaned anxiously forward, her hand smoothing his hair. - -"Billy--Billy, dear--aren't you well? Billy, tell me." - -He could not bring himself to speak. - -"Billy, is this what you do when I come home to you? Shame on you, -Billy! Why--why, Billy, aren't you glad to have me here? Say, aren't -you?" - -"Thank God!" He whispered. "Thank God!" - -He got to his feet then. - -The girl rose from her chair and clung to him. - -"I've never seen you like this, Billy." - -"Listen, Gina;" his voice was low. "When you go upstairs to take off -your things, pack my grip, little sister. I'm going away." - -"Away, Billy?" - -"Yes, Gina." - -"But where, Billy?" - -"To a place where I've wanted to go for a very long--long time, little -sister." - -"But, Billy--" - -"Will you do that for me? Now, Gina? I--I--want to--leave." - -"When, Billy?" - -"As--soon--as--I can, Gina. It--must--be--soon." - -The girl went out of the room very quietly. - -He crossed over to the window and threw it open. - -Darkness as far as he could see. Darkness in which were smudged lighter -things without shape. Somewhere in the distance the feathery ends of -branches brushed their leaves to and fro against the sky. - -He knew that the wind was stirring. - -He looked up at the heavens. Gray and dark save where the thin crescent -moon held its haunting yellow light that was slurred over by drifting -clouds and then held again. - -He could see the wind driving the clouds. - -The swish of the wind out there going through those smudged lighter -things without shape. - -He leaned far over the sill. - -And suddenly the night wind brought him the smell of flowers. - -Gradually the odor of the flowers blending subtly and faint at first, -grew more distinct; heavier. - -He stood there smiling. - -Flowers-- - -Her--flowers-- - -"I'm coming;" he whispered. "I'm--coming--to--you--now--dear--" - - - - -THE SHADOW - - -He was colossally vain. - -He lived with his wife Ellen, in the small house on Peach Tree Road. - -There was nothing pretentious about the house; there were any number of -similar houses along the line of Peach Tree Road. For that matter the -house was the kind planted innumerable times in the numerous suburbs of -the large city. Still, it was his house. His own. That meant a lot to -him whenever he thought of it; and he thought of it often enough. He -liked to feel the thing actually belonged to him. It emphasized his -being to himself. - -The house was a two-storied affair built of wood and white washed. A -green mansard roof came down over the small green shuttered upper -windows. On the lower floor the windows were somewhat larger with the -same solid wooden green shutters. A gravel path led up to the front -door. Two drooping willow trees stood on either side of the wicker gate. - -Before the time when his aunt had died and had left him the house he had -not been particularly successful. At the age of forty-one he had found -himself a hard-working journalist and nothing more. He had had no -ambition to ever be anything else. He was at all times so utterly -confident that the work he was doing was quite right; chiefly because it -was the work that he was doing. No man had a more unbounded faith in -himself. At that time he had not been conscious of his lack of success. -Now, of course, he looked back on it all as a period of development; -something which had prepared him for this that was even then destined to -come. - -He told himself that in this small house, away from the surrounding -clatter and nuisances of the city, he had found time to write; to be -himself; to really express what he knew himself to be. - -He had become tremendously well known in that space of six years. No one -ever doubted the genius of Jasper Wald. He wrote as a man writes who is -actually inspired. His books were read with interest and surprisingly -favorable comment. There was something different; something singularly -appealing in all of Jasper Wald's works. - -At that time his conceit was inordinate. It extended to a sort of -personal, physical vanity. In itself that was grotesque. There was -absolutely nothing attractive in the loosely jointed, stoop-shouldered -body of him; or for that matter in the narrow head covered with sparse -blond gray hair. The eyes of him were of rather a washed blue and bulged -a bit from out their sockets; the nose was a singularly squat affair, at -the same time too long. The mouth was unpleasantly small with lips so -colorless and thin that the line of it was like some weird mark. Yet he -was vain of his appearance. But then his egoism was the keynote of his -entire being. - -Some people could not forgive it in him; even when they acknowledged him -as a writer and praised his work. The man in literature was spoken of as -a mystic, a poet, a possessor of subtlety that was close to genius. In -actual life, Jasper Wald was an out and out materialist. - -As for his wife, Ellen: - -She was rather a tall woman; thin but not ungraceful. Her features were -good, very regular, still somewhat nondescript. All but her eyes. Her -eyes were strange; green in color, and so heavily lidded that one could -rarely see the expression of them. Then, too, she had an odd manner of -moving. There never seemed to be any effort or any abruptness in -whatever she did. Even her walk was sinuous. - -He had married her when they both were young. Through his persistent -habit of ignoring her she had been dwarfed into a nonentity. To have -looked at the woman one would have said that hers was a distinctive -personality unbelievably suppressed. It would not have been possible for -any one living with Jasper Wald to have asserted himself. Perhaps she -had learned that years before. Certainly his was the character which -predominated; domineered through the encouragement of his own egoism. - -Her attitude toward him was perpetually one of self-effacement. She -stood for his conceit in a peculiarly passive way. If it ever irritated -her she gave no sign. And he kept right on with his semi-indulgent -manner of patronizing her stupidity. That is, when he noticed her at -all. - -She was essential to him in so far as she supplied all of his physical -wants. Those in themselves were of great importance to Jasper Wald. -There was no companionship between them. Jasper Wald could never have -indulged in companionship of any kind. He had put himself far beyond -that. To his way of thinking he was a super being who had no need -whatever for the rest of man. He was all self-sufficient. - -If there had ever been love between them in those days when they had -first come together they had both of them completely lost sight of it. -He in his complacent conceit; she in her monotonous negation. - -And as time went on, and as his work became greater Jasper Wald grew -even further away from the sort of thing he wrote; so that it was more -than ever difficult for those who knew him to disassociate him from his -writings. There was always the temptation to try to find some of his -literary idealism in himself; to find some of his prosaic realism in his -works. - -On one occasion Delafield, his publisher, came to him; to the house on -Peach Tree Road. It was a peculiarity of Jasper Wald's to persistently -refuse any request to leave his home. It was the one thing about which -he was superstitious. He had never by word or thought attributed his -success to anyone or anything outside of himself. He had made his name -in this house and he would not leave it. - -Delafield's visit came at a time just after Jasper Wald's last book had -been published. - -Sitting in the square, simply furnished living room, Delafield for all -his enthusiasm for the author had felt a certain inexplicable disgust. - -"It's great, Wald; there's genius to it. We'll have it run through its -second edition a week after we put it on the market." - -"I don't doubt that;" Jasper Wald's tone was matter-of-fact in his -confidence. "Not for a moment." - -Delafield bit off the end of his cigar. - -"When will your next one be ready?" - -He asked it abruptly. - -"Oh, I don't know," Jasper Wald had pulled leisurely at his pipe. -"Whenever I make up my mind to it, I suppose. It's going to be the -biggest thing I've tackled yet, Delafield." - -"Well--" Delafield got up to go. "It can't be too soon. You'll have a -barrel of money before you get done. Genius doesn't usually pay that -way, either. But--;" he could not help himself. "You've got the knack of -the thing. Heaven knows where you get it; but it's the knowledge we all -need that comes from--" - -He broke off quite suddenly as Ellen Wald came into the room. - -"I didn't know;" she said uncertainly. "I thought you were alone." - -"My wife, Delafield." Jasper Wald made the introduction impatiently. -"Ellen, this is Mr. Delafield, who publishes my books." - -She came toward them and held out her hand to Delafield. He could not -help but noticing her odd manner of moving. - -"Good evening," she said. - -Delafield had not known that Jasper Wald was married. It was almost -impossible for him to imagine anyone living with this man. He looked at -the woman curiously. He had the feeling that her individuality had been -stultified. It did not surprise him. Jasper Wald could have accomplished -that. It would have been difficult to have matched him with as -flagrantly material a person as he himself was. Only that sort of person -would have stood a chance with him. Any other would have had to fall -flat. She had fallen flat. Delafield knew that the moment he looked at -her. - -"Why, I didn't know;" Delafield took her hand in his. "You never told -me, Wald, that you were married." - -"Didn't I? No, of course not.--But, about the new book, Delafield." - -Delafield dropped her hand. He had never felt anything quite as inert as -that hand. It impressed the nondescript quality of her upon him even -more strongly than had her appearance. - -"Your husband has promised me another book, Mrs. Wald." He spoke slowly. -He felt he had to speak that way or she would not understand him. "Your -husband is a great author, Mrs. Wald." - -"Yes." - -"Why don't you say, genius, Delafield, and be done with it? Why don't -you make a clean breast of it with--genius?" - -"I've got to be going." - -Delafield felt a strange irritation. The man was a fool. For what reason -under the sun could this woman with those half closed eyes let herself -be dominated by him? The two of them got on his nerves. - -"Won't you stay to dinner?" - -Jasper Wald was obviously anxious for a chance to speak of himself. - -"Sorry, Wald. I've got to be getting on." - -Delafield still watched the woman. She stood there quite silent. - -"I thought you might have something to say about that book of mine." - -"No--There's nothing more." Delafield started for the door. "I've just -told you that it's full of the sort of knowledge all of us are in need -of. I can't say more, you know. I suppose that knowledge is what -constitutes genius; but--" He was staring now full into those bulging -blue eyes--"Lord, man, where, where d'you get it from?" - -Glancing at the woman, Delafield saw that she was looking straight at -him. Her eyes met his in a way which he was completely at a loss to -explain. There was something eerie about it. - -"Where does he get it?" - -She repeated his question stupidly and once again the heavy lids came -down over those strange green eyes, hiding all expression. - -Jasper Wald drew in his breath. - -"I write it," he said. - -After that Delafield left them both severely alone. The woman puzzled -him. He could not tolerate the man, Jasper Wald, and he could not for -worlds have the genius of Jasper Wald hurt or slighted in any way. He -knew how big it was. It often left him breathless. But the man; he would -have liked to have hit him that day in the living room in the house on -Peach Tree Road; to have kicked him into some sort of a realization as -to what an utter little rat he was. - -And so, because of his physical make-up, people stayed away from Jasper -Wald. Not that he avoided people; not that he wanted to live the life of -a recluse. He never made any attempt to conceal his living from the -general public. He was too much of the egoist to attempt concealment of -any kind. So his life was known to any man, woman or child who cared for -the knowledge. His life of narrow selfishness, of tranquil complacency; -of colossal conceit. And of genius. - -He always wrote in the evenings, did Jasper Wald. And often he would -keep at his writing well on into the morning. - -He liked to sit there in the square, old-fashioned living room with its -wide window that gave out upon Peach Tree Road. - -When he had first moved into the house as an obscure, hard-working -journalist he had placed the desk against the window ledge so that he -could look directly out of the window without moving. And he had kept -the desk there. He was just a bit insistent about it. Then, too, he -liked the blind up so that he could stare out into the evening and at -the house opposite. - -For all his impossible vanity there must have been imbedded deep down in -the small, hard soul of the man some excessive, frantic hunger of -self-recognition by others. A potential desire to accomplish an -assertion of self that could in no way be denied; a fundamental energy -which had in some way made possible the work, but which he could never -admit for fear that it might evade the importance of himself. - -The house opposite interested him tremendously. Sitting there in an -abstract fit of musing, he watched it as one subconsciously watches a -place that has one's attention. - -To all outward appearances the house across the way was heavily boarded -up and closed. It had always been closed since the time that Jasper Wald -had come to live in Peach Tree Road. Yet every evening in the window -directly facing his he had seen the shadow of a man moving to and fro; -to and fro, beyond the drawn blind. He would sit there watching the -dark, undefined shadow until he felt that he had to work, and then the -whole thing would slip from his mind until the following evening when he -would again be at his desk. - -Strangely enough he had never mentioned the presence of the shadow to -anyone. There was about it a certain mysterious unreality. That much he, -Jasper Wald, was capable of knowing. It was the one thing outside of -himself that gripped at his intelligence. - -During all those six years he had waited at his desk each night for the -coming of the shadow. And when it came he had started to work. He never -explained the thing to himself. He never thought he had to explain -anything to his own understanding. Had he tried, he would have been -utterly at a loss for an explanation. So Jasper Wald had come to look -upon the shadow as a sign of luck; a superstition-fostered thing that -epitomized his genius to himself. - -Naturally it had not always been that way. The first time that Jasper -Wald had felt the shadow he had experienced an uncanny sense of terror. -That had been before he had really seen it. - -He had been standing there beside the window just after he and Ellen had -moved into their home, looking out at the closed house opposite. He had -felt a queer oppression which he readily interpreted as the vibration of -his new environment. When the thing had persisted he had become a bit -uneasy. The sense of oppression so utterly unknown to him had changed to -one which grew upon him; as if he were being forced out of himself in -some uncanny manner. - -There was about it all a curious sensation of remoteness of self and at -the same time a weird consciousness of the haunting permeation of -something invisible and dynamic. - -He never thought back to that evening without a positive horror. The -whole thing was so completely alien to him. - -It had been with a great sense of relief that he had, finally, been able -to see and to rivet his attention upon the shadow there against the -blind of the house opposite. He had clinched his thought onto it. And -the other thing had left him; had lessened in its maddening oppression. - -That evening he had started to write. He had felt that writing was a -thing he had to do. It was entirely because of his first fear that he -kept the knowledge of the shadow to himself. - -Cock sure as he was of himself, thoroughly certain of his genius, and -inordinately vain of his success, there was one thing about it all that -Jasper Wald could not quite make out. Not for worlds would he have -admitted it. Still there was the one thing. And the one thing was that -Jasper Wald could not understand the kind of thought behind what he -himself wrote. - -It was late one summer evening that Jasper Wald sat at his desk in the -square living room; his pen was in his hand; a pile of blank paper made -a white patch on the dark wood before him. His blue eyes that bulged a -bit looked out into the graying half light. The green of the lawn was -matted with dark shadows. A mist of shadows were pressed into the faint -lined leaves of the two drooping willow trees on either side of the -wicker gate. An unreal light held in the sky. - -His eyes were fixed on the one window of the house opposite. With his -pen in his hand, Jasper Wald waited. - -From somewhere in the house came the chimes of a clock striking the half -hour. - -Starting from his chair, Jasper Wald went to the side of the desk and -leaned far out of the window. A wave of heat came up to him from the -earth. His eyes stared intently at the window opposite. - -The door behind him was thrown open. He turned to see Ellen's tall, not -ungraceful, figure standing in the doorway. Her two hands grasped the -bowl of a lighted lamp. - -"I don't need that." - -Jasper Wald told it to her impatiently. - -She came a step into the room. - -"It's dark in here, Jasper." - -"But I don't need any more light, Ellen. I don't need it, I tell you!" - -"It's dark in here, Jasper." - -"All right, then; put the thing down. I can't take up my time arguing -with you. How can a man write in a place like this, anyway? Have you no -consideration? Must I always be disturbed? Have you no respect for -genius?" - -She came a step further toward the center of the room. - -"Genius,--Jasper?" - -"My genius, Ellen. Mine." - -He watched her cross the room with that odd, sinuous moving of hers and -place the lamp in the center of his desk. And then he saw her go to a -chair within its light and, sitting down, pick up some sewing which she -had left there. - -He went back and sat at his desk. - -He had made up his mind that this new book of his would be something -big; something bigger than he had ever done before. He wanted to write a -stupendous thing. - -He caught up his pen and dipped it in the ink. - -She startled him with a quick cough. - -"Can't you be still?" He turned toward her. "You know I can't write if -I'm bothered. You don't have to sit in here if you're going to cough -your head off. There're plenty of other rooms in the house." - -She half rose from her chair. - -"D'you want me to go?" - -"Oh, sit there," he muttered irritably. "Only, for heaven's sake be -still!" - -"Yes, Jasper." - -All of his books had brought him fame; but this one; this one would -bring him fame with something else. This book would be the great work -that would show to people the staggering power of one man's mind; his -mind. - -His eyes that stared at the window of the house opposite came back to be -pile of blank paper which made a white patch on the dark wood before -him. - -Without any definite idea he began to write. A word. A sentence. A -paragraph. - -He tore the thing up without stopping to read it. - -Ellen's dull-toned voice came to him through the stillness of the room. - -"Anything wrong, Jasper?" - -"Wrong? What should be wrong?" - -"I don't know." - -He began to write again. - -He looked out of his window at the window of the house opposite. - -He went on with his writing till he had covered the whole page. Again he -tore the paper up and threw it from him. - -"I'm going, Jasper." - -He turned to see her standing in the center of the room, her heavily -lidded eyes fixed on the floor. - -"I told you you could stay here!" - -"I'd best be going, Jasper." - -"Sit down, over there; and do be still." - -"I seem to bother you. You haven't started to write. Is it because I'm -here, Jasper?" - -"You!" He snorted contemptuously. "What've you got to do with it?" - -"I don't know," she said quietly, and she went back to her chair. - -Again his eyes were fixed on that one window. He leaned forward quickly. -His hands gripped the chair's arms on either side of him. His brows drew -down together above the bulging blue eyes. - -Thrown on the clear blank of the window blind, moving to and fro across -it, went the shadow. - -With a sharp sigh of relief Jasper Wald began to write. - -It was not until he had gotten far down the page that he became suddenly -conscious of Ellen standing directly behind him. - -He looked over at the window. The shadow was still there. - -"What is it? What d'you want?" - -The lamplight brought out her features, good and very regular and still -somewhat nondescript. The lamplight showed her strange green eyes and -beneath the heavy lids the lamplight brought out in a glinting streak -the expression of the eyes themselves. - -"What made you do that, Jasper?" - -"I'm trying to write. You keep interrupting me. What are you talking -about? Made me do what?" - -"Made you write, Jasper." - -"Don't I always write?" - -"Yes, Jasper. Always. All of a sudden--; like that." - -"Well, what of it?" - -"What makes you do it, Jasper?" - -"Oh, Lord, can't you leave me alone?" - -"D'you know what makes you do it, Jasper?" - -"Of course I know." - -"Well, what?" - -"My--it's my inspiration!" - -"That comes"; she spoke slowly. "Every night when you look out of the -window. That's how it comes, Jasper." - -"Look out of the window? Why shouldn't I look out of the window?" - -"What is it you see? Over there; in that house; in that one window?" - -He looked across the way at the shadow moving to and fro against the -window blind. - -He started to his feet so suddenly that his chair crashed to the floor -behind him. He faced her angrily. - -"What under the sun's the matter with you?" - -"Nothing." - -"Then why can't you leave me alone?" - -"I want to know, Jasper." - -"You don't know what you want." - -"Yes, Jasper; I--want--to--know--" - -"Leave the room," he said furiously. "Leave the room! I've got to -write!" - -She started for the door. - -"You've got to write?" Her words came back to him across the length of -the room with a curious insistence. "_You've_--got--to--write, Jasper?" - -He waited until the door closed behind her and then he went back to his -desk. - -What had she meant by that last question of hers? Didn't she know that -he had to write? Didn't she realize that he had to write? - -And this book of his; this book that was to be the biggest thing that he -had yet done. - -"Ellen," he called. "Ellen!" - -He heard her feet coming toward him along the passageway. - -She came back into the room as though nothing had happened. - -"Yes, Jasper?" - -"What--what did you mean by that, Ellen? By what you just said?" - -She faced him in the center of the room. - -"I've been wanting to tell you, Jasper." - -"Well?" - -Her hands hung quite quietly at her sides. - -"I've put up with you for a long time, Jasper. I haven't said very much, -you know." - -"What?" He stuttered. - -"Oh, yes," she went on evenly. "If it weren't for your vanity you'd have -realized long ago what a contemptible little man you really are." - -He interrupted her. - -"Ellen!" - -His tone was astonished. - -"You're so full of yourself that you can't see anything else. You're so -full of that genius--; of--yours--" - -"You don't have to speak of that--; you can leave that out of it--; -you've nothing to do with it--; with my genius." - -"Your genius." She laughed then. "It's your genius, Jasper, that has -nothing to do with you!" - -"Nothing--to--do--with--me?" - -"No, Jasper. I haven't been blind." - -"Blind?" - -"I've seen, Jasper; sitting here night after night in this room with -you; I've seen." - -"What?" - -"Over there--; in the house opposite." - -"You mean--" - -"And you can't write without it, Jasper! You couldn't write before and -you can't write now without it. It isn't you. It isn't you who writes. -It's something--something working through you. And you call it your own. -Jasper, you're a fool!" - -"Ellen, how dare you!" - -"Dare!" - -She spoke the word disdainfully. He had never in his whole life seen her -this way; he had never thought to see her like this; but then, he had -never given Ellen much thought of any kind. - -"It's you who're the fool." He was furious. "It's I who've always been -the brains; if you could you'd have hampered me with your stupidity. But -you couldn't. I shut you quite outside. I nurtured my own genius. If I'd -have left things to you, I'd have been down and out by now; and that's -all there is to it." - -"No!" Her voice rang through the room. "I won't let you say that, -Jasper. I'll tell you the truth now. And take it or leave it as you -will. You won't be able to get away from it. Not if I tell you the -truth, Jasper. There'll be no getting away from it!" - -"Truth--; about what?" - -"You and your genius. I wouldn't have told you but it's no good going -on like this. I thought there was some hope for you; I couldn't think -any human being would be as self-satisfied, as disgustingly material as -you are. Why, if you have a soul, but you haven't, and I thought--God, -how I hoped!" - -He started to speak. He could not find his voice. - -She went on presently in that quiet, monotonous voice which had been -hers for so many years. - -"You left me alone; I wouldn't have complained; I wouldn't complain now -if you had some excuse for it. It all made me different. There's no use -in telling you how; you couldn't understand. But I got to feeling things -I'd never felt before; and then I saw things. And after a while I found -I could bring those things to me. And that night, the first night we -moved in here--" - -He interrupted her in spite of himself. - -"What of that night? What?" - -"That night when you were standing there at the window I got down on my -knees and prayed. I brought something to you that night. And you called -the genius yours." She broke off and was silent for a second. "I brought -it to you because I wanted you to be great. I thought with all that -energy of yours for writing that if it could work through you, you'd be -big. But you were too small for it! You tried to make it a thing of your -own. And I've held on to it. For six years I've kept it here with you; -and now it's going. I'm letting it go back again. You're too small; you -can't ever be anything but just--you!" - -He walked over to his desk, and sank down into the arm chair. - -"I don't--know--what--you're--talking--about." - -"You do! And if you don't, why do you look out of the window there every -night? Why d'you wait for it to come, before you start to write?" - -His exclamation was involuntary. - -"The shadow!" - -"Yes. Its shadow--; from this room where I kept -it--casting--over--there--its--shadow." - -So that was what she meant. The superstition-fostered thing that -epitomized his genius to himself. The shadow that he had come to look -upon as a sign of luck. But it was nonsense. It wasn't possible; not -such rot as that. It was his mind; the big creative mind of him that -wrote. - -"Have you said all you're going to say?" - -For a second her gaze met his and then the heavy lids came down again -over those strange green eyes, hiding all expression. - -"Yes, Jasper." - -He looked out of the window. His eyes stared through the night beyond -the two shadowy, drooping willow trees on either side of the wicker gate -and over at the house opposite. He caught his breath. The yellow light -from the lamp on his desk played across the clear blank of the window -blind across the way. The shadow had gone. - -"Ellen--" His voice was hoarse. "Ellen!" - -"What is it?" - -"It's not there, Ellen--; six years; now--; why, Ellen--" - -She went and sat down in the chair beside the desk. - -"Yes." - -"It isn't there! I tell you--" - -"I thought it could make no difference to you!" - -"It was--lucky--Ellen." - -"Oh, lucky, Jasper?" - -He made an effort to pull himself together. - -"It won't make any difference to me--not to my writing; not to my -genius." - -After the silence of a moment her voice came to him in its low even -measure. - -"Then--; write!" - -"Of course." His tone was high pitched, hysterical. "Naturally I'll -write." - -"Write, Jasper." - -He caught up his pen and dipped it in the ink. He drew the white pile of -paper nearer to him. - -"Jasper--" - -"How can I work if you don't stop talking? How can I do anything? How -can I write?" - -"Are--you--writing--Jasper? Are--you--?" - -He did not answer her. - -"Because;" she went on very quietly. "It's gone back, Jasper. -It's--gone--now--" - -His pen went to and fro; to and fro across the page. His figure was bent -well over the desk. Every now and again, without moving, his bulging -blue eyes would lift themselves to the clear blank blind of the window -opposite and then they would come back and fix themselves intently upon -the white page of paper which he was so busily covering with stupid, -meaningless little drawings. - - - - -THE EFFIGY - - -"Mr. Evans is upstairs in the library, ma'am." - -Genevieve Evans hurried through the hall and up the steps. She pulled -off her gloves as she went. She rolled them into a hard, small ball and -tucked them automatically in her muff. - -She had hoped that she would get there before him. She had been thinking -of that all during the quick rush home. She would have liked to have had -a moment to pull herself together. After what she had been through she -wondered if she could keep from going all to pieces. It could not be -helped. She did not even know if she cared a lot about it. She was quite -numbed. He was there ahead of her; there in the library. Of all the -rooms in the house that he should have chosen the one so rarely used. -The room she hated. - -At the door of the library she paused breathless. - -For a second she thought the long dark room empty. - -Then she saw Ernest. - -He was standing in one of the deep windows. A short squat figure black -against the dim yellow of the velvet curtains. One hand held his -cigarette; the fingers of the other hand tapped unevenly on the window -glass. - -She knew then that he must have seen her come into the house. - -"Ernest." - -He turned. - -"I've been waiting for you," he told her with studied indifference. -"Where've you been, Jenny?" - -She took a step into the room. - -"I'm sorry, Ernest. I didn't know you'd be home so early." - -"It's late. Where've you been?" - -She wondered why she should bother avoiding answering his question. - -"Oh--out." - -Her tone was vague. - -"No," he scoffed. "I wouldn't have guessed it. Really, I wouldn't!" - -She loosened the fur from her neck and tossed it onto the center table. - -"Don't, Ernest." - -"Don't what, Jenny?" - -She sank down into the depths of the nearest chair. - -"Oh--nothing." Her hands clinched themselves. "Nothing." - -He came and stood quite close to her. He glanced quickly at her, puffing -the while at his cigarette. She thought he looked wicked and pagan; -hideous and yellow behind the rising smoke. His narrow eyes peered at -her. - -"Well, Jenny--out with it, my girl. Where've you been?" - -She looked away from him. Her face was pale. In the twilight shadowed -room he had seen how wide and strange her eyes were. - -She made up her mind then that it was not worth bothering about. She -would tell him the truth. She did not care how he took it. - -"I've been to see--; to--see--father--" - -She whispered the words. Her eyes wavered back to his face. - -"Good heavens!" He laughed harshly. "After all you said?" - -"Yes." - -"Rather a joke, that." - -"No. There wasn't anything funny about it." - -"Well. Was the old man surprised?" - -"No. He told me he knew I'd come--some time." - -"Wise old beggar, Daniel Drare!" - -Her breath came quickly; unevenly. - -"He's a devil, Ernest! That's what he is--; he's--" - -He interrupted her. - -"Not so fast, Jenny. You went there to see him, you know." - -"But, Ernest, I couldn't stand it any longer. I--simply--couldn't--" - -He walked deliberately over to the screened fireplace and tossed his -cigarette into it. - -"Why d'you go to him?" - -"You know why I went." - -"Why!" - -She had felt right along that he must be made to understand it. She -could not see why he had not known before. - -"Oh, don't pretend any more. I'm sick of it. You know I'm sick of it." - -His brows drew together in an angry frown. - -"Sick of what? Eh, Jenny?" - -Her eyes crept away from his and went miserably about the room. They -took no note of the rare old furniture; of the dark paneled walls; of -the color mellowed tapestries. She sat looking at it all blindly. Then -her eyes raised themselves a bit. She found herself staring at the -picture hung just above the wood carved mantel. The famous picture. The -work of the great artist. The picture before which she had stood and -hated; and hated. The picture which was the pride and portrait of her -father, Daniel Drare. - -She got to her feet. - -"I'm sick of you--;" she said it quite calmly. "And--I'm sick--of--him." -She nodded her head in the direction of the portrait. "I'd do anything -to get away from both of you--anything!" - -He smiled. - -"You'll not get away from me," he told her. - -"You--!" The one word was contemptuous. "You don't really count." - -"What d'you mean?" - -He still smiled. - -"I mean what I say." Her voice was tired. "You're nothing--; nothing -but--oh, a kind of a henchman to him. That's all you are. Not that he -needs you. He doesn't need any one. He's too unscrupulously powerful for -that. He's never needed any one. Not you. Nor--me. He didn't even need -my mother. He broke her heart and let her die because he didn't need -her. I think you know he's like that. You're no different where he's -concerned than the others." - -"After all--I'm your husband!" - -"That's the ghastly part of it. You--my--husband. You're only my husband -because of him. You knew that when I married you, didn't you? You knew -the lies he told me when he wanted me to marry you. You never -contradicted them. And I was too silly, too young to know. I wanted to -get away from it all; and from him. I couldn't guess that you--d'you -think, Ernest, if it hadn't been for those lies I'd have married you? Do -you?" - -"Oh, I don't know. I usually get what I want, Jenny." - -"And why do you get it? Why?" - -"Perhaps because I want it." - -She laughed harshly. - -"Because Daniel Drare gets it for you. Because he's had everything all -his life. Because he's behind you for the time being. That's why!" - -"And what if it is?" - -"My God!" She muttered. "I can't make you understand. I can't even talk -to either of you." - -"You went to see him!" - -"I went to him to tell him I couldn't stand it any longer. I begged him -to help me; just--this--once--I told him I couldn't go on this way. I -told him I couldn't bear any more. I told him the truth; that I'd--I'd -go mad." - -"What did he say? Eh, Jenny?" - -For a second her eyes closed. - -"He laughed. Laughed--" - -"Of course!" - -"There's no 'of course' about it. I'm serious. Deadly serious." - -"Don't be a fool, Jenny. If you ask me I'd say you were mighty well off. -Your father gives you everything you want. Your husband gives you -everything you want. There isn't a man in the whole city who has more -power than Daniel Drare. Or more money for that matter. You ought to be -jolly well satisfied." - -She waited a full moment before speaking. - -"Maybe I'm a fool, Ernest. Maybe I am. A weak, helpless kind of a fool. -But I'm not happy, Ernest. I can't go this kind of a life any more. It's -gotten unreal and horrible. And the kind of things you do to make money; -the kind of things you're proud of. They prey on me, Ernest. There's -nothing about all this that's clean. It's making me ill; the rottenness -of this sort of living. I'm not happy. Doesn't that mean anything to -you?" - -"Nonsense. You've no reason for not being happy. The trouble with you, -Jenny, is that you've too lively an imagination." - -"Oh, no, Ernest. I've got to get away. Somewhere--anywhere. Just by -myself. I don't love you, Ernest. You don't really love me. It's only -because I'm Daniel Drare's daughter that you married me. It was just his -wealth and his power and--and is unscrupulous self that fascinated you." - -"You don't know what you're saying." - -"I do, I do, Ernest! You'd like to be like him. But you can't. You are -like him in a lot of ways. The little ways. But you're not big enough to -be really like him. Let me go, Ernest. Before it's too late;--let me -go!" - -He came and put a hand on her shoulder. - -"I'll never let you go," he said. - -"You must!" She whispered. "You've got to let me. Just to get away from -all this. I've never been away in all my life. He'd never let me -go--either." - -Unconsciously her eyes went up to the picture. - -The full, red face with the hard lines in it. The thick, sensual lips. -The small, cunning eyes that laughed. The ponderous, heavy set of the -figure. The big, powerful hands. - -His gaze followed after hers. - -And very suddenly he left her side. He walked over to the mantel. - -"Funny," he muttered to himself. "Jolly strange--that!" - -Her fingers clutched at her breast. - -"Ernest--! What're you doing?" - -"Can you see anything wrong here, Jenny?" - -He was looking up at the portrait. - -"Wrong?" She said it beneath her breath. "Wrong--" - -He reached up a hand. He drew his fingers across the canvas. - -"By Jove!" His voice was excited. "So it is. Thought I wasn't crazy. -When could it have happened, eh? Ever notice this, Jenny?" - -She could not take her eyes from his hand that was going over and over -the canvas along the arm of the painted figure. - -"Can't you see it, Jenny?" - -"I--I can't see anything." - -She whispered it. - -"Come over here--; where I am." - -She hesitated. - -"Ernest, what's the sense? How can you see in this light anyway, how--" - -He did not let her finish. - -"Come here!" - -Slowly she went toward him. - -"What is it, Ernest? What?" - -"A crack?" His hand still worked across it. "In the paint--here along -the arm. Or a cut, or something. How under the sun could it have -happened? We've got to have it fixed somehow. Never heard of such a -thing before. Old Daniel Drare'll be as sore as a crab if ever he gets -wind of this. It'd be like hurting him to touch this portrait. He -certainly does think the world of it! How could it have -happened;--that's what I'd like to know." - -"I--I don't know what you're talking about--I--!" - -"Here! Can't you see it? It's as plain as the nose on your face. Along -the arm. It's a cut. Right into the canvas. You can run your finger in -it. Give me your hand." - -She shrank back from him. - -"No--no, Ernest." - -He stared at her intently. - -"You do look seedy. You'd better go up and lie down. I've got to dress -for dinner, anyway. We'll have to have this fixed." - -He started for the door. - -She blocked his way. - -"Will--you--let--me--go, Ernest?" - -"Don't start that again." - -"All right. I won't!" - -"That's a sensible girl, Jenny. Even your father had to laugh at you -when you told him the way you feel. It isn't natural. It's just nerves, -I guess. You could stick it out with Daniel Drare. You can stick it out -with me. Look here, Daniel Drare's a great old fellow, but I'm not as -crude in some things as he is; am I, Jenny?" - -"You would be if you could." Her voice was singsong. "You haven't his -strength; that's all." - -"I'm not as crude as he is." - -"You haven't his strength," she droned. - -"I've enough strength to keep you here; if that's what you mean." - -"No, it's not what I mean." A puzzled look crept across her face. Her -eyes were suddenly furtive. "Maybe I don't know what I mean. But I don't -think it's you. I don't think you count. It's him. It's Daniel Drare! -He's behind it all. I don't think I quite know what I'll do about it. I -must do something! I mustn't be angry!" - -He stared at her. - -"You'd best come along if you're going to dress." - -"I'll be up in a moment," she said. - -When he was gone she went over to the window. - -She stood there gazing out into the darkened quiet side-street. She was -trembling in every limb. Now and again she would half turn. Her eyes -would go slowly, warily toward the portrait hanging there over the -mantel and then they would hurry away again. - -She started nervously when the butler knocked at the door. - -"What is it, Williams?" - -"Mr. Drare's housekeeper, ma'am. She'd like to see you, ma'am. I said -I'd ask." - -"Show her in here, Williams." - -The man left the room. - -She walked over to the farther corner of the room and switched on the -lights. - -She heard footsteps in the hall. - -She stood quite still; waiting. - -Footsteps--Nearer-- - -A middle-aged woman very plainly dressed was in the doorway. - -"Miss Genevieve--" - -"Nannie!" - -"Miss Genevieve. I wouldn't have come; only I've got to tell you." - -"What, Nannie? Come and sit down, Nannie." - -The woman came into the room. For a second she paused, and then -hurriedly she closed the door behind her. - -"No, Miss Genevieve. I'll not sit down. Thank you. I can't be staying -long. He might want me. I wouldn't like him to know I was here." - -The muscles on either side of Genevieve Evans' mouth pulled and -twitched. - -"So? You're frightened too, Nannie!" - -She said the words to herself. - -The woman heard her. - -"That I am, Miss. And that I've got good reason to be; the same as you, -my poor Miss Genevieve." - -"Yes, yes, Nannie. What was it you wanted?" - -The woman stood quite rigid. - -"You was there, Miss--this afternoon?" - -"Yes--" - -"Did you notice anything, Miss?" - -She drew a deep breath. - -"What d'you mean, Nannie? Nannie, what?" - -"It's him, Miss. It was last night--" - -The woman broke off. - -"Yes, Nannie;" Genevieve Evans urged. - -"I don't rightly know how to tell it to you, Miss. It's hard to find the -words to say it in. He'd kill me if he knew I come here and told you. -But you got to know. I can't keep it to myself. He's been fierce of -late. What with making so much more money. And the drinking, Miss. And -the women. The women, they're there all hours, now." - -"My mother's house!" Genevieve Evans said it uncertainly. - -"Yes, Miss," the woman went on. "And it was almost as bad when she -lived." - -"I know, Nannie. I've always known!" - -"But last night, Miss; after they'd gone. I was asleep, Miss Genevieve. -It woke me. It was awful. Plain horrid, Miss." - -"What--Nannie?" - -"The scream, Miss--A shriek of pain." - -"No,--no, Nannie!" Genevieve Evans interrupted wildly. "Don't say it! -Don't!" - -The woman looked at her wonderingly. - -"Why, Miss Genevieve--Poor, little lamb." - -"Nannie, Nannie." She made a tremendous effort to control herself. "What -was it you were going to say?" - -"The scream, Miss. In the night. I rushed down. I knocked at his door. -He wouldn't let me in. He was moaning, Miss. And cursing. And moaning. -He was swearing about a knife. I listened, Miss--at the keyhole. I was -scared. He kept cursing and moaning about a knife; about his arm--" - -"Nannie--" - -She whispered the word beneath her breath. "Yes, Miss. Cut in the arm. -He would have it that way. And he wouldn't let me in. I waited for -hours. And this morning I went into his room myself. He was in his -shirt-sleeves. I pretended I wanted the linen for the wash. I was -looking for blood, Miss. Not a drop did I find. Not a pin prick stain. -But I seen him bandaging his arm; right in front of me he did it. And -then I seen him rip the bandage off." - -"Nannie--" - -"It's his reason I fear for, Miss. He turns to me and asks me if I can -see the cut." - -"Yes? Yes, Nannie?" - -"He shows me his arm. And, Miss--" - -The woman stopped abruptly. - -"Nannie--what? What?" - -Genevieve Evans' hands had gone up to her throat. - -"There wasn't a scratch;--not--a--scratch!" - -"Oh--" She breathed. - -"And that's why I came here, Miss. To ask if he'd said anything of it to -you. Or if--if you'd noticed anything, Miss." - -Genevieve Evans waited a full second before she answered: - -"No, Nannie. He wouldn't have told me. I didn't notice anything. I -wasn't there very long. You see I only went to ask him to let me get -away. Out in the country--by myself. I wanted the money to go. He -and--and Mr. Evans never give me money, Nannie. Just things--all the -things, I want. Only I'm tired of things. I don't quite know what to -do. When--I think about it I get very angry. I was very angry. Last -night I was very angry! I've such funny ideas when I'm angry, Nannie. I -mustn't get angry again. But I've got--to--get--away." - -"I don't blame you, Miss Genevieve, for being angry. You've been an -angel all your life; all your life pent up like--like a -saint--with--with--devils." - -"You--don't--blame--me--Nannie?" - -"No, Lamb. Not your Nannie. Your Nannie knows what it's been like for -you. I know him, Miss Genevieve. I know he didn't give you the money." - -"No, Nannie. He laughed at me. Laughed--" - -"He's a beast! That's what he is, Miss. He should have give it to you. -And him going away himself. He was telling me only to-day. Into the -country." - -"What?" - -"Oh, Miss. I hate to say such things to you. He's going with that -black-haired woman;--the latest one, she is. He thinks she works too -hard. He's taking her off for a rest. Is anything the matter? Aren't you -well, darling?" - -Genevieve Evans swayed dizzily for a second her one hand reaching out -blindly before her. - -The woman came quickly and took the hand between both of her hands and -stroked it. - -"Nannie, I'm sick--sick!" - -"Nannie's darling--; Nannie's pet." - -From somewhere in the house came the silvery, tinkling sound of a clock -striking seven times. - -"I've got to go, Miss Genevieve, dear." - -"All right, Nannie." - -The woman drew a chair up and pushed her gently into it. - -"You'll not be telling him, Miss?" - -"No, Nannie--; no--" - -The woman started for the door. - -"Thank you, Miss Genevieve." - -"Nannie--; you said he was taking her--; the black-haired one--; away -for a--a rest? Away into the country?" - -With her hand on the door-knob the woman turned. - -"Yes. Why--lamb!" - -"Into the country." Genevieve Evans' voice was lifeless. "Into the -country where everything is quiet and big--; and clean. You said that, -Nannie?" - -"I said the country, Miss Genevieve, dearie." - -"Nannie--Nannie--;" her eyes were staring straight before her. -"I--want--to--go!" - -"Lamb--darling." - -The woman stood undecided. - -"But he wouldn't let me. He laughed at me. Nannie, he laughed." - -The woman made up her mind. - -"Will Nannie stop with you a bit, Miss Genevieve, dearie?" - -"You said;" Genevieve Evans' lifeless, monotonous voice went on; "you -said you wouldn't blame me for being angry. I get very angry, Nannie. -Very angry. It brings all kinds of things to me when I get angry. His -kind of things. Rotten things. And he's going to take her into the -country; where everything's clean; and he won't let me--go. God!" - -"Will I stay, Miss Genevieve?" - -"No, Nannie--go! Go quickly! Go--now!" - -"Yes, Miss Genevieve. He'll be wanting to know where I am." - -"Go, Nannie!" She half rose from her chair. The door closed quietly -behind the woman. "Go!" Genevieve Evans whispered. "He's going--into the -country--; he's taking that woman. He wouldn't let me. He wants to keep -me here. Just to feel his power--; his filthy power. He's not the only -one." She was muttering now. "He's not the only one who can do things. -Rotten--dirty things! His kind of things!" - -She swayed to her feet. Her steps were short and uncertain. Her whole -body reeled. Her face was blanched; drained of all color. Her fingers -trembled wide spread at her sides. She was quivering from head to foot. - -Only her eyes were steady; her eyes wide and dilated that were riveted -on the portrait hanging there above the wood carved mantel. - -She backed toward the door, her eyes glued to the picture. - -Her shaking fingers, fumbling behind her, found the key and turned it. - -Feeling her way with her hands, her distended eyes still fixed on that -one thing, she got to the center table. - -It took her a while to pull open the drawer. - -Her breath came raspingly; as if she had been running. - -The old Venetian dagger with the cracked jeweled handle was between her -fingers. - -Very slowly now she went toward the fireplace. - -The electric light flared over the colored gems that studded the handle -of the dagger, giving out small quick rays of blue and red and green. - -"I'm angry;" she whispered hoarsely. "I--I'm very angry--with--you. -You've no right--; no right--to--ruin--my--life--and laugh! You -did--laugh--at--me!" - -Her eyes stared up at the full, red face with the hard lines in it. Up -at the thick, sensual lips. Up at the cunning eyes. At the ponderous, -heavy-set figure. The powerful hands. - -"Why--don't--you--laugh--now? You aren't afraid--are--you? -You--aren't--afraid of--anything? Not of--me--are--you--Daniel Drare--? -You've--done--your--best--to--keep--me--under--your--power--; -you--stood--behind--Ernest--to keep--me under--your--power. -You're--not--afraid--of--me? Why--don't--you--laugh--Daniel--Drare?" - -Her right hand that held the dagger raised itself. - -"Laugh, Daniel Drare! Laugh!" - -She stood there under the portrait. Her left hand went stiffly out -feeling over the long cut in the painted arm. - -"Angry--last--night." She whispered. "And--it--hurt--you. Daniel -Drare--I--could-hurt--you!" - -For a second her eyes went up to the dagger held there above her head; -the dagger with the thousand colored gleams pointing from it. - -She gave a quick choking laugh. - -"I laugh--at--you--Daniel--Drare." - -With all her strength she drove the dagger into the heart of the canvas. - -She staggered back to the center of the room. - -There was a gaping rent in the portrait. - -She laughed again; stupidly. Her laughter trailed off and stopped. - -She stood there waiting. - -Once she thought some one paused outside the door. - -Her hands were up across her eyes. - -Motionless she waited. - -Suddenly she gave a quick start. - -Out there in the hall a telephone had rung. - -She heard her husband answer it. - -Her one distinct thought was that he must have been on his way out for -dinner. - -His unbelieving cry came to her. - -"My God! it can't--" - -Her fingers were pressed into her ears. She did not want to hear the -rest. She knew it. - - - - -THE FAITH - - -The great lady fingered the pearls that circled her throat. - -"Quite true," she murmured, and a smile crept up about the corners of -her lips and lingered there. "Really, surprisingly true." - -The woman with the white hair and the heavily lidded eyes bent a bit -lower over her charts of stars and constellations. - -"This year"--she went on in that low, undecided voice of hers--"this -year Madame has had a big sorrow. It was the loss to Madame of a young -man. He was tall and fair like Madame, but he had not Madame's eyes. He -had courage, Madame, and a soft voice; always a soft voice. He went on, -this young one, with his courage. The son of Madame died in the early -Spring." - -The great lady's hands dropped into her lap and clinched there: the -knuckles showing white and round as her fingers strained against each -other. Her eyes stared hard at the cracked walls; up over the low -ceiling, toward the back of the small room that was divided off from the -kitchen by a loose-hung plush curtain; out through the one window which -gave on to the street. She could just see the heads of people who were -passing and the faint, gray shadows of the late evening that were -reaching in dark spots up along the rough, white walls of the house -opposite. Her eyes came dazedly back to the room and the chairs and the -table before which she sat. Two giant tears trickled down her cheeks. -The smile was wiped from off her mouth. - -The woman with the white hair had waited. - -"There is another here. He is perhaps a little older than the one who -died. He has not that one's courage. He is very careful of all the small -things; like his clothes and his cigarettes and his affections. The big -things he has never known. His eyes are like the eyes of Madame. Madame -has this son in the war now." - -"No--no!" The great lady leaned across the table. "Don't tell me--not -that he--I couldn't bear it! Not--both--of--them!" - -The woman with the white hair looked up quite suddenly from her charts -of stars and constellations. A pitying quiver shook over her face. - -"You need have no fear, Madame. He is not ready. It is a wound. It is -not a wound that gives death." - -The great lady fingered her pearls again. - -"You--you quite carried me away. For a moment you startled me." - -"I regret it, Madame. Perhaps I should not have said anything." - -"Of course you should have. I told you that when I came in, didn't I? I -said I wanted to hear everything. Everything you could tell me." - -"Ah--yes, Madame." - -"Is that all, now? You're certain that you've not forgotten anything?" -And she pulled at her gold mesh bag, which was studded with sapphires. - -"It is everything, Madame. Unless, perhaps, Madame has some question she -would like to ask of me?" - -The great lady drew her money out and tossed it on the table. - -The woman with the white hair and those heavily lidded eyes did not -touch it. The great lady got to her feet and started to the door. Quite -suddenly she stopped. - -"When--" She made an effort to steady her voice. "When will this -thing--; this wound--come--?" - -The woman with the white hair bent over the charts again. And then she -caught up a pencil and made little signs on the yellow paper and drew a -triangle through them and across them at the points. - -"The fourth day of the second month from now, Madame." - -The great lady came back to the table and stood there looking down. - -"How do you do it?" - -The woman with the white hair stared up in astonishment. - -"Madame?" - -The great lady's ringed fingers spread out, pale and taut at her sides. -The jewels of the rings showed in dark, glistening stains against the -white of her skin. - -"What you've just told me--all of it. I don't see how you know--how you -can know. It's true. I can't understand how it can be true. But it is. -Every word of it." - -The woman with the white hair fingered her pencil a bit wearily. - -"But--of course, Madame." - -"I came here;" the great lady spoke hurriedly. "I don't know why I came. -Only I didn't think: I wouldn't have believed it possible. I couldn't -tell you now why I came." - -"There are many who come--these days." - -"These days?" - -"People would know more than they know of things they never thought of -before, Madame--these days. They would follow a bit further after the -lives that have been broken off so suddenly. They are impatient because -they cannot see where they have never before looked and so they come to -me because I have sat, staring into those places. They will see--all of -them--soon. They are going on, further, because they must know. These -days they must--know!" - -The great lady stood quite still. - -"You have a wonderful gift--wonderful." - -"It is not mine, Madame." - -The great lady's eyes went about the room. - -"I'll be going," she said. "It's quite late." - -Her eyes took in the cheap poverty of the mended carpet and the -paint-scratched walls and the dingy-threaded, plush-covered chairs. - -The woman with the white hair got to her feet. - -"I know what you are thinking." Her voice was low. "If I can do this for -others, you think, why should I not be able to do everything for myself? -If I can tell to others, what may I not tell to myself? If I can give -help to others, why can I not give help to myself?" - -The silk of the great lady's dress gave out a faint rustle as she took a -step back. - -"No--" She murmured uncertainly. - -"It is not 'No.'" The woman's voice trembled. "It is 'Yes.' It is what -was going through your head--going around and around and fearing to be -asked. But I will answer you. I will say that the power is not mine. It -is the power that is given to me. It is not for myself. I do not want it -for myself. I shall never touch it for myself, because it is meant for -others. To help others and that is all." - -"D'you mean you can't see things for yourself?" - -The great lady was curious. - -"But of course I can see. It is that which, sometimes--" The woman with -the white hair broke off abruptly. "Do you know what it is to see and -then to be able to do nothing--nothing? Not--one--thing--!" - -"How can you?" - -"I can, Madame, because that is what I am here for. It is by being -nothing myself that this thing comes through me so that I can feel what -other people are; what they are going to be. If I thought only of me, I -would be so full of myself I could not think of anything else. It is -from thinking a little bit beyond that the power first came. And now -that I keep on thinking away from the nearest layer of thought, it works -through me. And I can help. It is the wish of my life to help. It is -what I am here for. Placed in the field. They told it to me--the voices. -Put in the field,--by them." - -The great lady shrugged her shoulders. - -The woman with the white hair pulled herself up very suddenly. There was -a quick, convulsive movement of her hands and for a short second her -eyes closed. She went to the table and caught the money between her -fingers and dragged it across the red cover to her. - -"I thank Madame." - -The great lady walked slowly to the door. - -"Good-by. Perhaps some day I'll be back." - -"Perhaps--Madame. Good-by." - -The great lady went out of the room and closed the door behind her. The -sound of her high-heeled footsteps tapped in sharp staccato down the -uncarpeted stairs, and died away into the stillness. The long-drawn -creak of rusty hinges and then the muffled thud of the front door -swinging to. In the street the soft diminishing whirr of a motor grew -fainter and was gone. - -Silence. - -The woman sank into a chair and buried her face between her two shaking -hands. - -Shadows crept up against the uncurtained window and pressed, quivering, -against the pane. Shadows came into the room and stretched themselves -along the floor. Shadows reached up across the wall and over the chairs -and the table. Shadows spread in a gray, moving mass over the still -figure of the woman. - -A young girl came quickly and silently through the curtain that -partitioned the room off from the kitchen. - -"Maman--" - -The woman did not move. - -"I had not thought, Maman, that you were alone." - -The woman slowly drew her face from out between her hands. She looked up -uncertainly, her eyes only half open. - -"Leave me, Angele." - -"But, Maman, supper is ready." - -"Let it wait, Angele." - -The girl came over to the table and put her hand on the woman's -shoulder. - -"Was she then horrid, Maman?" - -The woman sighed softly. - -"It is not that, Angele. She was like the others. They come because they -are curious. Something, perhaps, brings them here, but they do not know -that. They are only curious. They do not believe. I tell them the truth. -They are shocked for a little moment. They do not believe, Angele." - -"Pauvre petite Maman, you are tired." - -"Non, non, Angele." - -"Will you have Jean see you tired, Maman?" - -The woman stared up into the girl's small, white face that was dimmed -with shifting shadows. The woman's heavily lidded eyes met the girl's -wide, dark eyes. - -"Jean--" - -"He will be home to eat, Maman. Soon, now, he will be home." - -The woman passed her hands again and again over her forehead and then -she held them with the tips of her fingers pressed tight to her temples. - -"He is such a child, Angele." - -"Shall we have supper now?" - -"Angele--" - -"I will bring a light in here, Maman, and then when Jean is back we will -go in to supper." - -"He--is--such--a--child,--Angele." - -"And never on time, Maman!" - -The woman caught the girl's fingers between her own. - -"Answer me, Angele. Answer me!" - -The girl looked down in surprise. - -"But what, Maman?" - -The woman's breath came quickly. - -"He is a child. Say that he is a baby. He is all that I have. You and he -are all--everything! Say, Angele, that he is a child! Only yesterday, -you remember--the long curls? The velvet suit? Surely it was yesterday. -Say, Angele, that he--is--still--a--little--one." - -The girl threw back her head and laughed. The shadows lay like long, -dark fingers on the white of her throat. - -"Of course. He is young--too young even now when they take the young. -You have no need to worry, Maman. Maman--what is it?" - -She had seen the sudden, far-away look in the woman's eyes. - -She had seen her head stretch forward, the chin pointing, the mouth a -little open. - -"Maman--" - -The woman's hand reached out in a gesture commanding silence. - -"The voices," the woman whispered. "They have been after me the whole -day. The voices. They--keep--coming--and--coming--to--me--I have not -been able to think--for the voices--" - -"Maman--" - -"You say 'yes.' You are coming--nearer--nearer. No--I cannot see. But -hear--Mais, it is good now! You speak distinctly. Of course I thank you -for speaking so beautifully. You--say--you--want--want--" - -"Petite Maman, you will make yourself ill with those old horoscopes and -these voices. Petite Maman, have you not done enough for one day?" - -The woman paid no attention to her. She did not seem to hear the girl. -Her face was pale; there were faint, bluish smudges about her mouth and -nostrils. - -"You want--I cannot--cannot understand what you want. I'm trying to -understand. I'm trying hard! If you will tell it to me again. -And--slowly. With patience. It is better now. So that is it? More -slowly,--if you can. Of course. Is it that you wish to know? -Of--course--I--shall--give--you--what--you--want. I always give you -what--you want. I do my best for that. You--want--" - -The woman's eyes were closed. She was breathing deeply. Her whole figure -was tense. The girl stood beside her, a puzzled, half incredulous look -coming into her face. - -"I--should--look. It does no--good--to--look. I can never see--Beyond -the wood--I should look beyond.--What wood? Now? Is it perhaps -that--you--mean--gate? Swings to and fro? Now--you--want--; -this--moment--" - -The door was flung wide open. - -At the noise the woman slowly opened her eyes, staring blindly before -her. - -"You--want--" She murmured. - -A boy stood in the doorway. He was slight and young. His face was small -and rather like the girl's face, and his dark eyes were set far apart -like her eyes. Through the gray of the massing shadows gleamed the brass -buttons of his uniform. - -The girl sprang forward. - -"Jean--!" - -"Maman." The boy came a step into the room. "See, Maman!" - -"Hush, Jean." The girl turned to gaze at the woman sitting there with -that stony, frozen stare, staying in her eyes. - -"Maman, they have taken me at last!" - -"Oh," for a second the girl forgot the woman. "But I am proud of you!" - -"Maman, I wear the uniform. They will let me go now. I knew they would -take me. Sooner or later; I knew they would have to! Aren't you glad?" - -The girl remembered and interrupted him. - -"Be still, Jean!" - -The boy stood looking from one to the other, his eyes straining through -the gloom. - -"Maman," he whispered. - -The woman's voice came trailing softly to them. - -"They--want--" - -"Maman;" the girl threw her arm protectingly over the woman's shoulders. -"Jean is here. See, petite Maman; it is Jean. Your Jean." - -The woman repeated the words in that gentle, plaintive singsong. - -"They want--" and then she got to her feet. "Jean!--" Her voice rose -shrilly crescendo. "It was that! My--Jean--" - -"Maman;" the boy came and stood beside her. "You would not have me stay -behind when they need me? You will be glad to have me go. Come, Maman, -you must say that you are glad!" - -"My little one--" - -"Say, Maman, that you are glad." - -"So young, Jean." - -"But old enough to fight when they need me. Old enough to fight for -France!" - -"My baby--" - -"You will not grieve, Maman." - -She reached up and caught his face between her two hands and drew it -down and kissed him on the mouth. - -"Ah, Jean!" - -"And say, how do I look?" He turned around and around in front of them. -"But, Angele, fetch the lamp quickly. You cannot see in this dark. You -cannot see me." - -The girl laughed a bit uncertainly, and then she went quickly, rushing -into the next room. - -The woman gripped hold of the boy's hand. His fingers grasped hers. - -"Petite Maman." - -"Mon Jean--just--a--moment--still--so." - -They stood there silent and very close to each other, in the room -crowded with moving, splotching shadows. The girl came back through the -curtain, a lighted lamp between her two hands. The flicker of it spread -broadly into her eager, anxious face. The glow of it trickled before her -and widened through the room. The shadows stuck to the walls in the -corners and rocked up against the ceiling, black among the uneven -streaks of yellow light. - -"Now, Angele. Now, Maman. Put it there on the table, Angele. No, hold it -higher. Like that. Keep your hands steady, Angele, or how can Maman see? -Such a miserable lamp! Does not my uniform look magnificent? I am the -real poilu, hein? Something to be proud of, Maman?" - -"The real poilu?" The girl questioned softly. "The grandchild of the -real poilu, maybe." - -"She mocks me, Maman." - -"Be quiet, Angele." - -"I do not mock, Maman; but I will not have his head turned. The poor -little cabbage!" - -"See, Maman. She will not stop. Tell her that I fight for France." - -For a moment the woman hesitated. They could hear the deep breath she -took. - -"For France. And for something else, my little son." - -With great care the girl placed the lamp on the table. - -"Something else, Maman?" - -"The thing for which France stands--; and conquers." - -He seized at her last word. - -"Conquers? Of course she conquers. And I will help! I will kill the -Boches. Right and left. I shall fight until France will win!" - -A strange light had filtered into the woman's heavily lidded eyes. - -"Bravo!" The girl clapped her hands together. "And shall we have our -supper now, petite Maman, and my little rabbit?" - -"Maman--when I have this uniform--" - -"Go, children. In a moment I will be with you." - -"Come, my cauliflower. Maman would be alone." - -"Maman--" - -"Jean--I do not mean to tease. Let us go in to supper. If I do not try -to be pleasant I shall weep. You would not have me weep, brother Jean? I -would wet the pretty shoulder of your uniform with my tears. That would -be a tragedy. So come along to supper, my rascal." - -Hand in hand the boy and the girl went through the loose-hung, plush -curtain into the kitchen. - -The woman stood rigid beside the table. - -"Help me," she whispered beneath her breath. "You--" - -She stumbled to her knees. Her head was pressed against the edge of the -table. Her hands fumbled over the top of it, the fingers widespread and -catching; clutching at whatever they touched. - -From the kitchen came the sound of low voices. A knife rattled -clatteringly against a plate. Once the girl laughed and her laughter -snapped off in a half-smothered sob. - -The woman moaned a little. - -"Just to watch over him. That's all I ask.--You--across there, -just--to--protect--him--" - -Her hands went to her throat, the fingers tightening. - -"A sign," she implored. "Dieu--that--you--hear--me!" - -Her eyes stared about the room, peering frantically from under their -heavy lids. - -"Will you not help me?" She pleaded. "Dieu! mon Dieu,--will you -not--help--me--?" - -Her kneeling figure swayed a bit. - -"You will not hear," she whimpered. "You will--not--hear--" - -For a moment longer she waited in the tense silence. And then she rose -stiffly to her feet. Her eyes riveted themselves upon a little pool of -yellow light that lay in the center of the table under the lamp. The -palms of her hands struck noiselessly together. - -Very slowly, she went through the curtain and into the kitchen. - -It was a scrupulously clean room. A stove stood in one corner. Against -the wall hung a row of pots and pans that caught the light from the -swinging lamp in brilliant, burnished patches. - -Angele and Jean sat near to each other at the center table. Their heads -were close. Their cautious whispering stopped abruptly as she came -toward them. - -The woman sat down with the girl on one side of her and the boy on the -other. She was very silent. There was only one thing she could have -said. She did not want to say it. - -Mechanically she tried to eat. She watched her hands moving upward from -her plate with a sort of dazed interest. It was only when she tried to -swallow that she realized how each mouthful of food choked her. - -The one question came to her lips again and again. - -At last she asked it. - -"When do you go--mon Jean?" - -The boy gave a quick glance at his sister and his eyes fixed themselves -upon the table before him and stayed there. She knew then what they had -been speaking of when she came into the room. - -"What difference does it make, petite Maman, when I go?" - -"But when, my son?" - -"See, Angele, she is anxious to be rid of me! She cannot wait until I -go. She insists upon knowing even before we have finished this supper of -ours." - -"Maman;"--the girl spoke hurriedly. "Let us talk of that later." - -"When?" She insisted. - -"But, Maman, you have not touched your food. Was it not good? And I -thought you would so like the p'tit marmite." - -"It is excellent, Angele." - -"Then eat, Maman." - -"It is that I am not hungry, Angele." - -"So, the p'tit marmite is not good, petite Maman. If it were excellent, -even though you have no hunger, you would eat and eat until there was -not one little bit left." - -The woman took another spoonful. - -"When?" She repeated. - -The boy's dark eyes lifted and looked into hers. - -"To-night,--Maman." - -Her figure straightened itself with a quick jerk. - -"To-night?" - -"And what does it matter, petite Maman, when I go? Surely to-night is as -nice a time as any." - -"As nice a time as any;" she echoed his words. - -The three of them sat there silently. - -The girl was the first to move. - -"Ah, but it is hot in here." She pushed her chair back from the table. -"It is uncomfortable!" - -The boy and the woman got to their feet. - -"I'll pack, Maman. Not much, you know. Just my shaving things and soap, -and some underwear. Angele will help me. I won't be long." - -He went out of the kitchen door and down the narrow passage way to his -room. The girl hesitated for a moment. Without a word she hurried after -him. - -The woman crossed slowly into the next room. For a second she stood -beside the table, and then she walked over to the window. - -Outside the street was dark. No light trickled through the blinds of the -house opposite. No light reached its brilliant electric flare into the -sky. No light from the tall lamp-post specked through the gloom. In the -dim shadow of the silent street she could see the vague forms of people -going to and fro. Blurred figures moving in the darkness with the echo -of their footsteps trailing sharply behind them. - -She stood quite still. Once her hands crept up to her mouth, the backs -of them pressing against her teeth. - -"Maman." - -She wheeled about at the sound of Jean's voice. - -He was standing just within the doorway, the girl at his side. The woman -stood there staring. The girl crossed the room quickly and put her arm -about the woman's waist, drawing her close. - -"Petite Maman--" - -"You--go--now--Jean?" - -She said the words carefully and precisely with a tremendous effort for -control. - -"But, yes, Maman!" - -She leaned a little against the girl. - -"Mon Jean, you will have courage--; great--courage--my little one, you -will be protected. You--will--be--protected!" She had said that in spite -of herself. - -He came to her then and flung his arms about her and kissed her on -either cheek, and held her tightly to him. - -"Good-by, petite Maman." - -"Good--" She could not say it. - -"Good-by, Angele." - -"My little rabbit--I wish you luck. My cabbage--au revoir--;" and her -lips brushed across his mouth. - -For a second he did not move. Then he went across the room and out -through the door. - -He was gone. - -The woman's eyes went to the window. The silent, darkened street. The -people there below her. The somber, black lack of light. - -"Maman;" the girl whispered. - -"They will watch over him," the woman muttered. "They must -watch--out--there. They do come back into the world again to protect. -They cannot--cannot leave them in all that horror--alone." - -"See, Maman." The girl's quivering face was against the window-pane. -"Maman, Jean waves to you!" - -Her eyes followed the pointing of the girl's finger. - -"They--must--be--here--," she murmured. - -"Maman,--wave to Jean!" - -Her gaze rested on the dim, undefined figure of the boy standing in the -street with his hat in the hand that was reached toward them above his -head. Mechanically she waved back. - -The woman and the girl stood close. - -"Oh--petite maman;" she whispered piteously. - -The woman's eyes dilated. - -There, following after Jean; going through the shadow-saturated street; -moving unheeded among the vague figures of the people going to and fro. -Something was there. Some scant movement like a current too quiet to -see. A shadow in the shadows that her sight could not hold to. In the -dark, gloom-soaked street, staying close to her Jean, she could feel -something. Some one was there. - -Her eyes strained with desperate intentness. Her hands went up slowly -across her heart. - -The words that came to her lips were whispered: - -"Dieu! Give me faith;--faith--not--to--disbelieve--" - - - - -YELLOW - - -He walked along the pavement with the long, swinging stride he had so -successfully aped from the men about him. It had been one of the first -things upon which he had dwelt with the greatest patience; one of the -first upon which he had centered his stolid concentration. He had -carried his persistency to such a degree that he had even been known to -follow other men about measuring their step to a nicety with those long, -narrow eyes of his, that seemed to see nothing, and yet penetrated into -the very soul of everything. - -His classmates at the big college had at the beginning laughed at him; -scoffing readily because of the dogged manner in which he had persevered -at his desire to become thoroughly American. Now after all his laborious -painstaking, now that he had carefully studied all their ways of -talking, all their distinctive mannerisms; now that he had gone even -beyond that with true Oriental perception, reaching out with the cunning -tentacles of his brain into the minds of those about him, he knew they -had begun to treat him with the comradeship, the unthinking -fellow-feeling which they accorded each other. - -He thoroughly realized that had they paused to consider, had they in any -way been made to feel that he, a Chinaman, had consciously made up his -mind to become one of them, consistently mimicking them day after day, -that they would have resented him. He knew that they could not have -helped but think it all hypocrisy. And yet he actually felt that it was -the one big thing of his life; that desire of his to cast aside the -benightment of dying China, for what he considered the enlightment and -virility of America. - -To be sure he recognized there was still a great number of the men who -distrusted him because of his yellow face. He had made up his mind with -the slow deliberation that always characterized his unswerving -determination to win every one of them before the end of his last year. -He would show them one and all that he was as good as they were; that -the traditions of the Chinaman which they so looked down upon, upon -which he himself looked down upon, were not his traditions. - -As he walked along he thought of these things; thought of them carefully -and concisely in English. His narrow eyes became a trifle more narrow, -and a smile that held something of triumph in it came and played about -his flat, mobile mouth. - -It had been raining hard. The wet streets stretched in dark, reflecting -coils under the corner lamps. Overhead a black sky lowered -threateningly; pressing down upon the crouching, gray masses of the -close-built houses in sullen menace. Now and again a swift moving train -flung itself in thundering derision across the elevated tracks; a long -brightly lit line streaking through the encircling gloom. - -He could feel the mysterious throb of life all about him. The unfathomed -lure of the night, of the few people that at so late an hour crept past -him, looming for a second in sudden distinctness at his side, then -fading phantom-like into the deep engulfing shadows of the dim street. - -He was at a complete loss how to express to himself the feeling of -dread; a subtle feeling that somehow refused to be translated into the -carefully acquired English of which he was so proud. - -For a moment he doubted himself. Doubted that, were he so thoroughly -American, he could feel the Oriental's subconscious recognition of the -purposeful, sinister intent in the huddled mass of darkened shop windows -with their rain-dripping signs; in the shining reptile scales of the -asphalt underfoot; in the pulsing intensity of the hot, torpid July -atmosphere. - -A street lamp flickered its uncertain light sluggishly over the -carefully groomed figure and across the placid breath of the yellow -face. - -He paused a second as he saw a form come lurching unsteadily out of the -gloom ahead of him. It came nearer and he could see that what had at -first appeared to be a dark, undefinable mass, pushed here and there by -unseen hands, was in reality a man swaying drunkenly out of the shadows. - -He watched the man curiously, with a little of that contemptuous feeling -an Oriental always holds for any expression of excess. As the man stood -before him in the darkness, as he stumbled and seemed about to fall, he -put out his hand and caught him by the elbow. - -"Thank 'e;" the drunken eyes blinked blearily up into his stolid -impassive face. "It's fine to be saved on a stormy night like this. It -is--" - -"Don't mention it." - -"It's a powerful dark night;--it is." - -"Les. That is so." - -"And it's a damn long way home. Ain't it?" - -"I do not know." - -"By the saints! And no more do I. Ain't you got a dime on you, mister? -You could be giving it to me for car fare--; couldn't you now, mister?" - -"Velee glad to let you have it." - -He fished in his pocket. He drew out the coin and placed it in the man's -outstretched hand. He watched the dirty fingers close eagerly over it. -Suddenly the bloodshot eyes wavered suspiciously across his face. He saw -the red flushed features twitch convulsively. - -"Holy Mother!" The drunkard muttered thickly. "It's a heathen." - -The dime slipped from between the inert fingers. It tinkled down onto -the pavement, rolling with a little splash into a pool of water that lay -a deep stain in the crevice of the broken asphalt. - -For a moment he wondered placidly at the injustice of it; wondered that -he should be made to feel the disgust of so revolting a thing as this -drunkard. - -He saw that the man had crossed himself with sudden fervor; he saw him -shuffle uncertainly this way and that, as though the feet refused to -carry the huge, bloated body. He stood watching the reeling figure until -its dark outline was absorbed into the intenser darkness of a side -street. The expression on his face never changing, he walked on. - -He knew he had no right to be out at that time of the night; he knew he -ought to be sitting at his desk in his comfortable little room, working -out the studies which he had set himself. And yet he could not make up -his mind to turn back. - -Something drew him on into the blackness of the night; pulling him into -it like a fated thing. - -Now and then he found that the stride he had acquired from such grinding -observation tired him. Not for worlds would he have shortened his step -to that padding, sinuous motion so distinctly Chinese. - -He had grown to hate all things Chinese. In the short time in which he -had been in New York he had discarded with the utmost patience the -traits which are so persistently associated with the Chinaman. To be -thought American; to have the freedom, the quick appreciation of life -that belongs to the Occident, that had been the goal toward which he had -striven; the goal he prided himself he had almost reached. - -Suddenly he became aware of a hand on his arm. - -In the dark he felt the pressure of bony fingers against his flesh. - -Looking down he saw that a woman had crept up from behind him; that she -had put out her hand in an effort to detain him. - -It was in the center of a block. The thick blackness that hung loosely, -an opaque veil all about him, was almost impenetrable. Yet as he looked -at her with his small, piercing eyes, he thought he saw her lips moving -in crimsoned stains splashed against the whiteness of her face. - -"What is it?" He asked. - -He saw her raise her eyelids at his question. He found himself gazing -into her eyes; eyes that were twin balls of fire left to burn in a place -that had been devastated by flames. - -"It's hot;--ain't it?" - -He stood silent for a moment trying to realize that the woman had every -right to be there; trying to understand with an even greater endeavor -that she was in reality a flesh and blood woman, and not some -mysteriously incarnate soul crawling to his side out of the sinister -night. - -"Les,--it's velee hot." - -Something in his tone caused her to start; caused her to look around her -as though she were afraid. - -"I wouldn't have spoke," she stammered. "I wouldn't have spoke only it's -such a fierce night." Then as he did not answer her immediately, her -voice rose querulously. "It's a fierce night; ain't it, now?" - -That was the word for which he had so vainly searched throughout the -vocabulary of his carefully acquired English. The word the woman had -given him, that expressed the sullen menace of the night about him. - -"It is--fie--" He made an effort to accomplish the refractory "r." "It -is fierce." - -The hand she had withdrawn from his arm was reached out again. He could -feel her fingers scrape like the talons of a frightened bird around his -wrist. - -"You get it too, mister?" - -"Get what?" - -"The kind of feeling that makes you think something is going to happen?" -She drew the back of her free hand across her mouth. "Ain't it making -you afraid?" - -Somehow the woman's words aroused within him a dread that was a -prophecy. He made one attempt at holding to his acquired Americanism. -The Americanism which was slowly receding before the stifled waves of -Oriental foreboding, like a weak, protesting thing that fears a hidden -strength. For he knew the foreboding was fate; and he knew too that when -fulfilled, it would be met with all the stoicism of a Chinaman. - -"You feel aflaid?" - -The fingers about his wrist clattered bonily together; then clinched -themselves anew. - -"Yes," she whispered. "I guess that's it. I guess I'm afraid." - -For a moment he thought of the lateness of the hour. - -"I'm velee solee," he said. "I'm solee, but I must be going." - -"You can't leave me;" she stuttered behind her shut teeth. "You ain't -got the heart to leave me all alone on a night like this." - -"You can go to your home;" and he thought of the drunkard who had gone -to his home. Surely the night sheltered strange creatures. "Les, you -better go on to your home." - -She laughed. - -He had never thought of one of his little Chinese gods with their -crooked faces laughing; but as he heard her he knew that their mirth -would sound like that. Sound as though all the gladness had been killed; -choked out of it, leaving only the harsh echoes that mocked and mocked. - -"Gee, mister--; I ain't got no place to go." - -"I'm velee solee." - -He said it again, not knowing what else to say. - -Something in his evident sincerity aroused her to protest. - -"Oh, I know you thinks it queer for me to be talking this way," she -said. "I know you thinks it funny for me to say I'm afraid. And I ain't, -excepting--" she added hastily, "on a night like this. It kinder makes -everything alive; everything that's rotten bad. I ain't ashamed of the -things I've done. I ain't scared of the dead things. It's the live ones -I'm afraid of--; the dirty live things. They kinder come at you in the -dark." For an instant her body trembled against his. "Then they -goes past you all creepy-like. Creeping on their bellies--; -sliding,--like--like--slime." - -"You don't know what you are saying," he interrupted. - -"I know," she insisted. "I know! Some night like this I'll be doing -something awful;--and they'll be there." She pointed a shaking hand -towards the shadows. "They'll be there, wriggling to me--quiet--!" - -"Imagination," he said, and he smiled. In the dark she could not have -seen the smile, nor could she have known that the lightness of his tone -covered a deep, malignant dread. "It is all imagination!" - -"It ain't!" She spoke sullenly. "I tell you, it's real. It's horrible -real!" - -Her voice was frantic. - -"Maybe it is," he conceded, and then, as she made no answer, he asked: -"You like to walk with me a little?" - -"Yes." Her head drooped as though she were utterly discouraged. "It -wouldn't be so bad as sticking it out here--alone." - -He could not help but notice that she hesitated a bit before the word -alone. Undoubtedly she could not get the thought of those things--those -live things she so feared, out of her head. The things that waited for -her in the shadows. - -They walked along the wet pavements together. - -An engine shrieked weirdly above them, like something neither bird nor -beast; like something inhuman. - -Under a street lamp she glanced up at him curiously. - -He heard her gasp. He looked down at her. He saw her eyes widen in -terror; he saw her pale, bare hands creep uncertain, stumbling to her -neck, as if she were choking. He heard her voice rattling in her throat. - -"What is it?" He asked. "You are ill?" - -He put his hand on her shoulder. He could feel her shudder, as she -writhed and twisted under his touch. - -"Let go of me." Her voice was hoarse. "Let go of me, I say!" - -For some unaccountable reason his fingers closed all the more tightly on -her shrinking flesh. - -"Let me go;--you--damned--Chink!" - -She muttered the words under her breath. - -He heard her. - -He thought of the drunkard and he thought of her. - -Suddenly he felt quite furious; stilly, sinisterly furious. - -"I'm 'Melican." - -He said it stolidly. His narrow, black eyes were unwavering on her. - -She began to cry. - -"Let me go," she whimpered. "I ain't done nothing to you. I couldn't -have got on to your being--a--Chink." - -"What diffelence does that make?" He asked. And then he reiterated with -careful precision: "I tell you I'm a 'Melican." - -Her words came to him in a gurgle of terror. - -"I hate you. I hate all of your yellow faces--and them eyes! I hate them -horrid, nasty--eyes!" - -He bent his head until his face almost touched hers. His strong, angry -fingers held her firmly by either arm. - -"It is not pletty, this face?" - -She struggled, inane with fear. She fought, trying to free herself, to -tear away from the vise-like grip of those awful hands; swaying like a -tortured, trapped creature against his strength. She could feel the -intensity, the calm scrutiny of his long, narrow eyes upon her. - -Suddenly something in his brain snapped. - -He pushed her roughly from him. - -He saw her fall to the pavement; he saw her head strike the curb. - -He stood there watching her as she lay, outlined by the light colored -material of her dress against the wet blackness of the asphalt. - -"What diffelence does it make if I am a Chinaman?" - -He asked it as he bent over her. But she did not answer. The question -went out into the heavy stillness, hanging there to be echoed -deafeningly by a thousand silent tongues. - -Something in the sudden quiet of the way she lay filled him with a -tranquil joy. He knelt beside her, He reached his hand over her heart. - -He got up slowly, deliberately. - -He moved silently away, going with that padded, sinuous motion, so -distinctly Chinese. - -With cunning stealth he went back the way he had come, treading lightly; -cautiously seeking the darkest shadows. - -He had gone some little distance when he heard the regular beat of -hurrying footsteps following him. - -He stood stolidly, still, awaiting whatever might happen. - -Overhead he saw a cluster of heavy, black clouds sweeping across the -sky, like eager, reaching hands against a somber background. - -It had begun to rain again. He could feel the raindrops trickling gently -down his upturned face. - -He wondered, as the footsteps halted beside him, if he should have run. -His mind, working rapidly, decided that any other man would have gotten -away; any other man but not a Chinaman. - -A heavy hand fell across his shoulder. - -"I've got you, my boy!" A voice shouted in his ear. "I seen you kneeling -there beside her. You'll be coming along with me!" - -He turned to face the voice. - -The wind that heralded the coming storm rustled through the street, -carrying with it a litter of filthy castaway newspapers. Flurries of -stinging sand-sharp dust swirled above the pavement. A low rumble of -thunder bellowed overhead. Then the rain came down in sudden lashing -fury. - -He had to raise his voice to make himself heard. - -"I'm velee glad," he said. - -The bull's eye was flashed into his placid, narrow eyes. - -He could see the policeman's face behind the light; see the surprise -quivering on the red features. - -In the darkness above the racket of the storm, he heard the man's -gasping mutter: - -"Yellow--by God!--Yellow!" - - - - -CHINA-CHING[1] - -[Footnote 1: Published originally in _The All Story Magazine_.] - - -The racket was terrific. The yelping, the shrill prolonged whines, the -quick incessant barking; and running in growling under-current, the -throaty, infuriated snarling. - -The woman stood at the window gazing out into the gathering twilight. -Before her eyes stretched the drab, flat fields; here and there a -shadowy mass of trees reached their feathery tips that were etched in -darkly against the graying skies. Directly before her, beyond the unkept -waste that might at one time have been a garden, reared the high, wire -walls of the kennels. She could just make out the dim, undefined forms -of the dogs running to and fro within the narrow, confining space. - -The swift, persistent movement of them fascinated her. The ghostly -shapes of them pattering sinuously and silently along the ground; the -dull scratching thud of the claws and bodies that hurled themselves -again and again into the strong wire netting. The impossibility of their -escape throttled her. Their futile attempts at freedom caused a powerful -nausea to creep over her. And there in the center of the run she could -distinguish, chained to the dog-house,--a pale blur in the fading -light,--the motionless yellow mass of the chow, China-Ching. - -The shrill, prolonged whines, the quick, incessant barking:-- - -"Oh, my Gawd;" she muttered involuntarily. "Oh, my Gawd!" - -The man sitting in the middle of the room pulled his pipe out of his -mouth. - -"What's that you say?" - -She stood at the window, her eyes fixed steadfastly on that one dumb dog -among all those yelping, snarling other dogs. - -The man got up from his chair and came and stood beside her. -Unconsciously she shrank away from his nearness. - -"Ain't you used to that by now;--ain't you?" - -She turned toward him;--all but her eyes. Her eyes were still riveted -out there upon the motionless chow chained in the center of the run. - -"It ain't the noise; that,--that don't mean so much, James. It ain't the -noise." - -"Then what's the matter,--huh?" - -She pointed a trembling forefinger at that yellow mass tied to the -dog-house. - -"Him," she whispered. "He don't make no racket, James." - -The man peered over her shoulder. - -"The chow?" - -"Yes;" her voice was still. "China-Ching. He don't make no racket, -James." - -"I'd like to hear him," the man blustered. "I'd just like to hear one -peep out of him;--that's all." - -She saw his coarse, hairy hand go to his hip pocket. She smiled -bitterly. She knew the confidence he felt when he touched the -mother-of-pearl handle of his pistol. - -"You don't need that on him," she said. "He just sits there and don't -never move. He don't hardly eat when you feeds him. He don't seem to -have no heart left for nothing. He ain't like the terrier what had the -distemper;--he ain't like the greyhound what had the hydrophobia,--so -awful bad." - -"What d'you mean?" The man muttered angrily. "Ain't they had the -hydrophobia;--ain't they had the distemper;--ain't they?" - -"You says they did, James." - -"Ain't I the one to know? If I ain't been born with dog-sense, would -folks be giving me their muts to care for?" - -"You shot them pups, James." - -"And what if I did?" He stormed. "They was dangerous--they was a menace -to the community,--so they was. And see, here,--you take it from me, -there ain't nothing more dangerous as a dog when he gets took that there -way. Why, I've heard tell of dogs what have torn men limb from limb." -And then he added in afterthought: "Men that've been kind to 'em, too." - -Her laughter rang out shrilly, piercingly. - -"Aw, James," she giggled hysterically. "Aw, now, James-- - -"What's that?" His hand was on her hand. "See here, you, ain't I kind to -'em?" - -His touch sobered her quite suddenly. - -"Kind to 'em--?" - -She repeated his words vaguely as though not fully conscious of their -actual meaning. - -The grip of his fingers tightened cruelly about her arm. - -"Ain't I--kind--to--'em?" - -"Oh, my Gawd," she whimpered. "Oh, my Gawd,--yes." - -He went back to the center of the room and lighted the lamp on the -bare-boarded, pine-wood table. Its light flickered in a sickly, yellow -glow over the straight-backed chairs, across the unpapered walls, and -dribbled feebly upwards to where the heavy rafters of the ceiling were -obliterated in a smothering thickness of shadows. - -"What're you standing there for? Pull down that blind! Come here, I -say!" - -The faint, motionless form there beside the dog-house. The wooden, -stiffened attitude of it. The great mass of the chow's rigid body that -was gradually becoming absorbed into the gray shadow; that was slowly -losing its faint outline in the saturating, blurring darkness. - -She did as she was told; hastily, nervously. And then she came and stood -beside the table. Try as she would to prevent it her eyes kept on -staring through the curtained window. - -Again she became conscious of the yelping, the prolonged whines, the -quick, incessant barking; and running in growling under-current, the -throaty, infuriated snarling. - -"I can't stand it no more!" she shrieked. "It's too much,--so it is! I -just--can't--stand--it--no--more!" - -He looked up at her, startled. - -"What under the canopy's eating you?" - -She sank into a chair. The palms of her hands pounded against each -other. In the lamplight her face showed itself pale and drawn with the -eyes pulling out of its deadened setness in live despair. - -"You got to do something for me, James." Her voice shook. "You simply -got to do it. I ain't never asked nothing from you before this. I've -been a good wife to you. I've stood for a lot,--Gawd knows I have. I -ain't never made no complaint. You got to do this for me, James." - -"Got to,--huh? Them's high words, my lady. There ain't nothing what I -got to do. You ain't gone plum crazy, have you?" - -"Crazy?" She muttered. "No, I ain't gone crazy;--not yet, I ain't. Only -you got to do this for me, James." - -"What're you driving at,--huh?" - -She rose to her feet then. When she spoke her tone was quite controlled. - -"You got to let that chow-dog go." - -The man sprang erect. - -"What d'you mean?" - -"You--got--to--let--China-Ching--go! You got to let him get away. You -got to make that China-Ching--free." - -He laughed. The laugh had no sound of mirth in it. The laugh was long -and loud; but its loudness could not cover the insidious evil of it. - -"That's a good one," he shouted. "Let a dog go of his own sweet will -when some day I'll be getting my price for him. That's the funniest -thing I've heard in many a long day. Land's sakes! You're just full of -wit,--ain't you?" - -"I ain't," she retorted sullenly. - -But he paid no attention to her. - -"I never would have thought it--that's a cinch! Say,--it do seem I'm -learning all the time." - -Her teeth came together with a sharp snap. - -"Better be careful you don't learn too much,--about me." - -She whispered it beneath her breath. - -"Muttering,--huh?" He leaned toward her over the table. "I don't like no -muttering. I ain't the one to allow no muttering around me. Speak -out--if you got something to say;--and if you ain't,--why, then,--shut -up!" - -The lamp threw its full light up into his face. Not one muscle, not one -wrinkle, but stood out harshly above its crude flame. She drew back a -step. - -"All right." She had been goaded into it. "I'll speak up--All right. -That's what you wants, ain't it? I've stood for enough. I reckon I've -stood for too much. You knows that. But you ain't thought that maybe I -knows it,--have you? That makes a difference,--don't it? You knows the -way you treats me,--only you ain't thought that I ever gives it no -thought;--and I ain't,--no,--I ain't; not till you brought that there -China-Ching here. Not--till--you--brought--China-Ching." - -"What's that mut got to do between you and me?" - -His eyes refused to meet her eyes that were ablaze with a strange, -inspired light. - -"Everything. From the day I seen you bring him here--; from the day I -seen you beating him because he snapped at you--; from the day you -chained him up to that dog-house to break his spirit--; from that day it -come over me what you done to me." - -"You're crazy;--plum crazy!" - -"Oh, no, I ain't;" she went on in suppressed fury. "I've slaved for you -when you was sober, and when you was drunk. I've stood your kicks and -I've stood your dirty talk, and I've stood for the way you treats them -there dogs. And d'you know why I've stood for it,--say, do you?" - -His hands clenched at his sides. Their knuckles showed white against the -soiled dark skin. - -"No--and what's more--" - -She interrupted him. - -"I've stood for it all because I knowed that any time--Any time, mind -you,--I could clear out. Whenever I likes I can get up and,--go!" - -"You wouldn't dare;--you ain't got the nerve!" - -"I have--; I have,--too." - -"Where'd you go,--huh?" - -"I'd get away from you,--all right." - -"What'd you do?" - -"That ain't of no account to you!" - -He watched her for a second between half-closed lids. A cunning smile -spread itself over his thick lips. He walked to the door and threw it -wide open. - -"You can go--if you likes;--you can go--now!" - -Her hand went to her heart. The scant color in her face left it. She -took one hesitating step forward and then she stood quite still. - -"If you lets the dog go--I stays." - -Her words sounded muffled. - -He shrugged his shoulders. - -"The dog's my dog. I ain't able to see where he comes in on all this." - -"You can't see nothing;--you don't want to see! It's knowing too well -what that pup's up against that makes me want you to let him go. It's -that I don't want to have the heart took out of him;--the way you took -the heart out of me,--that makes me want to have him set free." - -He gave a noiseless chuckle. - -"So I took the heart out of you,--did I?" - -She glared at him savagely. - -"You knows you did!" - -For a moment they were silent. - -"Well?" He asked. - -She saw him wave a hand toward the door. - -"Aw, James, you can't be so cruel bad--You can't. The other dogs don't -mind it--; they makes a noise and they tears around. And then they eats -and drinks and late at nights they lies down and sleeps;--if there ain't -no moon. But that China-Ching he ain't like them. Maybe--he is -savage;--maybe you're right to be afraid of him." - -His whole figure was suddenly taut. His head shrank into his shoulders. - -"There ain't nothing I'm afraid of;--get that into your head--I ain't -afraid of nothing--And if you wants to go,--why, all I got to say is, -you can--git!" - -A stillness came between them, broken only by the sounds from the -kennels. The yelping, the shrill prolonged whines, the quick, incessant -barking; and running in growling under-current, the throaty, infuriated -snarling. - -He went to the table and took the lamp up in one hand. He went over to -the door and closed it with a loud bang. Then he started toward the -stairs. - -"If you ain't able to bring yourself to leave me," the words came to her -over his shoulder, "you can come on up to bed." - -Mechanically she followed him up the steps. Mechanically she went -through the process of undressing and washing. Long after he had fallen -asleep she lay there wide awake watching the moonlight trickle in -quivering, golden spots across the floor; lay wide awake listening to -the eerie baying of the dogs. - -She had had her chance of freedom and at the last moment her courage had -failed her. What she had told him had been the absolute truth. She had -never realized what had happened to her, what a stifled, smothered thing -she had become, until that day when he had brought the chow-dog home to -the kennels. - -She had married James when she was very young. Their fathers' farms -adjoined. It had been the expected thing and she had gone through with -it quite as a matter of course. In those days he had been somewhat -ambitious. The country-folk around admitted grudgingly that James -Conover was a born farmer. Then the old people, both their fathers and -his mother, had grown a bit older, and one by one they had died. There -had been nothing violent in their deaths. Silent, narrow-minded, like -most country persons they had grown a trifle more silent, a trifle more -bigoted, and then they were dead. It had seemed to her that way at any -rate. She had become conscious all of a sudden that she was alone with -James. Strange that the consciousness should have come to her after she -had been alone with him for three years; and then that she should only -realize she was alone in the world with him the first time he came home -drunk. After that he took to drinking more and more, and finally he gave -up farming. It had been quite by accident that he took to boarding dogs; -now and then buying one for a quick turn. He liked the job. As far as -she could see it gave him more time to spend in the village saloon. - -One thing she had never been able to understand. In her heart she was -certain that James was terrified of the animals. She had seen him shoot -a dog at the slightest provocation. But until she had seen the chow she -had never bothered with the beasts. She had cooked their meals but she -had not been allowed to feed them. She had watched them from the outside -of the kennels but she had never gone in to them. She had tolerated -their racket because she had never fully understood what lay in back of -it all. And then the chow came. - -James had brought China-Ching home in the old runabout; brought him to -the kennels tied down in a great basket. She had not paid much attention -to either man or dog. The first sight that she had of the chow had been -because of James. She had heard his cursing and the crack of his huge -whip. She had gone out on the porch then and had seen the man beating -the dog with all his strength; the man swearing loudly and furiously and -the chow silent. She had never gotten over that spectacle. It was the -first time she had ever seen a dog maintain silence. - -And then day after day she had watched China-Ching, chained there and so -strangely silent. Among all those yapping, yipping dogs he alone had -remained quiet. And the other animals had paid scant attention to him -after the first short while. Even in their wild racing about the -enclosure they had given him a wide berth. There was something -magnificent, something almost majestic in the chow's aloofness. If it -had not been for the dog's eyes she would have thought him dumb;--a -fool. But the eyes haunted her. Great liquid brown eyes, that met hers -with unutterable sadness; eyes that clutched and held on to her with the -depths of their sorrow. - -She made up her mind after the first month that she must free the dog; -that she must get him out of the kennels somehow or other. She had never -thought of a direct appeal to James. If it had not been for the way he -had goaded her this evening she would never have spoken as she did. Only -she had always known that it would not be in her power to let the dog -escape from the kennels without his finding who had done it; without -bearing the brunt of his inevitable rage. - -And after the first month she began almost unconsciously to associate -herself with the chow, to put herself in his place. As she commenced to -understand what his desires for freedom must be so she first realized -that those same desires were hers. Only, as she phrased it to herself, -she could stand it a lot better than the chow. Dogs could not reason. -She could go on existing this way till the end of her days; but she felt -that if China-Ching could not be freed that he would die. She could not -bear the thought of that. Whatever happened to the dog would happen to -that part of her which had come into being when the dog had come. - -The moonlight trickled further and further into the room. The stream of -it spilled itself wider and wider along the shadow-specked floor. - -She could hear the man's deep breathing, now and then punctuated by a -guttural snore. The eerie baying of the dogs; and out there the one -silent dog chained to the dog-house. - -Not one moment longer could she endure it. - -Very stealthily she got up and slipped on her skirt. Shoeless and -stockingless she crept out into the hall and down the stairs. Unbolting -the front door, she paused an instant to hear if she had been detected. -With strained ears she listened for those harsh, long-drawn snores. But -the house was very still. She could not hear his breathing from where -she was. If only he would snore. She waited. The sound came to her at -last. She hurried out on to the porch. - -The dampness of the summer night was all about her. Overhead the pale -flecks of innumerable stars, and the far, cold light of the waning moon. -From somewheres in the distance came the monotonous droning of locusts. -Against the dark clump of bushes darted the quick, illusive glimmer of a -will-o'-the-wisp. - -She shivered as her feet struck the chill, wet grass. And then very -slowly she went toward the kennels. - -Her eyes took no note of the dogs that lay on the ground; of the little -fox-terrier sniffing here and there along the wall for rats; of the big -police-dog, and the massive English bull, reared on their haunches, -their muzzles lifted to the moon. She only saw, chained to the -dog-house,--a pale blur in the haunting, whitened light,--the silent, -yellow mass of the chow,--China-Ching. She knew that the great, liquid -brown eyes were fixed upon her; she could feel them drawing her on. She -went toward him. - -Very silently she went. And as she went she mumbled. - -"If they start a rumpus,--the same racket,--maybe,--if he wakes he won't -think nothing of it;--that is, if he ain't enough awake to know I ain't -there besides him. Maybe though, he won't wake;--maybe they won't make -no noise;--maybe he won't--please, Gawd--! only to get China-Ching,--so -that he can feel free--please, Gawd!--so's China-Ching don't have to -stay--so that I--please Gawd!--so's I can set something--free." - -She suddenly became afraid to approach too silently. Afraid of the -deafening uproar of a dog's warning. Already the police-dog had stopped -his regular baying; already the little fox-terrier sniffed the air -through the wire netting, sensing some one coming. If only she had -thought to get them some bones; if only she had a piece of meat; a -dog-biscuit,--anything to throw to them to keep them quiet. But she had -not had time to think of that. - -She began to whistle softly, and then a bit louder as she realized that -she had whistled the call of the whip-poor-will. The police-dog got to -his feet. She could hear the sinister rumbling of his throaty snarling. -She saw the bull-dog waddling clumsily after him. They stood there, -their coats bristling, their ears erect, their muzzles poked into the -wire netting. And then a quick bark from quite the other side of the -kennels. - -She felt that numberless small eyes were peering out at her with -betraying cunning. It seemed to her that innumerable dogs were rising -from the ground; were rushing to the walls; were tearing out of their -separate kennels. - -She called then; called very low, in the hope that they might know her -voice. - -"China-Ching;--oh, China-Ching." - -She was face to face with it now. All through the day she managed -somehow to bear with it. Hideous as it was, deafening so that she could -not hear, hated so that it made her physically ill. And now in the dead -of night it was let loose; with the unlimited stillness of the night -vibrating in grotesque, yapping echo, with the cold light of the moon -spotting uncanny over the kennels, she had it. The yelping, the shrill, -prolonged whines, the quick incessant barking; and running in growling -under-current, the throaty, infuriated snarling. - -She knew then that it was quite beyond hope that James should not hear -them. She had to hurry. She began to run; and all the while she called -in the same low voice: - -"China-Ching;--I'm coming to you. Oh China-Ching--" - -She pulled back the stiff, iron bolts. It took all her strength to do -that. She opened the gate a bit, and slipped in, pushing it to, behind -her. - -And then she was among them. Their noise increased in volume,--pitched -in a shriller note. The sudden rush of them threw her off her feet. Some -of them leaped on her. She felt a sharp, stinging nip in her wrist. In a -second she was up again. - -"Down!" She commanded. "Down!" - -She went toward the chow, pushing the other dogs out of her way with -both hands; stumbling, stepping over them as they crowded about her -feet. - -"Down!" She murmured breathless. - -It was not until she got well within a couple of strides of the chow -that the other dogs dropped away from her. It was the same thing that -she had witnessed a hundred times from her window. The animals had -always given China-Ching a wide berth; had always respected his -magnificent, majestic aloofness. And as she reached him she fell to her -knees. - -"China-Ching;" she whispered brokenly. "China-Ching!" - -Her arms went around the dog's neck. Her hands stroked the thick ruff at -his throat. She felt a cold nose on her cheek. A slow, deep sniffing; a -second later two heavy paws were on her shoulder, and a warm, moist -tongue curled again and again about her ear. - -In the moonlight she looked into his eyes. The great, liquid brown eyes -met hers with all their unutterable sadness. - -"D'you want to go, China-Ching?" She murmured; "d'you want to go and be -free?" - -Her fingers were working swiftly at his collar. As it clanked to the -ground she felt him stiffen rigidly beneath her touch. She saw his ears -go back flat against his head; she saw his upper lip pulled so that the -long, sharp teeth showed glisteningly in the huckle-berry, blue gums. -She followed the set stare of his eyes, and what she saw sent a shiver -down her spine. - -Coming across the waste that had once been a garden, running stumblingly -in the full path of the moonlight, came James. And the other dogs had -seen him. She realized that when she heard the growling, the snarling, -the low, infuriated snorts. - -She rushed back to the gate. - -James saw her then. - -"Get away," he shouted. "Get away from there!" - -She threw the gate open and stood leaning against it to keep it wide. - -"China-Ching," she called; "come on,--China-Ching!" - -But it was the other dogs that tore past her. First one, then another, -then two together, and then the whole wild, panting pack of them. - -"For Gawd's sake;" the man shrieked. "Get--get--" The words were lost in -his breathless choking. - -The chow-dog was the last to go. For a second he stood beside her. She -bent over him. She was afraid to touch him; afraid that at that moment -her hands might involuntarily hold him. - -"Go on, China-Ching;" she urged frantically; "go on!" - -"Hey, you--!" The man stormed at the dogs. "Here--, here--!" He -whistled; "here, boy,--here, old fellow,--come on;--" - -He suddenly stood still. He tried to make his whistling persuasive. He -was out of breath. When he saw that they would not come to him he ran -after them. They scattered pellmell before him. She saw them -disappearing in every direction. Some of them slinking away with their -tails between their legs; some of them crawling into the bushes on their -bellies; some of them rushing head-long, racing madly into the night. -Only the yellow mass of the chow-dog went in even padded patter out -toward the road. - -She waited there for James. She could not think. She only waited. - -And at last he came back. - -"You--" His voice was low; "you--!" - -The words were smothered in his anger. - -She smiled then. She thought that she still could hear the even, padded -patter of the dog jogging to his freedom. - -"So you turned on me;--you--! D'you know what's going to happen to -you;--d'you dare to think?" - -Her voice was filled with a strange calm. - -"I don't care, James;--I don't care--none. I set China-Ching loose." - -His face leered at her evilly in the moonlight. - -"You ain't got no excuses;--you don't even make no excuses to me;--huh?" - -"No, James;--no!" - -Her tone was exultant. - -The even, padded patter was still in her ears. It seemed so near. She -saw the man's raised fist. The coarse, bulging hammer of it. She felt -that something was behind her. She turned. - -The chow stood there--His ears back; his coat bristling, the hairs -standing on end in tremendous bushiness; his fangs laid bare. There he -crouched, drawn together, ready to spring. - -The man took a step toward her. Out of the corner of her eyes she could -see the huge taut fist. - -"I wouldn't do that, James;" she said quietly. "I just--wouldn't!" - -"You'll live to rue the day." The words came hoarsely, gutturally. "I'm -going to beat you, woman. I'm going to beat you,--damn good!" - -"You ain't;" she said. "Look, James!" - -She pointed to the chow. - -"Call him off;" the man shrieked. "D'you want him to kill me?" - -She saw him trembling with fear, paralyzed with terror so that his -clenched hand still reached above his head,--shaking. She thought then -of the pistol he always carried with him. For the second time she -smiled. She saw him try to take a step backwards. His knees almost gave -way under him. The chow wormed a bit nearer. - -"Call him off;--take him away. Damn you, speak to him--! For Gawd's -sake,--do something;--" he whined. - -She looked at the man, cowed; abjectly afraid. She had nothing more to -fear from him. He was beaten. Her hand went out until it rested on the -dog's head. - -"It's all right, China-Ching. It's all right,--now." She felt the chow's -great eyes fixed on her face; she felt that he was waiting. "You can go -on, James;--go on into the house!" - -"What--what d'you mean?" - -He stuttered. - -"I'm going," she said. "Me, and China-Ching. I told you I'd go when I -was ready;--but I wasn't going alone. That's what you ain't understood, -James. Now we're both going. And you better be meandering up to your -house, or maybe China-Ching he'll be getting tired of waiting." - -Slowly the man turned; ponderously, his figure huddled together, he -started back stumbling along in the full path of the moonlight. - -She thought she saw his fingers fumbling to his hip-pocket. - -"Stop!" She called. "None of that, James. This here's one time when that -there gun don't work." - -"I ain't got no gun." The mumbled words came back to her indistinctly. -"D'you think if I'd have had--" - -"Stand where you are. And don't you make no move from there. We'll be on -our way,--now." - -He stood still. - -"Come on, China-Ching." - -She started toward the road, the dog at her heels. Once as she went she -turned to look at the emptied, quiet kennels, at the moonlight drenched -waste that had once been a garden; at the huddled figure of the man -standing there so silently. - -"Good-by, James," she called. - -Out in the road she paused to look up and down the long, white stretch -of it. The chow stopped at her side. His great, liquid brown eyes were -raised to hers. She could feel his impatience to be off. Suddenly he -started. - -Her feet followed those padded, pattering feet. - -"Aw, China-Ching," she whispered, "aw, China-Ching--" - - - - -THE WOOD OF LIVING TREES - - -_And I do hereby swear and take unto myself right solemnly and in most -sacred oath before the Lord God to prove myself innocent of this most -awful and hideous crime, for the which, in the morning, I do swing by -the neck. I, Cedric of Hampden, do swear to show with the righteous help -of most high God, that it is not I who beareth the blood guilt of the -murther of the Lady Beatrix._ - -_There is in this world a certain devilish influence that worketh most -evilly against the high Heavens and the good in man, and the which doeth -foully with the flesh of man and bringeth the soul of him unto the -stinking depths of hell. I, Cedric of Hampden, having scant knowledge of -the meanings of witchcraft, or of magic, either black or white, have -many times and oft felt the spell which lyeth so infernally o'er the -Wood of Living Trees. I, who loveth the Lady Beatrix, who did meet her -death the while she wandered within the confines of the Wood of Living -Trees, searching therein for the Crucifix which she did lose from off -her neck, do accuse no one of the killing of her whom I loved. Yet unto -myself I do confess the knowledge of this evil thing, the which I have -assured myself hath the power at all times to become incarnate._ - -_This will I prove. At some unknown time will I show that in this world -a certain devilish influence worketh most evilly against the high -Heavens and the good in man. I do confess the knowing of this to be -true, and many times and oft have I convinced myself that this Satanic -thing hath the power to become incarnate._ - -_In the morning I hang. God, the Father, Christ, the Son, come unto me -in purgatory that I may fulfill my sacred oath and that the soul of her -I love may find peace within the seven golden gates of Heaven._ - -At first there was not one of them who noticed it. Strange that people -who are forever entertaining are so very apt to disregard the -congeniality of their guests. Perhaps they become calloused; probably -they grow tired of a ceaseless picking and choosing. - -After a while they caught on to it. It was one of those things that -could not be avoided. Gregory Manners never was the sort of chap to -conceal his feelings, and very evidently he had most decided ones in -regard to the Russian, Stephanof Andreyvitch. - -He was much in vogue, was Andreyvitch. It was considered rather a stunt -to get him to come to one of your dinners. He was tremendously in -demand. Not that Andreyvitch had ever done anything to make himself -famous. It was just the personality of the man. Women would tell you -that he was fascinating, different. Of course there were some of them, -the stupid, fastidious ones, who took offense at his looks. No one -could ever say they were in any way prepossessing. He was fairly well -built, extremely sinewy. His arms were noticeably long and he had an odd -fashion of always walking on the balls of his feet. Add to that a rather -narrow face, a heavy nose, deep-set eyes, a bit too close together, and -a shock of reddish-brown hair, which grew over his head and face in -great abundance. Most men would not pretend to understand him. He was at -all times courteous. Perhaps even too suavely polite for the Anglo-Saxon -temperament. He aired his views with a wonderful assurance; views that -had to do chiefly with æstheticism and a violent disregard of all -conventional thought. When Andreyvitch spoke, one had the feeling that -he feared to express himself too well; that after all his wicked -disbelief in the things in which most men placed their entire faith was -something actually a part of him; something which might even cause the -amazing heathenism of his talk to be somewhat subdued. And when -Stephanof Andreyvitch spoke, one could not help but notice his teeth. -Yellow, horridly decayed things they were, with the two eye-teeth on -either side surprisingly pointed, like fangs. - -Of course, in his way Gregory Manners was a bit of a lion. It was that -which undoubtedly made them attribute his dislike of the Russian to -jealousy. At least at first. Afterwards they found plenty of other -reasons. Naturally one of them was Kathleen. But that came much later -on. - -He had traveled all over the world, had Manners, and he wrote -charmingly vague bits that one read and then forgot. He took himself -very seriously. He was one of those men who believe firmly and basically -that they are sent into this world with a mission to perform. One could -not actually tell whether Manners really thought his writing to be his -life work. His best friends maintained that he had not as yet found -himself. But no one bothered to ask him the question. His work was good; -he was a distinctly decent sort of chap, utterly British, and he was -above all else exceedingly interesting. For the most part, people were -really fond of Manners, and he fond of them. - -The first time Andreyvitch and Manners were introduced, Manners had the -feeling that they had met at some time before. He even asked the Russian -if it had not been in Moscow. When Andreyvitch told him that he had -never in his whole life seen him, and that he positively regretted not -having done so, Manners' attitude underwent a sudden and unexpected -change. He became silent, almost morose. He kept away from Andreyvitch -all evening, and yet he stayed near enough to him to watch his every -move. - -After that night Manners decided he hated Andreyvitch; that he knew the -man was a liar, an impostor. Not at the time that he was in any way -jealous of the Russian; still there was a strange familiar feeling there -that he had felt at some other time, and in connection with the same -man. He could have sworn he had known him before. It was the only way -then in which he could explain the thing to himself with any degree of -coherence. - -It was never difficult to get Gregory Manners to speak of the first -evening he met Andreyvitch. It was almost as if he were tremendously -puzzled, as if he thought speaking of it, even to a casual acquaintance, -might clear things up to himself. He never varied the thing. At first, -at any rate. Later on he became strangely, uncannily secretive about it -all. That must have been when he began to suspect there was a great deal -more to it than had appeared upon the surface. - -"D'you know?" His words always came slowly. "Deuce take it! I thought I -was going to like the fellow. I'd heard so much about him, too. Why, old -chap, I was anxious; positively keen, to know him. And then--Why, when I -stood face to face with him, I couldn't think of anything but that I had -known him, or did know him, or something. First glance and I saw he was -one of those poseurs. One of those rummy fellows who affect poses -because they're always consciously trying to imitate the people about -them. That's it, you know. They can't be themselves because of some -queer kink they funk expressing. So they fake other people and quite -naturally they overdo it." - -He would usually get worked up about this time; and then he would go on -a lot more quickly: - -"I've seen them the world over. There was one chap--but--well--I thought -this--this fellow who calls himself Andreyvitch, was just going to be -one of them--poseurs, you know. He looked harmless enough to be sure. -Of course there were his eyes--and the way he walks--but then--I -couldn't help feeling he wasn't quite--quite cricket. That came over me -confoundedly strongly at the very first minute. And when he smiled--I -say, man, d'you ever see such damnably wicked teeth?" - -And the man to whom he spoke always had to admit that he had never seen -such teeth. - -Later on Manners never worked himself up as much. - -"That fellow who calls himself Andreyvitch--I've met him before. Don't -know where; and at that I've a pretty fair head for names and places. -But I know him. He may have looked differently, and it probably was in -some of those out-of-the-way holes; but I know him. I don't say he was -the Russian Andreyvitch when I knew him--but--Well, old chap, we'll -see." - -They stopped asking Andreyvitch and Manners around together after a -while. But that never kept Manners from speaking of the Russian. - -"Was Andreyvitch there?" - -"They don't ask us together, eh?" - -"No fear, old chap, of my insulting him; I couldn't, you know!" - -"Rather a filthy sort of beggar, that Russian; makes the gooseflesh come -over me. Happened before. Deuce take the thing!--If I could only think -when!" - -And then after Manners had dropped out of sight for a fortnight or -more, he suddenly made his appearance at the club. - -They were all of them unspeakably shocked by his looks. He never carried -much weight, but in those two weeks he had gotten down to little else -than skin and bones. His color was ghastly. His cheekbones were -appallingly prominent and his eyes looked as if they were sunken back -into his skull. - -To all their questions he gave the same answer: - -"No, he wasn't ill. No, he hadn't been ill. There was nothing the matter -with him. He'd felt a bit seedy and he'd run down to his place for a -fortnight. It was good of them to bother. He was quite, quite all -right." - -They saw he wanted to be left alone and they let him go over to the -window and sit there, his great, loose frame huddled together in the -leather arm chair. - -There could not have been more than three or four of them sitting near -him. It was only those three or four who saw him stagger to his feet, -swaying there dizzily for a second. Only those three or four who could -distinguish the words spoken in that low, half strangled whisper. - -"That's it--I've got it now--Something rotten; always living--Always -waiting the chance to do its filthy harm! The power to incarnate--in any -form. The greater its loathsomeness, the greater that incarnating stuff! -Probably at most times more beast than human--but it could take on human -guise--that's it--that's--" - -And those three or four men saw him rush out of the reading-room, his -head thrown well back, his eyes ablaze with a great light. - -And then Mrs. Broughton-Hollins gave the famous house-party. The -house-party of which every member, although not fully understanding, -tried to forget. The house-party which drove Gregory Manners and -Kathleen Bennet out of England. - -Mrs. Broughton-Hollins was a charming little American widow, with untold -wealth and a desire to do everything, everywhere, with every one. Of -course she always managed to get a lot of nice people together, and of -course she picked the very nicest ones for her house-party. Then because -she had set her heart on having the Russian, Stephanof Andreyvitch, she -naturally got him to come, and because she had Kathleen Bennet, she had -to ask Gregory. Kathleen and Gregory were engaged to be married. - -She was a dear, was Kathleen. As pretty as a picture and delightfully -simple-minded. Her father belonged to the clergy, and her family -consisted of innumerable brothers and sisters. Gregory Manners, who had -traveled the world over, fell quite completely in love with her. And -she--She worshiped the ground he walked on. - -No one ever quite knew whether or not Manners heard that Andreyvitch was -to be of the house-party. Perhaps he had; probably he had not. If -Kathleen were to be there, that would have been all-sufficient, as far -as Manners was concerned. - -By that time Manners had worked himself out of his frenzy of hatred -against the Russian. They had been able to explain it to themselves by -saying that he had talked himself into it. As a matter of fact, the -whole thing was totally subconscious. Whenever he had become conscious -the man was anywhere near him, he had begun to realize his hatred of -him. But now it had gone infinitely further than just that. - -Manners had become uncannily quiet and uncannily knowing. - -They were all together in the hall when Manners, as usual, came in late. -Mrs. Broughton-Hollins and an anæmic looking youth, who always lounged -about in her wake; a man named Galvin, an oldish chap, who had seen -service in India, and his pretty, young wife. The Dowager of Endon and -her middle-aged son, the Duke, and Stephanof Andreyvitch, holding the -center of the floor with little Kathleen Bennet sitting close to where -he stood, her eyes fixed in awed surprise upon his face; her white -fingers toying nervously with a small silver crucifix which hung about -her neck. - -Whether or not Andreyvitch heard the man announce Gregory Manners, -whether or not he saw him standing there in the doorway, whether or not -he purposely went on with what he was then saying was a subject for -debate the rest of the evening. - -"Faith?" Andreyvitch's low, insidious voice carried well. "But there's -no such thing. Can't you realize that all this sickly sentimentality is -nothing but dogmatic idiocy on your parts? Must you all drivel your -catechism at every turn of the road? Must you close your eyes to filth, -to vice, to everything you think outside of your smug English minds? -Don't you know you're a part of it? That each one of you is part of the -lowest, rottenest--" - -It was then that, unable to stand it a second longer, Gregory Manners -came into the room. - -"I--I most sincerely hope I'm not interrupting, Andreyvitch--but--are -you speaking of those things--again?" - -The quiet, polite tone was full of subtle significance. And although -they could not have known what Manners actually meant, they all of them -recognized an emphatic significance. And not one of those people present -could overlook the peculiar stress which he had laid upon that -slow-drawled "again." - -Andreyvitch turned sharply; his face for a second drawn into a hideous, -ghastly grimace. - -"It is no interruption, Mr. Manners." He was trying hard to resume his -habitual insouciance. "But what do you mean, eh? What is this?" - -He stood where he was, did Manners. His face was almost expressionless. - -"I think you know what I mean. But see here. I'll repeat -it for you, if you like. Listen this time. -Are--you--speaking--of--those--things--_again_?" - -The Russian was livid. - -And for an infinitesimal fraction of time it seemed to those watching -him that he was cowed; terrifyingly cowed. - -"Your humor," he shrugged his shoulders, endeavoring to pass the thing -off as flippantly as possible; "your humor is bizarre, Mr. Manners. I -spoke but of that which we all know exists. Surely there is no harm in -speaking of what we all recognize!" - -Manners' voice rang out clearly, in surprising sternness. - -"We all know what exists in this world. We know that greater than all -else is faith. As long as you speak before those who know what real -goodness is, who believe in it, there is no harm done! I hardly think -this is the first time you've tried to impress evil on people--The -reason for that's easily understood. But, thank God." His tone vibrated -with earnestness. "Thank God, you can do nothing here!" - -The Russian turned on him. His usual suave manner had left him. His -words were little else than an angry snarl. - -"You know me well--very well, indeed, my English friend. You who have -met me--is it not once--perhaps, eh, twice?" - -Manners laughed. A laugh that had no sound of mirth in it. - -"I've met you again and again. And you know it! And there's something -else we have to settle for--And you know that, too--Mr.--Mr. -Andreyvitch!" - -And then Gregory Manners turned to Mrs. Broughton-Hollins. - -"Good afternoon," he said, quietly. - -A bit flustered, the hostess got hastily to her feet. - -"So good of you to come--You know every one, don't you, Gregory? You'll -have your tea here with us?" And below her breath, she added: "You -mustn't be too hard on Andreyvitch, Gregory. These Russians--well, -they're all a bit primitive." - -He went from one to the other of the men. He kissed Kathleen's hand and -told her how pretty she looked. He let Mrs. Broughton-Hollins pour his -tea, and he ignored the Russian completely, the while he watched -Kathleen with a strange foreboding, as her eyes flickered again and -again over Andreyvitch's face. - -Things did not go very smoothly during the next two days. Naturally they -all did the usual. Golf and riding, bridge and dancing in the evenings, -and shooting. Andreyvitch was passionately fond of shooting. Manners had -never so much as killed a sparrow in all his life. - -There was an undercurrent of uneasiness which permeated the entire -household. It was not particularly because of Andreyvitch and Manners. -It was something that not one of them could have explained if they had -been put to it. - -The first day Mrs. Galvin told her husband that she would be glad when -it was all over. And although unexpressed that was the general -sentiment. - -Not that Andreyvitch or Manners made the others uncomfortable. After -Gregory's first outburst, and now that they were under the same roof, it -rather seemed that the Russian avoided Manners. And Manners--He watched -carefully every movement, every little turn or twist of Andreyvitch's. -At that time it was as if he were trying to substantiate some memory of -his; to substantiate it deliberately and positively. - -And then because of Andreyvitch's unceasing attentions to Kathleen -Bennet, word went round among the various members of the house-party -that Gregory and Kathleen had quarreled. - -It was Sunday afternoon when Manners came upon Kathleen walking alone in -the rose-garden. - -"I'll be jolly well glad," he told her, "when we get back to town -again." - -"Aren't you having a good time, Greg?" - -"How can I?" - -"But you really needed the rest--You haven't been looking any too fit, -you know. I thought this would be quite nice for you, Greg." - -He let loose at that. - -"If you must have it, Kathleen. I can't stand you and that bounder in -the same house. That's the truth of it, old girl!" - -She avoided answering him directly. - -"It's such a ripping place here, Gregory. All--that is, all but those -forests over there. The gardener told me his grandfather used to call -them the Wood of Living Trees. He couldn't tell me why--only--Isn't it a -strange name, Greg?" - -She wound up lamely. Evidently she had not said what she started out to -say. - -"Not so awfully," he answered absent-mindedly. "It's probably an old, -old name. They stick to places, you know." - -"But the woods," she went on slowly, "they're so dark and mysterious and -all that sort of thing. I've wanted to explore them ever since I've been -here--that is--that's not altogether true, Gregory. They frighten me a -good bit--especially at night. I get into quite a funk about it--at -night. I say, you wouldn't call me a coward, would you, Gregory?" - -"Of course not, Kathleen. What utter nonsense!" - -"But if I weren't afraid," she continued half to herself. "If I weren't -really terrified, I'd go into the woods and show myself there's nothing -to be frightened of, wouldn't I?" - -"You most certainly would not!" He said. "If you did, you'd be sure to -lose your way, old girl." - -For a second they walked in silence. - -"D'you ever feel"--she turned to face him--"d'you ever feel you'd been -in a place before--and yet you knew you'd never been there at all?" - -"No," he told her a bit too abruptly. - -"You needn't be so stuffy, Gregory," she murmured. - -"Oh, my dear!" He caught her and held her in his arms. "Can't you see -that it's all like a horrible nightmare? Can't you see that I'm not able -to know positively until it's actually happened--and then--oh, my -God!--If it should be too late!" - -Her hands clenched rigidly on his shoulders. - -"Gregory," she whispered, "tell me, dear--you've been so strange of -late--so terribly unlike yourself. Tell me, dear, what is it?" - -"Nothing, dearest girl--nothing." - -"Oh, but there is something!" She exclaimed passionately. "I've known it -right along. I haven't asked because I thought you'd tell me. Why--one -must be blind not to see how you've changed! You're--you're just a -skeleton of yourself, Gregory." She paused for breath. "Can't you bring -yourself to tell me--can't you, dear?" - -"If I only knew," he muttered, "if I only knew--for certain." - -Her eyes were lifted to his. The brows met in a puckering frown above -them. - -"Gregory--that time you were away--for a whole fortnight--did anything -happen, then--Gregory?" - -"Did anything happen?" She had surprised him into it. "Good God, did -anything happen? Why, you don't know what it was like--You couldn't -know! If they'd told me such a thing were possible--I shouldn't have -believed it! I wanted to think--I wanted to work the thing out for -myself--so I went down there for a rest. Rest--" - -He broke off then, but she stood very silently beside him and presently -he went on again. - -"Have you ever felt you were going mad, Kathleen? Raving, tearing--mad? -That's how I felt for two weeks. I thought it would never end. And all -the time--why, I couldn't think! I couldn't do anything but feel that -something was driving me to do something--something tremendous, as if -the very force of my own life were making me do this thing that I had -been sent into life to do. And, Kathleen," his voice sank to a hoarse -whisper, "I couldn't understand--what--it--was!" - -She put her arm about his neck and drew his head down until her cheek -rested on his. - -"I couldn't think a thought," he muttered. "I'd laid myself open to the -thing. It just swept over me and through me. It saturated me with the -impulse to do the thing I had come into the world to do! The one thing -that stood out--was--the feeling that it would have to be done--soon." -He paused for a moment. "And then one afternoon at the club--when I'd -been back a day or two--something came to me-a sudden knowledge -of--well, of rottenness--that--that might have to be done away with--as -if that had something to do with it. Only I don't know, -Kathleen--not--as yet." - -He looked at her then and he saw her eyes were filled with tears. He -thought he had frightened her. He waited until he had himself well in -hand before he spoke again. - -"Kathleen, always believe in the good of things, dearest girl. And, -Kathleen," the words that came to him were almost as great a surprise to -him as they were to her. "Never leave that crucifix off your neck. -Promise me, dear?" - -"I promise." - -A little later they went in to tea. - -He got to bed that night with a great feeling of relief that in the -morning they would all be back in town. He had thought something would -happen. He had not known what, but the feeling had been there. He did -not mind admitting it to himself now, and he did not mind acknowledging -that he could not understand how the thing, whatever it was, had been -avoided. Unformed, undefinable, it had been powerfully imminent. He fell -asleep wondering what it was that he had expected. - -The full moon was streaming into the room when he awoke. - -He was on his feet in the middle of the floor in a flash. - -He could have sworn a cry had awakened him. A woman's voice calling for -help--A woman's voice that had been strangely like Kathleen's. - -He went to the window and looked out. A cloud had drifted across the -surface of the full moon. The whole garden lay blotched with shadows. -And there beyond the garden was the forest. Black, sinister, mysterious. -The dark depth of it sickened him. Kathleen had spoken only that -afternoon of the forest. The Wood of Living Trees. She had told him it -was called The Wood of Living Trees. - -In Heaven's name, where did the horrible, appalling significance of the -Wood of Living Trees come from? What was this ghastly knowledge that -sought for recognition in his own mind? What did the Wood of Living -Trees mean to him? - -And then he heard the faint, far cry-- - -His shoes--his trousers--hatless and coatless he was out in the garden. - -The cloud had passed from off the face of the moon. The garden lay in -the bright moonlight; even the separate flowers were visible. Beyond was -the sinister depth of that black forest. - -He felt it then. Sensed the insidious evil of something that emanated -from the wood. Something which lurked there beneath the trees--something -which clung to the tall trunks of them--something which rose and -expanded among the leaves and reached out to him in evil menace. And at -some time he had felt it all before. - -He ran quickly through the garden; over the rosebeds; crashing through -the high boxwood hedge at the farther end; and then into the forest. - -His feet sank into the moss-covered slime. The trees were gigantic. He -felt as if they were closing in on him. Their branches stretched out -like living arms, hindering his progress. Thorns caught at his clothing, -at his hands, his face. He had a vague, half-formed thought that the -forest was advancing to achieve his destruction. His only clear -determination was to protect his eyes. - -He knew then, he had always known, that the wood was some live, evil -thing--the Wood of Living Trees; and that it hid the presence of -something infinitely more foul. - -A queer odor assailed his nostrils. An odor that was not only of the -damp, dank underbrush; an odor that, in its putridness, almost -suffocated him. - -Breathless and half crazed with an unexplainable dread, he fought the -forest, beating his way with his naked hands through the dense bushes. - -And then he heard a sound. The first sound he had heard since entering -the forest. It was quite distinct. Vibrating loudly through the deadly -stillness of the wood, came the steady patter of a four-footed thing. - -The next instant something leaped out of the darkness--something huge -and strong that tried to catch at his neck. He fought for his life then. -Fought this horrible thing that had been concealed by the forest. Fought -with the darkness shutting down on him and that putrid odor smothering -his breathing. Panting and blinded, he and the thing swayed to and fro, -crashing against the tree-trunks, springing again and again at each -other from the tangled underbrush. He never knew how long he struggled -there in the blackness of the wood. It might have been hours; it might -have been minutes. And then he had the beast by its great, hairy throat. -The infuriated snarling grew weaker-- - -He felt the body become rigid. - -Silence. - -He threw the thing from him. - -He staggered farther into the wood. - -He had not gone far when he came upon Kathleen. - -She was walking uncertainly toward him. - -The moonlight trickled clear and yellow through the branches now. - -He could see her lips moving--moving--He knew that she was praying. Her -eyes looked out at him dazed and unseeing; and in her right hand that -was reached before her he saw the little, silver crucifix. - -He did not dare speak to her. He was afraid. He sank back against the -bushes and let her pass. The moonlight flooded the place with its -haunting golden light. A strange feeling of relief came over him and -with it a vast calm. And very quietly he followed her. - -She went a bit further. And she came to that spot where he had killed -the thing. He heard her shriek. The wild cry that had awakened him. - -"The wolf--Gregory--the wolf!" - -He caught her in his arms as she fainted. Then he looked down. - -There at his feet lay the body of the Russian, Stephanof Andreyvitch. - -_This will I prove. At some unknown time will I show that in this world -a certain devilish influence worketh most evilly against the high -Heavens and the good in man. I do confess the knowing of this to be -true, and many times and oft have I convinced myself that this Satanic -thing hath the power to become incarnate._ - -_In the morning I hang. God, the Father, Christ, the Son, come unto me -in purgatory that I may fulfill my sacred oath and that the soul of her -I love may find peace within the seven golden gates of Heaven._ - - - - -BEFORE THE DAWN - - -He had gotten as far as the cross-roads. He could not go on. His feet -ached; his eyes hurt with the incessant effort of trying to penetrate -the obliterating dark. Where the three roads met he stopped. - -Above him the black, unlighted skies. Before him mile upon mile of deep, -shadow-stained plain. Somewhere beyond the plain, at the foot of the -hills, lay Charvel. Jans was waiting for him at Charvel. His orders to -meet Jans were urgent; but now he could not go further. Jans would have -to wait until morning, when, by the light of day, he could again find -the way which he had so completely lost in the night. - -He sank down at the base of the crucifix. It loomed in a ghostly, gray -mass against the muddy white of the wind-driven clouds. He pulled his -coat collar up about his ears. His eyes were raised to where he thought -to see the dimly defined Christ figure; but the pitch black gloom -drenched opaquely over everything. There was something mysterious; -something remote, about the cross. He imagined peasants kneeling before -it in awed reverence, gabbling their prayers. The ignorance of such -idolatry! Their prayers had not been proof against the enemies' -bullets; and still they prayed. Tired as he was, he laughed aloud. - -"Why do you laugh?" - -He started to his feet. The voice, quiet and deep, came from directly -behind him. He had not conceived the possibility of any human thing -lurking so dangerously near. He peered blindly through the obscuring -dark. - -"Who's there?" He questioned, his fingers involuntarily closing tautly -about the butt of the revolver at his belt. - -"You, too, ask questions, eh?" The voice went on. "I can almost make out -the shape of you. Do you see me?" - -It seemed to him then that by carefully tracing the sound of the voice -he could dimly define the outline of a man's form lying close within the -murked, smudging shadow of the crucifix. - -"Yes, I think now I almost see you." His tone was anything but assured. -"What are you doing here?" - -"What is there to do but sleep?" The muttered words were half defiant. -"Name of a dog! it was your laughter that woke me. Why did you laugh?" - -"If I weren't so tired, I might explain it to you." He hesitated a -second, playing for time. "I was thinking--drawing up a mental picture -of the ignorant peasant praying here before your back-rest." - -"My back-rest?" The man's voice was sleepily puzzled. "It's this cross -you mean, eh? Well, never mind, my fine fellow. It has comfort--And -that's something to be grateful for." - -"Not the sort of splintery comfort I'd choose." - -He wondered what sort of a man this was. He was used to judging men at -sight. He cursed inwardly the unlighted night. - -"I'm not spending my time out here from choice--I can tell you that! -This does for me well enough. I told you, didn't I, that I was asleep -until your stupid laughing woke me? Sacré, why did you have to laugh? -What's the joke, eh?" - -"Perhaps it's my natural humor; even when I'm dead tired." He grinned to -himself. He had reached his decision. This sleepy fool sounded safe -enough; besides the question itself was non-committal. He asked it: -"Say, do you know the way to Charvel?" - -"You're miles from Charvel, my friend. You've surely lost all sense of -direction." - -"Right. I don't know where I'm at. It's this damned blackness. Never saw -such an infernal night. Started to walk from Chalet Corneille this -afternoon. Didn't count on its getting dark so early. Then I lost my -way. Been wandering about for hours. Probably in a circle. And now I'm -half dead. God! I'm all in!" - -"It's almost morning. If you wait for the light, you'll not miss your -road again; but I shouldn't counsel you to try to find it till dawn." - -He wondered if he dared to go to sleep with this man beside him. There -were the papers carefully concealed in his right boot-leg; the papers -Jans was waiting for. The man sounded plain-spoken and courteous -enough, considering he had been aroused from supposedly sound slumber. -He felt he wasn't a soldier. That is, he couldn't be one of Their men. -He knew what Their men were like. Despite Their world reputation he had -heard they were anything but courteous. But then one never knew. And -anyway hadn't this man spoken to him in irreproachable French? Still, -French was the language of the country and his own gift of languages was -rather pronounced. Of course it tended to make him a bit suspicious; but -logically he couldn't lay much stress on it. If only he had gotten -beyond Their lines before night, everything would have been all right. -As it was he must have been wandering round and round, covering the -self-same ground and getting no nearer to Charvel, where Jans was -waiting for him and the papers. - -Taking all in all into consideration, he decided it best not to let -himself sleep; even if the staying awake was not an easy plan for a man -utterly tired. He would have to do it somehow or other. - -"You're a native of these parts?" He asked, trying to keep any trace of -speculation as to what the man really was out of his voice. - -"Sacré, but I thought you were about to sleep." The tone sounded as if -it might be angry. "I assure you it will soon be morning." - -"Don't feel like sleeping. If you don't want to talk I can easily be -quiet." - -"No--no! It makes no difference to me. I've had my forty winks. We'll -talk, if you want. Not that I was ever one for doing much talking. I'm -too little of a fool for that--still--Why don't you lean back here -beside me against this beam?" - -He wriggled backwards and propped his drooping head stiffly against the -wood of the cross. - -"I can't see you at all." He closed his eyes; it wasn't worth the -throbbing strain of it to try to penetrate the obliterating, dripping -darkness. He couldn't do it. "I'd like to see you." - -"I'd like to see you, my friend. But what good are wishes, eh? Do you -say you live at Chalet Corneille?" - -On the instant he was alert. - -"Why do you ask?" - -"Curiosity, my friend. I know of some good people there by name of -Fornier. Perhaps they might be friends of yours." - -"Don't think I know them." He paused to collect his wits. He had been -startled by the man's suave question. He wondered if he was going to try -to trap him. He thought he couldn't have done it more neatly himself. -This job of stalling when he was almost too tired to think wasn't an -easy thing to do. He called upon his imagination. "I'm an artist," he -lied smoothly. "Sent over here to paint war scenes. I couldn't miss the -chance of a ransacked village. Its picturesque value is tremendous. I've -just finished my painting of Chalet Corneille." - -He waited tentatively. Surely if the man were just some simple, sleepy -fool he'd say something now to give an inkling of what he was. - -"One week ago it was splashed in blood--Soldiers too, in their way, are -artists," was all he said. - -"Then you're not a soldier?" - -"What made you think I was?" - -"I don't know what you are," he answered truthfully; and then quite -frankly he came back with the man's own question. "Did you say _you_ -lived in Chalet Corneille?" - -"No--I asked if you knew people there by name of Fornier?" - -"Mighty few folk left there now." The picture of the razed town came -before him. "Some old men waiting for the lost ones to come back to -them; some young children and three or four sisters of charity. And then -this morning I saw a woman--she wasn't much more than a girl--she had a -face you couldn't forget. They told me about her at the inn, where I -breakfasted." - -"Tell me," the man suggested grudgingly; "we're comfortable enough. -Dawn's a long way off, and I suppose you want to talk." - -"There isn't much to tell. She left the town; was driven out of it with -the others. Unlike them, she came back. God knows what she wanted to do -that for! They told me of her goodness; and her beauty and her kindness. -They dwelt on it at great length. Don't know as I blame them for harping -on all that. And now it seems the spirit of the war has lit upon even -her. She's changed--they say she's absolutely no good these days. -Steals--lies--has done everything, as near as I can make out, excepting -commit murder. But you ought to have seen her face. I'll wager that -once seen, it would rise to haunt any one. I don't care who it'd be. It -was beautiful--but--" - -He felt the man look up at the sky and the ghostly, gray mass of the -crucifix stretching across it. - -"Strange creatures, these peasant people." The man's words were -speculative. "Dumb kind of beasts--these soil-tillers--the best of them. -Got nothing in their lives but work and religion. Don't know as I blame -you for laughing when you looked up there. Sacré, but there is nothing -real about religion to me!" - -"You're right." He stifled a yawn. "All that sort of thing went out of -the world years ago. Thinking people aren't religious nowadays. It -doesn't give them enough food for logical thought. It's all too palpably -obvious and absurd for an intelligent person to bother with." - -"Rather a strange view for an artist, my friend, is it not?" - -"What do you mean?" - -"Thought you fellows traded on the beauty of faith, the talk of priests, -and all that sort of thing." - -"Good Lord, no." His voice was energetic enough now. He was becoming -interested. "All this belief in God and man and the innate good, and the -rest of it, is tommyrot--That's what it is! And the soul within you--and -the teachings of Christ"--he paused to regain his breath. "We'd know -those things all right enough, if they were real. We'd see them, -wouldn't we, if they were real? They'd happen--They couldn't help but -happen--every day. But they don't, and so they're just talked about. I -tell you if there were such things, we'd know it!" - -"Yes--yes--Surely we would see it--some time." - -"I haven't had more than the average University education," he went on. -"But I've seen men and women, and I know that some of them are bad, and -some of them are good, and that's all there is to it. If a man wants to -be a liar--he'll lie. What's going to make him tell the truth, I'd like -to know?" - -"It doesn't sound like artistic idealism, this talk of yours." - -"What do I care for any kind of idealism? There's too much of the -poppycock--too many of those long-haired, long-winded donkeys playing -the miniature creator for my taste. Lord, but I'd like to see an army of -them in the field!" - -"You speak like a soldier, my friend." - -"I'm proud, sir, of being a soldier!" - -In a flash he realized what he had said. Beneath his breath he cursed -furiously. Never before had he been guilty of such blatant stupidity. A -sudden anger welled within him against this man who had caught him in -his lie. Yet the man seemed harmless and indifferent enough. Perhaps he -could still get out of it. What in the name of heaven had drawn the -truth from him? He glanced up at the crucifix and his cursing abruptly -stopped. He fell to wondering if he had better strike out again in the -dark. He couldn't tell who the man was, and he had the papers to guard. -Dawn wasn't a long way off. He wondered if he ought to chance it. - -"See here"--the man's voice caught in on his train of thought. "I know -what's going through your head. You didn't want me to know that you were -a soldier. I wasn't going to tell you, either. But I'm one, too. Only -I'm not one of Them; not one of that blood-thirsty, blood-drunk -canaille. You're not either. I knew the minute I heard you speak. And -see here, I pretended at first that I didn't want to talk. But it wasn't -true. I was starving for a word with one of my own kind. I told you I -was comfortable, didn't I? I told you I was asleep? Well--I lied. I've -been writhing here for hours. I'm in agony. My leg's shot off--that's -what They did to me. I've been lying in this place for a day and a half. -A peasant stopped to pray here to-night. He gave me some water; but he -was afraid to touch me." A sob vibrated hoarsely in the man's throat. -"My brother, I want your hand." - -Without hesitation he put out his hand, his fingers fumbling over the -hard earth, until at last they found and grasped the man's hand. - -"Is there anything I can do?" He asked. - -"No, it's too dark. We must wait for the dawn. Then if you'll help me -along the road a bit"--His voice trailed off into silence. - -So they sat there. - -"There's some one coming," he said. - -He felt the man try to struggle to a sitting position. - -"No use," he moaned. "I couldn't see through the dark, anyway. Sacré, -didn't I try it before, when you came along?" - -Breathlessly they waited. There was nothing pleasant about this meeting -people one couldn't see. It was just luck that the man beside him hadn't -been one of Them. He wondered if the approaching person would stop -before the crucifix or would go on. - -The footsteps came nearer and nearer. Louder and louder they grew until -the sound of them echoed clatteringly through the silence of the night. -Then sudden deafening stillness. - -As yet he could make out no form. He wondered what was happening. Slowly -he realized that the gloom-merged mass of the crucifix had been seen and -that the feet were coming toward it. A long half minute and then -something soft and cold brushed his cheek. A quick, half-smothered cry. -A woman had reached him with her outstretched hands. Her fingers had -touched his face. - -"Mon Dieu!" She whispered. "Then I am not alone? Mon Dieu! Who are you?" - -He answered her. - -"I've lost my way. I'm waiting for the dawn." - -"You will not hurt me?" Her whimpered words betrayed her fear. "You will -let me stay to wait the daylight with you?" - -"That makes three of us," he said, "waiting for morning." - -"Non--non; how is it then three?" - -"My brother here--you--and--I." - -"Mon Dieu! Such a darkness. Tell me, it is a sign of luck, is it not, to -meet with two brothers?" - -"Well," his tone was apologetic. "We're not blood-brothers--just--" He -hesitated. - -"Ah!" She breathed softly. "Is it, as the curé says, 'a Brotherhood of -man'?" - -He could not explain to himself why he should so resent her comparing -him to her priest. - -"It is a brotherhood of understanding," he said. "It is because we are -friends." - -"Friends?" She questioned. - -"Of course," he stated emphatically. And at the same time he wondered at -his own vehemence. Why should he call this man, whom he could not even -see, his friend? "Surely you do not think that I could sit here in the -dark, holding my enemy by the hand?" - -"But no," she muttered as though to herself. "No hands are given in this -time of war. No hands but the hands of hate." - -For the first time the man spoke. - -"Hate has made men of us. Sacré, but is there anything greater than -hate?" - -"Mon Dieu! It is all so cruel--this hate that has crippled our men. Look -you, you two brothers--I would avenge them as you avenge them, but -voilà--there is so little--so pitifully little that I can do!" - -"Will you sit beside me?" The man asked gently. "I'd move, if I could, -but They've shot off my leg, and moving isn't easy." - -"The barbarians have caught you too?" She sank to her knees beside -them. "How I loathe Them! Ah, how I detest Them! They burned my -home--They drove me out of Chalet Corneille--my father and my mother and -I. We fled by the light of our flaming farm-houses. I thought that bad, -but it wasn't the worst. That came when They took me away with them. -What I have been through! It is as if I had suffered and suffered; and -now there is nothing left me to feel but hatred. And I've been back -there, thinking my people might come for me. Mais, they never came, and -so I must go on. I've an aunt in Charvel. There's just a chance--But -even if I do find a home, I'll still hate those soldiers. I'd kill Them -if I could. I pray to Christ that some day I may kill to avenge." - -"Is that what you're here for?" - -"I'm here to await the dawn." - -"Madame is religious?" - -"The sisters and the curé were my only teachers." - -"And now before the crucifix, Madame prays Christ for the power to -kill?" - -"Non--non," her voice rose shrilly. "There is no Christ here on this -cross. The canaille pulled him down and dragged him away in the dirt -when They passed. There were peasants who begged Them to leave the -figure, but They left only the cross--and once--three days after They -had defiled it--I saw a spy crucified there. I helped cut him down. Now -it's empty!" - -"Sacré, it is like Them," the man said. "I'd wondered why the cross was -bare. I'm not one of your believers, but I can see how it would hurt a -good woman like you." - -"A good woman?" She questioned vaguely, as if in her innocence all were -good. "Mon Dieu, I only know that it hurt." - -He looked up at the crucifix. The sky was slowly, very slowly, -lightening. - -"It will soon be day," he said. - -They were silent. And in the stillness they could feel the expectancy of -dawn; the terse waiting for the light. The eager, anticipating stare of -each was fixed upon the other's face. - -The black of the sky merged very gradually into a pale, sickly gray. Far -to the east quivered a thin streak of yellow light. - -The three drab shadows of them cowered beneath the cross. - -Mauve and pink and golden light spread slowly over the firmament. - -"No, it can't be!" He muttered, his eyes upon the man's face--this man -whom he had sat with those long hours before the dawn, whose hand he -still held in his. He thought he caught the man's whispered "sacré!" - -The woman was the first to speak. - -"Voilà!" She taunted. "But it is--oh, so pretty! A French soldier with a -leg shot off and a German officer to nurse him. You two--you who spoke -of hate, do you still sit hand in hand?" - -"The girl from Chalet Corneille!" He had known he would not forget her -face. - -"The dark has made cowards of you," she mocked. "Before the morning you -clung together. But now it is dawn!" Her voice rang out bitterly, -brutally clear. "Did not one of you ask, 'Is there anything greater than -hate'?" - -"Sacré! What you say is just." The wounded man's eyes were raised to -glance at the light-quivering firmament. Slowly the eyes caught the -sight of something else. Very gradually they took in that -unexpected thing. Mechanically the words were jerked out: -"It--was--I--who--asked--" A sudden pause--a quick gasp--"God forgive -me--it--was--I!" - -The uncanniness of the words shocked him. In spite of himself, his own -eyes followed the man's wide stare; followed it from the eastern -horizon, over the shimmering sky; followed it until he reached the -crucifix. The hand, which, at the girl's words, had half-heartedly -sought his pistol, shook now as he crossed himself. - -Was it the smudging shadows, the still unlighted mass of them up there -on the arms of the crucifix? Would shadows take on so the semblance of -the human body? - -"If there were such things--we'd know it--" Fragments of their talk in -the night came vividly back to him. "If these things were -real--sometimes--we'd see it!" - -The girl dropped to her knees. Her hands were clinched over her heaving -breast; her gaze riveted itself upon that mass of shadows, high up on -the cross; that mass of shadows so mysteriously like the dimly defined -Christ figure. - -With a hoarse, racking sob that shook his whole frame, the wounded -soldier fell upon his face. Quickly the officer bent over him, his hand -on the shaking shoulder, his breath coming and going in short, rasping -gasps. Motionless he stood there, moving only to catch hold of the -girl's fingers, that reached up and clung to his. - -The faint, cold light of early morning tinged across the gray-white of -the sky. Daybreak lighted the three grouped figures huddled so close -together beneath the crucifix. Dawn showed clearly the brown wooden -cross and the great half-ripped out nails that had once held the -Christ. - - - - -THE STILLNESS - - -He cringed in shuddering awe beneath the stillness. He could not stand -the heavy, deep silence of it; the muffled, sucking thickness absorbing -so completely all sound into its deadening mat. He had gotten so that he -had to be perpetually stopping himself from screaming. He had to keep -watch on himself always. He was terrified that he might go mad. He -feared the oppression of the awful quiet would craftily draw his reason -away from him. He did not want to scream. He did not want to attempt to -defy the harrowing, rending silence. He was afraid of the blanketing, -saturating weight of the stillness. - -Sometimes when he could bring himself to think he thought that he might -after all like to go about shouting at the top of his lungs. His mind -kept on surreptitiously toying with the thought of the relief from the -thing. He thought of it a lot. He knew that shouting about his own farm -would not do him any good. He was too far away from everything and -everyone in the strip of valley hemmed in between the rolling hills. Of -course there was old man Efferts. Old man Efferts did not live so very -far away. He knew he could not count on Efferts. Efferts had lived there -too long in the stillness that rolled down to him from the hills and -came together to lie flat and sluggish, thudding down on the valley -land. If he could bring himself to walk into the ten-mile-off town -shouting so that other people would follow after him shouting; so that -there would be some kind of continuous, human noise for a while. It was -that he wanted more than anything else; human noise. - -At night he would wake suddenly from his heavy, quiet slumber; from the -dreamless, ponderous pit of it and listen to the stillness. - -When he first went to bed it would take him hours before he could get -himself off to sleep. He dreaded the muted, frantic struggle of those -dragging, pulling hours in which he would try to shut his ears to the -soundless, deafening silence that throbbed noiselessly from a great -distance and was noiseless in the room all about him; and pressed -noiselessly against his blood filled ear-drums. He had the feeling at -night that the stillness became more real sweeping in a greater rush -down the hills; that it had an heightened, insidious power to get inside -of him. - -He would toss about on his narrow wooden bed for hours; moving -cautiously and carefully so as not to do anything that would offend the -drugged burden of the silence. He would move a leg or an arm slyly and -then he would lie quite quiet for a time holding his breath until the -cracking pain came plunging again and again into his chest. He could -feel the stillness filling in all the spaces and crevices around him, -so that he thought it rose and swelled hideously. - -He was afraid of those hours before he went to sleep; before he could -drop off with that overwhelming sense that in losing consciousness he -was consciously letting himself drown in a tremendous, swollen wave of -silence. - -And then toward morning that sudden, inevitable awakening. His rousing -himself to listen. His whole body becoming rigid; tautly holding itself -with straining, shaking muscles to the position in which he lay. The -sweat breaking out all over him and trickling coldly down from his -armpits along his sides. His cunning shifting of his head so that he -could clear his ears to hear better. His futile harkening for the sound -that never came. His intensive shivering waiting for it. And nothing but -the stillness. He could never make himself move. The thing was so -actual; suffocatingly potent; malignant. He had grown terrified of -attempting to disrupt it in any of those little ways at his command. He -had begun to think that the noise he would make would not be a noise. He -could not have stood the shock of making a noise that would be quite -vacantly without sound. - -All day long, working in his fields, he used to wonder at it. In the -sunlight it was with him still and bated. It rose up to him from the -ground at his feet, from the soil it had wormed itself into. It crushed -down on him from the clear, blue sweep of the sky. It spread unseen -toward him down the long, uncertain slopes of the hills coming on -always from all sides and staying. - -It had become so that nothing was real to him; nothing but the stillness -that drenched everything; stifling and choking. - -The old mare working her way in front of the plow along the narrowed, -deepening furrows, was a ghost creature to him. The grayness of her -blurred ahead of him in the brightest stream of sunlight. Her foolish, -stilly gliding played horridly on his raw nerves. At all times she was a -phantom animal, stirring with the intangible motion of the silence. He -felt that she did not belong to him; that she was a thing of the -stillness. - -He would trail after her, his quivering, thin hands on the plow handles, -his eyes riveted on her bony withers. He would try to concentrate his -thoughts on the way she moved and then overcome quite suddenly with the -quiet, insidious stealth of her ambling, he would pull her up and stop -to mop his forehead, his eyes going slowly around him as if he almost -expected to see the thing that had lain that smothering, strangling hold -on to him. - -His one and only companion was a yellow mongrel that had come slinking -in at the farm gate, its tail drooping between its legs. He had been -glad at first of having the dog with him. And then gradually he had come -to feel the oddness of the animal. If he could have done so he would -have turned the dog out again into the stillness from which it had come -to him. He was sure that the mongrel must be old; unnaturally old. He -could not understand the dog's awful quiet. In his heart he was scared -of the dog. The mongrel followed incessantly at his heels, always with -dragging tail. Whenever his eyes turned behind him they met the -mongrel's eyes that were fixed on him; the eyes that were filled with -that uncanny, beaten look as if it had been horridly cowed. There was an -age of agony in the dog's eyes. As the days went on he became more and -more afraid of the mongrel's eyes. - -He had come out to the farm to start with because of the silence. He had -felt that he would have to get away from the noise and the tumultuous -uproar of the city. After what he had done he could not stand it. He had -gotten away. He thought now that his mind would snap; that it would -break from under the lull which had come into it--The lull which -devastated him with its hushed brutality. - -He had never been fond of people. Even in those days back there in the -city before he had done the thing that was wrong he had mistrusted them. -And after it he had run from them. Run wildly and unthinkingly to cover -with the fear of them coming on behind him. The deathly, lonely farm was -to him at that time a haven of rest. - -He had made up his mind to live on the farm until the end of his life. -He used to think bitterly of his waiting so patiently for his death. -When he could think of anything other than the silence he thought of his -dying; of life being squeezed out of him by the shrouded quiet. -Sometimes he would wonder if it were death that ominously waited for -him in that appalling, threatening stillness. - -There had been days when he had tried to recall the sound of voices he -had known. He had spent long hours in awakening in his memory those -voices. He had wanted particularly to think of people laughing. He used -to want to get the pitch of their laughing; to surround himself with the -vibration of reiterated laughter. And then when he had gotten it so that -he almost heard it, so that he felt that with concentrated attention he -might hear the laughing, he would find himself listening to the -frightful, numbing stillness. - -He had not the courage to go on trying that. - -Following the plow and the old gray mare through the fields with the dog -skulking abjectly at his heels, he would think of that thing which he -had done that had ostracized him from the rest of humanity. He never -thought of the possibility of making his life over again. He could not -have thought of it if he had wanted to. It was all too hopeless; too -impossible to think about. The deadening quiet in which he had been -steeped had drained him; sapped from him all initiative. - -When evening came he would go into his shack and close the door. He -would light the oil lamp on the old table that stood in the center of -the room and he would go about getting supper for himself and the -mongrel. He took great care always to move his pots and pans gently. If -he picked up a plate he did it slowly, softly. When he put his bowl of -food on the table he slid it consciously onto the surface without noise. -And going to and fro not oftener than he had to, his feet in their -padded moccasins lifted him to his toes. - -He ate quietly and quickly, swallowing his food without chewing, feeding -himself and the dog with his fingers. And all the while feeling that the -stillness was rushing down from the hills and gathering to greater force -about him. - -And when he was quite finished with the clearing away of his dishes he -would sit beside the table, the mongrel in front of him, and he would -think frantically of the relief of talking. His lips would begin to -quiver hideously; to move. That hoarse, inhuman muttering that had no -sound of voice in it would start. And then he would see the dog's eyes, -filled with that horrid, beaten look, fixed on his mouth and he would -stop, gasping. - -Once every little while old man Efferts would come down to the shack in -the valley. - -He knew nothing of old man Efferts other than that ever since he had -come to live at the farm Efferts had stopped in for an evening now and -again. - -At first he had resented old man Efferts' coming. Later when he had seen -that Efferts would not interfere with him he had not minded so much. He -had become quite used to seeing the bent, huddled figure of the man -trailing down the hillside and shambling into the room to sit there -opposite to him quite silent. Of late he had gone about fetching the old -man a glass of cider and a piece of bread. And they had sat facing each -other, never talking; just sitting rigidly with the dog on the floor -between them and the silence spilling itself in gigantic floods all -around them. And then old Efferts would light his pipe and when he had -finished it he would get up and go out of the door. And after he had -watched old man Efferts go, with the feeling that he might not be real, -he would stumble up to his room to lie in the narrow wooden bed trying -to shut his ears to the deafening silence about him; cringing between -his blankets as the swell of it heightened insidiously. - -He knew that the stillness had swamped itself into old man Efferts. He -could see the stamp of it in the uncertain, stupefied face; in the -bewildered eyes that had behind them something of the look that stayed -on in the dog's eyes; in the thin-lipped mouth that drooled at the -corners; in the old man's still, quiet way of moving, the unreal, -phantom way in which the gray mare moved. He did not know why the old -man should come to him to sit so dumbly opposite him for a whole -evening. He did not care. He was long past caring. - -There were times when he thought he might tell old man Efferts of that -thing which he had done years ago and which had isolated him from his -fellows. Not that he thought so much of it. He had almost forgotten it. -The stillness had made him forget everything but itself; had pushed -everything out of his mind before its own spreading weight. But he kept -the thought of speaking to Efferts of what he had done in the back of -his head. He knew how his telling it to Efferts could not fail to act. -He knew that something would infallibly happen; that the surprise of it -could not help but penetrate the thickness of Efferts' silence. He -always felt, soothing himself with the thought of relief, that when the -power of the stillness became unbearable he would shock old Efferts into -talk. There were moments when he hungered savagely to force old Efferts -out of his walling quiet. Moments when he was starving for the comfort -of human sound. His voice and Efferts' voice. Voices that would rise -above the stillness; voices that would penetrate cunningly through the -quiet; voices that would speak and answer each other. - -He was sitting in the center of his lamp lit room. He had had his supper -and had cleared away the dishes with his usual crafty carefulness. He -had lighted his pipe. He sat in the chair beside the table; his body -quite rigid; his arms and legs stiffened to a torturing quiet. The -mongrel crouched at his feet. There was something strange in the way the -animal lay; in its tightened muscles that pulled and twitched as it -breathed. Whenever he looked down his eyes met the dog's eyes. - -Outside the heavy shadows of the night crept along the ground, pushed on -by the rushing, rising silence behind them. He knew that the stillness -was rolling down the slope of those long hills. He knew that its awful -quiet was gathering in the valley. He knew that it was trickling -horridly still into the low ceilinged room. He had the feeling for the -thousandth time that the most minute noise was swallowed up in the -stillness before it came into being. - -He looked up then to see the door shoved warily ajar. A wrinkled, ugly -hand showed against the dark wood in a lighter patch of brown. A coarse -booted foot came behind the swing of the door. Standing against the -black of the night he saw old man Efferts. - -He watched the old man come into the room. - -He saw him pull up a chair, lifting it from off the floor and setting it -down opposite to him within the pooling space of the yellow lamplight. -He stared at Efferts as he sank into the chair. - -Old man Efferts took out his pipe and lit it. - -He kept his eyes on Efferts as he had so often done; on the uncertain, -stupefied face that was turned to him; on the bewildered eyes that had -something behind them of the look that stayed on in the dog's eyes; on -the thin-lipped mouth that drooled at the corners. - -He got up then and went on his toes to the door and closed it softly. He -felt that Efferts' eyes were on him; and the mongrel's eyes. He came -back and sat down in his chair. - -They both smoked quietly. - -He remembered the glass of cider and the piece of bread. - -He could not bring himself to move to-night. - -He felt the suffocating weight of the stillness crowding past him. It -was expanding menacingly throughout the small room. It filled in all -about him. - -Presently old man Efferts would finish his pipe and would get up and -shamble out of the door. He would sit there and watch him go as he -always watched, wondering if perhaps old man Efferts was not real. And -then he would stumble up to bed and lie awake and listen to the -stillness that grew greater and greater. - -He wanted the relief from that silence; wanted it desperately; -passionately. - -He remembered that if he told Efferts of that thing that he had come so -near forgetting in the smothering quiet that he would have what he so -frantically wanted. Some human speech. Human talk that would break the -silence even for a little while; the sound of human voices that would -rise and answer each other. - -He glanced at the old man surreptitiously. He tried to think what -expression would come into that stupid face with the bewildered eyes; he -tried to see the thin-lipped drooling mouth as it would look with the -lips of it startled into moving. - -He sat very still. - -Words formed themselves; lagging into his mind. - -"I--am--going--to--tell--" - -He would start to say it to old man Efferts that way. - -He could not stand the stillness any longer. - -Anything was better than the appalling agony of the quiet. - -He made a little tentative movement with his thin, shaking hands. - -He felt that Efferts was staring at him. - -The mongrel crouching at his feet moved stealthily. He heard no sound -from the animal's moving. He knew it had gotten to its feet. He saw it -standing there between where he sat and where Efferts sat. - -He felt his lips begin to quiver. - -"I--am--going--to--" - -He got the words into his head again through the menacing, waiting -stillness. - -He muttered something. - -Old man Efferts leaned forward, his hand behind his ear. - -In a sudden blinding flash of knowledge he realized that old man Efferts -was deaf. - -He felt his mouth twisting around his face. - -He tried then to shout. - -His eyes avoided the mongrel's eyes that he knew were filled with that -uncanny, beaten look and were fixed on his jerking, grimacing mouth. - -All about him the ominous, malignant silence. - -He tried again and again to speak. He could not talk. Sweat stood out in -great, glistening beads on his forehead and dribbled blindingly into his -wide, distended eyes. His body shook with the stupendous effort he was -making. His tongue was swollen. He could feel his throat tightening so -that it hurt. He could not get his words into that hoarse, inhuman -muttering that had no sound of voice in it. - -He kept on trying and trying to speak---- - -He saw that old man Efferts had finished his pipe. He watched him get -out of his chair and go shambling across the room and through the door. - -He sat there. - -His hands went up to his working mouth. He wanted to hide the hideous -jerking of it. - -His eyes met the mongrel's eyes. - -The stillness grew appalling. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Scarecrow and Other Stories, by -G. 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