THE DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD

by

ROBERT HICHENS

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

1911

I

When Evelyn Malling, notorious because of his sustained interest inPsychical Research and his work for Professor Stepton, first met theRev. Marcus Harding, that well-known clergyman was still in the fullflow of his many activities. He had been translated from his labors inLiverpool to a West End church in London. There he had proved hithertoan astonishing success. On Hospital Sundays the total sums collectedfrom his flock were by far the largest that came from the pockets ofany congregation in London. The music in St. Joseph's was allowed byconnoisseurs, who knew their Elgar as well as their Goss, their Perosias well as their Bach, and their Wesley, to be remarkable. Criticalpersons, mostly men, who sat on the fence between Orthodoxy and Atheism, thought highly of Mr. Harding's sermons, and even sometimes came downon his side. And, of all signs surely the most promising for a West Endclergyman's success, smart people flocked to him to be married, and Arumlilies were perpetually being carried in and out of his chancel, whichwas adorned with Morris windows. He was married to a woman who managedto be admirable without being dull, Lady Sophia, daughter of the lateEarl of Mansford, and sister of the present peer. He was comfortably off. His health as a rule was good, though occasionally he suffered from someobscure form of dyspepsia. And he was still comparatively young, justforty-eight. 

Nevertheless, as Evelyn Malling immediately perceived, Mr. Harding wasnot a happy man. 

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

The sadness noted by Malling was at first evasive and fleeting, notindellibly fixed in the puckers of a forehead, or in the down-drawncorners of a mouth. It was as a thin, almost impalpable mist, that canscarcely be seen, yet that alters all the features in a landscape everso faintly. Like a shadow it traveled across the eyes, obscured theforehead, lay about the lips. And as a shadow lifts it lifted. But itsoon returned, like a thing uneasy that is becoming determined todiscover an abiding-place. 

Malling's first meeting with the clergyman took place upon WestminsterBridge on an afternoon in early May, when London seemed, almost likea spirited child, to be flinging itself with abandon into the firstgaieties of the season. Malling was alone, coming on foot from Waterloo. Mr. Harding was also on foot, with his senior curate, the Rev. HenryChichester, who was an acquaintance of Malling, but whom Malling hadnot seen for a considerable period of time, having been out on his estatein Ceylon. At the moment when Malling arrived upon the bridge the twoclergymen were standing by the parapet on the Parliament side, lookingout over the river. As he drew near to them the curate glanced suddenlyround, saw him, and uttered an involuntary exclamation which attractedMr. Harding's attention. 

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

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

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

"Yes. "

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

"I have heard him say so. "

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

He caught his curate's eye and was silent. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All that passed, be it noted, passed as between gentlemen, ratherglided in the form of nuance than trampled heavily in more blatantguise. But Evelyn Malling was a highly trained observer and a man inwhom investigation had become a habit. Now that he was no longer ill atease he became deeply interested in the relations between the two menwith whom he was walking. He was unable to understand them, and thisfact of course increased his interest. Moreover he was surprised by thechange he observed in Chichester. 

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

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

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

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

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

The rector looked at Malling. 

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

"I live in Cadogan Square. "

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

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

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

"But you know we are due--"

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

"But really--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Very well. Good-by. "

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

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

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

"I shall be glad to have it. "

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

"You know Chichester well?"

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

"He's a very good fellow. "

"An excellent fellow. "

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

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

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

"Doesn't he agree with you?"

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

"Certainly. "

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

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

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

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

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

"Very little indeed, " rejoined Malling. 

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

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

"Ah!" said Malling, laconically. 

Mr. Harding shot a rather sharp glance at him. 

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

"Certainly not. "

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"In a minor degree, in a minor degree, " answered the rector, ratherevasively. 

They were now in Sloane Street and Malling said:

"I must turn off here. "

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes?" said Malling. 

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

"And you have 'placed' them all?"

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

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

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

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

"Chichester changed! In what way?"

The rector's countenance fell. 

"You haven't observed it?"

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

"Quite true! Quite true!"

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

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

"Certainly, if I possibly can. "

"And your address?"

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

"You live here?"

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

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

"Thank you. Good-by. "

The two men shook hands. Then Mr. Harding went on his way toward SouthKensington, while Malling inserted his latch-key into the door of Number7b, Cadogan Square. 

II

Evelyn Malling was well accustomed to meeting with strange people andmaking investigations into strange occurrences. He was not easilysurprised, nor was he easily puzzled. By nature more skeptical thancredulous, he had a cool brain, and he was seldom, if ever, the victimof his imagination. But on the evening of the day in question he foundhimself continually dwelling, and with a curiously heated mind, upon theencounter of that afternoon. Mr. Harding's manner in the latter part oftheir walk together had--he scarcely knew why--profoundly impressed him. He longed to see the clergyman again. He longed, almost more ardently, topay a visit to Henry Chichester. Although the instinct of caution, whichhad perhaps been developed in him by his work among mediums, cranks ofvarious kinds, and charlatans, had prevented him from letting the rectorknow that he had been struck by the change in the senior curate, thatchange had greatly astonished him. Yet was it really so very marked? Hehad noticed it before his attention had been drawn to it. That he knew. But was he not now, perhaps, exaggerating its character, "suggestioned"as it were by the obvious turmoil of Mr. Harding? He wondered, and wasdisturbed by his wonderment. Two or three times he got up, with theintention of jumping into a cab, and going to Westminster to find outif Professor Stepton was in town. But he only got as far as the hall. Then something seemed to check him. He told himself that he was in nofit condition to meet the sharp eyes of the man of science, who delightedin his somewhat frigid attitude of mind toward all supposed supernormalmanifestations, and he returned to his study and tried to occupy himselfwith a book. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Malling found himself wondering as Mr. Harding preached. 

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

At first he held his congregation. That was evident. Rows of rapt facesgazed up at him, as he leaned over the edge of the pulpit, or stoodupright with his hands pressed palm downward upon it. But it seemed toMalling that he held them rather because of his reputation, because ofwhat they confidently expected of him, because of what he had done inthe past, than because of what he was actually doing. And presently theyslipped out of his grasp. He lost them. 

The first thing that is necessary in an orator, if he is to be successfulwith an audience, is confidence in himself, a conviction that he hassomething to say which is worth saying, which has to be said. Mallingperceived that on this Sunday morning Mr. Harding possessed neitherself-confidence nor conviction; though he made a determined, almost aviolent, effort to pretend that he had both. He took as the theme of hisdiscourse self-knowledge, and as his motto--so he called it---the words, "Know thyself. " This was surely a promising subject. He began to treat itwith vigor. But very soon it became evident that he was ill at ease, asan actor becomes who cannot get into touch with his audience. He stumblednow and then in his sentences, harked back, corrected a phrase, modifieda thought, attenuated a statement. Then, evidently bracing himself up, almost aggressively he delivered a few passages that were eloquentenough. But the indecision returned, became more painful. He evencontradicted himself. A "No, that is not so. I should say--" communicatedgrave doubts as to his powers of clear thinking to the now confusedcongregation. People began to cough and to shift about in their chairs. Alady just beneath the pulpit unfolded a large fan and waved it slowly toand fro. Mr. Harding paused, gazed at the fan, looked away from it, wipedhis forehead with a handkerchief, grasped the pulpit ledge, and went onspeaking, but now with almost a faltering voice. 

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

The cause was Henry Chichester. 

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

But now the situation was becoming painful, almost unbearable. 

With every sentence the rector became more involved, more hesitating, more impotent. The sweat ran down his face. Even his fine voice wasaffected. It grew husky. It seemed to be failing. Yet he would notcease. To Malling he gave the impression of a man governed by a secretobstinacy, fighting on though he knew it was no use, that he had lostthe combat. Malling longed to cry out to him, "Give it up!"

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

Suddenly Malling felt obliged to look toward the left of the crowdedchurch. Sitting up very straight, and almost craning his neck, he staredover the heads of the fidgeting people and met the eyes of a woman, thelady with the streak of white hair against whom he had pushed whencoming in. 

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

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

The collection was made. 

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

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

"Yes. How could you know?"

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

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

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

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

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

The lady with the white lock held out her hand. 

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

"Indeed I have, " she answered. 

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

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

"No, " answered Malling. 

Lady Sophia turned to him and said:

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

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

"We always walk home, " said the rector. 

He sighed. It was obvious that he was in low spirits after the failure ofthe morning, but he tried to conceal the fact, and his wife tactfullyhelped him. Malling praised the music warmly, and remarked on the hugecongregation. 

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

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

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

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

"My dear Sophy!" exclaimed Mr. Harding. 

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

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

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

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

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

He drew out his latch-key. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, do, do!"

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

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

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

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

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

Malling said that he did. 

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

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

And she went away, leaving the two men together. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You were feeling ill?"

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

"I saw that you were troubled by something. "

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

"Splendid. "

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

The rector shifted in his chair. 

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

"In some cases, yes, " answered Malling. 

"But--as a rule?"

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

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

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

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

"It certainly is a sign of great weakness to care too much, " saidMalling. "But some people have a quite peculiar power of impressing theircritical thoughts on others. These spread uneasiness around them like anatmosphere. "

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

"Why not?"

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

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

"You think so?"

"Don't you?"

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

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

The footman appeared. 

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

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

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

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

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

The footman went out, still looking surprised. 

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

"Wait a moment!"

"Sir?"

"Was her ladyship in the drawing-room?"

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

"Ah. That will do. "

The footman shut the door. 

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

"Mr. Malling, " he said, "perhaps I ought to apologize to you for treatingyou with the abruptness allowable in a friend, but surprising in anacquaintance, indeed in one who is almost a stranger. I do apologize. Myonly excuse is that I know you to be a man of exceptional trend of mindand unusual ability. I know this from Professor Stepton. But there'sanother thing. As I told you yesterday, you are the only person of myacquaintance who, having been fairly intimate with Henry Chichester, hasnot seen anything of him during the two years he has been with me as mycoadjutor. Now what I want you to do is this: will you go upstairs andspend a few minutes alone with Chichester? Tell him I am detained, butam coming in a moment. I'll see to it that you are not interrupted. I'llexplain to my wife. And, of course, I rely on you to make the matterappear natural to Chichester, not to rouse his--but I am sure youunderstand. Will you do this for me?"

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

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

Malling hesitated. 

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

The rector interrupted him. 

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

There was a lamentable sound in his voice. 

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

The rector opened the door of the study. 

"You know your way?"

"Yes. "

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

III

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

"You are here!"

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

"You are here!"

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

He looked at Chichester and smiled. 

"You have no objection, I hope?"

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

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

"So we were. "

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He sat down by Malling and stared into his face. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He told you it was nervous dyspepsia!"

"I have just said so. "

The curate looked down. 

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

"You think it was that?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Right?"

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

"If I didn't think it right I shouldn't do it, " retorted Malling, butwithout heat. 

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

"What do you mean?"

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

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

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

"Saul was punished for consulting the witch of Endor, " returnedChichester. "And the Roman Catholic Church forbids her children to dealin occult things. "

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

"You are not a clergyman, " said Chichester. 

Malling could not help smiling. 

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

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

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

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

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

He drew out his watch and looked at it. 

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

Malling got up too. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"All the season, I think. "

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

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

"I should like to give you my address. "

"And let me give you mine. "

They exchanged cards. 

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

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

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

"I shall be delighted to come. "

"When?"

"Whenever you are kind enough to ask me. "

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

"Wednesday week, with pleasure. "

"At half after seven?"

"That will suit me perfectly. "

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

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

He stood by the door. 

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

Mr. Harding shut the drawing-room door. 

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

"You mean you want to know--?"

"Your impression of Chichester. "

The rector stopped on the landing. 

"Do you find him much changed?"

Malling shrugged his shoulders. 

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

"Firmer! More decisive, you say!"

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

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

"Really, it's difficult to say, " interrupted Malling. "He's developed, nodoubt. But very few people don't. I suppose you've trained him. "

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

In his voice there was a bitter irony. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

IV

A week later, Mailing paid a visit to Professor Stepton. He had heardnothing of the Hardings and Chichester since the day of the luncheon inOnslow Gardens, but they had seldom been absent from his thoughts, andmore than once he had looked at the words, "Dine with H. C. " in his bookof engagements, and had found himself wishing that "Hornton Street, Wednesday" was not so far distant. 

The professor lived in Westminster, in a house with Adam ceilings, notfar from the Houses of Parliament. He was unmarried, and Malling foundhim alone after dinner, writing busily in his crowded library. He had butrecently returned from Paris, whither he had traveled to take part in aseries of "sittings" with the famous medium, Mrs. Groeber. 

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

As Malling came in he looked up and nodded. 

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

"Anything new or interesting?" asked Malling. 

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

He laid aside his pen, while Malling sat down. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No. "

"Have you heard of him?"

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

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

"Exactly, and Harding's wife. "

"Oh, from Lady Sophia!"

"Who hates him. "

"Since when?" said Malling, emphatically. 

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

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

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

"Say in psychical research?"

"No. "

"Or that Chichester has?"

"No. "

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

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

"And you didn't encourage him?"

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

Malling could not help smiling. 

"I have some reason--at least I believe so--to suppose that Harding andhis curate Chichester have been making some experiments in directionsnot entirely unknown to us, " he observed. "And what is more"--hepaused--"what is more, " he continued, "I am inclined to think thatthose experiments may have been crowned with a success they littleunderstand. "

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

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

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

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

"Get on!" he said. 

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

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

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

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

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

Malling looked slightly disconcerted. 

"You don't?" he said. 

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

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

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

"You mean that I have no right to endeavor to make a secret investigationinto the matter. But I'm positive both the men want help from me. I don'tsay either of them will ask it. But I'm certain both of them want it. "

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

"Harding spoke very warmly of you. "

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

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

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

"The link?" said Malling, interrogatively. 

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

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

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

"What?"

"Your two black-coated friends. You bustle along at such a pace. Remember, I have made more experiments than you have, and I have nevercome upon an exactly similar case. I don't know whether such a thingcan be. No more do you--you've guessed. Now, guessing is not at allscientific. At the same time you've proved you can be patient. If thereis anything in this it's profoundly interesting, of course. "

"Then you advise me--?"

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

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

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

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

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

He longed to see her with Henry Chichester. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You're not overworked?" asked Malling. 

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

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

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

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

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

Malling looked at him for a minute steadily. 

"In appearance, you mean?"

"Of course. "

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

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

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

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

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

"Stewed fruit, sir, " interpolated Ellen. 

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

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

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

"What became of him?"

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

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

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

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

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

"No doubt you'll take a living. "

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

When the maid was gone, he added:

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

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

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

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

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

"What is it?"

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

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

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

"He's a very agreeable man. "

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

"Speaking quite confidentially--"

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

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

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

"In the pulpit?"

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

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

Suddenly the curate became very pale. 

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

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

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

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

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

"Very well, sir. "

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

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

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

"A striking difference. "

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

"I couldn't with truth say that. "

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

He seemed greatly, strangely, moved. 

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

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

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

"You look tired, " said Malling. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes. "

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

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

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

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

"Certainly I meant them, " he answered. 

"And if truth slays?"

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

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

"Don't you think so?"

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

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

"I didn't say that. "

"You implied it, I think. "

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

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

"_I_ thought that once, " said Chichester. 

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

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

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

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

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

He glanced at Mailing and added:

"Almost terribly sometimes. "

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

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

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

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

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

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

For the first time he completely dominated Malling, Chichester thegentle, cherubic clergyman, whom Malling had thought of as good, butweak, and certainly as a negligible quantity. He dominated, because atthat moment he made Malling feel as if he had some great possession ofknowledge which Malling lacked. 

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

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

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

"If only Stepton were here!" thought Malling. 

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

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

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

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

"I should like it, " said Malling. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

"May I ask you why?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chichester had said that. 

Was he one of the few men?

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

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

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

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

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

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

V

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

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

Lady Mansford was a pretty, dark woman, of the slightly irresponsibleand little-bird type. She willingly turned her charmingly dressed headand chirped when noticed, and she was generally noticed because of herbeauty. Now she chirped of Ceylon, where Malling had been, and then, morevivaciously, of Parisian milliners, where she had been. From these alliedsubjects Malling led her on to a slightly different topic--religion. 

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

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

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

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

"You said--?"

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

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

"Why?"

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

"Marcus!" exclaimed Lady Mansford. 

She pursed her lips. 

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

"I lunched with Lady Sophia after the service. "

"Did you? Isn't it sad?"

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

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

"Is Mr. Harding so very much changed?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Will you have a quail?"

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

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

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

"Quite another man, does he?"

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

"You mean--the contrast?"

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

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

Among his many experiments made in connection with psychical researchthose which had interested him the most had been those in which themystery of the human will had seemed to be deeply involved. Malling wasessentially a psychologist. And man was to him the great mystery, becauseman contained surely something that belonged to, that was lent to, man, as it were, by another, the mind beyond, the _anima mundi_. When Mallingdrew mentally, or spiritually, very near to any man, however rude, however humble, he always had the feeling that he was approaching holyground. Hidden beneath his generally imperturbable exterior, sunk beneaththe surface incredulity of his mind, there was the deep sense of mightytruths waiting the appointed day of proclamation. Surely, he oftenthought, if there is God in anything, in the last rays of the sunset, in the silence of night upon the sea, in the waking of spring among theforests and the gardens, in the song of the nightingale which knowsnot lovers are listening, there is God in the will of man. 

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

Now, from what Harding and Chichester had said to him, and from whathe had observed for himself, Malling believed that the two clergymenmust have had sittings together, probably with the usual tremendousobject of the ignorant amateur, that merely of communicating with theother world. Considering who the two men were, Malling believed that inall probability they had sat alone and in secret. He also felt littledoubt that from Mr. Harding's brain had come the suggestion of thesepractices, that his will had led Chichester on to them. Although hehad not known the rector two years ago, he had gathered sufficienttestimony to the fact that he had been a man of powerful, even perhapsof tyrannical, temperament, formed rather to rule than to be ruled. Heknew that Chichester, on the contrary, had been gentle, kindly, yielding, and of somewhat weak, though of very amiable, nature. The physique of thetwo men accorded with these former temperaments. Harding's commandingheight, large frame, big, powerful face and head, rather hard gray eyes, even his large white teeth, his bony, determined hands, his firmlytreading feet, suggested force, a dominating will, the capacity, andthe intention, to rule. Henry Chichester's fleshly envelop, on the otherhand, cherubic, fair, and delicate, his blue eyes, small bones, the shapeof forehead and chin, the line of the lips, hinted at--surely more thanthat, surely stated mildly--the existence within it of a nature retiring, meek, and ready to be ruled by others. No wonder if Chichester had been, as Lady Mansford had said, completely under the rector's thumb, no wonderif he had been unable to "call his soul his own" and had "worshipedMarcus. "

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

The ignorant outsider, the hastily skeptical, of course would say thatthere could have been no result. Malling, knowing more, knew better. Hehad seen strange cases of temporary confusion of a man's will broughtabout by sittings, of what had seemed temporary change even of a man'snature. When a hitherto sane man goes mad he often becomes the oppositeof what he was. Those whom he formerly loved he specially singles outfor hatred. That which he delighted to do he shrinks from with horror. Once good-natured, he is now of an evil temper, once gentle, he isfiercely obstinate, once gay, he cowers and weeps. So Malling had knowna man, while retaining his sanity, to be transformed by the apparentlytrivial fact of sitting at a table with a friend, and placing his handsupon it with the hands of another man. He himself had sat with an Oxfordfriend, --who in later sittings became entranced, --and at the very firstexperiment this man had said to him, "It's so strange, now that I amsitting with you like this I feel filled with hatred toward you. " Thishatred, which had come upon this man at every successive sitting, hadalways faded away when the sitting was over. But was it certain that thefeelings generated in sittings never persisted after they were brokenup? Was it certain that in every case the waters that had beenmysteriously troubled settled into their former stillness?

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

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

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

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

And he longed to see her again. She had said that she hoped he would comeagain to St. Joseph's and to her house, but he knew well that any suchdesire in her had arisen from her wounded pride in her husband. Shewished Malling to know what the rector could really do. When she thoughtthat the rector had recovered his former powers, his hold upon the mindsof men, then she would invite Malling to return to St. Joseph's, but notbefore. 

And when would that moment come?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There were irony and bitterness in her voice. 

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

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

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

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

"It's very good of you. "

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

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

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

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

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

"Doesn't he care for pictures?"

She slightly shrugged her shoulders. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Are you?" she said. 

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

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

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

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

"And by that you mean--?"

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

"You are ambitious, " he said. 

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

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

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

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

"What is that?"

"That we women are fools--fools!"

"For being unselfish?"

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

She made a gesture that was surely one of despair. 

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

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

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

"Very often they don't understand. "

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

Suddenly Malling resolved on a very bold stroke. 

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

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

"Because I do not understand. "

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

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

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

"To evening church?"

"Yes, yes. "

She got up. 

"You are going?"

"I must. Forgive me!"

She held out her hand. 

"But--"

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

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

"If you think it's worth while. "

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

VI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The subject was somewhat akin to that of the first sermon of Mr. Hardingwhich Malling had heard. The rector then had preached on self-knowledge. The curate, now, preached on hypocrisy. Incidentally he destroyed hisrector's sermon, flung it away on the scrap-heap, and passed on. This wasnot done viciously, but it was done relentlessly. Indeed, that was thenote of the whole sermon. It was relentless, as truth is relentless, asdeath is relentless. And besides being terribly true, it was imaginative. But the preacher almost succeeded in conveying the impression to hiscongregation that what is generally called imagination is really vision, that the true imagination is seeing what is, but is often hidden, knowingwhat is, but is often unknown. The latter part of the sermon struckMalling as very unusual, even as very daring. 

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

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

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

At this point in his sermon Chichester paused for a moment. AndMalling, who seldom felt any thrill at a séance, and who had oftenremained calmly watchful and alert during manifestations which amazedor terrified others, was aware of a feeling of cold, which seemed topass like a breath through his spirit. The congregation about him, perhaps struck by the unusual form of the sermon, remained silent andmotionless, waiting. In his stall sat the rector with downcast eyes. Malling could not at that moment discern his expression. His largefigure and important powerful head and face showed almost like thoseof a carven effigy in the lowered light of the chancel. The choirboysdid not stir, and the small, fair man in the pulpit, raising his thinhands, and resting them on the marble ledge, continued quietly, takingup his sermon with a repetition of the last words uttered, "whosefootprints were the same as his own. "

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

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

The sound of the footfall persisted, and was certainly not far off. Theprints in the snow were so fresh that they seemed not quite motionless, as if the snow were only now settling after the pressure it had justsuffered. The man slackened his pace. He did not like the sound whichhe heard. He began to feel as if he by whom it was made would not provea companion to his taste. Yet his curiosity continued. There began withinhim a struggle between his curiosity and another sensation, which wasof repugnance, almost of fear. And so equal were the combatants thatthe lights of the village were in sight, and he had not decreased thedistance between himself and the other. Seeing the lights, however, hiscuriosity got the upper hand. He slightly quickened his pace, and almostimmediately beheld the shape of a man relieved against the night, andtreading onward through the snow. And as the sound of the footsteps hadbeen disagreeable to his nerves, so the contours of the moving blacknessrepelled him. He did not like the look of this man whose footprints werethe same as his own, and he decided not to join him. But, moving rathercautiously, he gained a little upon him, in order to make sure, ifpossible, whether or not he was a neighbor or an acquaintance. 

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

Here a strange thing occurred. 

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

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

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

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

He had opened the door with a key. 

The man at the gate felt overcome by a sensation almost of horror, which he could not explain to himself. It was not that he was horrifiedby the certainly extraordinary fact of some one possessing a key to hishouse, and using it in this familiar fashion. It was not even that hewas horrified at seeing a man, perhaps a stranger, disappearing thusinto his home by night, uninvited, unexpected. What horrified him wasthat this particular man, whose footprints he had followed and measuredwith his foot, whose footfalls he had heard, whose form he had seenoutlined against the night, should be within his house, where his wifeand his children were, and where his venerable mother was sitting besidethe fire. That this man should be there! He knew now that from the firstmoment when he had been aware of his existence he had hated him, that hissubconscious mind had hated him. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VII

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

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

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

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

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

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

She hesitated for an instant. Then she said:

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

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

"And my husband's sermon?"

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

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

"You think he needs one?"

"He has a tiresome malady, I understand. "

"What malady?"

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

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

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

"I think a wise doctor would probably order your husband away, " saidMalling, though Mr. Harding's departure was the last thing he desiredjust then. 

"Even if he were ordered away, I don't know that he would go. "

"Why not?"

"I don't think he would. I don't feel as if he could get away, " she said, with what seemed to Malling a sort of odd obstinacy. "In fact, I knowhe's not going, " she abruptly added. "I have an instinct. "

Malling felt sure that she had considered, perhaps long before he hadsuggested it, this very project of Mr. Harding's departure for a whilefor rest, and that she had rejected it. Her words recalled to his mindsome other words of her husband, spoken in Mr. Harding's study: "Surelyone ought to get out of such an atmosphere, to get out of it, and to keepout of it. But how extraordinary it is the difficulty men have in gettingaway from things!"

Perhaps Lady Sophia was right. Perhaps the rector could not get away fromthe atmosphere which seemed to be destroying him. 

"I dare say he is afraid to trust everything to his curates, " observedMalling, prosaically. 

"He needn't be--now, " she replied. 

In that "now, " as she said it, there lay surely a whole history. Mallingunderstood that Lady Sophia, suddenly perhaps, had given her husband up. Since Malling had first encountered her she had cried, _"Le roi estmort!"_ in her heart. The way she had just uttered the word "now" madeMalling wonder whether she was not about to utter the supplementary cry, _"Vive le roi!"_

As he looked at her, with this wonder in his mind, Henry Chichester cameinto the room. 

There was an expression of profound sadness on his face, which seemed todignify it, to make it more powerful, more manly, than it had been. Thechoir-boy look was gone. Malling of course knew how very much expressioncan change a human being; nevertheless, he was startled by the alterationin the curate's outward man. It seemed, to use the rector's phrase, thathe had "shed his character. " And now, perhaps, the new character, mysteriously using matter as the vehicle of its manifestation, wasbeginning to appear to the eyes of men. He showed no surprise at thesight of Malling, but rather a faint, though definite, pleasure. Theway in which Lady Sophia greeted him was a revelation to Malling, anda curious exhibition of feminine psychology. 

She looked up at him from the low chair in which she was sitting, gavehim her left hand, and said, "Are you very tired?" That was all. Yetit would have been impossible to express more clearly a woman's mental, not affectional, subjugation by a man, her instinctive yielding to power, her respect for authority, her recognition that the master of her masterhad come into the room. 

Her "_Vive le roi!_" was said. 

Chichester accepted Lady Sophia's subtle homage with an air ofunconsciousness. His interior melancholy seemed to lift him above thesmall things that flatter small men. He acknowledged that he was tired, and would be glad of tea. He had been down in the East End. The rectorhad asked him to talk over something with Mr. Carlile of the Church Army. 

"You mean that you suggested to the rector that it would be wise to seeMr. Carlile, " said Lady Sophia. 

"Is the rector coming in to tea?" asked Chichester. 

"Possibly he may, " she replied. "He knew Mr. Malling was to be here. Didyou tell him you were coming?"

"No. I was not certain I should get away in time. "

"I think he will probably turn up. "

A footman brought in tea at this moment, and Malling told the curate hehad heard him preach in the evening of last Sunday. 

"It was a deeply interesting sermon, " he said. 

"Thank you, " said Chichester, very impersonally. 

The footman went away, and Lady Sophia began to make tea. 

"When I went home, " Malling continued, "I sat up till late thinkingit over. Part of it suggested to my mind one or two rather curiousspeculations. "

"Which part?" asked Lady Sophia, dipping a spoon into a silver tea-caddy. 

"The part about the man and his double. "

She shivered, and some of the tea with which she had just filled thespoon was shaken out of it. 

"That was terrible, " she said. 

"What were your speculations?" said Chichester, showing a sudden anddefinite waking up of keen interest. 

"One of them was this--"

Before he could continue, the door opened again, and the tall andpowerful form of the rector appeared. And as the outer man of Chichesterseemed to Malling to have begun subtly to change, in obedience surelyto the change of his inner man, so seemed Mr. Harding a little alteredphysically, as he now slowly came forward to greet his wife's twovisitors. The power of his physique seemed to be struck at by somethingwithin, and to be slightly marred. One saw that largeness can becomebut a wide surface for the tragic exhibition of weakness. As the rectorperceived the presence of Chichester, an expression of startled pain fledover his face and was gone in an instant. He greeted the two men and satdown. 

"Have you just begun tea?" he asked, looking now at his wife. 

"We are just going to begin it, " she replied. "We are talking about thesermon of last Sunday. "

"Oh, " rejoined the rector. 

He turned to Malling. 

"Did you come to hear me preach again?"

There was a note as of slight reassurance in his voice. 

"Mr. Chichester's sermon, " said Lady Sophia. 

"Oh, I see, " said the rector. He glanced hastily from one to the other ofthe three people in the room, like a man searching for sympathy or help. "What were you saying about our friend Chichester's sermon?" he asked, with a forced air of interest. 

Lady Sophia distributed cups for tea. 

"I was speaking of that part of it which dealt with the man who followedhis double, " said Malling. 

"Ah?" said the rector. 

He was holding his tea-cup. His hand trembled slightly at this moment, and the china rattled. He set the cup down on the small table beforehim. 

"You said, " observed Chichester--toward whom Lady Sophia immediatelyturned, with an almost rapt air--"that it suggested some curiousspeculations to your mind. I should very much like to know what theywere. "

"One was this. Suppose the man in the garden, who looked in upon hisdouble, had not fled away. Suppose he had had the courage to remain, and, in hiding--for the sake of argument we may assume the situation tobe possible--"

"Ah, indeed! And why not?" interrupted Chichester. 

His voice, profoundly melancholy, fell like a weight upon those who heardhim. And again Malling thought of him almost as some one set apart fromhis fellows by some mysterious knowledge, some heavy burthen of truth. 

"--and in hiding had watched the life of his double. I sat up speculatingwhat effect such an observation, terrible no doubt and grotesque, wouldbe likely to have on the soul of the watching man. But there was anotherspeculation with which I entertained my mind that night. "

"Let us have it, " said Chichester, leaning forward, and, with the gesturecharacteristic of him, dropping his hands down between his knees. "Let ushave it. "

"Suppose the man to remain and, in hiding, to watch the life of hisdouble, what effect would such an observation be likely to have upon thedouble?"

Malling paused. The rector, with an almost violent movement of his bighand and arm, took his cup from the table and drank his tea. 

"It didn't occur to you, I suppose, when composing your sermon to followthat train of thought?" said Malling to Chichester. 

"No, " replied the curate, slowly, and like one thinking profoundly. "Iwas too engrossed with the feelings of the man. But, then, you thoughtof the double as a living man, with all the sensations of a man?"

"That was your fault, " said Malling. 

"His fault!" said Lady Sophia, with a sort of latent sharpness, andlaying an emphasis on the second word. 

"Certainly; for making the narrative so vital and human. "

He addressed himself again to the curate. 

"Did you not give to the double the attributes of a man? Did you notmake his wife come to bid him good night, bend down to kiss him, wafthim a characteristic farewell?"

"It is true. I did, " said Chichester, still speaking like a man in deepthought. 

"That was the most terrible part of all, " said Lady Sophia. In her voicethere was an accent almost of horror. "It sickened me to the soul, "she continued--"the idea of a woman bidding a tender good night to anapparition. "

"I took it as a man, " said Malling. 

They had all three, strangely, left the rector out of this discussion, and he seemed willing that it should be so. He now sat back in his chairlistening to all that was being said, somewhat as he had listened to thesermon of Chichester, in a sort of ghastly silence. 

"How could a man's double be a man?" said Lady Sophia. 

"We are in the region of assumption and of speculation, " returnedMalling, quietly, "a not uninteresting region either, I think. The othernight for a whole hour, having assumed the double man, I speculated onhis existence, spied upon by his other self. And you never did that?"

He looked at Chichester. 

"When I was making my sermon I was engrossed by the thought of thewatching man. "

Malling's idea had evidently laid a grip upon Chichester's mind. 

"Tell me what the double's existence would be, according to you, " hesaid. "Tell me. "

"You imagined the lesson learnt by the man so terrible that he fled awayinto the night. "

"Yes. "

"Had he been strong enough to stay--"

"Strong enough!" interposed Chichester. "Better say, had he been obligedto stay. "

"Very well. Given that compulsion, in my imagination the double must havelearnt a lesson, too. If we can learn by contemplation, can we not, mustwe not, learn by being contemplated? Life is permeated by reciprocity. Ican imagine another sermon growing out of yours of last Sunday. "

"Yes, you are right--you are right, " said Chichester. 

"The double, then, in my imagination, would gradually become uneasyunder this secret observation. You described him as, his wife gone, sitting down comfortably to write some account of the hidden doingsof his life, as, the writing finished, the diary committed to thedrawer and safely locked away, rising up to go to rest with a smile ofself-satisfaction. It seemed to me that, given my circumstance of thepersistent observation, a few nights later matters would have been verydifferent within that room. The hypocrite is happy, if he is happy atall, when he is convinced that his hypocrisy is successful. Take awaythat certainty, and he would be invaded by anxiety. Set any one to watchhim closely, he would certainly suffer, if he knew it. "

"If he knew it! That is the point, " said Chichester. "You put the manwatching the double in hiding. "

"There are influences not yet fully understood which can traverse space, which can touch not as a hand touches, but as unmistakably. I imaginedthe soul of the double touched in this way, the waters troubled. "

"Troubled! Troubled!"

It was Mr. Harding who had spoken, almost lamentably. His powerfullyshaped head now drooped forward on his breast. 

"I imagined, " continued Malling, "a sort of gradual disintegrationbeginning, and proceeding, in the double--a disintegration of the soul, if such a thing can be conceived of. "

His piercing eyes went from Chichester to Harding. 

"Or, no, " he corrected himself. "Perhaps that is an incorrect descriptionof my--very imaginative--flight through speculation the other night. Possibly I should say a gradual transference, instead of disintegrationof soul. For it seemed to me as if the man who watched might gradually, as it were, absorb into himself the soul of the double, but purified. Forthe watcher has the tremendous advantage of seeing the hypocrite livingthe hypocrite's life, while the hypocrite is only seen. Might not theformer, therefore, conceivably draw in strength, while the other fadedinto weakness? Ignorance is the terrible thing in life, I think. Now theman who watched would receive knowledge, fearful knowledge, but the manwho was watched, while perhaps suffering first uneasiness, then possiblyeven terror, would not, in my conception, ever clearly understand. Hewould not any longer dare at night to sit down alone to fill up thatdreadful diary. He would not any longer perhaps--I only say perhaps--dareto commit the deeds the record of which in the past the diary held. Buthis lesson would be one of fear, making for weakness, finally almost fornothingness. And the other night I conceived of him at last fading awayin the gloom of his room with the darkened window. "

"That was your end!" said Mr. Harding, in a low voice. 

"Yes, that was my end. "

"Then, " said Chichester, "you think the lesson men learn from beingcontemplated tends only to destroy them?"

But Malling, now with a smiling change to greater lightness and ease, hastened to traverse this statement. 

"No, no, " he replied. "For the contemplation of a man by his fellow-menmust always be an utterly different thing from his own contemplation byhimself. For our fellow-men always remain in a very delightful ignoranceof us. Don't they, Lady Sophia? And so they can never destroy us, luckilyfor us. "

He had done what he wished to do, and he was now ready for otheractivities. But he found it was not easy to switch his companions offonto another trail. Lady Sophia, now that he looked at her closely, hesaw to be under the influence of fear, provoked doubtless by the subjectthey had been discussing. Chichester, also, had a look as of fear in hiseyes. As to the rector, he sat gazing at his curate, and there had comeupon his countenance an expression of almost unnatural resolution, suchas a coward's might wear if terror forced him into defiance. 

In reply to Malling's half-laughing question, Lady Sophia said:

"You've studied all these things, haven't you?"

"Do you mean what are sometimes called occult questions?"

"Yes. "

"I have. "

"And do you believe in them?"

"I'm afraid I must ask you to be a little more definite. "

"Do you believe that there are such things as doubles?"

"I have no reason to believe that there are, unless you include wronglyin the term the merely physical replica. It appears to be establishedthat now and then two human beings are born who, throughout theirrespective lives remain physically so much alike that it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between them. "

"I didn't mean only that, " she said quickly. 

"You meant the double in mind and soul as well as in body, " saidChichester. 

"Yes. "

"How can one see if a soul is the double of another soul?" said Malling. 

"Then you think such a story as Mr. Chichester related in his sermon allnonsense?" said Lady Sophia, almost hotly, and yet, it seemed to Malling, with a slight lifting of the countenance, as if relief perhaps werestealing through her. 

"I thought it a legitimate and powerful invention introduced to point amoral. "

"Nothing more than that?" said Lady Sophia. 

Malling did not reply; for suddenly a strange question had risen up inhim. Did he really think it nothing more than that? He glanced atChichester, and the curate's eyes seemed asking him to say. 

The rector's heavy and powerful frame shifted in his chair, and his voicewas heard saying:

"My dear Sophy, I think you had better leave such things alone. You donot know where they might lead you. "

There was in his voice a sound of forced authority, as if he had beenobliged to "screw himself up" to speak as he had just spoken. Lady Sophiawas about to make a quick rejoinder when, still with a forced air ofresolution, Mr. Harding addressed himself to Chichester. 

"Since I saw you this morning, " he said, "I find that I shall not be herenext Sunday. "

He looked about the circle at his wife and Malling. 

"The doctor has ordered me away for a week, and I've decided to go. "

His introduction of the subject had been abrupt. As if almost in despiteof themselves, Lady Sophia and Malling exchanged glances. Chichestersaid nothing. 

"You can get on without me quite well, of course, " continued the rector. 

"Are you going to be away long?" said Chichester. 

"No; I think only for a week or so. The doctor says I absolutely need abreath of fresh air. "

Malling got up to go. 

"I hope you'll enjoy your little holiday, " he said. "Are you going far?"

"Oh, dear, no. My doctor recommends Tankerton on the Kentish coast. Itseems the air there is extraordinary. When the tide is down it comes offthe mud flats. A kind parishioner of mine--" he turned slightly towardhis wife: "Mrs. Amherst, Sophy--has a cottage there and has often offeredme the use of it. I hope to accept her offer now. "

Lady Sophia expressed no surprise at the project, and did not inquirewhether her husband wished her to accompany him. 

But when she shook hands with Malling, her dark eyes seemed to say tohim, "I was wrong. "

And he thought she looked humbled. 

VIII

_"Could you come down stay with me Saturday till Monday all alone airdelicious feel rather solitary glad of your company Marcus Harding MinorsTankerton Kent. "_

Such was the telegram which Evelyn Malling was considering on thefollowing Friday afternoon. The sender had paid an answer. Thetelegraph-boy was waiting in the hall. Malling only kept him fiveminutes. He went away with this reply:

_"Accept with pleasure will take four twenty train at Victoria SaturdayMalling. "_

Malling could not have said with truth that he had expected a summonsfrom Mr. Harding, yet he found that he was not surprised to get it. Theman was in a bad way. He needed sympathy, he needed help. That wascertain. But whether he could help him was more than doubtful, Mallingthought. Perhaps, really, a doctor and the wonderful air from the mudflats of Tankerton! But here Malling found that a strong incredulitychecked him. He did not believe that the rector would be restored by adoctor's advice and a visit to the sea. 

That afternoon he went to Westminster, and asked for Professor Stepton. 

"He is away, sir, " said the fair Scotch parlormaid. 

"For long?"

"We don't know, sir. He has gone into Kent, on research business, Ibelieve. "

Agnes had been for a long time in the professor's service, and wasgreatly trusted. The professor had come upon her originally when makinginvestigations into "second sight, " a faculty which she claimed topossess. By the way she was also an efficient parlor-maid. 

"Kent!" said Malling. "Do you know where he is staying?"

"The address he left is the Tankerton Hotel, Tankerton, nearWhitstable-on-Sea, sir. "

"Thank you, Agnes, " said Malling. 

"It is a haunted house somewhere Birchington way the professor is after, I believe, sir. "

"Luck favors me!" said Malling to himself, unscientifically, as he walkedaway from the house. 

On the following day it was in a singularly expectant and almostjoyously alert frame of mind that he bought a first-class ticketfor Whitstable-on-Sea, which is the station for Tankerton. 

He would involve Stepton in this affair. There was a mystery in it. Malling was now convinced of that. And his original supposition did notsatisfy him. But perhaps Mr. Harding meant to help him. Perhaps Mr. Harding intended to be explicit. The difficulty there was that he alsowas walking in darkness, as Malling believed. His telegram had come likea cry out of this darkness. 

"Faversham! Faversham!" the fair Kentish porters were calling. Only abouttwenty minutes now! Would the rector be at the station?

He was. As the train ran in alongside the wooden platform, Mailing caughtsight of the towering authoritative figure. Was it his fancy which madehim think that it looked slightly bowed, even perhaps a little shrunken?

"Good of you to come!" said the rector in a would-be hearty voice, butalso with a genuine accent of pleasure. "All the afternoon I have beenafraid of a telegram. "

"Why?" asked Malling, as they shook hands. 

"Oh, when one is anxious for a thing, one does not always get it. Ha, ha!"

He broke into a covering laugh. 

"Here is a porter. You've only got this bag. Capital! I have a flywaiting. We go down these steps. "

As they descended, Malling remarked:

"By the way, we have a friend staying here. Have you come across him?"

"No, I have seen nobody--that is, no acquaintance. Who is it?"

"Stepton. "

"The professor down here!" exclaimed Mr. Harding, as if startled. 

"At the hotel, I believe. He's come down to make some investigation. "

"I haven't seen him. "

They stepped into the fly, and drove through the long street ofWhitstable toward the outlying houses of Tankerton, scattered overgrassy downs above a quiet, brown sea. 

"The air is splendid, certainly, " observed Malling, drinking it in almostlike a gourmet savoring a wonderful wine. 

"It must do me good. Don't you think so?"

The question sounded anxious to Malling's ears. 

"It ought to do every one good, I should think. "

"Here is Minors. "

The fly stopped before a delightfully gay little red doll's house--soMalling thought of it--standing in a garden surrounded by a woodenfence, with the downs undulating about it. Not far off, but behind it, was the sea. And the rector, pointing to a red building in the distance, on the left and much nearer to the beach, said:

"That is the hotel where the professor must be staying, if he is here. "

"I'll go over presently and ask about him. "

"Oh, " said Mr. Harding. "Bring in the bag, please, Jennings. The room onthe right, at the top of the stairs. "

Malling had believed in London that Mr. Harding's telegram to him was acry out of darkness. That first evening in the cheerful doll's house heknew his belief was well founded. When they sat at dinner, like twomonsters, Malling thought, who had somehow managed to insert themselvesinto a doll's dining-room, it was obvious that the rector was ill atease. Again and again he seemed to be on the verge of some remark, perhaps of some outburst of speech, and to check himself only when thewords were almost visibly trembling on his lips. In his eyes Mallingsaw plainly his longing for utterance, his hesitation; reserve and adesire to liberate his soul, the one fighting against the other. And atmoments the whole man seemed to be wrapped in weakness like a garment, the soul and the body of him. Then, as a light may dwindle till it seemscertain to go out, all that was Marcus Harding seemed to Malling todwindle. The large body, the powerful head and face, meant little, almostnothing, because the spirit was surely fading. But these moments passed. Then it was as if the light flared suddenly up again. 

When dinner was over, Mr. Harding asked Malling if he would like to takea stroll. 

"The sea air will help us to sleep, " he said. 

"I should like nothing better, " said Malling. "Haven't you been sleepingwell lately?"

"Very badly. We had better take our coats. "

They put the coats on, and went out, making their way to the broad, grassy walk raised above the shingle of the beach. The tide was fardown, and the oozing flats were uncovered. So still, so waveless wasthe brown water that at this hour it was impossible to perceive whereit met the brown land. In the distance, on the right, shone the lightsof Herne Bay, with its pier stretching far out into the shallows. Awayto the left was the lonely island of Sheppey, a dull shadow beyond theharbor, where the oyster-boats lay at rest. There were very few peopleabout: some fisher-lads solemnly or jocosely escorting their girls, whogiggled faintly as they passed Mr. Harding and Malling; two or threeshopkeepers from Whitstable taking the air; a boatman or two vaguelyhovering, with blue eyes turned from habit to the offing. 

The two men paced slowly up and down. And again Malling was aware ofwords trembling upon the rector's lips--words which he could not yetresolve frankly to utter. Whether it was the influence of the faintlysighing sea, of the almost sharply pure air, of the distant lightsgleaming patiently, or whether an influence came out from the man besidehim and moved him, Malling did not know; but he resolved to do a thingquite contrary to his usual practice. He resolved to try to force athing on, instead of waiting till it came to him naturally. He becameimpatient, he who was generally a patient seeker. 

"You remember our former conversations with regard to Henry Chichester?"he said abruptly, changing the subject of their discourse. 

"Chichester? Yes--yes. What of him?"

"I wish to tell you that I think you are right, that I think there is anextraordinary, even an amazing, change in Chichester. "

"There is, indeed, " said Mr. Harding. "And--and it will increase. "

He spoke with a sort of despairing conviction. 

"What makes you think so?"

"It must. It cannot be otherwise--unless--"

He paused. 

"Yes, " said Malling; "unless--"

"A thing almost impossible were to happen. "

"May I, without indiscretion, ask what that is?"

"Unless he were to leave St. Joseph's, to go quite away. "

"Surely that would not be impossible!"

"I often think it is. Chichester will not wish to go. "

"Are you certain of that?" asked Malling, remembering the curate's remarkin Horton Street, that perhaps he would not remain at St. Joseph's muchlonger. 

The rector turned his head and fixed his eyes upon Malling. 

"Has he said anything to you about leaving?" he asked, suddenly raisinghis voice, as if under the influence of excitement. "But of course hehas not. "

"Surely it is probable that such a man may be offered a living. "

"He would not take it. "

They walked on a few steps in silence, turned, and strolled back. It wasnow growing dark. Their faces were set toward the distant gleam of theHerne Bay lights. 

"I am not so sure, " at length dropped out Malling. 

"Why are you not so sure?"

"Why do you think Chichester's departure from St. Joseph's impossible?"

Malling spoke strongly to determine, if possible, the rector to speak, tosay out all that was in his heart. 

"Can I tell you?" Mr. Harding almost murmured. "Can I tell you?"

"I think you asked me here that you might tell me something. "

"It is true. I did. "

"Then--"

"Let us sit down in this shelter. There is no one in it. People are goinghome. "

Malling followed him into a shelter, with a bench facing the sea. 

"I thought perhaps here I might be able to tell you, " said Mr. Harding. "I am in great trouble, Mr. Malling, in great trouble. But I don't knowwhether you, or whether any one, can assist me. "

"If I may advise you, I should say--tell me plainly what your troubleis. "

"It began--" Mr. Harding spoke with a faltering voice--"it began a goodwhile ago, some months after Mr. Chichester came as a curate to St. Joseph's. I was then a very different man from the man you see now. Often I feel really as if I were not the same man, as if I were radicallychanged. It may be health. I sometimes try to think so. And then I--" Hebroke off. 

The strange weakness that Malling had already noticed seemed again to bestealing over him, like a mist, concealing, attenuating. 

"Possibly it is a question of health, " said Malling, rather sharply. "Tell me how it began. "

"When Chichester first joined me, I was a man of power and ambition. Iwas a man who could dominate others, and I loved to dominate. "

His strength seemed returning while he spoke, as if frankness were to hima restorative of the spirit. 

"It was indeed my passion. I loved authority. I loved to be in command. I was full of ecclesiastical ambition. Feeling that I had intellectualstrength, I intended to rise to the top of the church, to become a bishopeventually, perhaps even something greater. When I was presented to St. Joseph's, --my wife's social influence had something to do with that, --Isaw all the gates opening before me. I made a great effect in London. I may say with truth that no clergyman was more successful than I was--atone time. My wife spurred me on. She was immensely ambitious for me. Imust tell you that in marrying me she had gone against all her family. They thought me quite unworthy of her notice. But from the first time Imet her I meant to marry her. And as I dominated others, I completelydominated her. But she, once married to me, was desperately anxious thatI should rise in the world, in order that her choice of me might bejustified in the eyes of her people. You can understand the position, Idare say?"

"Perfectly, " said Malling. 

"I may say that she irritated my ambition, that she stung it into almosta furious activity. Women have great influence with us. I thought she wasmy slave almost, but I see now that she also influenced me. She worshipedme for my immediate success at St. Joseph's. You may think it veryridiculous, considering that I am merely the rector of a fashionableLondon church, but there was a time when I felt almost intoxicated bymy wife's worship of me, and by my domination over the crowds who came tohear me preach. Domination! That was my fetish! That was what led meto--oh, sometimes I think it must end in my ruin!"

"Perhaps not, " said Malling, quietly. "Let us see. "

His words, perhaps even more his manner, seemed greatly to help Mr. Harding. 

"I will tell you everything, " he exclaimed. "From the first I havefelt as if you were the man to assist me, if any man could. I hadalways, since I was an undergraduate at Oxford, --I was a Magdalenman, --been interested in psychical matters, and followed carefullyall the proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. I had alsoat that time, --in Oxford, --made some experiments with my collegefriends, chiefly in connection with will power. My influence seemed tobe specially strong. But I need not go into all that. After leavingOxford and taking orders, for a long time I gave such matters up. Ifeared, if I showed my strong interest in psychical research, especiallyif I was known to attend séances or anything of that kind, it might beconsidered unsuitable in a clergyman, and might injure my prospects. Itwas not until Henry Chichester came to St. Joseph's that I was temptedagain into paths which I had chosen to consider forbidden to me. Chichester tempted me! Chichester tempted me!"

He spoke the last words with a sort of lamentable energy. 

"Such a gentle, yielding man as he was!"

"It was just that. He came under my influence at once, and showed it inalmost all he said and did. He looked up to me, he strove to modelhimself upon me, he almost worshiped me. One evening, --it was in thepulpit!--the idea shot through my brain, 'I could do what I like withthat man, make of him just what I choose, use him just as I please. ' AndI turned my eyes toward the choir where Chichester sat in the last stall, hanging on my words. At that instant I can only suppose that what peoplesometimes call the _maladie de grandeur_--the mania for power--tookhold upon me, and combined with my furtive longing after research inthose mysterious regions where perhaps all we desire is hidden. Anyhow, at that instant I resolved to try to push my influence over Chichester toits utmost limit, and by illegitimate means. "

"Illegitimate?"

"I call them so. Yes, yes, they are not legitimate. I know that now. Andhe--but I dare not think what he knows!"

The rector was greatly moved. He half rose from the bench on which theywere sitting, then, making a strong effort, controlled himself, sankback, and continued:

"At that time, in the early days of his association with me, Chichesterthought that everything I did, everything I suggested, even everythingthat came into my mind, must be good and right. He never dreamed ofcriticizing me. In his view, I was altogether above criticism. And if Iapproached him with any sort of intimacy he was in the greatest joy. Youknow, perhaps, Mr. Malling, how the worshiper receives any confidencefrom the one he worships. He looks upon it as the greatest complimentthat can be paid him. I resolved to pay that compliment to HenryChichester. 

"You must know that although I had entirely given up the occultpractices--that may not be the exact term, but you will understandwhat I mean--I had indulged in at Oxford, I had never relaxed my deep, perhaps my almost morbid interest in the efforts that were being madeby scientists and others to break through the barrier dividing us onearth from the spirit world. Although I had chosen the career of aclergyman, --alas! I looked upon the church, I suppose, as little morethan a career!--I was not a very faithful man. I had many doubts which, as clergymen must, I concealed. By nature I suppose I had rather anincredulous mind. Not that I was a skeptic, but I was sometimes adoubter. Rather than faith, I should have much preferred to haveknowledge, exact knowledge. Often I even felt ironical when confrontedwith the simple faith we clergymen should surely encourage, sustain, andhumbly glory in, whereas with skepticism, even when openly expressed, Ialways felt some part of myself to be in secret sympathy. I continued tostudy works, both English and foreign, on psychical research. I followedthe experiments of Lodge, William James, and others. Myers's great workon human personality was forever at my elbow. And the longer I wasdebarred--self-debarred because of my keen ambition and my determinationto do nothing that could ever make me in any way suspect in the eyes ofthose to whom I looked confidently for preferment--from continuing thepractices which had such a fascination for me, the more intensely Iwas secretly drawn toward them. The tug at my soul was at last almostunbearable. It was then I looked toward Chichester, and resolved to takehim into my confidence--to a certain extent. 

"I approached the matter craftily. I dwelt first upon the great spreadof infidelity in our days, and the necessity of combating it by everylegitimate means. I spoke of the efforts being made by earnest men ofscience--such men as Professor Stepton, for instance--to get at the truthChristians are expected to take on trust, as it were. I said I respectedsuch men. Chichester agreed, --when did he not agree with me at thattime?--but remarked that he could not help pitying them for ignoringrevelation and striving to obtain by difficult means what all Christiansalready possessed by a glorious and final deed of gift. 

"I saw that though Chichester was such a devoted worshiper of mine, if Iwanted to persuade him to my secret purpose, --no other than the effort, to be made with him, to communicate with the spirit world, --I must bedeceptive, I must mask my purpose with another. 

"I did so. I turned his attention to the subject of the human will. Now, at that time Chichester knew that his will was weak. He considered thatfact one of his serious faults. I hinted that I agreed with him. Iproposed to join with him in striving to strengthen it. He envied mystrength of will. He looked up to me, worshiped me almost, because of it. I drew his mind to the close consideration of influence. I gave him twoor three curious works that I possessed on this subject. In one of them, a pamphlet written by a Hindu who had been partly educated at Oxford, and whom I had personally known when I was an undergraduate, there was acourse of will-exercises, much as in certain books on body-building thereare courses of physical exercises. I related to Chichester some of theextraordinary and deeply interesting conversations I had had with thisHindu on the subject of the education of the will, and finally I told alie. I told Chichester that I had gained my powerful will while at Oxfordby drawing it from my Hindu friend in a series of sittings that we twohad secretly undertaken together. This was false, because I had been bornwith a strong, even a tyrannical, will, and I had never sat with theHindu. 

"Chichester, though at first startled, was fascinated by this untruth, and, to cut the matter short, I persuaded him to begin with me a seriesof secret sittings, in which I proposed to try to impart to him, toinfuse into him, as it were, some of my undoubted power--the power whichhe daily saw me exercising in the pulpit and over the minds of men in myintercourse with them. 

"What I really wished to do, what I meant to do, if possible, was to useChichester as a medium, and to try through him to communicate with thespirit world. I had taken it into my head--no doubt you will say quiteunreasonably--that he must be entirely subject to my will in a sitting, and that if I willed him to be entranced, it was certain that he wouldbecome so. But my own entirely selfish desires I concealed under thecloak of an unselfish wish to give power to him. I even pretended, as yousee, to have a highly moral purpose, though it is true I suggested tryingto effect it in an unconventional and very unecclesiastical manner. 

"Chichester, though, as I have said, at first startled, of courseeventually fell in with my view. We sat together in his room at HorntonStreet. 

"Now, Mr. Malling, some of what I have told you may appear to be almostcontradictory. I have spoken of my _maladie de grandeur_ as if it werea reason why I wished to sit with Henry Chichester, and then of my desireto communicate, if possible, with the spirit world as my reason. "

"I noticed that, " observed Malling, "and purposed later to point it outto you. "

"How can I explain exactly? It is so difficult to unravel the web ofmotives in a mind. It was my _maladie de grandeur_, I think, that mademe long to use my worshiper Chichester as a mere tool for the opening ofthat door which shuts off from us the region the dead have entered. Mymind at that time was filled with a mingled conceit, amounting at momentsalmost to an intoxication, and a desire for knowledge. I reveled in mypower when preaching, but was haunted by genuine doubts as to truth. Myegoism longed to make an utter slave of Chichester (I nearly alwayslusted to push my influence to its limit). But my desire to know made meconceive the pushing of it in a direction, in this instance, which wouldperhaps gratify a less unworthy desire than that merely of subjugatinganother. The two birds and the one stone! I thought of them. I loved theidea of making a tool. I loved also the idea of using the tool when made. And I pretended I had only Chichester's moral interest at heart. I havebeen punished, terribly punished. 

"We sat, as I say, in Hornton Street, secretly, and of course at night. My wife knew nothing of it. I made excuses to get away--parish matters, meetings, work in the East End. I had no difficulty with her. She thoughtmy many activities would bring me ever more and more into the publiceye, and she encouraged them. The people in the house where Chichesterlodged were simple folk, and were ready to go early to bed, leavingrector and curate discussing their work for the salvation of bodies andsouls. 

"At first Chichester was reluctant, I know. I read his thoughts. He wasnot sure that it was right to approach such mysteries; but, as usual, Idominated him silently. And soon he fell completely under the fascinationpeculiar to sittings. "

Again Mr. Harding paused. For a moment his head sank, his powerful bodydrooped, he was immersed in reverie. Malling did not interrupt him. Atlast, with a deep sigh, and now speaking more slowly, more unevenly, hecontinued:

"What happened exactly at those sittings I do not rightly know. PerhapsI shall never rightly know. What did not happen I can tell you. In thefirst place, although I secretly used my will upon Chichester, desiring, mentally insisting, that he should become entranced, he never wasentranced when we sat together. Something within him--was it somethingholy? I have wondered--resisted my desire, of which, so far as I know, he was never aware. Perhaps 'beneath the threshold' he was aware. Whocan say? But though my great desire was frustrated in our sittings, thedesire of Chichester, so different, perhaps so much more admirable thanmine, and, at any rate, not masked by any deceit, began, so it seemed, to be strangely gratified. He declared almost from the first that, whensitting with me, he felt his will power strengthened. 'You are doing megood, ' he said. Now, as my professed object in contriving the sittingshad been to lift up Chichester toward my level, "--with indescribablebitterness Mr. Harding dwelt on these last words, --"I could only expressrejoicing. And this I did with successful hypocrisy. Nevertheless, I was greatly irritated. For it seemed to me that, when we sat, Chichester triumphed over me. He obtained his desire while mine remainedungratified. This was an outrage directed against my supremacy over him, which I had designed to increase. I gathered together my will power tocheck it. But in this attempt I failed. 

"Nothing is stranger, I think, Mr. Malling, than the fascination of asitting. Even when nothing, or scarcely anything, happens, the mind, thewhole nature seems to be mysteriously grasped and held. New senses in youseem to be released. Something is alert which is never alert--or, atall events, never alert in the same way--in other moments of life. Oneseems to become inexplicably different. Chichester was aware of all this. At the first sitting nothing happened, and I feared Chichester would wishto give the matter up. But, no! When we rose from our chairs late in thenight he acknowledged that he had never known two hours to pass soquickly before. At following sittings there were slight manifestationssuch as, I suppose, are seldom absent from such affairs, --perfectlytrivial to you, of course, --movements of the table, rappings, gusts ofwhat seemed cold air, and so forth. All that is not worth talking about, and I don't mean to trouble you further with it. My difficulty is, whenso little, apparently, took place, to make you understand the tremendousthing that did happen, that must have been happening gradually duringour sittings. 

"At the very first, as I told you, or nearly so, --I wish to beabsolutely accurate, --Chichester began to be aware of a strengtheningof his will. At this time I was almost angrily unaware of any changeeither in him or in myself. At subsequent sittings--I speak of theearlier ones--Chichester reiterated more strongly his assertion ofbeneficent alteration in himself. I did not believe him, though I didbelieve he was absolutely sincere in his supposition. It seemed to methat he was 'suggestioned, ' partly perhaps by his implicit trust in me, partly by his own desire that something curious should happen. However, still playing a part in pursuance of my resolve not to let Chichesterknow my real object in this matter, I pretended that I, too, perceived analteration in him, as if his personality were strengthening. And notonce, but on several occasions, I spoke of the change in him as almostexactly corresponding with the change that had taken place in me whenI sat with my Hindu friend. 

"All this time, with a force encouraged by the secret anger within me, I violently, at last almost furiously, willed that Chichester shouldbecome entranced. 

"But at length, though I willed furiously, I felt as if I were notwilling with genuine strength, as if I could not will with genuinestrength any longer. It is difficult, almost impossible, to explainto you exactly the sensation that gradually overspread me; but it usedalways to seem to me, when I self-consciously exerted my will, as ifI held within me some weapon almost irresistible, as if I forced itforward, as if its advance, caused by me, could not be withstood. Inow felt as if I still possessed this weapon, but could not induce itto move. It was there, like a heavy, useless thing, almost like a burdenupon me. 

"And Chichester continued to assert that he felt stronger, more resolute, less plastic. 

"Things went on thus till something within me, what we call instinct, Isuppose, became uneasy. I heard a warning voice which said to me, 'Stopwhile there is time!' And I resolved to obey it. 

"One night, when very late Chichester and I took our hands from thetable in his little room, I said that I thought we had had enough ofthe sittings, that very little happened, that perhaps he and I were notreally _en rapport_, and that it seemed to me useless to continue them. I suppose I expected Chichester to acquiesce. I say I suppose so, becausetill that moment he had always acquiesced in any proposition of mine. YetI remember that I did not feel genuine surprise at what actuallyhappened. "

Mr. Harding stopped, took a handkerchief from his pocket, lifted the brimof his hat, and passed the handkerchief over his forehead two or threetimes. 

"What happened was this, that Chichester resisted my proposal, and thatI found myself obliged to comply with his will instead of, as usual, imposing mine upon him. 

"This was the beginning--" the rector turned a little toward Malling, and spoke in a voice that was almost terrible in its sadness--"this wasthe beginning of what you have been witness of, my unspeakable decline. This was the definite beginning of my horrible subjection to HenryChichester. "

He stopped abruptly. After waiting for a minute or two, expecting him tocontinue, Malling said:

"You said that you found yourself _obliged_ to comply with Chichester'swill. Can you explain the nature of that obligation?"

"I cannot. I strove to resist. We argued the matter. He took his standupon the moral ground that I was benefiting him enormously through oursittings. As I had suggested having them ostensibly for that verypurpose, you will see my difficulty. "

"Certainly. "

"My yielding seemed perfectly natural, perhaps almost inevitable. Thepoint is that, without drastic change in me, it was quite unnatural. Mywill was unaccustomed to brook any resistance, and troubled itself notat all with argument. Till then what I wished to do I did, and there wasan end. I now for the first time found myself obliged to accept a moralbondage imposed upon me by my curate. The term may sound exaggerated;I can only say that was how the matter presented itself to me. From themoment I did so, I took second place to him. 

"We continued to sit from time to time. And the strange, to meinexplicable, situation rapidly developed. 

"To put it before you in few words and plainly: Chichester seemed to suckmy will away from me gradually but surely, till my former strength washis. But that was not all. With the growth of his will there was anotherand more terrible growth: there rose in him a curiously observantfaculty. "

Again the rector took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow. 

"A curiously critical faculty. How shall I say? Perhaps you may know, Mr. Malling, how the persistent attitude of one mind may influenceanother. For instance, if a man always expects ill of another--treachery, let us say, bad temper, hatred, fear, inducing trickery, perhaps, thatother is turned toward just such evil manifestations in connection withthat man. If some one with psychic force thinks all you do is wrong, soon you begin to do things wrongly. A fearful uneasiness is bred. Thefaculties begin to fail. The formerly sure-footed stumbles. The formerlyself-confident takes on nervousness, presently fear. 

"So it came about between Chichester and me. I felt that his mind wasbeginning to watch me critically, and I became anxious about thiscriticism. Like some subtle acid it seemed to act destructively uponthe metal, once so hard and resistant, of my self-confidence, of mybelief in myself. Often I felt as if an eye were upon me, seeing toomuch, far too much, coldly, inexorably, persistently. This criticalobservation became hateful to me. I suffered under it. I sufferedterribly. Mr. Malling, if I am to tell you all, --and I feel that unlessI do no help can come to me, --I must tell you that I have not been in mylife all that a clergyman should be. There have been occasions, and evensince my marriage, when I have yielded to impulses that have prompted meto act very wrongly. 

"Now, Chichester was a saint. Hitherto I had neither been troubled bymy own grave shortcomings nor by Chichester's excellence of character. I had always felt myself set far above him by my superior mentalfaculties and my greater will power over the crowd, though, alas! notalways over my own demon. I began to writhe now under the thought ofChichester's crystal purity and of my own besmirched condition of soul. All self-confidence departed from me; but I endeavored, of course, toconceal this from the world, and especially from Chichester. With theworld for a time no doubt I succeeded. But with Chichester--did I eversucceed? Could I ever succeed with such an one as he had become? Itseemed to me, it seems to me far more terribly now, that nothing I did, or was, escaped him. He attended mentally, spiritually even, toeverything that made up me. At first I felt this curiously, thenanxiously, then often with bitter contempt and indignation, sometimeswith a great melancholy, a sort of wide-spreading sadness in which Iwas involved as in an icy sea. I can never make you fully understandwhat I felt, how this mental and spiritual observation of Chichesteraffected me. It--it simply ate me away, Malling! It simply ate me away!"

The last words came from Mr. Harding's lips almost in a cry. 

"And how long did you continue the sittings?"

Very quietly Malling spoke, and he just touched the rector's arm. 

"For a long while. "

"Had you ceased from them when I first met you?"

"On Westminster Bridge? No. "

"Have you ceased from them now?"

The rector shifted as if in physical distress. 

"Chichester constrains me to them even now, " he replied, like a manbitterly ashamed. "He constrains me to them. And is that goodness, righteousness? I said he was a saint; but now! Is it saintliness totorture a fellow-creature?"

Malling remembered how he had once, and not long ago, asked himselfwhether Chichester's mouth and eyes looked good. 

"Have you ever told Chichester what grave distress he is causing you?"said Malling. 

"No, never, never! I can't!"

"Why not?"

"A great reserve has grown up between us. I could never try to breakthrough it. "

"You say a great reserve. But does he never criticize you in words? Doeshe never express an adverse opinion upon what you say or do?"

"Scarcely ever--after it is said or done. But sometimes--"

"Yes?"

"Sometimes--often I think--he tries to prevent me from saying or doingsomething. Often he checks me with a look when I am in the midst ofsome speech. It is intolerable. Why do I bear it? But I have to bear it. Sometimes I exert myself against him. Why, that first day I met you--youmust have noticed it--he tried to prevent me from walking home with you. "

"I did notice it. "

"Then I resisted him, and he had to yield. But even when he yields insome slight matter it makes no difference in our relations. He is alwaysthere, at the window, watching me. "

"What do you say?"

Malling's exclamation was sharp. 

"That sermon of his!" said the rector. "That fearful sermon! Ever sinceI heard it I have felt as if I were the double within that house, asif Chichester were the man regarding my life in hiding. Why you--youyourself put my feeling into words! You suggested to Chichester andmy wife that if the man had stayed, had spied upon him who was withinthe room, the hypocrite--"

He broke off. He got up from his seat. 

"Let us walk, " he said. "I cannot sit here. The air--the lights--letus--"

Almost as if blindly he went forth from the shelter, followed by Malling. 

"It's better here, " he said. "Better here! Mr. Malling, forgive me, but just then a hideous knowledge seemed really to catch me by thethroat. Chichester is turning my wife against me. There is a terriblechange in her. She is beginning to observe me through Chichester's eyes. Till quite recently she worshiped me. She noticed the alteration in me, of course, --every one did, --but she hated Chichester for his attitudetoward me. Till quite lately she hated him. Now she no longer hates him;for she begins to think he is right. At first I think she believed theexcuse I put forward for my strange transformation. "

"Do you mean your nervous affection?"

"Yes. "

"Just tell me, have you any trouble of that kind, or did you merelyinvent it as an excuse for any failure you made from time to time?"

"I used it insincerely as an excuse. But I really do suffer from timeto time physically. But physical suffering is nothing. Why should wewaste a thought on such nonsense?"

"In such a strange case as this I believe everything should be takencarefully into consideration, " observed Malling in his most prosaicvoice. 

The rector's attention seemed to be suddenly fixed and powerfullyconcentrated. The feverish excitement he had been displaying gave placeto a calmer, more natural mood. 

"Tell me, " he said, "do you think your knowledge can help me? I am awarethat you have made many strange investigations. Is there anything to bedone for me, anything that will restore me to my former powers? Will youcredit me when I declare to you that it was only by making a terribleeffort that I was able to get away from Chichester's companionship andto come down here? If I had not said that I meant to do so while you werein the room, I doubt if I should ever have had the courage. There issomething inexplicable that seems to bind me to Chichester. Sometimesthere have been moments when I have thought that he longed to be faraway from me. And it has seemed to me that he, too, would find escapedifficult, if not impossible. "

"You wish very much that Chichester should resign his curacy and goentirely out of your life?" asked Malling. 

"Wish!" cried Mr. Harding, almost fiercely. "Oh, the unutterable reliefto me if he were to go! Even down here, away from him for a day or two, I sometimes feel released. And yet--" he paused in his walk--"I shallhave to go back--I know it--sooner than I meant to, very soon. "

He spoke with profound conviction. 

"Chichester will mean me to go back, and I shall not be able to stay. "

"And yet you say it has occurred to you that possibly Chichester may beas anxious as yourself to break away from the strange condition of thingsyou have described to me. "

"Have you, " exclaimed Mr. Harding--"have you some reason to believeChichester has ever contemplated departure?"

Malling moved slowly on, and the rector was forced to accompany him. 

"It has occurred to me, " he said, evading the point, "that possibly HenryChichester might be induced to go out of your life. "

"Never by me! I should never have the strength to attempt compulsion withChichester. "

"Some one else might tackle him. "

"Who?" cried out Mr. Harding. 

"Some man with authority. "

"Do you mean ecclesiastical authority?"

"Oh, dear, no! I was thinking of a man like, say, Professor Stepton. "

As Malling spoke, a curious figure seemed almost to dawn upon them, sidewise, becoming visible gently in the darkness; a short man, withhanging arms, a head poked forward, as if in sharp inquiry, and rathershambling legs, round which hung loosely a pair of very baggy, lighttrousers. 

"And here is the professor!" said Malling, stopping short. 

IX

That night when, very late, Mr. Harding and Malling returned to the reddoll's house and let themselves into it with a latch-key, they foundlying upon the table in the little hall a brown envelop. 

"A telegram!" said the rector. 

He took it into his hand and read the name on the envelop. 

"It's for me. Malling, do you know whom this telegram is from?"

"How can I, or you, for that matter?"

"It is from Henry Chichester, and it is to recall me to London. "

"It may be so. "

"It is so. Open it for me. "

Malling took the telegram from him and tore it open, while he sat heavilydown by the table. 

"_Please return if possible difficulties in the parish Benyon ill needyour presence Chichester. _"

Malling looked down at the rector. 

"You see!" Mr. Harding said slowly. 

"What do you mean to do?"

Mr. Harding got up from his chair with an effort like that of a wearyman. 

"I wonder where the railway-guide is?" he said. "Excuse me for a moment, Mr. Malling. "

He went away into the drawing-room, and returned with the railway-guideopen in his hand. 

"Malling, " he said, using the greater familiarity he had for a momentdiscarded, "I am about to do a rude thing, but I ask you, I beg ofyou, to acquit me of any rude intention toward yourself. I have beenlooking up the Sunday trains. I find I can catch a good one at Favershamto-morrow morning. There is a motor I can hire in the town to get there. It stands just by the post-office, where the road branches. " He paused, looking into Malling's face as if in search of some sign of vexation orirony. "With a large parish on my hands, " he went on, "I have a greatresponsibility. And if Benyon, my second curate, is ill, they willbe short-handed. "

"I see. "

"What distresses me greatly--greatly--is leaving you, my guest, at suchshort notice. I cannot say how I regret it. "

He stopped. Purposely, to test him, Malling said nothing, but waited withan expressionless face. 

"I cannot say. But how can I do otherwise? My duty to the parish mustcome before all things. "

"I see, " said Malling again. 

Looking greatly disturbed, Mr. Harding continued:

"I will ask you to do me a very great favor. Although I am obliged to go, I hope you will stay, I entreat you to stay till Monday. The professor ishere. You will not be companionless. The servants will do everything tomake you comfortable. As to food, wine--everything is provided for. Willyou stay? I shall feel more at ease in going if I know my departure hasnot shortened your visit. "

"It is very good of you, " Malling replied. "I'll accept your kind offer. To tell the truth, I'm in no hurry to leave the Tankerton air. "

"Thank you, " said the rector, almost with fervor. "Thank you. "

So, the next morning, Mr. Harding went away in the hired motor, andMalling found himself alone in the red doll's house. 

He was not sorry. The rector's revelation on the previous night had wellrepaid him for his journey; then the air of Tankerton really rejoicedhim; and he would have speech of the professor. 

"I shall lay it before Stepton, " he had said to Mr. Harding the previousnight, after they had parted from the professor. 

And he had spoken with authority. Mr. Harding's confidence, hisself-abasement, and his almost despairing appeal, had surely givenMalling certain rights. He intended to use them to the full. Therector's abrupt relapse into reserve, his pitiful return to subterfuge, after the receipt of that hypnotizing telegram, had not, in Malling'sview, abrogated those rights. 

When the motor disappeared, he strolled across the grass with a toweland had a dip in the brown sea, going in off the long shoal that theWhitstable and Tankerton folk call "the Street. " Then he set out tofind the professor. 

His interview with Stepton on the previous night in the presence ofMr. Harding had been rather brief. Stepton had been preoccupied andmonosyllabic. Agnes had been right as to his reason for honoring thecoast of Kent with his company, but wrong as to the haunted house'slocation. It was not in Birchington, but lay inland, within easy reachof Tankerton. When he met Malling and Harding, the professor was goingto his hotel, where a motor was waiting to convey him to the house, inwhich he intended to pass the night. His mind was fixed tenaciously uponthe matter in hand. Malling had realized at once that it was not themoment to disturb him by the introduction of any other affair, howeverinteresting. But his suggestion of a meeting the next morning was thuswelcomed:

"Right! I shall be at home at churchtime--as you're not preaching. "

The second half of the sentence was directed to Mr. Harding, who saidnothing. 

"And you might give me a cup of tea in the afternoon, " the professorhad added, looking at the rector rather narrowly before shambling offto his hotel to get the plaid shawl which he often wore at night. 

"With the greatest pleasure. Minors is the name of the house, " had beenMr. Harding's reply. 

Whereupon the professor had vanished, muttering to himself:

"Minors! And why not Majors, if you come to that? Perhaps too suggestiveof heart-breaking military men. Minors is safer in a respectable seasideplace. "

The professor had been up all night, but looked much as usual, and waseating a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs in the cheerful coffee-roomwhen Malling arrived. He scarcely ever ate at orthodox hours, and hadfrequently been caught lunching at restaurants in London between four andfive in the afternoon. 

"Where's the rector? At church?" was his greeting. 

"The rector has gone back to London, " replied Malling, sitting down bythe table. 

"What about my cup of tea, then?" snapped Stepton. 

"I will be your host. I'm here till to-morrow. Any interestingmanifestations?"

"A rat or two and a hysterical kitchen-maid seem to be the responsibleagents in the building up of the reputation of the house I kept awakein last night. "

"I believe I have a more interesting problem for you. "

The professor stretched out a sinewy hand. 

"Cambridge marmalade! Most encouraging!" he muttered. "Have the reverendgentlemen of St. Joseph's been at it again--successfully?"

"I want you to judge. "

And thereupon Malling laid the case faithfully before the professor, describing not only the dinner in Hornton Street and his interview withLady Sophia, but also the two sermons he had heard at St. Joseph's, andthe rector's lamentable outburst of the previous night. This last, havinga remarkably retentive memory, he reproduced in the main in Mr. Harding'sown words, omitting only the rector's reference to his moral lapses. During the whole time he was speaking Stepton was closely engaged withthe Cambridge marmalade, and showed no symptoms of attention to anythingelse. When he ceased, Stepton remarked:

"Really, clergymen are far more to be depended upon for valuablemanifestations than a rat or two and a hysterical kitchen-maid. Cometo my room, Malling. "

The professor had a bedroom facing the sea. He led Malling to it, shutthe door, gave Malling a cane chair, sat down himself, in a peculiar, crab-like posture, upon the bed, and said:

"Now give me as minute a psychological study of the former and actualHenry Chichester as you can. "

Malling complied with this request as lucidly and tersely as he could, wasting no words. 

"Any unusual change in his outward man since you knew him two years ago?"asked the professor, when he had finished. 

Malling mentioned the question as to the curate's eyes and mouth whichhad risen in his mind, and added:

"But the character of the man is so changed that it may have suggestionedme into feeling as if there were physical change in him, too. "

"More than would be inevitable in any man in a couple of years. And nowas to his digestive organs. "

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Malling. 

The apparent vagaries of his companion very seldom surprised him, butthis time he was completely taken aback. 

"Are they what they were? Assuming, on your part, a knowledge of whatthey were. "

"I don't know either in what condition they are now, or in what conditionthey were once. "

"Ah! Now I must draw up a report about last night. I'll come for that cupof tea to Minors--might almost as well have been Majors, even grantingthe military flavor--about five. "

Malling took his departure. 

At a quarter to five he heard the click of the garden gate, and lookingout at the latticed window of the hall, he saw the professor walkingsidewise up the path, with a shawl round his shoulders. He went to lethim in, and took him into the tiny drawing-room. 

"An odd shell for Harding!" observed the professor. "More suitable to abantam than to a Cochin-China!"

"It doesn't belong to him. "

"Nor he to it. Very wise and right of him to go back to Onslow Gardens. "

A maid brought in the tea, and the professor, spread strangely forth in asmall, chintz-covered arm-chair, enjoyed it while he talked about oystersand oyster-beds. He was deeply interested in the oysters of Whitstable, and held forth almost romantically on their birth and upbringing, thefattening, the packing, the selling, and the eating of them--"with lemon, not vinegar, mind! To eat vinegar with a Whitstable native is as viciousas to offer a libation of catchup at the altar of a meadow mushroom justpicked up out of the dew. "

Malling did not attempt to turn his mind from edibles. The professor hadto be let alone. When tea was finished and cleared away, he observed:

"And now, Malling, what is your view? Do you look upon it as a case oftransferred personality? I rather gathered from your general tone thatyou were mentally drifting in that direction. "

"But are there such cases? Of double transfer, I mean?"

"Personally I have never verified one. When you spoke of the reverendgentlemen for the first time, I said, 'Study the link!' There will bedevelopment in the link if--all the rest of it. "

"There has been development, as I told you. The link is on his side now. "

"That's remarkable, undoubtedly. Has it ever struck you that Harding wasalmost too successful a clergyman to be a genuinely holy man?"

"What do you mean?"

"There's a modesty in holiness that is hardly adapted to catch smartwomen. "

"You used to go to hear Harding preach. "

"And d'you know why I liked his sermons?"

"Why?"

"Because he understood doubt so well. That amused me. But the man who hassuch a comprehensive understanding of skepticism, is very seldom a truebeliever. One thing, though, Harding certainly does believe in, judgingby a sermon I once heard him preach. "

"And that is?"

"Manicheism. Chichester, you say, was a saint?"

"He was, if a man can be a saint who has a certain amiable weakness ofcharacter. "

"And now? You think he would be a difficult customer to tackle now?"

"Harding finds him so. "

"And Harding was an overwhelming chap, cocksure of himself. Chichestermust be difficult. Shall I tackle him?"

"I wish you would. But how? Do you wish me to introduce him to you?"

"Let me see. "

The professor dropped his head and remained silent for a minute or two. 

"Tell me something, " he at length remarked, lifting his head and assuminghis most terrier-like aspect. "Do you think Harding a whited sepulcher?"

"Possibly. "

"And do you think his saintly curate has found it out?"

"Do you think that would supply a natural explanation of the mystery?"

"Should you prefer to search for it in that malefic region which is theabiding-place of nervous dyspepsia?"

"How could--"

"Acute nervous dyspepsia, complicated by a series of sittings under therose, might eat away the most brazen self-confidence. That's as certainas that I wear whiskers and you don't. Shall we do an addition sum? Shallwe add Chichester's discovery of secret lapses in his worshiped rector'slife, to the nervous dyspepsia and the sittings? Shall we do that?"

"And Lady Sophia?"

"There's a sunflower type of woman. The rising sun can't escape herinevitable worship. "

"The change in Harding may be a natural one. But there is somethingportentous in the change in Chichester, " said Malling. "You know I'ma rather cool hand, and certainly not inclined to easy credulity. Butthere's something about Chichester which--well, Professor, I'll make aconfession to you that isn't a pleasant one for any man to make. There'ssomething about Chichester which shakes my nerves. "

"And you haven't got nervous dyspepsia?"

"Should I be even a meliorist--as I am--if I had?"

"I must know Chichester. It's a pity I didn't know him formerly. "

"I don't believe that matters, " said Malling, with intense conviction. "There is that in him which must strike you and affect you, whether youknew him as he was or not. "

"So long as I don't turn tail and run from him, all's well. I willtackle Chichester. In the interests of science I will face this curate. But how shall I approach him? As in golf, the approach is much, if noteverything. "

He sat thinking for some minutes, with his eyebrows twitching. Then hesaid:

"The question is, Should the approach be casual or direct? Shall Idescribe a curve, or come to him as the crow comes when making for agiven point--or is said to come, for I've never investigated thatmatter? What do you say?"

"It's very difficult to say. On the day I dined in Hornton Street, Chichester certainly wanted to tell me something. He asked me to dine, I am almost sure, in order that he might tell it to me. "

"About the sittings with Harding, no doubt. "

"That, perhaps, and something more. "

"But he told you nothing. "

"Directly. "

"Do you think he would be more or less likely to unbosom himself now thanhe was then?"

"Less likely. "

"You might give me his address. "

Malling did so. The professor wrote the address down on a slip of paper, pinned the slip carefully to the yellow lining of his jacket, and thengot up to go. 

But Malling detained him. 

"Professor, " he said, speaking with an unusual hesitation, "you know whyI told you all this. "

"In the interests of science?"

"No, in the interest of that miserable man, Marcus Harding. I want youto break the link that binds him to Henry Chichester--if there is one. I want you to effect his release. "

"I'm afraid you've come to the wrong man, " returned Stepton, dryly. "Myobject in entering into this matter is merely to increase my knowledge, not to destroy my chance of increasing it. "

"But surely--"

"We shall never get forward if we move in the midst of a fog of pity andsentiment. "

Malling said no more; but as he watched the professor shambling to thegarden gate, he felt as if he had betrayed Marcus Harding. 

X

Soon after Malling had returned to London, he received the following notefrom Mr. Harding:

_Onslow Gardens_, June --th. 

_Dear Mr. Malling:_

I seem to have some remembrance of your saying to me at Tankerton thatyou wished to speak to Professor Stepton with regard to a certain matter. I may be wrong in my recollection. If, however, I am right, I now begyou not to speak to the professor. I have, of course, the very highestregard for his discretion; nevertheless, one must not be selfish. Onemust not think only of one's self. I have obligations to others, and Ifear, when we were together at Tankerton, I forgot them. A word ofassurance from you that Professor Stepton knows nothing of ourconversation will set at rest the mind of

Yours sincerely, _Marcus Harding. _

As soon as he had read this communication, Malling realized that hehad been right in his supposition that a new reserve was growing upin Henry Chichester. He was aware of Chichester's reserve in the letterof the rector. He was aware, too, of the latter's situation as he hadnever been aware of it before. Often a trifle illuminates a life, as asearch-light brings some distant place from the darkness into a fierceradiance that makes it seem near. So it was now. 

"Poor Harding!" thought Malling, with an unusual softness. "But thisletter comes too late. "

What answer should he return to the rector? He hated insincerity, but onthis occasion he stooped to it. He had not only the fear of Stepton uponhim; he had also the desire not to add to the deep misery of MarcusHarding. This was his answer:

_Cadogan Square_, June --. 

_Dear Mr. Harding:_

In reply to your letter, I will not now repeat our conversation of theother evening to Professor Stepton. He is, as you say, a man of thehighest discretion, and should you feel inclined yourself to take himinto your confidence at any time, I think you will not regret it. 

Yours sincerely, _Evelyn Malling_. 

As he put this note into an envelope, Malling said to himself:

"Some day I'll let him know I deceived him; I'll let him know I hadalready told the professor. "

Two or three days later Malling heard of the professor having been at aparty in Piccadilly at which Lady Sophia was a guest. 

"And do you know, really, "--Malling's informant, a lively married woman, concluded, --"those old scientific men are quite as bad as any of the boyswho only want to have a good time. The professor sat in Lady Sophia'spocket the whole evening! Literally in her pocket!"

"I didn't know modern women had pockets, " returned Malling. 

"They don't, of course; but you know what I mean. "

Malling understood that the professor was beginning his "approach. "

A week went by, and at a man's dinner, Malling chanced to sit next toBlandford Sikes, one of the most noted physicians of the day. In thecourse of conversation the doctor remarked:

"Is your friend Stepton going to set up in Harley Street?"

"Not that I know of, " said Malling. "What makes you ask?"

"He came to consult me the other day, and when I told him he was as soundas Big Ben he sat with me for over half an hour pumping me unmercifullyon the subject of nervous dyspepsia. The patient who followed, and whohappened to be a clergyman, looked fairly sick when he was let in atlast. "

Who happened to be a clergyman! Malling had longed to ask BlandfordSikes a question--who that clergyman was. But he refrained. To do so, would doubtless have seemed oddly inquisitive. It was surely enough forhim to know that the professor was busily at work in his peculiar way. And Malling thought again of that "approach. " Evidently the professormust be describing the curve he had spoken of. When would he arrive atHenry Chichester? There were moments when Malling felt irritated byStepton's silence. That it was emulated by Marcus Harding, Lady Sophia, and Henry Chichester did not make matters easier for him. However, hehad deliberately chosen to put this strange affair into Stepton's hands. Stepton had shown no special alacrity with regard to the matter. Mallingfelt that he could do nothing now but wait. 

He waited. 

Now and then rumors reached him of Marcus Harding's fading powers, nowand then he heard people discussing one of Henry Chichester's "remarkablesermons, " now and then in society some feminine gossip murmuring that"Sophia Harding seems to be perfectly sick of that husband of hers. Sheprobably wishes now that she had taken all her people's advice andrefused him. Of course if he had been made a _bishop_!"

The season ended. Goodwood was over, and Malling went off to Munich andBayreuth for music. Then he made a walking-tour with friends in theOberammergau district, and returned to England only when the ruddybanners of autumn were streaming over the land. 

Still there was no communication from the professor. Malling might ofcourse have written to him or sought him. He preferred to possess hissoul in patience. Stepton was an arbitrary personage, and the last manin the world to consent to a process of pumping. 

Meanwhile Stepton had forgotten all about Malling. He was full of workof various kinds, but the work that most interested him was connectedwith the reverend gentlemen of St. Joseph's. As Malling surmised, he hadlost little time in beginning his "approach, " and that approach had beenrather circuitous. He had taken his own advice and studied the link. This done, the intricate and fascinating subject of nervous dyspepsiahad claimed his undivided attention. When he had finished his prolongedinterview with Blandford Sikes, sidling back to the waiting-room togather up various impedimenta, he had encountered the unfortunateclergyman whom he had kept waiting. Marcus Harding was the man. Theyexchanged only a couple of words, but the sight of the flaccid bulk, the hanging cheeks and hands, the eyes in which dwelt a sort of fadeddespair, whipped up into keen alertness every faculty of the professor'smind. As he walked into Cavendish Square he muttered to himself:

"I never saw a clergyman look more promising for investigation, by Jove!Never! There's something in it. Malling was not entirely wrong. There'scertainly something in it. "

But what? Now for Henry Chichester!

Stepton was by nature unemotional, but he was an implicit believer inthe hysteria of others, and he thought clergymen, as a class, more liableto that malady than other classes of men. Curates, being as a rule youngclergymen, were, in his view, specially subject to the inroads of thecloudy complaint, which causes the mind to see mountains where onlymole-hills exist, and to appreciate anything more readily and accuratelythan the naked truth. Henry Chichester was young and he was a curate. He was therefore likely to be emotional and to be attracted by themysterious, more especially since he had recently been knocking onits door, according to Malling's statement. 

After a good deal of thought, the professor resolved to cast asideconvention, and to make Chichester's acquaintance without anyintroduction; indeed, with the maximum of informality. 

He learned something about Chichester's habits, and managed to meet himseveral times when he was walking from the daily service at St. Joseph'sto his rooms in Hornton Street. In this walk Chichester passed the SouthKensington Museum. What more natural than that the professor shouldchance to be coming out of it?

The first time they met, Stepton looked at the curate casually, thesecond time more sharply, the third time with scrutiny. He knew how tomake a crescendo. The curate noticed it, as of course the professorintended. He did not know who Stepton was, but he began to wonder aboutthis birdlike, sharp-looking man, who evidently took an interest in him. And presently his wonder changed into suspicion. This again accorded withthe professor's intention. 

One day, after the even-song at St. Joseph's, Stepton saw flit acrossthe face of the curate, whom he was meeting, a flicker of somethinglike fear. The two men passed each other, and immediately, like oneirresistibly compelled, the professor looked back. As he did so, Chichester also turned round to spy upon this unknown. Encounteringthe gaze of the professor, he started, flushed scarlet, and pursued hisway, walking with a quickened step. 

The professor went homeward, chuckling. 

"To-day's Tuesday, " he thought. "By Saturday, at latest, he'll havespoken to me. He'll have to speak to me to relieve the tension of hisnerve-ganglions. "

Chichester did not wait till Saturday. On Friday afternoon, comingsuddenly upon Stepton at a corner, he stopped abruptly, and said:

"May I ask if you want anything of me?"

"Sir!" barked Stepton. "Mr. Chichester!"

"You know my name?" said the curate. 

"And probably you know mine--Professor Stepton. "

A relief that was evidently intense dawned in the curate's face. 

"You are Professor Stepton! You are Mr. Malling's friend!"

"Exactly. Good day. "

And the professor marched on. 

Chichester did not follow, but the next day, on the pavement not far fromthe museum, he stopped once more in front of the professor with a "Goodafternoon. "

"Good day, " said Stepton. 

"Since you know who I am, " began the curate, "and I have heard so much ofyou, I hope you will forgive me for asking you something. "

"Certainly. "

"What is it in me which has attracted your attention?"

"I wish I knew, " returned the professor. 

"You wish you knew! Do you mean that you don't know?"

"I don't know at all. "

"But--but--you--I was not wrong in feeling sure that you were--thatsomething in me had aroused your attention?"

"Not wrong at all; but 'something' is not the word. "

"What is the word?"

"Everything. Everything in you rouses my attention, Mr. Chichester. ButI can't think why. "

"Did you know I was Mr. Harding's curate the first time you met me?"

"Yes; I had seen you at St. Joseph's once or twice when I came to hearyour rector preach. You didn't interest me at all then, I'm bound tosay. "

Chichester stood in silence for a minute. Then he said:

"I might walk a little way back with you, if you have no objection. "

Stepton jerked his head in assent. And so the acquaintance of these twomen was begun. Their first conversation was a delight to the professor. After a short silence the curate said:

"I could not help seeing each time we have met how your attention wasfastened upon me. "

"Just so, " rejoined Stepton, making no apology. 

"And I really think, " continued Chichester, with a sort of pressure--"Ireally think I am entitled to ask for some explanation of the matter. "

"Certainly you are. "

"Well?" He paused, then said again, "Well, Professor Stepton?"

"I'm afraid I've nothing to tell you, I like to stick to facts. "

"I only ask you for facts. "

"The facts amount to very little. Coming from the museum I ran acrossa man. You were the man. My attention was riveted at once. I said tomyself, 'I must see that man again. ' Next day I took my chance. I hadluck. You were there at pretty much the same hour. "

"I always come from St. Joseph's--"

"Exactly. And so it's happened on several days. And that's all I have totell you. "

"But surely you can indicate why--"

"No, I can't. All I can say is that for some reason, quite inexplicableby me, if I had come upon you in a crowd of a thousand, I should have hadto attend to you. "

"That's very strange, " said Chichester, in a low voice; "very strangeindeed. "

"There's a reason for it, of course. There's a reason for everything, butvery often it isn't found. " At this point the professor thrust his headtoward Chichester, and added, "you can't tell me the reason, I suppose?"

Chichester looked much startled and taken aback. 

"I--oh, no!"

"Then we must get along in the dark and make the best of it. "

Having said this, the professor abruptly dismissed the subject and beganto talk of other things. When he chose he could be almost charming. He chose on this occasion. And when at last he hailed a bus, declaringthat he was due at home, Chichester expressed a hope that some dayhe would find himself in Hornton Street, and visit number 4a. 

The professor assented, and was carried westward. 

Several days passed, but he did not find himself near Horton Street, andhe had ceased to visit the South Kensington Museum. Then the curatewrote and invited him to tea. Despite a pretence at indifference in thephraseology of the note, the professor discovered a deep anxiety in thewriting. Among other things he had studied, and minutely, graphology. 

He sat down and very politely refused the invitation. 

Then Chichester came to call on him, and caught him at home. 

It was six o'clock in the evening, and the heavens were opened. Agnes, the Scotch parlor-maid who claimed to have second sight, opened the doorto Chichester, who, speaking from beneath a dripping umbrella, inquiredfor the professor. 

"He's in, sir, but he's busy. "

"Could you take him my card?"

Agnes took it, much to her own surprise, and carried it to theprofessor's study. 

"A gentleman, sir. "

"I told you, Agnes--"

"I couldn't say no to him, sir. "

"Why not? Here!" he took the card. 

"Why not?" he repeated, when he had read the name. 

"It wasn't in me to, sir. "

"Well, then I shall have to see him. Show him up. But never again willI call you by the proud name of Cerberus. "

So, putting the onus upon Agnes, the professor yielded, murmuring tohimself:

"It wasn't in her to! Very expressive! And Cerberus, by the way, wasalways ready to let 'em in. It was when they wanted to get out that--Goodevening. I hope you don't mind climbing. "

"Thank you, no, " said Chichester. 

"Sit down. "

"I am afraid I disturb you. "

"I'm bound to say you do. But what does it matter?"

"As you didn't find your way to Hornton Street, I thought I wouldventure. "

"Very good of you. This is a soft chair. "

Chichester sat down. It had been evident to Stepton from the momentwhen his visitor came in that he was in great agony of mind. There wasin his face a sort of still and abject misery which Stepton thoughtexceedingly promising. As he turned round, leaning his sharp elbow onhis writing-table, Stepton was considering how to exploit this miseryfor the furthering of his purpose. 

"I want you to tell me something, " Chichester began. "I want to knowwhy your attention was first attracted to me. I feel sure that you mustbe able to give a reason. What is it?"

"Well, now, I wish I could, " returned Stepton. 

To himself he gave the swift admonition, "Play for hysteria, and see whatcomes of it. "

"I wish I could; but it's a mystery to me. But now--let's see. "

He knitted his heavy brows. 

"A long while ago I picked a man out, met him in a crowd, at the CrystalPalace, followed him about, couldn't get away from him. That same eveninghe was killed on the underground. I read of it in the paper, went to seethe body, and there was my man. "

"Do you claim to have some special faculty?" asked Chichester. 

"Oh, dear, no. Besides, you haven't been killed on the underground--yet. "

A curious expression that seemed mingled of disappointment and ofcontempt passed across Chichester's face. Stepton saw it and toldhimself, "No hysteria. "

"Possibly the reason may be a more intellectual one, " observed theprofessor. "I hear you have been preaching some very remarkable sermons. I haven't heard them. Still, others who have may have 'suggestioned' me. Three quarters of any man's fame, you know, are due to mere suggestion. "

"You're not the man to be the prey of that, I fancy--not the easy prey, at any rate. "

"Then we're left again with no explanation at all, unless, as I believeI hinted once before, you can give us one. "

Chichester looked down; without raising his eyes he presently said in aconstrained voice:

"If I were to give you one you might not accept it. "

"Probably not, " said Stepton, briskly. "In my life I've been offered agreat many explanations, and I'm bound to say I've accepted remarkablyfew. "

Chichester looked up quickly, and with the air of a man nettled. 

"You'll forgive me, I hope, for saying that you scientific men very oftenseem to have a great contempt for those who are more mystically minded, "he observed. 

"I've hit the line!" thought Stepton, with a touch of exultation, as hedropped out a negligent, "Forgive you--of course. "

"I dare say it seems to you extraordinary that any man should be ableto be a clergyman, genuinely believing what he professes and what hepreaches. "

"Very few things seem to me extraordinary. "

"Perhaps because you are skeptical of so much in which others believe. "

"That may be it. Quite likely. "

"And yet isn't there a saying of Newton's, 'A little science sends manfar away from God, a great deal of science brings man back to God?'You'll forgive the apparent rudeness. All I mean is--"

"That the sooner I try to get more science the better for me, " snappedout Stepton, brusquely interrupting his visitor, but without heat. "Let me tell you that I pass the greater part of my time in that veryeffort--to acquire more exact knowledge than I possess. Well--now then!Now then!"

Turning round still more toward the curate he looked almost as if he wereabout to "square up" to him. A dry aggressiveness informed him, and hisvoice had a rasping timbre as he continued:

"But I decline to take leaps in the dark like--" Here he mentioned awell-known man of science--"and I decline to reject evidence like--" Herehe named a professor even more famous. 

The mention of the last name evidently excited Chichester's curiosity. 

"What evidence has he rejected?" he exclaimed. 

"Last week he held a sitting to examine the pretensions of Mrs. Groeber, the German medium. Westcott was also present, a man on whose word thevery devil--if there is such a person, which I don't yet know--wouldrely. Some apparently remarkable phenomena occurred. --" Here he mentionedthe professor--"was convinced that they could only have been broughtabout by supernormal means. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Westcott hadseen the trickery which produced them. When the séance was over heexplained what it was to ----. What did this _so-called_ man of sciencedo? Refused to accept Westcott's evidence, clung to his own ridiculousbelief, --savage's fetish belief, nothing more, --and will include theGroeber manifestations as evidence of supernormal powers in his nextvolume. And I say, I say"--he raised his forefinger--"that clergymen aredoing much the same thing pretty nearly every day of their lives. Seekfor truth quietly, inexorably, and you may get it; but don't prod meninto falsehood, or try to, as you've been trying to in this very room. "

"I!" cried out Chichester. 

"You. I told you I had no reason to give you as to why you attracted myattention in the street. Were you satisfied with that? Not at all. Youmust needs come here, --very glad to see you!--and say, 'I feel sure youmust be able to give me a reason. What is it?' You clamor for a lie. And that's what men are perpetually doing--clamoring for lies. And theyget 'em, from clergymen, from mediums, from so-called scientific men, and from the dear delightful politicians. There now!"

And the professor dropped his forefinger and flung himself back in hischair. 

"And"--Chichester in his turn leaned forward, but he spoke with somehesitation--"and suppose I were to tell you a truth, a strange, anamazing truth?"

He paused. 

"Go on!" said the professor. 

"Wouldn't you do just the opposite? You say men accept lies. I say youwould probably reject truth. "

"_Cela dépend_. What you believed to be truth might not be truth atall. It might be hysteria, it might be nervous dyspepsia, it might beoverwork, it might be a dozen things. "

"Just what I say, " exclaimed Chichester. "Men of science delight innothing so much as in finding excuses for rejecting the greatest truths. "

"Do you mean the greatest truths in the possession of Anglicanclergymen?"

"I dare say you think it impossible that a clergyman should know morethan a scientific man?"

"Oh, no. But he's out for faith, and I happen to be out for facts. I likehard facts that can be set down with a fountain-pen in my note-book, andthat, taken together, are convincing to all men of reasonable intellect. Very dull, no doubt; but there you have it. Clergymen, as a rule, move inwhat are called lofty regions--the realms of heart, conscience, and whatnot. Now, I'm very fond of the region of gray matter--gray matter. "

"And yet you are one of the chief of the investigators in the field ofpsychical research. "

"Do you think there's no room for pencil and note-book there? What aboutPodmore, --there's a loss!--and a dozen others? Psychic matters have gotto be lifted out of the hands of credulous fetish-worshiping fools, andthe sooner the better. "

"It's easy to call people credulous, " said Chichester, with decided heat. "By being so readily contemptuous, Professor Stepton, you may often keepback evidence that might be of inestimable value to your cause. A man inpossession of a great truth may keep it to himself for fear of beinglaughed at or called a liar. "

"Then all I can say is that he's a coward--an arrant abject coward. "

Chichester sat in silence. Again he was looking down. Now that his eyeswere hidden by their drooping lids, and that he was no longer speaking, the sadness of his aspect seemed more profound. It dignified his ratherinsignificant features. It even seemed, in some mysterious way, to infusepower into his slight and unimportant figure. After sitting thus forperhaps three minutes he raised his head and got up from his chair. 

"I must not take up your time any longer, " he said. "It was very good ofyou to see me at all. " He held out his hand, which Stepton took, andadded, "I'll just say one thing. "

"Do!"

"It isn't always cowardice which causes a man to keep a secret--a secretwhich might be of value to the world. "

"I never said it was. "

"No; but still--you spoke just now of my sermons. I preached one not verylong ago which I have typed myself. If I send it to you do you think youcould find time to read it?"

"Certainly. "

"I will send it, then. Good night. "

"I'll come down with you. "

The professor let Chichester out. The rain was still falling in torrents. Shrouded in his mackintosh, protected by his umbrella, the curate walkedaway. Looking after him, Stepton thought:

"Very odd! It isn't only in the face. Even the figure, all covered up andumbrella-roofed, seems to have something--he'll send me the sermon of theman and his double to-morrow. "

And on the morrow that sermon came by the first post. Having read it, theprofessor promptly returned it to Chichester with the following note:

_The White House, Westminster. 

Dear Mr. Chichester:_

Very glad to have had the opportunity of reading your interestingdiscourse. If I had not known it was yours, and a sermon, I should havesaid "a posthumous work of Robert Louis Stevenson. " It does credit toyour imagination. If you care to publish, I should suggest "TheCornhill. " I know nothing about their terms. 

Yours faithfully, _G. R. E. Stepton. _

By return of post, there came an urgent invitation to the professor tovisit Chichester's rooms in Hornton Street, "to continue a discussionwhich has a special interest for me at this moment. "

"Discussion!" thought Stepton, sitting down to accept, "What my man wantsis for me to goad him into revelation; and I'll do it. "

The professor knew enough of psychology to be aware that in the verydepths of the human heart there is a desire which may perhaps be calledsocialistic--the desire to share truth with one's fellow-men. Chichesterwas scourged by this desire. But whether what he wished to share wastruth, or only what he believed to be truth, was the question. Anyhow, Stepton was determined to make him speak. And he set off to HorntonStreet little doubting that he would find means to carry hisdetermination into effect. 

He arrived about half-past five. He did not turn the corner intoKensington High Street on his homeward way until darkness had fallen, having passed through some of the most extraordinary moments that hadever been his. 

When he was shown into the curate's sitting-room, his first remark was:

"Sent that very interesting story to 'The Cornhill' yet?"

"I don't think you quite understand, Professor, " replied Chichester. "I did not type it with a view to sending it in anywhere for publication. You'll have tea with me, I hope? Here it is, all ready. "

"Thank you. "

"Oh, Ellen!"

Chichester went to the door, and Stepton heard the words, "Nobody, youunderstand, " following on a subdued murmuring. 

"And Mr. Harding, sir?" said the maid's voice outside. 

"Mr. Harding won't come to-day. That will do, Ellen. "

The professor heard steps descending. His host shut the door andreturned. 

"You typed it for your own use?" said Stepton. 

"That sermon? Yes. I wished to keep it by me as a record. "

He sat down, and poured out the tea. 

"A record of an imagined experience. Exactly. Then why not publish?"

"It is not fiction. "

"Well, it isn't fact. "

The professor drank his tea, looking at his host narrowly over the cup. 

"Do you say such an experience as that described in my sermon isimpossible?"

"Do you say it is possible?"

"If I were to say so would you believe me?"

"Certainly not, unless I could make an investigation and personallysatisfy myself that what you said was true. You wouldn't expect anythingelse, I'm sure. "

"You can believe nothing on the mere word of another?"

"Very little. I am an investigator. I look for proof. "

"With your pencil in one hand, your note-book in the other. "

In Chichester's last remark there was a note of sarcasm which thoroughlyroused Stepton, for it sounded like the sarcasm of knowledge addressedto ignorance. Stepton had a temper. This touch of superiority, notvulgar, but very definite, fell on it like a lash. 

"Now I'll go for the reverend gentleman of St. Joseph's!" he thought. 

And for a moment he forgot his aim in remembering himself. Afterward, in thinking matters over, he offered a pinch of incense at the altarof his egoism. 

"So, the modern clergyman still believes in slip-slop, does he?" heexclaimed in his most aggressive manner. "Even now hasn't he learnt thevalue of the matter-of-fact? The clergyman is the doctor of the soul, isn't he? And the doctor, isn't he the clergyman of the body? I wonder, I do wonder, how long the average doctor would keep together his practiceif he worked with no more precision than the average clergyman. Thecontempt of the pencil and note-book! The contempt of proper care ingetting together and coordinating facts! The contempt of proof--theappeal to reason! And so we get to the contempt of reason. And let metell you--" he struck the tea-table with his lean hand till the curate'scups jumped--"that scarcely ever have I heard a sermon in which was notto be found somewhere the preacher's contempt for reason, the bread ofthe intellect of man. "

"The soul is not the intellect. "

"Don't you think it higher?"

"I do. "

"And so you put it on slops!"

The professor got up from his chair, and began to sidle up and down thesmall room. 

"You put it on slops, as if it were a thing with a disordered stomach. That's your way of showing it respect. You approach the shrine with anoffering of water gruel. Now look ye here!"--The professor paused besidethe tea-table--"The soul wants its bread, depends upon it, as much asthe body, and the church that is free with the loaves is the church toget a real hold on real men. Flummery is no good to anybody. Rhetoric'sno good to anybody. Claptrap and slipslop only make heads swim andstomachs turn. The pencil and note-book, observation and the taking downof it, these bring knowledge to the doors of men. And when you sneer atthem, you sneer at bread, on the eating of which--or its equivalent, basis-nourishment--life depends. "

"I wonder whether you, and such as you, really know on what the true lifeof the soul depends, " said Chichester, with an almost dreadful quietness. 

The professor sat down again. 

"Such as I?" he said. "You are good enough to do me the honor of puttingme in a class?"

"As you have so far honored me, " returned Chichester. 

"Ha!" ejaculated Stepton. 

He had quite got the better of his egoism, but he by no means regrettedhis outburst. 

"Do you claim to stand outside the ranks of the clergy?" he asked. 

"Do you claim to stand outside the ranks of the scientists?"

"Oh, dear, no. And now--you?"

Chichester said nothing for a moment. Then, lifting up his head, andgazing at the professor with a sort of sternness of determination, hesaid:

"Remember this! You yourself told me that in a crowd of a thousand youmust have fixed your attention on me. "

For a moment the professor had it in his mind to say that this statementof his had been a lie invented to make an impression on Chichester. Buthe resisted the temptation to score--and lose. He preferred not to score, and to win, if possible. 

"I did, " he said. 

"Could this be so if I were like other men, other clergymen?"

"Well, then, what is the mighty difference between you and your reverendbrethren--between you, let us say, and your rector, Mr. Harding?"

Very casually and jerkily the professor threw out this question. 

Not casually did Chichester receive it. He moved almost like a man whohad been unexpectedly struck, then seemed to recover himself, and tonerve himself for some ordeal. Leaning forward, and holding the edge ofthe table with one hand, he said:

"How well do you know Mr. Harding?"

"Pretty well. Not intimately. "

"You have seen him since he--altered?"

"I saw him only the other day when I was at a specialist's in HarleyStreet. "

"A specialist's?"

"For nervous dyspepsia. "

Again the look of contempt flickered over Chichester's face. 

"Do you think the alteration in Mr. Harding may be due to nervousdyspepsia?"

"Probably. There are few maladies that so sap the self-confidence of aman. "

Chichester laughed. 

For the first time since he had entered the little room the professorfelt a cold sensation of creeping uneasiness. 

"Apparently you don't agree with me, " he said. 

"I am not a doctor, and I know very little about that matter. "

"Then I'm bound to say I don't know what you find to laugh at. "

"For a man who has spent so much time in psychical research you seem tohave a rather material outlook upon--"

"Mr. Harding?"

"And all that he represents. "

"Suppose we stick to Mr. Harding, " said the professor, grittily. "He istypical enough, even if you are not. "

"In what respect do you consider Mr. Harding typical?"

"I am speaking of the Harding before the fall into the abysses of nervousdyspepsia. "

"Very well. In what respects was Mr. Harding typical?"

"In the sublime self-confidence with which he proclaimed as facts, thingsthat have never been proved to be facts. "

"Do men want facts?" said Chichester, almost as one speaking alone tohimself. 

"I do. I want nothing else. Possibly Mr. Harding had none to give me. I don't blamehim. "

"Perhaps it is a greater thing to give men faith than to give themfacts. "

"Give them the first by giving them the second, if you can! And that, by the way, is the last thing the average clergyman is able to do. "

Chichester sat silent for nearly a minute looking at the professor with astrange expression, almost fiery, yet meditative, as if he were trying toappraise him, were weighing him in a balance. 

"Professor, " he said at last, "I suppose your passion for facts has ledmen to put a great deal of faith in you. Hasn't it?"

"I dare say my word carries some weight. I really don't know, " respondedStepton, with an odd hint of something like modesty. 

"I had thought of Malling first, " almost murmured Chichester. 

"What's that about Malling?"

"I think he would have accepted what I have to give more readily than youwould. There seems to me something in him which stretches out arms towardthose things in which mystics believe. In you there seems to me somethingwhich would almost rather repel such things. "

"I beg your pardon. I am quiescent. I neither seek to summon nor torepel. "

"I couldn't tell Malling, " said Chichester. "His readiness stopped me. Itstruck me like a blow. "

"Malling prides himself on being severely neutral in mind. "

"And you on being skeptical?"

"I await facts. "

"Shall I give you some strange facts, the strangest perhaps you have evermet with?"

Stepton smiled dryly. 

"You'll forgive me, but some such remark has been the prelude to so manyfigments. "

"Figments?"

"Of the imagination. "

An expression of anger--almost like a noble anger it seemed--transformedChichester's face. It was as a fine wrath which looked down from aheight, and in an instant it melted into pity. 

"How much you must have missed because of your skepticism!" he said. "ButI shall not let it affect me. You are a man of note-book and pencil. Willyou promise me one thing? Will you give me your word not to share what Ishall tell you with any one, unless, later on, I am willing that youshould?"

"Oh, dear, yes!" said the professor. 

And again he smiled. For even now he believed the curate to be wavering, swayed by conflicting emotions, and felt sure that a flick of the whipto his egoism would be likely to hasten the coming of what he, theprofessor, wanted. 

A loud call rose up from the street. A wandering vender of somethingwas crying his ware. In his voice was a sound of fierce melancholy. Chichester went to the window and shut it down. 

"I wish it was night, " he said as he turned. 

The professor jerked out his watch. 

"It must be getting late, " he observed. "Past six! by Jove!"

He made an abrupt movement. 

"What?" said Chichester. "You are going!"

He came up to the table. 

"Sometimes I think, " he said, "that men hate and dread nothing as theyhate and dread facts which may upset the theories they cherish. "

"You're perfectly right. Well, very glad to have seen you in yourown room. " The professor got up. "By their rooms shall ye know them. "He glanced round. 

"Ah, I see you have Rossetti's delightfully anemic Madonna, and HolmanHunt's 'Light of the World. ' A day or two ago I was talking to a ladywho pronounced that--" he extended his finger toward the Hunt--"thegreatest work of art produced in the last hundred years. Her reason?Its comforting quality. I am sure you agree with her. Good-by. "

He made a sidling movement toward the door. Perhaps it was that movementwhich finally decided the curate to speak. 

"Professor, " he said, "I don't want you to go yet. "

"Why not?" jerked out Stepton, with one hand on the door-knob. 

"You collect 'cases. ' I have a case for you. You are a skeptic: you saymen should be brought to faith by facts. Sit down. I will give you somefacts. "

The professor came slowly back, looking dry and cold, and sat down by thetable, facing the Rossetti Madonna. 

"Always ready for facts, " he said. 

XI

"You have heard of doubles, of course, Professor?" said Chichester, leaning his arms on the table and putting his hands one against theother, as if making a physical effort to be very calm. 

"Of course. There was an account of one in that sermon of yours. "

"Have you ever seen a double?"

"No; not to my knowledge. "

"I suppose you disbelieve in them?"

"I have no reason to believe in them. I have not collected enoughevidence to convince me that there are such manifestations. "

"You know a double at this moment. "

"Do I, indeed? And may I ask the manifestation's name?"

"Marcus Harding. "

"Marcus Harding is a double, you say. Whose?"

"Mine, " said Chichester in a low voice. 

He clasped and unclasped his hands. 

"I don't understand you, " said Stepton, rather disdainfully. 

"I will try to make you. " And Chichester began to speak, at first in alow, level voice. "That sermon of mine, " he said, "was a sort of shadowof a truth that I wanted to reveal, --that I dared not fully reveal. Already I had tried to tell Evelyn Malling something of it. I had failed. When the moment came, when Malling was actually before me, I could notspeak out. His mind was trying to track the truth that was in me. Hegot, as it were, upon the trail. Once he even struck into the truth. Thenhe went away to Marcus Harding. I remained in London. When I knew thatthose two were together I felt a sort of jealous fear of Malling. Forthere was pity in him. Despite his intense curiosity he had a capacityfor pity. I realized that it might possibly interfere with--withsomething that I was doing. And I recalled Marcus Harding to London. From that moment I have avoided Malling. I could never tell him. But you, hard searcher after truth as you are--you could never find it in you todrag away another from the contemplation of truth. Could you? Could you?"

"Probably not, " said Stepton. "I usually let folks alone even whenthey're glaring at falsehood. Ha!"

He settled himself in his chair, looking sidewise toward Chichester. 

"You, like every one else, have noticed the tremendous change in MarcusHarding, " Chichester went on. "That change, the whole of that change, issolely owing to me. "

"Very glad to have your explanation of that. "

"I am going to give it you. The beginning of that change came aboutthrough the action of Marcus Harding. He wished for facts that are, perhaps, --indeed, probably, --withheld deliberately from the cognizanceof man. You have sneered at those who live by faith, you have sneered atpriests. Well, you can let that Marcus Harding go free of your sarcasm. Although a clergyman he was not a faithful man. And he wanted facts toconvince him that there was a life beyond the grave. Henry Chichester--"

"You! You!" interjected Stepton, harshly. 

"I, then, came into his life. He thought he would use me to further hispurpose. He constrained me to sittings such as you have often taken partin, with a view to sending me into a trance and employing me, when inthat condition, as a means of communication with the other world--ifthere was one. We sat secretly in this room, at this table. "

"You need not give me ordinary details of your sittings, " said theprofessor. "I am familiar with them, of course. "

"Henry Chichester--"

"You! You! Don't complicate matters!"

"I never was entranced; but presently I felt myself changing subtly. "

"People very often imagine they are developing into something wonderfulat séances. Nothing new in that. "

"Please try to realize the facts of my case without assuming that itresembles a thousand others. I believe, I feel sure, that it resembles noother case that has come under your observation. To grasp it you mustgrasp the characters of two men, Marcus Harding as he was--and myself, as I was. "

"Put them before me, then. "

"That Marcus Harding you knew. He was the type of the man who, sublimelyself-confident, imposes his view of himself upon other men and especiallyupon women. He had strength--strength of body and strength of mind. Andhe had the strength which a devouring ambition sheds through a man. Afine type of the worldly clergyman he was, of the ardent climber upthe ladder of preferment. To him the church was a career, and he meantto succeed in it. If he had to begin as a curate he meant to end as abishop, perhaps as an archbishop. And he had will to help him, andvitality to help him, and the sort of talent that brings quick noticeon a man. And he had also a woman to help him, his wife, Lady Sophia. He chose well when he chose her for his helpmate, though he may not thinkso now. He should have been content with what he had. But he wanted more, and he thought he might perhaps get what he wanted through me. MarcusHarding was a full-blooded type of the clerical autocrat. I once was anequally complete type of the clerical slave--slave to conscience, slaveto humble-mindedness, slave to my rector as soon as I knew him. 

"St. Francis of Assisi was the character I worshiped. I strove aftersimple goodness. I desired no glories of this world, no praises of men. I did not wish to be clever or to shine, but only to do my duty to myfellow-men, and so toward God. When I was first to make the acquaintanceof Marcus Harding, with a view to becoming his senior curate if hethought fit, I felt some alarm. I had heard so much of his great energyand his remarkable talents. The day came. I paid my visit to OnslowGardens. For the first time I saw--" Chichester paused. His face becamedistorted. He turned toward the window as if anxious to hide his facefrom the professor's small, keen eyes. "I saw--that man, " he continued, in a withdrawn and husky voice, and still looking away. 

Stepton sat motionless and silent, sidewise, with his arms hanging. 

Chichester, after another long pause, again faced him. 

"My very first impression was unfavorable. I attributed this to hisgreat size, which had startled me. I now know I was wrong in thinkingI took that impression from the outer man. It was the inner man who inthat moment announced himself to me. But almost instantly he had surelywithdrawn himself very far away, and I, then, had no means of followinghim. So he escaped from me, and I fell under the influence that MarcusHarding was able to exert at will. 

"I was dominated. Buoyancy, life, energy, self-confidence, radiated fromthat man. He steeped me in his vigor. He seemed kind, cordial. He won myheart. My intellect, of course, was dazzled. But--he won my heart. And Ifelt not only, 'Here is a man far greater than myself to whom I can lookup, ' but also, 'Here is a man to whom I must look up, because he is farbetter than myself. ' At that interview it was settled that I shouldbecome senior curate at St. Joseph's. 

"As you know, I became, and still am, senior curate. As I grew to knowMarcus Harding better I admired him more. In fact, my feeling for himwas something greater than admiration. I almost worshiped him. His willwas law to me in everything. His slightest wish I regarded as a behest. His talents amazed me. But I thought him not only the cleverest, but thebest of men. It seemed to me right that such a man should be autocratic. A beneficent autocracy became my ideal of government. That my rector'swill should be law to his wife, his servants, his curates, his organist, his choir, to those attached to his schools, to those who benefited bythe charities he organized, seemed to me more than right and proper. Icould have wished to see it law to all the world. If any one venturedto question any decision of his, or to speak a word against him, I feltalmost hot with anger. In a word, I was at his feet, as the small andhumble-minded man often is at the feet of the man who has talents andwho is gifted with ambition and supreme self-confidence. 

"For a long time this condition of things continued, and I was happy init. Probably it might have continued till now, if--if that accursed ideahad not come to Marcus Harding. "

Again Chichester paused. In speaking he had evidently become graduallyless aware of his companion's presence and personality. His subjecthad gripped him. Memory had grown warm within him. He lived in the daysthat were past. 

"That accursed idea, " he repeated slowly, "to use me as his tool in anendeavor to break down the barrier which divides men from the otherworld. 

"As I told you, we began to sit secretly. Marcus Harding wished me tofall into the entranced condition. I did not know this at first, so atfirst I did not consciously resist his desire. He had told me a lie. Hehad told me that he desired only one thing in our sittings, to give tome something of the will power that made him a force in the world. He haddeclared that this was possible. I believed him unquestioningly. Ithought he was trying to send some of his power into me. Soon I felt thathe was succeeding in this supposed endeavor. Soon I felt that a strangenew power was filtering into me. "

Chichester fixed his eyes on Stepton as he said the last words, andseemed to emerge from his former condition of self-absorption. 

"You have sat often. Have you ever felt such a sensation? It is likegrowth, " he said. 

"When one first begins to sit at séances, one is apt to imagine all sortsof things in the darkness, " returned Stepton. "I dare say I did, likeother folk. "

"I understand, " said Chichester, with a sort of strange condescension. "You think I was merely the victim of absurdity. The sense of this comingof power grew slowly, but steadily, within me. And presently it wascomplicated by another development, which involved--or began to involve, let me say at this point--my companion, Marcus Harding. I think I oughtto tell you that in beginning the sittings I had had certain doubts, which were swept away by my admiration of, and faith in, my rector. Hitherto I had always thought that our human knowledge was deliberatelylimited by God, and that it was very wrong to strive to know too much. The man of science no doubt believes that it is impossible to know toomuch; but I have thought that many great truths are kept from us becausewe are not yet in a condition properly to understand them. I had, therefore, begun these practices with a certain tremor, and possibly acertain feeling of resistance, in the depths of my soul. As I felt thepower coming to me I had put away my fears. They did not return. Yetsurely the new development within me, of which I now became aware, wasconnected with those fears, however subtly. It was a sensation almost ofhostility directed against Marcus Harding. "

"Ah, now!" ejaculated the professor, as if in despite of himself. "Andwhere's the connection you speak of?"

"Marcus Harding had constrained me to do a thing that in my soul I hadbelieved to be wrong and that had roused my fear. As power dawned in me, directing itself upon everything about me, it was instinctively hostileto him who had dominated me before I had any power, and who, bydominating me, had for a moment made me afraid. "

"Retrospective enmity! Very well!" muttered the professor. "I understandyou. Keep on!"

"This hostility--if I may call a feeling at first not very definite byso definite a name--induced in me a critical attitude of mind. I foundmyself, to my surprise, secretly criticizing the man whom till now I hadregarded as altogether beyond the reach of criticism. I felt that MarcusHarding was giving me power. I was grateful to him for doing so; yet Ibegan to see him in a new, and at moments an unpleasant light. Presently, after trying in vain to combat this novel sensation, which seemed to mealmost treacherous, almost disloyal, I sought about for a reason, to givemyself at least some justification for it. I sought, and one night itseemed to me that I found. 

"On that night I was more than ever aware that strength of some kind waspouring into me. I had an almost heady sensation, such as one who drinksa generous wine may experience. When we rose from the table I told myrector so. He stared at me very strangely. Then he said: 'Good! Good!Didn't I tell you I would give you some of my power?' He paused. Then headded: 'It will come! It must come!' As he spoke the last words hefrowned, and all his face seemed to harden, as if he were making aviolent mental effort to which the body was obliged to respond. And atthat instant I was aware that the reason Marcus Harding had given to meto persuade me to these sittings was not the true one, that his purposewas quite other than that which I had hitherto supposed it to be. I wassuddenly aware of this, and I thought: 'I must already have been aware ofit subconsciously, and that accounts for my sensation of hostility towardthe rector. ' A lie had been told to me. My new self-confidence resentedthis; and I said to myself, 'If Marcus Harding can tell a lie to me, whoalmost worshiped him, he must be an arrant hypocrite. '

"We sat again, and again I knew that there was something in the mindof my companion which he concealed from me, something to which I shouldstrongly object if I knew what it was, something which troubled theatmosphere, the mental atmosphere, of the sitting. Instead of beingin accord, we were engaged in a silent, but violent, struggle. I wasdetermined not to be overcome. A sort of fierce desire for tyrannysprang up in me. I longed to see Marcus Harding at my feet. 

"Again and again we sat. My hostile feeling grew. My critical feelinggrew. My longing to tyrannize increased, till I was almost afraid of it, so cruel did I feel it to be. 'Down! Down under my feet!' That was whatmy soul was secretly saying now to the man whose will had been as law tome. And one night, as if he heard that ugly voice of my soul, he abruptlygot up from the table and said: 'It seems to me that you and I are not_en rapport_. It seems to me that no more good can come of thesesittings. We had better not sit again. "

"We must sit again, " I replied. 

"Marcus Harding turned scarlet with anger. He looked at me. He opened hislips to speak. I let him speak. I even argued the question with him. Ipointed out to him that his only design--the only design acknowledged byhim, at any rate, in beginning these practices--had been to give mestrength such as, he had declared to me, he himself had drawn while atOxford from a Hindu comrade. In carrying out this design, I now told him, he was being successful. I felt that I was growing in power of will, inself-confidence. How, then, could he refuse to continue when success wasalready in sight? 'Unless, ' I concluded, 'you had some other design inpersuading me to sit, which I did in the first instance against mysecret desire, and you feel that there is now no probability of carryingthat design into effect. '

"He gave in. I had him beaten. Hastily he muttered a good-night and leftme. I let him out into the night. As soon as the street door had shut onhim I ran upstairs. I went to that window, --" Chichester flung out hishand--"pushed it up, leaned out, and watched him down the street. I sawhim pass under a gas-lamp and I said to myself: 'You have submitted to mywill, and you shall submit again. I am the master now. '

"In that moment all the domination which I had so joyously endured, whichI had even surely reveled in, --for there are those who can revel in theirslavery, --abruptly became in my mind a reason for revenge. Marcus Hardingdisappeared in the night; but still I leaned out, staring down the way hehad gone, and thinking, 'You shall pay me back for it. You shall pay meback. '

"From that night I made no effort to check the critical faculty, theexercise of which at first had seemed to me a sort of treachery. And asI let myself criticize, I saw more clearly. The scales fell from my eyes. I realized that I had been nothing less than blind in regard to MarcusHarding. I saw him now as he was, a victim of egomania, a worldling, tyrannical, falsely sentimental, and unfaithful steward, a liar--perhapseven an unbeliever. His whole desire--I knew it now--was not to be good, but to be successful. His charity, his pity for the poor, his generosity, his care for his church, for his schools--all was pretence. I saw MarcusHarding as he was. And what followed?"

Chichester leaned forward to the professor. 

"Fear followed, " he said in a withdrawn voice. 

"Fear!" said Stepton, clearing his throat with a loud, rasping noise. 

"Whenever I was with Marcus Harding in any public place I was nowcompanioned by fear. I dreaded unspeakably lest others should begin tosee what I saw. When he preached, I could hardly sit to listen: I feltas if any shame falling upon him would overwhelm me also. I strove invain to combat this strange, this, then, inexplicable sensation. Withevery sitting this terror grew upon me. It tortured me. It obsessed me. It drove me into action. When I was with my rector, I tried perpetuallyto prevent him from exposing his true self to the world, by changingthe conversation, by attenuating his remarks, by covering up his actionswith my own, sometimes even by a brusque interruption. But in the pulpithe escaped from me. I was forced to sit silent and to listen while hepreached doctrine in which he had no belief, and put forward theoriesof salvation, redemption by faith, and the like, which meant less thannothing to him. Finding this presently unendurable by me, I strove togovern him mentally when he was in the pulpit, to track him, as it were, with my mind, to head him off with my mind when he was beginning to takethe wrong path. "

"Did you succeed in that effort?" interrupted the professor. 

"I made an impression, a terrible impression, upon him. I almost brokehim down. I sapped his self-confidence. His power as a preacher desertedhim, as his power outside the pulpit deserted him. With every day I feltthat I saw more clearly into every recess, every cranny, of his mind andnature. Just at first this frightfully clear sight was mine only when wewere sitting; but presently it was mine whenever I was with him. And heknew it, and went in fear of me. Gradually, very gradually, it came aboutthat our former positions were reversed; for as he sank down in the humanscale, I mounted. As he lost in power, I gained. And especially in thepulpit I felt that now I had force, that I could grip my hearers, couldmake a mighty impression upon those with whom I was brought into contact. 

"But I must tell you that now I gained no satisfaction from my ownimprovement, if so it may be called. My whole life was vitiated by mysecret terror lest Marcus Harding should be found out, should ever beknown for what he was. His actions, and even his thoughts, affected mewith an intimacy that was inexplicable. "

"You were in telepathic communication with him!" interjected Stepton. 

"Call it so if you like. Often I felt what he was thinking, almost as ifeach thought of his were a hand laid upon me--a hand from which I shrankwith an almost trembling repugnance. Sometimes when he thought somethingcontemptible or evil, I shrank as if from a blow. 

"There was a link between us. Presently, soon, I knew it. We seemed insome dreadful way to belong to each other, so that whatever was thought, said, done by him, whatever happened to him, reacted upon me. 

"At this time Lady Sophia Harding hated me with a deadly hatred. Formerlyshe had been indifferent to me. Concentrated upon her husband, adoringhim, vain of him, greedily ambitious for his advancement, she had had notime to bestow on a clerical nonentity. But as I grew to understandwhat her husband really was she grew to hate me. She was almost rude tome. She spoke ill of me behind my back. She even tried to oust me from myposition as senior curate of St. Joseph's. Why did not she succeed? Areyou thinking that?"

"Well, what if I was?" snapped the professor, moving in his chair. 

"Marcus Harding could not make a move to get rid of me. There was a linkbetween us which he could not even try to break. 

"One night--one night--I discovered what that link was. "

It was growing dark in the room. The Rossetti Madonna, thin, anemic, with hanging hair, seemed fading away on the somber, green wall. Thewindow-panes looked spectral and white. The faint murmur of the citysounded a little deeper and much sadder than in the light of day. Stepton was aware of a furtive but strong desire for artificial light inthe room, but he did not choose to mention it. And Chichester, whosevoice--so it seemed to his hearer--began to have that peculiar almostalarming timbre which belongs to a voice speaking not for the ears ofanother, but for the satisfaction only of the soul which it expresses, continued his narrative, or confession, as if unaware of the dying ofday. 

"During the day which preceded it I had been haunted by the thought ofmyself doing what Marcus Harding could not do. Why should not I of my ownwill leave St. Joseph's, get away from this dreadful contemplation whichobsessed me, from this continual anxiety--almost amounting to terror atmoments--which gnawed me? Why should not I break this mysterious link, impalpable yet strong? If I did, should I not again find peace? But mysittings with Marcus Harding would be at an end. Could I give them up?I asked myself that, and I felt as if I could not. Through them, by meansof them, I felt as if I might attain to something wonderful--terribleperhaps, but wonderful. I felt as if I were approaching the threshold ofabsolute truth. A voice within me whispered, 'Go no further. ' Was it thevoice of conscience? I did not heed it. Something irresistible urged meforward. I thrust away from me with a sort of crude mental violence thehaunting thought. And when the darkness came I greeted it. 

"For he came with the darkness. "

On the wall opposite to the professor the thin Madonna faded away. 

"As I heard his heavy step on the stairs that night I said to myself, 'Atall hazards I will see, I will know, more. I will see, I will know--all. 'When he entered at that door"--a thin darkness moved in the darkness asChichester pointed--"he was dreadfully white and looked sad, almostterrified. He suggested that we should break through our plan and notsit. I refused. He then said he wished to sit in light. I refused. He wasbecome my creature. He dared not disobey my desires! We placed our handson this table, not touching. I could no longer endure the touch of hishand. We remained motionless. A long time passed. There were no rappings. A strange deadness seemed to prevail in the room. Presently it fadedaway, and I had the sensation that I was sitting quite alone. 

"At first it seemed to me that my companion must have crept out of theroom silently, leaving me by myself in the darkness. I shuddered at thethought that I was alone. But then I said to myself that Marcus Hardingmust be there in the blackness opposite to me, and I moved my handsfurtively on the table, thinking to prove his presence to myself bytouch. I did not prove it. Suddenly I had no need to touch him in orderto know that he was there. "

"Why not?" said the professor, and started at the sound of his own voicein the little room. 

"Something made me realize that he was still within the room. Nevertheless, I felt that I was alone. How could that be? I asked myselfthat question. This answer came as it were sluggishly into my mind, 'Youare alone not because Marcus Harding is away, but because HenryChichester is away. ' For a long while I sat there stagnantly dwelling onthis knowledge which had come to me in the blackness. It was as if I knewwithout understanding, as a man may know he is involved in a catastrophewithout realizing how it has affected his own fate. And then slowly therecame to me, or grew in me, an understanding of how I was alone. I wasalone with Marcus Harding at that moment because I was Marcus Harding. Ashutter seemed to slide back softly, and for the first time I, MarcusHarding, stared upon myself out of the body of another man, of HenryChichester. I was alone with my soul double. Motionless, silent, I gazedupon it. Now I understood why I had been tortured with anxiety lestthe world should learn to comprehend Marcus Harding as I comprehendedhim. Now I understood why neither he nor I had been able to break thatmysterious link which our sittings had forged between us. I had beentrying ignorantly to protect myself, to conceal my own shortcomings, tocover my own nakedness. I had sweated with fear lest my own truth shouldbe discovered by all those to whom for so many years I had beenpresenting a lie. Yes, I had sweated with fear; but even then how littleI had known! A voice cried out suddenly, 'Turn on the light!' It wasthe voice of my double. It seemed to awake, or to recall perhaps, --howcan I say?--Henry Chichester. I was aware of a shock; it seemed stronglyphysical. I got up at once and turned the light on. Marcus Harding wasbefore me, trembling, ashen. 'What is it? What has happened?' he said ina broken voice. I made no reply. He left me. I heard his step in thestreet--out there!"

Chichester was silent. The professor said nothing for a moment, butpassed his tongue twice over his lips and swallowed, sighing immediatelyafterward. 

"Transferred personality!" he muttered--"transferred personality. Is thatwhat you'd have me believe?"

"I'll tell you the rest. When Marcus Harding's steps died away down thestreet I remained here. Since that shock I have spoken of, I felt that Iwas again Henry Chichester, changed, as I had long been changed--chargedwith new force, new knowledge, new discrimination, new power over others, gifted with a penetrating vision into the very soul of the man I hadworshiped, yet Henry Chichester. And as Henry Chichester I suffered; Icondemned myself. This I said to myself that night, 'I was determined tosee. I disregarded the voice within me which warned me that I wastreading a forbidden path. God has punished me. He has allowed me to see. But this shall be the end. I will never sit again. I will give up mycuracy. I will leave St. Joseph's at once. Never more will I set eyes onMarcus Harding. ' I was in a condition of fierce excitement--"

"Ah, exactly, " muttered the professor, almost as if consoled--"fierceexcitement!"

"I could not think of sleep. For a long time I remained in here, sitting, standing, pacing, opening books; I scarcely know what I didor did not do. At last a sensation of terrible exhaustion crept over me. I undressed. I threw myself on my bed. I tried to sleep. I turned, shifted, got up, let in more air, again lay down, lay resolutely stillin the dark, tried not to think. But always my mind dwelt on that matter. In those few frightful moments what had become of myself, of HenryChichester? Had the powerful personality of that man whom once I hadalmost worshiped thrust him away, submerged him, stricken him down in asort of deathlike trance? What I had seen I remembered now as HenryChichester. What I had known in those moments I still knew now as HenryChichester. In vain I revolved this matter in my feverish mind. It wastoo much for me. I was in deep waters. 

"I closed my eyes. The fatigue wrapped me more closely. Sleep at last wassurely drawing near. But suddenly I knew--how I cannot exactly say--thatonce more the shutter was to be drawn back for me. This knowledgeresembled a horrible physical sensation. The entry of it into my mind, orindeed into my very soul, was as the dawning of a dreadful and unnaturalpain in the body. This pain increased till it became agony. Although Istill lay motionless, I felt like one involved in a furious struggle inwhich the whole sum of me took violent part. And there came to me thesimile of a man seized by tremendous hands, and held before a windowopening into a room in which something frightful was about to take place. And the shutter slipped back from the window. 

"Again I looked upon myself. That was my exact sensation. The shutterdrawn back, I assisted at the spectacle of Marcus Harding's life. And itwas my life. I knew with such frightful intimacy that my knowledge was asvision. Therefore, I say, I saw. Not only my spirit seemed to be gazing, but also my bodily eyes. 

"I saw myself in the night slowly approaching my house in Onslow Gardens, ashen pale, shaken, terrified. At a corner I passed a policeman. He knewme and saluted me with respect. I made no gesture in response. He staredat me in surprise. Then a smile came into his face--the smile of a manwho is suddenly able to think much less of another than he thoughtbefore. I left him smiling thus, reached my house, and stood before it. 

"Now I must tell you, and I rely absolutely on your regarding this assaid in the strictest, most inviolable confidence--"

"Certainly. Word of honor, and so forth!" said the professor, quickly andsharply. 

"I must tell you that Marcus Harding is a sinner, and not merely in thesense in which all men are sinners. There have been recurring moments inhis life when he has committed actions which, if publicly known, wouldruin him in the eyes of the world and put an end to his career. As Ilooked at myself standing before my house, I saw that I was hesitatingwhether to go in with my misery, or whether to seek for it the hideousalleviation of my beloved sin. 

"Professor, "--it seemed to Stepton at this moment as if Chichester'svoice loomed upon him out of the darkness by which they were nowenshrouded, --"it has been said that nothing shocks a man so terribly asthe sight of his body-double; that to see what appears to be himself, even if only standing at a window or sitting before a fire, causesin a man a physical horror which seems to strike to the very roots of hisphysical being. I looked now upon my soul-double, piercing the fleshlyenvelop and it was my very soul that sweated and turned cold. For Iperceived the dreadful action which, if known, would certainly ruin me, being committed by the spirit. The slavish body had not yet bowed downand done its part; but it was about to obey the impulse of the spirit. Slowly the body turned away from its home. The spirit was driving it. Thedemon with the whip was at work in the night. I looked till the dawncame. And only when at last my double crept, like a thief, into itshouse, did sleep take me for a little while--sleep that was alive withnightmare. "

Chichester was silent. The professor heard him breathing quickly, sawhim, almost as a shadow just shown by the faint light that entered fromthe street through the two small windows, clasp and unclasp his hands, touch his forehead, his eyelids, move in his chair, like a man profoundlystirred and unable to be at ease. 

"When I woke, " he continued, after a long pause, which the professor didnot break by a word or a movement, "I woke to combat. As I told you, Ihad resolved at once to resign my curacy, and never to see that managain. In the light of the morning I sat down to write my letter ofresignation; but I could not do it. A fearful compulsion to remain wasupon me. I wrote a few words. I stopped, tore the note up, began again. But writing was impossible. Then I resolved to visit Marcus Harding andto tell him that I must go. I went to his house. He was at home. When Isaw him I told him that I wished him to sit again that night. He stroveto refuse. He did not understand the truth, but he was terrified. Iordered him to come to my rooms that night, and left him. As I was goingaway I met Lady Sophia. To my amazement, she stopped me, spoke to mekindly, even more than kindly, looked at me with an expression in hereyes that almost frightened me. I said to myself, 'But those are aslave's eyes!' as I left her. Never before had any woman looked at melike that. In that moment, I think, she began to turn from him towardme, to forsake weakness for strength. Yes, I say strength. I was rent bythe tumult within me, but I had strength. I have it now. For, despitehis hypocrisy, his unbelief, his active sinning, Marcus Harding had beena strong man. And even Henry Chichester, with all his humbleness, hisreadiness to yield to others, to think nothing of himself, had had thestrength that belongs to purity of soul. And then there is the strengththe soul draws from looking upon truth. There was strength, there is now, for the woman to follow. And instinct has surely guided her. She doesnot, she cannot know. And yet instinct sends her in search of thestrength. "

"What do you mean by that? What do you claim?"

"You read that sermon?"

"I did. "

"Don't you understand? I am that man at the window. He did not fleeaway. He could not. He was, he is, compelled to remain. He watches thatdreadful life. And the other within the room is fading. The strength, the authority, the power, are coming to me. Every sitting broadens thatbridge across which the deserters are passing. When I preached thatsermon my congregation sat as if numbed by terror. And he in the choirlistened, never moving. I saw his spirit, dazed, stretching out to graspthe truth, slipping back powerless to do it. It was like a thing movingthrough the gloom of deep waters--of deep, deep waters. "

Again Chichester's voice died away. In the silence that followed theprofessor heard the faint ticking of a clock. He had not noticed itbefore. He could not tell now whether it came from within the room orfrom the room behind the folding-doors. It seemed to him as if thisticking destroyed his power to think clearly, as if it threw his braininto an unwonted confusion which made him feel strangely powerless. Hewas aware of a great uneasiness approaching, if not actually amounting tofear. This uneasiness made him long for light. Yet he knew that hedreaded light; for he was aware of an almost unconquerable reluctance tolook upon the face of his companion. Beset by conflicting desires, therefore, and the prey of unwonted emotion, he sat like one paralyzed, listening always to the faint ticking of the clock, and striving toreduce what was almost like chaos to order in his brain. 

"Why have you selected me to be the hearer of this--this veryextraordinary statement?" he forced himself at length to say prosaically. The sound of his own dry voice somewhat reassured him, and he added:"Though there is nothing very extraordinary in the facts you haverelated. Telepathic communication between one mind and another is acommonplace of to-day, an old story. Every one of course accepts it aspossible. What novelty do you claim to present to startle science?"

"I say that telepathy does not explain the link between Marcus Hardingand myself. "

The professor struck his hand on the table. It seemed to him that if onlyhe could get into an argument this strange confusion and fear might leavehim. He would be on familiar ground. 

"What you call vision might be merely mind-reading, what you callperceiving the action of the spirit, mind-reading. Your terror lestothers should find out bad truths about Marcus Harding would springnaturally enough from your lingering regard for him. Your acute anxietywhen he is preaching arises of course from the fact that, owing to bodilycauses, no doubt, his mental powers are failing him, and he is no longerable to do himself justice. "

"You don't understand. What I desired in our sittings was to draw intomyself strength, power, will from--him. What have I done? I have drawninto myself the very man. That night when the shutter slipped back helooked out from the body of Henry Chichester. His mind worked, his soulwas alive, within the cage of another man. And meanwhile Henry Chichesterlay as if submerged, but presently stirred, and, however feebly, livedagain. He lives now. But not from him comes my frightful comprehension ofMarcus Harding. Not him does Marcus Harding fear. Not to him does she, the woman, look with the eyes of a slave. It is not he who dominates thecrowds in St. Joseph's. It is not he who conceived that sermon of the manand his double. It is not he who has sometimes been terribly afraid. "

"Afraid! Afraid!"

"There have been moments when I have been moved to snatch my double outof the sight of men. That day when we met Evelyn Malling I feared as Ileft them alone together; and when I found Malling intimately there inthat house, I felt like one coming upon an ambush which might bedestructive of his safety. My instinct was to detach Malling from mydouble, to attach him to myself. My conduct startled him. I saw thatplainly. Yet I tried to win him over, as it were, to my side. He came tome. I strove to tell him, but something secret prevented me. Andhow could he assist me?"

Chichester got up from the table. The professor saw a darkness moving ashe went to stand by the empty fireplace. 

"I must look on truth, " he continued; "I have to. The fascination ofstaring upon the truth of oneself is deadly, but it surpasses all otherfascination. He sins more often now. I watch him sin. Sometimes undermy contemplation I see him writhing like a thing in a trap--the semblanceof myself. How the woman despises him now! Sometimes I feel deeply sadat my own ruthlessness. It is frightful to contemplate the physical wreckof a being whom, in some strange and hideous way, one always feels tobe oneself. When I look at him it is as if his fallen face, his hangingnerveless hands, his down-drooping figure and eyes lit with despair weremine. His poses, his gestures, his physical tricks, they are all mine. I watch them with a cold, enveloping disgust, frozen in criticism ofeverything he does, anticipating every movement, every look, hatingit when it comes, because it is bred out of the remnant of a spiritI despise as no man surely has ever despised before. Henry Chichesterwould pity, but he is overborne. He is in me as a drop may be in theocean. I am most aware of him when my double sins. Only last night wesat"--Chichester came back to the table, and stood there, very faintlyrelieved against the darkness by the dim light which penetrated throughthe windows--"we sat in the darkness, and more deeply than ever beforeI went down into the darkness. I felt as if I were penetrating into thelast recesses of a ruined temple. And there, in the ultimate chambercrouched all that was left of the inmate, terrified, helpless, andignorant. As I looked upon him I understood why man is never permittedreally to know himself unless, in an access of mad folly and overweeningpride, he succeeds in crossing the boundary which to pass is sheerwickedness. And I tried to turn away, but I could not--I could not. I made a supreme effort. It was in vain. 

"I saw him go home. At last he was sick of his sin. There rose within himthat strange longing for goodness, for purity and rest, that terrible, aching desire to be what those who once loved him for long had thoughthim to be, which perhaps never dies in the soul of a human being. Is itthe instinct of the Creator burning like an undying spark in the created?And, as he drew near to his house, there came to him the resolve tospeak, to acknowledge, to say, 'This is what I am. Know me as I am! Carefor me still, in spite of what I am!' He went in, and sought her--thewoman. She was alone. Sleep had not come to her. Perhaps some instincthad told her she must wake and be ready for something. Then he gatheredtogether the little that was left to him of courage, and he strove totell her, to make her understand some of the truth, to obtain from herthe greatest of human gifts--the love of one from whom a man has nosecrets that he can tell. 

"She listened for a moment, then she thrust out her hands as if to pushthe truth of him out of her life. And last night she left him--going infear of him. "

The professor shook his narrow shoulders, and sprang abruptly to hisfeet. The ticking of the clock now sounded almost like a hammer beatingin his ears. 

"It's time we had some light, " he said in rather a loud voice. 

The darkness that was Chichester moved. A gleam of light shone in thelittle room, revealing the thin Madonna, "The Light of the World, " thepiano, the neatly bound books of the curate of St. Joseph's; revealingChichester, who now stood facing the professor, white, drawn, lined, butwith eyes full of almost hideous resolution and power. 

"I advise, " said the professor--"I advise you from this time forward--"

He stared into the eyes of the man opposite to him, and his voice diedaway in his throat. 

When, immediately afterward, he found himself walking hurriedly towardKensington High Street the sweat was pouring down his face. 

XII

One night of that autumn, driven by an overmastering impulse, EvelynMalling set out toward Kensington. He felt that he must know somethingmore of the matter between Marcus Harding and Henry Chichester. Steptonstill kept silence. Malling had not approached him. But why should he notcall upon Chichester, an acquaintance, almost a friend? It was true thathe had resolved, having put the affair into Stepton's hands, to wait. Ithad come to this, then, to-night that he could be patient no longer? Ashe stood at the corner of Hornton Street, he asked himself that question. He drew out his watch. It was already past eleven, an unholy hour for anunannounced visit. But slowly he turned into Hornton Street, slowly wentdown that quiet thoroughfare till he was opposite to the windows of thecurate's sitting-room. A light shone in one of them. The rest of thehouse was dark. Even the fanlight above the small front door displayed noyellow gleam. No doubt the household had retired to rest and HenryChichester was sitting up alone. A rap would probably bring him down toopen to his nocturnal visitor. But now Malling bethought himselfseriously of the lateness of the hour, and paced slowly up and down, considering whether to seek speech of the curate or to abandon that ideaand return to Cadogan Square. As in his mental debate he paused once moreopposite to the solitary gleam in the first-floor window, an incidentoccurred which startled him, and gave a new bent to his thoughts. It wasthis: The light in the window was obscured for a moment as if by somesolid body passing before it. Then the window was violently thrown up, the large figure of a man, only vaguely perceived by Malling, appeared atit, and a choking sound dropped out into the night. The man seemed to beleaning out as if in an effort to fill his lungs with air, or to obtainthe relief of the cool night wind for his distracted nerves. His attitudestruck Malling as peculiar and desperate. Suddenly he moved. The lightshowed, and Malling saw for an instant a second figure, small, slight, commanding. The big man seemed to be sucked back toward the center of theroom. Down came the window; the tranquil gleam of the light shone asbefore; then abruptly all was dark. 

Malling realized at once what was happening in the curate's lodgings. Ashe paused, gazing at the dark house, he knew that the miserable MarcusHarding was within, constrained to endure the observation which, to usehis own hideous but poignant phrase, was "eating him away. " It was he whohad appeared at the window, like a tortured being endeavoring to escapeinto the freedom of the night. It was Henry Chichester who had followedhim, who had drawn him back, who had plunged him into darkness. 

The street was deserted. No policeman passed, regarding him withsuspicion, and Mailing went on sentinel duty. The dark house fascinatedhim. More than once a desire came to him to make an effort for therelease of Marcus Harding, to cross the street and to hammer brutallyat the green door. He recalled Henry Chichester's strange sermon, andhe felt as if he assisted at the torture of the double, which he himselfhad imaginatively suggested to the two clergymen in Lady Sophia'sdrawing-room. Ought he not to interrupt such a torture?

Midnight struck, and he had not knocked. One o'clock struck; he had pacedthe street, but had never gone out of sight of the curate's door. It wasnearly two, and Mailing was not far from the High Street end of thethoroughfare when he heard a door bang. He turned sharply. A heavyuncertain footstep rang on the pavement. Out of the darkness emerged atall figure with bowed head. As it moved slowly forward once or twice itswayed, and a wavering arm shot out as if seeking for some support. Malling stood where he was till he saw the broad ghastliness of MarcusHarding's white face show under the ray of a lamp. He discerned no eyes. The eyes of the unhappy man seemed sunken out of recognition in thedreadful whiteness of his countenance. The gait was that of one whobelieves himself dogged, and who tries to slink furtively, but who haspartly lost control of his bodily powers, and who starts in terror at hisown too heavy and sounding footfalls. 

This figure went by Malling, and was lost in the lighted emptiness of theHigh Street. Malling did not follow it. Now he had a great desire, bornout of his inmost humanity, to speak with Henry Chichester. He made uphis mind to return to the curate's door: if he saw a light to knock andask for admittance; if the window was dark to go on his way. He retracedhis steps, looked up, and saw a light. Then it was to be. That man and hewere to speak together. But as he looked, the light was extinguished. Nevertheless he struck upon the door. 

No one answered. He struck again, then stepped back into the roadway, andlooked up at Chichester's window. The curate must surely have heard. Yes, for even as Malling gazed the window moved. No light appeared. But aftera pause a voice above said:

"Is that you, Mr. Harding?"

The dim figure of a man was apparent, standing a little back and halfconcealed by a darkness of drooping curtains. 

"It is I--Evelyn Malling, " said Malling. 

The form at the window started. 

"Mr. Malling!" the words came uncertainly. "What is it? Has--has anythinghappened to--why do you want me at such an hour?"

"I chanced to be in your street and saw your light. I thought I wouldgive you a hail. "

"Do you mean that you want to come in?"

After a short pause Malling answered, "Yes. "

"I cannot let you in!" the voice above cried out lamentably. 

Then the window was shut very softly. 

 * * * * *

Three days later Malling saw in the papers the news of the completebreakdown of Marcus Harding. "Nervous prostration, " was the name given bythe doctors to his malady, and it was announced that he had been orderedto take a sea voyage, and was preparing to start for Australia with anurse. 

Soon afterward Malling was walking in the afternoon down Pall Mall, wondering deeply what would happen, whether the rector would ever starton that voyage, when he came upon Professor Stepton sidling out of theAthenaeum. 

"Heard about Harding?" jerked out the professor. 

"Yes. Has he sailed for Australia?"

"Dead. Died at half-past three o'clock this morning. "

Malling turned cold. 

"Poor fellow!" he said. "Poor fellow!"

The professor was drawing his plaid shawl round his shoulders. When itwas properly adjusted, he began to walk on. Malling kept almostmechanically beside him. 

"Did you expect this?" Malling asked. 

"Well, I knew he was failing. "

"And Chichester? Have you seen Chichester since his death?"

"No. Would you like to see him for me?"

Malling was deep in thought and did not answer. 

"Do you think?" said the professor, "that Henry Chichester will begreatly affected by this death?"

"Affected? Do you mean by grief?"

"Yes. "

"I should suppose that to be highly improbable. "

The professor shot a very sharp glance at Malling. 

"I'm not sure that I agree with you, " he observed dryly. 

"Have you seen him lately?" asked Malling. 

"Not quite recently. But if I had seen him, say, yesterday, I don't thinkthat would greatly affect my present dubiety. I should, however, like toset that dubiety at rest. Are you busy to-day?"

"No. "

"I am. Will you make a little investigation for me? Will you go and pay avisit of condolence to Chichester on the death of his rector, and thencome round to the White House and report?"

"I will if you wish it. "

"I shall be in after seven. "

"Very well. "

"I dare say you will be surprised, " observed Stepton. "I see my bus. "

Malling left him imperatively waving his arm, and, turning, walked towardKensington. 

What were his expectations? He did not know. Stepton had upset his mind. As he went on slowly he strove to regain his mental equilibrium. But hecould not decide exactly what Stepton had meant. He felt inferior to theprofessor as he turned into Hornton Street. 

He did not hesitate, but went at once to the curate's door and rapped. Noone answered. He rapped again, and touched the bell, half hoping, evenwhile he did so, that there was no one within to hear. 

But an inquiring head appeared in the area, observed, and was sharplywithdrawn. Steps sounded in the passage, and the maid Ellen presentedherself, looking somewhat disordered. 

"Yes, sir?" she said. 

"Is Mr. Chichester at home?"

"He is in, sir, poor gentleman, " replied the maid. "Did you want to seehim?"

"Yes. "

"I'm sure I don't know whether he will see you, sir. "

"Is he ill?"

"Not to say ill, sir. But haven't you heard?"

"What?"

"His poor rector's gone, sir, what used to come here to visit him soregular. I never see a gentleman in such a way. Why, he's so changed Idon't hardly know him. "

"Have you been here long?" said Mailing, abruptly. 

"Only six months, sir. "

The maid began to look rather astonished. 

"And so Mr. Chichester is quite altered by his grief?"

"You never did, sir! He was so firm, wasn't he, above every one! Even hisrector used to look to him and be guided by him. And now he's as gentleand weak almost as a new-born child, as they say. "

Malling thought of Stepton. Had he looked forward to some such change?

"Perhaps I could console Mr. Chichester in his grief, " he said. "Will youtake him this card and ask if I can see him? I knew Mr. Harding, too. Imight be of use, possibly. "

"I'll ask him, sir. He's laying down on the bed, I do believe. "

Ellen hurried up-stairs with the card. It seemed to Malling that she wasaway for a long time. At last she returned. 

"If you please, sir, Mr. Chichester wants to know if it's anythingimportant. He's feeling very bad, poor gentleman. But of course if it'sanything important, he wouldn't for all the world say no. "

"It is important. "

"Then I was to ask you to walk in, sir, please. "

Chichester's sitting-room was empty when Malling came into it, and thefolding-doors between it and the bedroom were shut. Ellen went away, and Malling heard a faint murmur of voices, and then Ellen's footstepretreating down the stairs. Silence followed. He waited, at firststanding. Then he sat down near the piano. Not a sound reached him fromthe bedroom. On the curate's table lay a book. Malling took it up. Thetitle was "God's Will be Done. " The author was a well-known high-churchdivine, Father Rowton. To him, then, Henry Chichester betook himself forcomfort. The piano stood open. On it was music. Malling looked and saw, "Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove!" by Mendelssohn. The littleroom seemed full of pious orthodoxy. Surely its atmosphere was utterlychanged since Malling last was in it. The melody of "Oh, for the wings!"went through his brain. That the Henry Chichester he had recently known, that cruel searcher after and expounder of truth, that he should behelped by those words, by that melody, in an hour of sorrow!

There was a movement in the bedroom. The folding-doors opened inward, and the curate appeared. He was very pale, and looked really ill. Hisface had fallen in. His fair hair was slightly disordered, and his blueeyes were surrounded by red rims. His expression suggested that he hadrecently undergone an extremely violent shock, which had shaken badlyboth body and mind. He looked dazed. Coming forward feebly, he heldout his hand. 

"I believe it is something important, " he said in a gentle, ratherwavering voice; "otherwise--I am hardly fit, I fear, to be with my kind. I"--He sat down--"I have had a terrible shock, Mr. Malling. You haveheard?"

"You mean Mr. Harding's death?"

"Yes. "

"I have just heard of it. "

"It occurred at half-past three o'clock last night, or, rather, thismorning. He had been declining for a long while. At the last he justfaded out, as it were. The strange thing is that I knew the exact momentwhen he entered into rest. "

"You weren't with him?"

"Oh, no. I was here, asleep. But at three o'clock I awoke. I feltviolently agitated. I can scarcely describe the sensation. It wasas if I was torn, as if mind and body, or spirit and body, were torn, lacerated. I suffered the greatest conceivable agony. I tried to cryout, but I could not. Nor could I move. Then everything suddenly seemedto fail, all in a moment, and I was at peace. But it was like the peaceof death, I think. And I was aware--I don't know how--that Mr. Hardingwas dead. I moved. I looked at my watch. It was a minute after half-pastthree. I noted down the time. And this morning--I heard. "

"And then?"

"Only then I understood my loss--the loss to us all. Ah, Mr. Mailing, you knew him, but not as I did! Few or none knew him as I did. He wasthe greatest and best of men, full of power, but full of kindness andgoodness, too. He guided me in everything. I can never tell you how Ilooked up to him, how I trusted him. His judgment was extraordinary, hisreading of character was unerring. I do believe he knew me better than Iknew myself. What shall I do without him?"

The curate's grief was almost as genuine and unself-conscious as achild's, and Malling felt as if at that moment, like a child, he felthimself adrift in a difficult world. His gentle, kindly, but not strongface was distorted, but not hardened, by his distress, which seemedbegging for sympathy. And Malling remembered the Henry Chichester he hadknown some years ago, before the days of St. Joseph's, the saintly butrather weak man, beloved by every one, but ruling no one. That man wassurely before him, and that man knew not how to play a hypocrite's part. Yet Malling felt he must test him. 

"His death is very sad, " he replied; "but surely his powers had been onthe decline for a long while. "

"His powers, but not his capacity for goodness. His patience wasangelic. Even when the cruelest blow of all fell upon him, even whenhis wife--whom, God forgive me! I don't think some of us can everforgive--even when she deserted him in his hour of need, he nevercomplained. He knew it was God's hand upon him, and he submitted. He has taught me what true patience is. What I owe to him! What I oweto him!"

As if distressed beyond measure, the curate got up, almost wringing histhin hands. 

"It was he who sacrificed his time for me!" he continued, movingrestlessly about the room. "But I seem to remember I told you. Didn't Itell you--or was it some one else?--how he gave up the hours which shouldhave been hours of repose in order that my will might be strengthened, that I might be developed into a man more worthy to be his coadjutor?When I think, when I remember--"

His light, tenor voice failed. Tears stood in his gentle, blue eyes. 

"If I am worth anything at all, " he suddenly cried out, "if I have gainedany force of character, any power for good at all, I owe it all to myrector's self-sacrificing endeavors on my behalf--of course, throughGod's blessing. "

"Then, " said Malling, "you think that Mr. Harding changed you by hisinfluence?"

"He helped me to develop, he brought me on. Jealousy was unknown to him. I was a very poor preacher. He taught me how to hold people's attention. When I knew he was near me I sometimes seemed almost inspired. I wasinspired by him. I preached almost as if out of his mouth. And now!"

He made a despairing gesture. 

"Now it will all be different!" he exclaimed. 

And almost involuntarily Malling found himself echoing:

"Yes, now it will all be different. "

He had seen, he had heard, enough to make his report to the professor, and he resolved to go. He held out his hand. 

"Oh, but, " said Chichester, pressing one hand to his forehead, "I'm soselfish, so forgetful in my great grief! Surely you said you had comeon some matter of importance. "

"It will wait, " said Malling. "Another day. Go and rest now. You needrest. Any one can see that. "

"Thank you, thank you, " said Chichester, with quivering lips. "You arevery thoughtful, very good. "

Malling took his hand in farewell. As he did so there was a sharp knockat the front door. Chichester started violently. 

"Oh, I do hope it is no one for me!" he cried out. "I cannot--"

He opened the door of the sitting-room a little way and listened. Voiceswere audible below, Ellen's voice and another woman's. 

"You, ma'am! Oh, of course he will see you!"

"Of course. "

"I didn't know who it was, ma'am. "

"Is it this way?"

"Yes, ma'am. I'll show you. We do feel it, ma'am. The poor gentleman usedto come here so often of nights. "

"Did he? I didn't know that. "

Malling recognized the second voice as Lady Sophia's. A moment, and shewas ushered into the room. She was dressed in black, but not in widow'sweeds, and wore a veil which she pushed hastily up as she came in almostwith a rush. When she saw Malling, for a moment she looked disconcerted. 

"Oh, I thought--" she began. She stood still. Chichester said nothing, and did not move. Malling went toward her. 

"I was very much grieved, " he said, "at the news I heard to-day. "

She gave him her hand. He knew his words were conventional. How couldthey be anything else? But Lady Sophia's manner in giving him her handwas not conventional. She stretched it out without even looking at him. She said nothing. Her eyes were fixed upon Chichester, who stood on theother side of the little room in a rigid attitude, with his eyes castdown, as if he could not bear to see the woman who had just entered. 

"I offer you my sympathy, " Malling added. 

"Sympathy!" said Lady Sophia, with a sharp note in her voice suggestiveof intense, almost febrile excitement. "Then didn't you know?"

She stared at him, turning her head swiftly. 

"Know?"

"That I had left him? Yes, I left him, and now he is dead. Do you expectme to be sorry? Well, I am not sorry. Ah, I see you don't understand!"

She made a movement toward Chichester. It was obvious that she was sointensely excited that she had lost the power of self-control. 

"Nobody understands me but you!" she cried out to Chichester. "Youknew what he was, you knew what I endured, you know what I must feelnow. Oh, it's no use pretending. I'm sick of pretence. You have taught meto care for absolute truth and only that. My relations, my friends--ah!to-day I have been almost suffocated with hypocrisy! And now, when Icome here--" she flung out her hand toward Mailing--"to get away from itall--'grieved, ' 'my sympathy!' I can't bear any more of that. Tell him!You tell him! You're so strong, so terribly sincere! One can rest uponyour strength when all else fails one!"

She tottered. For an instant it seemed to Malling that she was going tofall against Chichester's shoulder; but she caught at a chair, and savedherself. 

"Mr. Chichester!" she said, "tell him! Tell him for me!"

"I have nothing to tell him, " said Chichester, with a sort of mild, almost weak coldness, and wearily. 

"Nothing!" She went nearer to him. "But--you don't welcome me!"

Chichester looked up, but immediately cast down his eyes again. 

"I cannot, " he said. "At this moment I simply cannot. "

An expression of terrified surprise transformed Lady Sophia's face. Shewent close up to Chichester, staring at him. 

"Why not?" she asked. 

"You must know that. "

She stood still, always staring at him, as if searching for somethingwhich she did not find. 

"Why not?" she repeated. 

"You left--him when he needed you most. You left him to die alone. "

Lady Sophia suddenly turned round to Malling and scrutinized his face, asif demanding from him sympathy in her horrified amazement. He regardedher calmly, and she turned again to the curate. 

"What do you mean?" she said, and her voice had changed. 

"That his friends can never be yours", said Chichester, as if making agreat effort, driven to it by some intense feeling. 

"You call yourself his friend!" said Lady Sophia. Her voice vibrated withscorn. 

"At any rate, he was mine, my best friend. And now he has gone forever!"

Lady Sophia drew in her breath. 

"You hypocrite!" she said. "You hypocrite!"

She spoke like one under the influence of an emotion so intense that itcould not be gainsaid. 

"To pretend you admired him, loved him--_you_!"

"I did admire and love him. "

She seemed to be struck dumb by his quiet manner, by the conviction inhis voice. In a moment she turned round again toward Malling. Her facehad quite changed. It was working nervously. The mouth quivered. Shestood for a moment, then suddenly she made for the door. As she passedMalling, she whispered: "The strength--where is it? Oh, I'm afraid ofhim! I'm afraid of him!"

She disappeared. Almost immediately Mailing heard the street door shut. 

"I--I cannot pretend to her, " Chichester said, "even in my own house. "

He seemed greatly moved, almost on the verge of tears. 

"I'll leave you alone, " said Mailing. "You need to be alone. "

"Thank you! Thank you!" said Chichester. 

And without another word he went into the bedroom, shutting thefolding-doors behind him. 

At half-past seven that same evening Malling was with Professor Stepton, and made what the professor called his "report. "

"Ah!" said the professor when he had finished. 

"Did you expect Chichester to behave like that, to be like that?" askedMailing. 

"I hoped he would. "

"Hoped! Why?"

"Because it enables me to accept as facts certain things about which Imust otherwise have remained in doubt. Of course I must see Chichesterfor myself. But he'll be just the same, just the same. "

The professor's eyes shone, and he poked his chin forward. 

"The reverend gentlemen of St. Joseph's have provided me with a basis, "he exclaimed emphatically. 

"A basis! For what?" asked Mailing. 

"For future experiments and investigations of a highly interestingnature. Ruskin was very often wrong, but he was right when he said, in alucid moment, that every creature is precious. Well, good-night, Malling. I must get to work. I'll explain everything to you later. "

Almost joyously he shut the door on his friend. Almost joyously he satdown once more before his writing-table and seized his pen and hisnote-book. 

But he did not begin to write. His face suddenly changed. He put his pendown, pushed his note-book away, sat back in his chair, and let hispointed chin drop toward his breast. And presently he began to mutter tohimself. 

"A little science!" he muttered. "A little science sends man far awayfrom God. A great deal of science brings man back to God. Which is itnow--you professor, you? Which is it now?"