Part 10

“Mr. Trenchard, I have to inform you that the board has come to very satisfactory terms with the syndicate who are, in fact, now the new proprietors of the _Daily Rostrum_.” The speaker paused for a moment, cleared his throat. “You will, of course, readily understand that these new proprietors wish to have complete control of their property and that their ideas of editorial management may not coincide with ours--with those which you have so successfully and so worthily upheld for so many years.” He felt himself turn sick as he listened, pinched his lips together lest his emotion should be remarked. A mantle of ice seemed to compress him. Vancoutter continued, with an indulgent smile: “We for our part, of course, have safeguarded the interests of a man who has served us so brilliantly, whose association with our paper----” ‘_Our paper_’! He almost smiled in bitter irony.“--has so materially contributed to bring it to that pitch of influence at which it is still maintained to-day. Therefore, as part of the purchase-price paid by the new proprietors, ten thousand shares have been set aside as your property--and, if you prefer it, the syndicate has engaged itself to buy those shares of you, cash down, at the current market valuation----”

He scarcely knew what followed. He had only the most indistinct recollection of several other long-winded speeches whose flattery was sincerely intended to soften the blow. He could not remember what he himself had said--apparently, he had kept his dignity--had duly thanked the old proprietors. Of all the welter of words, he clearly recalled only--“The younger generation, Mr. Trenchard! A man of sixty-two owes it to himself to retire!”--and they haunted him, rang over and over again in his brain like the knell of his life.

At last he escaped, went stumbling blindly down the stairs, forgetting, for the first time for forty years, the elevator. Betty was waiting for him in the closed car, her head peering out of the window. He groped for the door, almost fell into it. She helped him to the seat.

“My dear! What is the matter?” she said, white with alarm. “Are you ill?”

He clenched his jaw in the agony of his humiliation.

“Sacked!” he said briefly, the tears starting to his eyes. “Sacked at a moment’s notice!”

She stared at him, unable at first to grasp the full significance of his words.

“Oh, no, Jack! No!” she said. “No! You can’t mean it! It’s not true?”

He nodded, gazing fixedly out of the window, away from her.

“It’s true!” he replied grimly. “My life’s finished!”

She felt timidly for his hand, pressed it without a word. He turned and faced her. They looked for a moment into each other’s eyes, then suddenly he crumpled into her arms, a dead-beat old man, and sobbed like a child.

“Oh, Jack, dear! Jack!” she said, caressing the gray head upon which her tears fell like rain. “At last we can be together!”

* * * * * *

They sat side by side on the porch of the country-house, overlooking the wide lawns which swept down to a belt of trees and the river. Along the bank two young couples were walking in a close and intimate comradeship whose happiness was indicated by the bright young laughter which floated at intervals, in the stillness of the sunny afternoon, to the porch of the house. He watched them as they went, then turned silently to his companion. Betty sat, sweetly placid, a little smile just accentuating the loose wrinkles on the soft face, her eyes looking perhaps after the young people, perhaps into happy thoughts. He thought she was very beautiful as she sat there--and inestimably precious.

“Betty darling!” he said suddenly, lifting her hand to his lips, “to think that you are seventy to-day!”

She turned and smiled at him, her pale-blue eyes darkening with grateful love.

“Nineteen seventy-two, Jack!” she said, softly. “Do you remember----?”

His smile answered hers.

“Yes, dear. I remember----”

She checked him with a little gesture.

“Hush! Don’t speak!” she murmured, as though in awe.

They sat there, hand in hand, in silence, gazing over the lawns to where their grandchildren wandered with the lovers of their choice, in a quiet ecstasy for which they had no words. Love swelled in them, filled them with the soundless harmonies wherein Life’s discords are resolved.

* * * * * *

“Hush! Don’t speak!”

He opened his eyes. Betty was bending over him. Betty? He stared at her, puzzled. Where were the soft wrinkles, the gray hair? This was Betty--Betty as she used to be all that time ago. Then his consciousness readjusted itself suddenly to its environment. He gazed round on an unfamiliar bedroom where Betty moved with an air of proprietorship.

“I have had such strange dreams, dear----” he said weakly.

She bent over him again, smiled.

“From the gate of horn?” she asked. How charming she looked!

He collected his thoughts with an effort--remembered, all at once.

“I hope so, dear--please God, they are!”

She rearranged his pillow, smoothed the sheet under his chin, smiled again.

“Go to sleep, Jack--lots more sleep!” she commanded gently but authoritatively.

Without strength or will to protest, he let himself relapse once more into drowsiness. Suddenly he opened his eyes.

“What was the name of the man who wanted to marry Maisie?” he asked, as though he had long been puzzling over the question.

“Maisie?” She looked at him in blank lack of comprehension.

“Our daughter!”

A beautiful smile of tenderness, of something ineffably feminine, came into her eyes. What was it she gazed at in that instant of silence?

“Hush, dear. Don’t talk!” she said, softly, kissing him on the brow. “Go and sit again by the gate of horn.”

THE WHITE DOG

Mr. Gilchrist was nervous and fidgety. He was alone, not merely in the dining-room where he sat, but in the house; and solitude at night to a man accustomed to find comfort and distraction in the presence of others is a black desert where one starts at one’s own footsteps.

Sitting there in the dining-room of the pretty suburban villa he had had built some twenty miles from town, the familiar objects which surrounded him seemed to have grown remote, unfamiliar. Smoking his pipe, with the half-read newspaper on his knee, his ear was worried by the insistent ticking of the clock, and this ticking seemed a novel, almost uncanny, phenomenon. He could not remember having heard a sound from that timepiece before. There were features about the sideboard, too, as he gazed at it fixedly, that appeared quite strange to him. Certain details of inlay-work on the Sheraton-pattern legs he perceived now for the first time. These little unfamiliarities observed with his mind on the stretch--the latent primitive man in him scenting danger in solitude--added to the loneliness. The sheltering walls of the usual were pushed away from him. He felt himself exposed, out of the call of friends, in a desolation hinted by invisible malevolences. Of course, the feeling was absurd. He shook himself and tried to summon up a little of the bravura with which he had dismissed his wife and daughter to the dance at the village a mile away, making light of their protests that it was the one servant’s evening out, saying that at any rate she in the kitchen would not be much company to him in the dining-room where he proposed to sit and smoke. His friend Williamson might drop in, too--anyway, he would be all right.

His friend Williamson had not dropped in, and with every slow minute ticked out by that confounded clock he had found himself less at ease. Once he got up and walked into another room, but the sound of his own footsteps, heard with astonishing loudness in the house empty of any other person, afflicted his nerves, and he returned to his former seat in the dining-room.

The seven-thirty express from town rushed by on the railway line which ran, fifty yards distant, parallel with the road; and the sound of it heartened him for a minute or two. The world of fellow-men was brought close to him for a flying second, and all his sociable instincts greeted it, claiming acquaintance, as it sped along. Then, as the noise of it died away into a silence yet more profound than before, the primitive in him again peeped out through his civilization, panicky, ear at stretch for stealthy danger. The stillness which surrounded the lonely house seemed charged with perils that stole near with noiseless footfall. A weird, mournful cry outside, breaking suddenly on that stillness, pulled him erect on his feet, listening, trembling. The cry was repeated, and he sat down again, telling himself that it was an owl, as doubtless it was; but his hand shook as he picked up his newspaper again and tried to read.

With some effort he forced his brain to grasp the meanings of the words, which related a murder case, announced in massive letters at the top of the column. The mental machine seemed to stop every now and then and he found himself gazing at some unimportant, common word in the line until it looked as strange and devoid of meaning as one in a foreign and unknown language. The comprehension of it required a deliberate effort of will.

Suddenly, with a soul-shaking unexpectedness, there was a violent, rapid knocking at the door.

* * * * * *

He was on his feet in an instant, shaking in every limb, panic-stricken as an Indian in a place of spirits. A primitive vague dread of the supernatural held him motionless, obsessed by a formless horror.

The knocking at the door renewed itself, a frantic hammering. The repetition lightened him, redeemed it from the vague purposelessness of the ghostly, suggested human anxiety at fever pitch. His imagination, relieved from the spell, flew to work, building catastrophes after familiar models. His wife and daughter? The disasters of fire, vehicular collision or heart-failure presented themselves in confused and fragmentary pictures. The door now resounded under a ceaseless rain of blows; and, trembling so violently as to feel almost ill, he ran to open it.

On the threshold stood a little, stout bearded man, past middle age. He struck one or two frenzied blows at the air after the door had swung away from him.

“What do you want?” demanded Mr. Gilchrist.

His visitor looked at him vacantly for a moment, seemingly unable to adjust his mind to human intercourse.

“For God’s sake, give me some brandy--if you are a Christian man!”

“Come inside,” said Mr. Gilchrist, and he led the way into the dining-room, the stranger following. “Bless my soul! What is it? An accident?” He spoke nervously, more to himself than to his guest, who replied nothing but stood swaying on his legs and kept from falling only by the clutched-at support of the table. “Dear me--dear me! One moment--I have some brandy here.” He fumbled with the key of the tantalus. “Here you are. Steady, man, steady! Sit down.”

The stranger drank off the brandy and took a deep breath, passing his hand over his brow like one recovering from a swoon. In the moment or two of silence Mr. Gilchrist had leisure to scrutinize him. He was without a hat, and his head shone in the lamplight, a polished dome rising from a narrow forehead and a half-ring of gray wisps over his ears. His eyes protruded, globularly, but it could be guessed that they carried impressions to an active brain. His gray beard converged irresolutely to a point in front of his chin. His clothes were respectable but not well cut, and they were now soiled with earth. One trouser-leg, Mr. Gilchrist noticed, was badly torn. Altogether his appearance suggested a benevolent old gentleman, connected possibly with some dissenting religious body, who had been badly mauled in conflict with a gang of ruffians.

“Feel better?” asked Mr. Gilchrist. “Have some more.”

“No, I thank you, sir,” replied the stranger, and the tone of his voice assured his host that he had to deal with an educated man. “I feel much better. Alcohol, I may say, is an unfamiliar stimulant to me, and the action of a comparatively small quantity is powerful. If I might beg a little further indulgence of your kindness, however, I should be glad to rest myself a minute or two.”

“Certainly, certainly--by all means. You will find that a more comfortable chair. Have you met with an accident?”

The stranger’s protruding eyes flashed with a singular brightness at the question. Then he sighed and again pressed the palm of his hand across his brow.

“Your courtesy, sir, undoubtedly deserves some explanation of the plight you have so generously relieved.” The man’s tone and phrasing indicated a person accustomed to put his thoughts into an elaborated word-structure for the attention of an audience. “I hardly think that accident is the correct description of my misfortune. I am the victim, sir, of a traitorous chain of circumstances, a chain of circumstances so strange as to be scarcely credible.”

“Indeed?” Mr. Gilchrist had reseated himself and now bent forward, his face alight with interest kindled by his guest’s last sentence. “If I can help you in any way, I shall be glad to do so.”

The stranger acknowledged the offer by a downward inclination of the head.

“Your great kindness of heart needs no further exposition, sir--it is self-evident. I have no words sufficient to thank you. I greatly fear, however, that I am beyond human help. A matter of a few hours is the utmost respite from my fate that I can expect. None the less, I am deeply grateful to you for this breathing-space.”

The stranger sighed again, and his countenance settled into a resigned melancholy.

“You make me curious,” said Mr. Gilchrist. “Of course, I don’t wish to intrude----”

The old gentleman raised his eyebrows and made a protesting movement with his hand.

“In all probability, sir, you will soon be made acquainted with a garbled newspaper version of the calamity which has befallen me. Its dreadful nature is bound to flare into publicity. It is useless, therefore, for me to attempt to conceal it. If you care to hear the true version of a tragedy which every newsboy will be shouting to-morrow morning--a version stranger than the one counsel for defence and prosecution will adopt as a battle-ground for their wits--I will do my best to gratify your curiosity. I may say that it will be some comfort to me to know that one fellow human being--especially so kind-hearted a one as yourself--is acquainted with the real facts.”

“My dear sir!” began Mr. Gilchrist. “Surely--you are overwrought--an accident--I cannot believe----”

“I do not look like a murderer,” said the old gentleman, interrupting him, a pathetic little smile on his grave face. “Nevertheless I am one. It is the terrible truth, I assure you, sir. I am a murderer, a murderer trapped into crime by that chain of circumstances I spoke of. And I am a man that until to-day never wittingly took the life of any creature, however small.”

“But--my dear sir!” Mr. Gilchrist half rose from his chair. His guest waved him back into it.

“I am speaking the sober truth. You think that you are harbouring a madman. I am as sane as you. If you care to listen, I will relate the story, and when I have finished, if you desire to call in the local police, you are at liberty to do so. I give you my word that there will be no disturbance.”

Mr. Gilchrist sat back in his chair, half-fascinated, half-frightened.

“Go on,” he said briefly, not trusting himself to speak.

“I must first request your patience whilst I relate a few circumstances which, however remote they may appear from the terrible fact that has, among other things, made me your guest, are nevertheless intimately connected with it.

“I am a man in business for myself, in a small way, as the saying is. It might have been a larger way had not my intellectual activities been employed on subjects which I regard as of graver and deeper import than the purchase and sale of ephemeral commodities. For many years my mind has been more familiar with that region known briefly as the occult, than with the intricacies of terrestrial markets. I have striven earnestly to penetrate to those great secrets which throb behind this earthly veil--with what success I need not specify. Suffice it that a small society of fellow-seekers after the Truth chose me as their president, a position I still hold.

“However small your acquaintance with this difficult subject, sir, you are probably aware--from hearsay, at least--that it has two great aspects, good and evil. The pure in heart may achieve a certain mastery over forces hidden from the multitude and use them for innocent or praiseworthy ends, such, for example, as establishing communication between our loved ones who have crossed the threshold and those who remain here. This is known vulgarly as white magic. But there is a black magic. It is known to every adept that it is possible--difficult, perhaps, but possible--for self-seeking men who have, perchance before they became perverted, had the key to these vast mysteries put in their hands, to control the mighty forces of which I have spoken and turn them, regardless of the suffering they inflict, to their personal advantage.

“It is possible, I say, though exceedingly rare. Few men, good or evil, are so fortunately endowed as to acquire a mastery over those forces for any purpose, and of those who have acquired it the majority are good. In any case they are rare. For myself, despite years of study and anxious striving, I have utterly failed to grasp those forces save in one or two trifling instances. This, by the way. For some time past I have been conscious--I cannot now tell you by what agency I became aware of it--that a group of men, greater adepts than any I have known, had in fact subjected forces terrible in their power and were using them to the danger of the world.”

The stranger turned his bulbous bright eyes to Mr. Gilchrist, who sat silent, gripped in a spell which was partly fear. In the moment or two of silence he heard that infernal clock ticking along with insistent industry. The stranger waited a brief space for some comment, and, receiving none, proceeded.

“You know, I have no doubt, that in the past--in the Middle Ages, for example--certain secret societies existed for purposes partly occult. I use _occult_ as a synonym for the spiritual, for all that lies beyond the veil. Such, I may remark, were the Rosicrucians. Others are known to every student of the subject. One might almost class it as common historical knowledge. Few, however, suspect that to-day such a society, immeasurably more powerful than the ordinary man considers possible, exists. It exists, and by some means it has penetrated to the very arcana of the spiritual world. It wields a power, by its control over forces that to call cosmic is to minimize, quite beyond ordinary resistance. And it wields that power for evil. I could point out several frightful disasters of recent times directly traceable to that society. It is a menace to the world!”

The old gentleman’s eyes flashed excitement at Mr. Gilchrist, who felt in a dream, scarcely knowing whether he was awake or sleeping.

“In one way only can it be overthrown--and it must be overthrown if our civilization is to continue. A group of men--equally adept but pure in soul--must meet and check each of their schemes and finally turn the immense forces, too great for ordinary comprehension, with which they work, against them, wiping them out of existence. Where that group of men is to be found, sir, I do not know; but if the disease is to find a remedy it must first be diagnosed. It was my duty, then, having discovered this monstrous danger, to proclaim it to the world. And, knowing full well the awful risks I ran, I did so. I contributed a long article to a periodical which exists for the diffusion of spiritual truth, and, so far as my knowledge permitted me, exposed the terrible enemy.

“I knew I invited disaster. Immediately I was warned--I cannot tell you by what channel the warning came to me--that the gravest perils threatened me. You, an ordinary man, whose most terrible engine of destruction possible to the imagination is a monster-gun battleship, can have no conception of the powers unchained against me. I cannot tell you with what fervour I strove to acquire control over forces that might befriend me, but in vain. Ever I was thwarted and baffled. I lost what little powers I had. Stripped of every means of defence, I waited in anguish for the blow to fall. What kind of blow it would be and whence it would come I could not tell. I knew only that it was inevitable. An undying enmity was all around me.

“I expected something cataclysmic, world-shaking. Fool that I was, I might have known better. ‘They’ are far too cunning thus to advertise their power needlessly. Day after day I dwelt in a world of terror, and nothing happened, save the complete interruption of any intercourse with the spiritual world. Malevolent forces had closed that door. I waited, each moment expecting disaster, I knew not from what quarter, as a man waits in a dark wood for the lurking danger to spring at him. Suddenly--a week ago to-day--they commenced to act.”

He stopped to allow the import of his words to have full effect on his host. Mr. Gilchrist opened his mouth as if to speak, but he could not give utterance to a sound.

“I was walking, about six o’clock in the afternoon, along Piccadilly. The thoroughfare was crowded. I felt almost happy in the throng. My mind was for the moment distracted from its ever-present anxiety, and I had almost forgotten my danger. Suddenly a man jostled against me and thrust a piece of paper into my hand. I glanced at it and knew my doom was upon me. Here it is.”

He took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Mr. Gilchrist. It bore only the words, in fat black type: “Prepare to meet thy Judge.”

“But,” said his host, grasping at the familiar in this strange story, “this is merely a leaflet circulated by some religious body.”

“I know,” said the stranger, smiling. “That is their cunning. It conveys little or nothing to an outsider. _But they knew I would know._ I looked around for the man. He had disappeared. The blood surged to my head; I reeled dizzily against a lamp-post and for a moment or two knew nothing. The shock, long expected though it was, was awful. After a brief space my brain cleared. My giddiness seemingly had not been noticed. The street looked normal. I shook myself and prepared to continue on my way. At that moment I happened to look round and saw a large white bulldog sitting on the pavement and regarding me fixedly. Even then--_I knew_. But I affected to take no notice of it and commenced to walk onward. The dog got up and followed me. I walked faster, but the dog was always a couple of feet behind my heels. I stopped. The dog stopped. I went on again. The dog went on again also. There was no doubt of its connection with me.