Chapter 7

"Yes ... but I see perfectly that this is impossible. Whatever I said in my sleep, either I can't identify it as true, in which case it is worthless as evidence, or I can identify it, because I already know it, and in that case it is worthless again."

The medium smiled, half closing his eyes.

"You must think us very childish, Mr. Baxter," he said.

He sat up a little in his chair; then, putting his hand into his breast pocket, drew out a note-book, holding it still closed on his knee.

"May I ask you a rather painful question?" he said gently.

Laurie nodded. He felt so secure.

"Would you kindly tell me--first, whether you have seen the grave of this young girl since you left the country; secondly, whether anyone happens to have mentioned it to you?"

Laurie swallowed in his throat.

"Certainly no one has mentioned it to me. And I have not seen it since I left the country."

"How long ago was that?"

"That was ... about September the twenty-seventh."

"Thank you...!" He opened the note-book and turned the pages a moment or two. "And will you listen to this, Mr. Baxter?--'Tell Laurie that the ground has sunk a little above my grave; and that cracks are showing at the sides.'"

"What is that book?" said the boy hoarsely.

The medium closed it and returned it to his pocket.

"That book, Mr. Baxter, contains a few extracts from some of the things you said during your trance. The sentence I have read is one of them, an answer given to a demand made by me that the control should give some unmistakable proof of her identity. She ... you hesitated some time before giving that answer."

"Who took the notes?"

"Mrs. Stapleton. You can see the originals if you wish. I thought it might distress you to know that such notes had been taken; but I have had to risk that. We must not lose you, Mr. Baxter."

Laurie sat, dumb and bewildered.

"Now all you have to do," continued the medium serenely, "is to find out whether what has been said is correct or not. If it is not correct, there will be an end of the matter, if you choose. But if it is correct--"

"Stop; let me think!" cried Laurie.

He was back again in the confusion from which he thought he had escaped. Here was a definite test, offered at least in good faith--just such a test as had been lacking before; and he had no doubt whatever that it would be borne out by facts. And if it were--was there any conceivable hypothesis that would explain it except the one offered so confidently by this grave, dignified man who sat and looked at him with something of interested compassion in his heavy eyes? Coincidence? It was absurd. Certainly graves did sink, sometimes--but ... Thought-transference from someone who noticed the grave...? But why that particular thought, so vivid, concise, and pointed...?

If it were true...?

He looked hopelessly at the man, who sat smoking quietly and waiting.

And then again another thought, previously ignored, pierced him like a sword. If it were true; if Amy herself, poor pretty Amy, had indeed been there, were indeed near him now, hammering and crying out like a child shut out at night, against his own skeptical heart ... if it were indeed true that during those two hours she had had her heart's desire, and had been one with his very soul, in a manner to which no earthly union could aspire ... how had he treated her? Even at this thought a shudder of repulsion ran through him.... It was unnatural, detestable ... yet how sweet...! What did the Church say of such things...? But what if religion were wrong, and this indeed were the satiety of the higher nature of which marriage was but the material expression...?

The thoughts flew swifter than clouds as he sat there, bewildering, torturing, beckoning. He made a violent effort. He must be sane, and face things.

"Mr. Vincent," he cried.

The kindly face turned to him again.

"Mr. Vincent...."

"Hush, I quite understand," said the fatherly voice. "It is a shock, I know; but Truth is a little shocking sometimes. Wait. I perfectly understand that you must have time. You must think it all over, and verify this. You must not commit yourself. But I think you had better have my address. The ladies are a little too emotional, are they not? I expect you would sooner come to see me without them."

He laid his card on the little tea-table and stood up.

"Good-night, Mr. Baxter."

Laurie took his hand, and looked for a moment into the kind eyes. Then the man was gone.

II

That was a little while ago, now, and Laurie sitting over breakfast had had time to think it out, and by an act of sustained will to suspend his judgment.

He had come back again to the state I have described--to nervous interest--no more than that. The terror seemed gone, and certainly the skepticism seemed gone too. Now he had to face Maggie and his mother, and to see the grave....

Somehow he had become more accustomed to the idea that there might be real and solid truth under it all, and familiarity had bred ease. Yet there was nervousness there too at the thought of going home. There were moods in which, sitting or walking alone, he passionately desired it all to be true; other moods in which he was acquiescent; but in both there was a faint discomfort in the thought of meeting Maggie, and a certain instinct of propitiation towards her. Maggie had begun to stand for him as a kind of embodiment of a view of life which was sane, wholesome, and curiously attractive; there was a largeness about her, a strength, a sense of fresh air that was delightful. It was that kind of thing, he thought, that had attracted him to her during this past summer. The image of Amy, on the other hand, more than ever now since those recent associations, stood for something quite contrary--certainly for attractiveness, but of a feverish and vivid kind, extraordinarily unlike the other. To express it in terms of time, he thought of Maggie in the morning, and of Amy in the evening, particularly after dinner. Maggie was cool and sunny; Amy suited better the evening fever and artificial light.

And now Maggie had to be faced.

First he reflected that he had not breathed a hint, either to her or his mother, as to what had passed. They both would believe that he had dropped all this. There would then be no arguing, that at least was a comfort. But there was a curious sense of isolation and division between him and the girl.

Yet, after all, he asked himself indignantly, what affair was it of hers? She was not his confessor; she was just a convent-bred girl who couldn't understand. He would be aloof and polite. That was the attitude. And he would manage his own affairs.

He drew a few brisk draughts of smoke from his pipe and stood up. That was settled.

* * * * *

It was in this determined mood then that he stepped out on to the platform at the close of this wintry day, and saw Maggie, radiant in furs, waiting for him, with her back to the orange sunset.

These two did not kiss one another. It was thought better not. But he took her hand with a pleasant sense of welcome and home-coming.

"Auntie's in the brougham," she said. "There's lots of room for the luggage on the top.... Oh! Laurie, how jolly this is!"

It was a pleasant two-mile drive that they had. Laurie sat with his back to the horses. His mother patted his knee once or twice under the fur rug, and looked at him with benevolent pleasure. It seemed at first a very delightful home-coming. Mrs. Baxter asked after Mr. Morton, Laurie's coach, with proper deference.

But places have as strong a power of retaining associations as persons, and even as they turned down into the hamlet Laurie was aware that this was particularly true just now. He carefully did not glance out at Mr. Nugent's shop, but it was of no use. The whole place was as full to him of the memory of Amy--and more than the memory, it seemed--as if she was still alive. They drew up at the very gate where he had whispered her name; the end of the yew walk, where he had sat on a certain night, showed beyond the house; and half a mile behind lay the meadows, darkling now, where he had first met her face to face in the sunset, and the sluice of the stream where they had stood together silent. And all was like a landscape seen through colored paper by a child, it was of the uniform tint of death and sorrow.

Laurie was rather quiet all that evening. His mother noticed it, and it produced a remark from her that for an instant brought his heart into his mouth.

"You look a little peaked, dearest," she said, as she took her bedroom candlestick from him. "You haven't been thinking any more about that Spiritualism?"

He handed a candlestick to Maggie, avoiding her eyes.

"Oh, for a bit," he said lightly, "but I haven't touched the thing for over two months."

He said it so well that even Maggie was reassured. She had just hesitated for a fraction of a second to hear his answer, and she went to bed well content.

Her contentment was even deeper next morning when Laurie, calling to her through the cheerful frosty air, made her stop at the turning to the village on her way to church.

"I'm coming," he said virtuously; "I haven't been on a weekday for ages."

They talked of this and that for the half-mile before them. At the church door she hesitated again.

"Laurie, I wish you'd come to the Protestant churchyard with me for a moment afterwards, will you?"

He paled so suddenly that she was startled.

"Why?" he said shortly.

"I want you to see something."

He looked at her still for an instant with an incomprehensible expression. Then he nodded with set lips.

When she came out he was waiting for her. She determined to say something of regret.

"Laurie, I'm dreadfully sorry if I shouldn't have said that.... I was stupid.... But perhaps--"

"What is it you want me to see?" he said without the faintest expression in his voice.

"Just some flowers," she said. "You don't mind, do you?"

She saw him trembling a little.

"Was that all?"

"Why yes.... What else could it be?"

They went on a few steps without another word. At the church gate he spoke again.

"Its awfully good of you, Maggie ... I ... I'm rather upset still, you know; that's all."

He hurried, a little in front of her, over the frosty grass beyond the church; and she saw him looking at the grave very earnestly as she came up. He said nothing for a moment.

"I'm afraid the monument's rather ... rather awful.... Do you like the flowers, Laurie?"

She was noticing that the chrysanthemums were a little blackened by the frost; and hardly attended to the fact that he did not answer.

"Do you like the flowers?" she said again presently.

He started from his prolonged stare downwards.

"Oh yes, yes," he said; "they're ... they're lovely.... Maggie, the grave's all right, isn't it: the mound, I mean?"

At first she hardly understood.

"Oh yes ... what do you mean?"

He sighed, whether in relief or not she did not know.

"Only ... only I have heard of mounds sinking sometimes, or cracking at the sides. But this one--"

"Oh yes," interrupted the girl. "But this was very bad yesterday.... What's the matter, Laurie?"

He had turned his face with some suddenness, and there was in it a look of such terror that she herself was frightened.

"What were you saying, Maggie?"

"It was nothing of any importance," said the girl hurriedly. "It wasn't in the least disfigured, if that--"

"Maggie, will you please tell me exactly in what condition this grave was yesterday? When was it put right?"

"I ... I noticed it when I brought the chrysanthemums up yesterday morning. The ground was sunk a little, and cracks were showing at the sides. I told the sexton to put it right. He seems to have done it.... Laurie, why do you look like that?"

He was staring at her with an expression that might have meant anything. She would not have been surprised if he had burst into a fit of laughter. It was horrible and unnatural.

"Laurie! Laurie! Don't look like that!"

He turned suddenly away and left her. She hurried after him.

On the way to the house he told her the whole story from beginning to end.

III

The two were sitting together in the little smoking-room at the back of the house on the last night of Laurie's holidays. He was to go back to town next morning.

Maggie had passed a thoroughly miserable week. She had had to keep her promise not to tell Mrs. Baxter--not that that lady would have been of much service, but the very telling would be a relief--and things really were not serious enough to justify her telling Father Mahon.

To her the misery lay, not in any belief she had that the spiritualistic claim was true, but that the boy could be so horribly excited by it. She had gone over the arguments again and again with him, approving heartily of his suggestions as to the earlier part of the story, and suggesting herself what seemed to her the most sensible explanation of the final detail. Graves did sink, she said, in two cases out of three, and Laurie was as aware of that as herself. Why in the world should not this then be attributed to the same subconscious mind as that which, in the hypnotic sleep--or whatever it was--had given voice to the rest of his imaginations? Laurie had shaken his head. Now they were at it once more. Mrs. Baxter had gone to bed half an hour before.

"It's too wickedly grotesque," she said indignantly. "You can't seriously believe that poor Amy's soul entered into your mind for an hour and a half in Lady Laura's drawing-room. Why, what's purgatory, then, or heaven? It's so utterly and ridiculously impossible that I can't speak of it with patience."

Laurie smiled at her rather wearily and contemptuously.

"The point," he said, "is this: Which is the simplest hypothesis? You and I both believe that the soul is somewhere; and it's natural, isn't it, that she should want--oh! dash it all! Maggie, I think you should remember that she was in love with me--as well as I with her," he added.

Maggie made a tiny mental note.

"I don't deny for an instant that it's a very odd story," she said. "But this kind of explanation is just--oh, I can't speak of it. You allowed yourself that up to this last thing you didn't really believe it; and now because of this coincidence the whole thing's turned upside down. Laurie, I wish you'd be reasonable."

Laurie glanced at her.

She was sitting with her back to the curtained and shuttered window, beyond which lay the yew-walk; and the lamplight from the tall stand fell full upon her. She was dressed in some rich darkish material, her breast veiled in filmy white stuff, and her round, strong arms lay, bare to the elbow, along the arms of her chair. She was a very pleasant wholesome sight. But her face was troubled, and her great serene eyes were not so serene as usual. He was astonished at the persistence with which she attacked him. Her whole personality seemed thrown into her eyes and gestures and quick words.

"Maggie," he said, "please listen. I've told you again and again that I'm not actually convinced. What you say is just conceivably possible. But it doesn't seem to me to be the most natural explanation. The most natural seems to me to be what I have said; and you're quite right in saying that it's this last thing that has made the difference. It's exactly like the grain that turns the whole bottle into solid salt. It needed that.... But, as I've said, I can't be actually and finally convinced until I've seen more. I'm going to see more. I wrote to Mr. Vincent this morning."

"You did?" cried the girl.

"Don't be silly, please.... Yes, I did. I told him I'd be at his service when I came back to London. Not to have done that would have been cowardly and absurd. I owe him that."

"Laurie, I wish you wouldn't," said the girl pleadingly.

He sat up a little, disturbed by this very unusual air of hers.

"But if it's all such nonsense," he said, "what's there to be afraid of?"

"It's--it's morbid," said Maggie, "morbid and horrible. Of course it's nonsense; but it's--it's wicked nonsense."

Laurie flushed a little.

"You're polite," he said.

"I'm sorry," she said penitently. "But you know, really--"

The boy suddenly blazed up a little.

"You seem to think I've got no heart," he cried. "Suppose it was true--suppose really and truly Amy was here, and--"

A sudden clear sharp sound like the crack of a whip sounded from the corner of the room. Even Maggie started and glanced at the boy. He was dead white on the instant; his lips were trembling.

"What was that?" he whispered sharp and loud.

"Just the woodwork," she said tranquilly; "the thaw has set in tonight."

Laurie looked at her; his lips still moved nervously.

"But--but--" he began.

"Dear boy, don't you see the state of nerves--"

Again came the little sharp crack, and she stopped. For an instant she was disturbed; certain possibilities opened before her, and she regarded them. Then she crushed them down, impatiently and half timorously. She stood up abruptly.

"I'm going to bed," she said. "This is too ridiculous--"

"No, no; don't leave me ... Maggie ... I don't like it."

She sat down again, wondering at his childishness, and yet conscious that her own nerves, too, were ever so slightly on edge. She would not look at him, for fear that the meeting of eyes might hint at more than she meant. She threw her head back on her chair and remained looking at the ceiling. But to think that the souls of the dead--ah, how repulsive!

Outside the night was very still.

The hard frost had kept the world iron-bound in a sprinkle of snow during the last two or three days, but this afternoon the thaw had begun. Twice during dinner there had come the thud of masses of snow falling from the roof on to the lawn outside, and the clear sparkle of the candles had seemed a little dim and hazy. "It would be a comfort to get at the garden again," she had reflected.

And now that the two sat here in the windless silence the thaw became more apparent every instant. The silence was profound, and the little noises of the night outside, the drip from the eaves slow and deliberate, the rustle of released leaves, and even the gentle thud on the lawn from the yew branches--all these helped to emphasize the stillness. It was not like the murmur of day; it was rather like the gnawing of a mouse in the wainscot of some death chamber.

It requires almost superhumanly strong nerves to sit at night, after a conversation of this kind, opposite an apparently reasonable person who is white and twitching with terror, even though one resolutely refrains from looking at him, without being slightly affected. One may argue with oneself to any extent, tap one's foot cheerfully on the floor, fill the mind most painstakingly with normal thoughts; yet it is something of a conflict, however victorious one may be.

Even Maggie herself became aware of this.

It was not that now for one single moment she allowed that the two little sudden noises in the room could possibly proceed from any cause whatever except that which she had stated--the relaxation of stiffened wood under the influence of the thaw. Nor had all Laurie's arguments prevailed to shake in the smallest degree her resolute conviction that there was nothing whatever preternatural in his certainly queer story.

Yet, as she sat there in the lamplight, with Laurie speechless before her, and the great curtained window behind, she became conscious of an uneasiness that she could not entirely repel. It was just physical, she said; it was the result of the change of weather; or, at the most, it was the silence that had now fallen and the proximity of a terrified boy.

She looked across at him again.

He was lying back in the old green arm-chair, his eyes rather shadowed from the lamp overhead, quite still and quiet, his hands still clasping the lion bosses of his chair-arms. Beside him, on the little table, lay his still smoldering cigarette-end in the silver tray....

Maggie suddenly sprang to her feet, slipped round the table, and caught him by the arm.

"Laurie, Laurie, wake up.... What's the matter?"

A long shudder passed through him. He sat up, with a bewildered look.

"Eh? What is it?" he said. "Was I asleep?"

He rubbed his hands over his eyes and looked round.

"What is it, Maggie? Was I asleep?"

Was the boy acting? Surely it was good acting! Maggie threw herself down on her knees by the chair.

"Laurie! Laurie! I beg you not to go to see Mr. Vincent. It's bad for you.... I do wish you wouldn't."

He still blinked at her a moment.

"I don't understand. What do you mean, Maggie?"

She stood up, ashamed of her impulsiveness.

"Only I wish you wouldn't go and see that man. Laurie, please don't."

He stood up too, stretching. Every sign of nervousness seemed gone.

"Not see Mr. Vincent? Nonsense; of course I shall. You don't understand, Maggie."

_Chapter VII_

I

"What a relief," sighed Mrs. Stapleton. "I thought we had lost him."

The three were sitting once again in Lady Laura's drawing-room soon after lunch. Mr. Vincent had just looked in with Laurie's note to give the news. It was a heavy fog outside, woolly in texture and orange in color, and the tall windows seemed opaque in the lamplight; the room, by contrast, appeared a safe and pleasant refuge from the reek and stinging vapor of the street.

Mrs. Stapleton had been lunching with her friend. The Colonel had returned for Christmas, so his wife's duties had recalled her for the present from those spiritual conversations which she had enjoyed in the autumn. It was such a refreshment, she had said with a patient smile, to slip away sometimes into the purer atmosphere.

Mr. Vincent folded the letter and restored it to his pocket.

"We must be careful with him," he said. "He is extraordinarily sensitive. I almost wish he were not so developed. Temperaments like his are apt to be thrown off their balance."

Lady Laura was silent.

For herself she was not perfectly happy. She had lately come across one or two rather deplorable cases. A very promising girl, daughter of a publican in the suburbs, had developed the same kind of powers, and the end of it all had been rather a dreadful scene in Baker Street. She was now in an asylum. A friend of her own, too, had lately taken to lecturing against Christianity in rather painful terms. Lady Laura wondered why people could not be as well balanced as herself.

"I think he had better not come to the public _séances_ at present," went on the medium. "That, no doubt, will come later; but I was going to ask a great favor from you, Lady Laura."

She looked up.

"That bother about the rooms is not yet settled, and the Sunday _séances_ will have to cease for the present. I wonder if you would let us come here, just a few of us only, for three or four Sundays, at any rate."

She brightened up.

"Why, it would be the greatest pleasure," she said. "But what about the cabinet?"

"If necessary, I would send one across. Will you allow me to make arrangements?"

Mrs. Stapleton beamed.

"What a privilege!" she said. "Dearest, I quite envy you. I am afraid dear Tom would never consent--"

"There are just one or two things on my mind," went on Mr. Vincent so pleasantly that the interruption seemed almost a compliment, "and the first is this. I want him to see for himself. Of course, for ourselves, his trance is the point; but hardly for him. He is tremendously impressed; I can see that; though he pretends not to be. But I should like him to see something unmistakable as soon as possible. We must prevent his going into trance, if possible.... And the next thing is his religion."

"Catholics are supposed not to come," observed Mrs. Stapleton.

"Just so.... Mr. Baxter is a convert, isn't he...? I thought so."

He mused for a moment or two.