Chapter 5

The sad things he came in daily contact with had conquered his faith in life, though they had not succeeded in killing his trust in God's eventual plan of redemption; and his mind wandered in terrible places, places he had forced his way into, places he could never forget. He suffered from all a reformer's agony, an agony that is the small reflection of the great story of the mystic burden heavy as the sins of the whole world, and he tried, out of the simple, childlike fancy of the words he read, to grasp at a better mind.

Heath was one of those men who could not understand effortless faith; he was crushed by his own lack of success, and bowed down by his own failure. Since he could not rout the enemy single-handed, he believed that the battle was against the Hosts of the Lord. He knew no leisure from the war of his own thoughts, and as he clasped his hands, his face grew tense and set, and his eyes haggard and terrible. For a moment he sat very still, and his eyes followed the lines written by a man who had the faith of a little child:

"But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they, By noon, most cunningly did steal away."

Heath had never gathered flowers, either as a lesson to himself or a gift for others; they hardly spoke of careless beauty to him, they were emblems of lightness and thoughtlessness, and Heath had no time to stop and consider the lilies of the field.

He moved suddenly like a man who is awakened from a thought heavier than sleep, and listened with a hunted look, the look of a man who is afraid of footsteps; he stood up, gathering his loose limbs together and watching the door. Steps came up the staircase, steps that stumbled a little, and if Heath had possessed Mhtoon Pah's art of reading the walk of his fellow creatures, he would have known that he might expect a woman and not a man.

"Mr. Heath," a low voice called in the passage, and Heath's tension relaxed, giving place to surprise.

The voice was strange to him, and he passed his handkerchief over his face and walked to the door, just as his name was called again, in the same low, penetrating voice.

"Who wants me?" he asked, almost roughly, and then he saw a tall, dark woman standing at the top of the staircase.

"Mrs. Wilder," he said in surprise, and she made a little imperious movement with her hand.

"I did not call your servant, I came up, because I wanted to find you alone. You are alone?"

"Certainly, I am alone."

"May I come in?"

Heath held the door open for her to pass, and she walked in, looking around the darkening room with hard, curious eyes.

She took the chair he gave her, in silence, and sat down near the writing-table, and, feeling that she would speak after a time, Heath took his own place again and waited.

"I hardly know where to begin," she said, always speaking in the same low, intent voice. "Do you recall the evening of the twenty-ninth?"

An odd spasm caught Heath's face, and he paused for a moment before he answered.

"I do recall it."

"Perhaps you remember seeing me? I was riding along the road when I first passed you, and you were walking."

"I remember that I did pass you then, and also that I saw you later."

Heath's sombre eyes were on her face, and his fingers touched a gold cross that hung from his watch-chain.

"You passed me, and you passed Absalom, the Christian boy, and you have been questioned about Absalom."

"I have," he said heavily. "Why do you ask?"

Mrs. Wilder took a quick breath.

"Because I am afraid that you may be asked again. You understand, Mr. Heath, that I know it was the merest chance that brought you there that evening, but, as you were there, and as Mr. Hartley has got it into his head that you know something more than you have told him, I beg of you to bear in mind that if you mention my name you may get me into serious trouble. You would not do that willingly, I think?"

"I certainly would not. What motive took you there is a question for your own conscience. It is not for me to press that question, Mrs. Wilder."

She pressed her lips together tightly.

"I went there to see an old friend who was in great trouble."

"And yet you have to keep it secret?"

"Haven't we all our secrets, Mr. Heath?" Her voice was raised a little. "Will you pledge me your solemn word to keep this knowledge from anyone who asks?" She put her elbows on the table and drew closer to him.

"I will respect your confidence," he said slowly. "But is it likely that Hartley will ask me?"

Mrs. Wilder made a gesture of denial.

"I _think_ not, but who can tell? This thing has been like lead on my mind and will not let me rest. Oh, Mr. Heath, if you knew what I have already paid, you would be sorry for me."

"I am sorry," he said gently. "More sorry for you than you can tell. You, too, saw Absalom, and spoke to him?"

"He has nothing to do with what I came here about,"--her tone grew impatient. "I only wanted to make sure that I was safe with you. It was no little thing that drove me to come. I am a proud woman, Mr. Heath, and I do not usually ask favours, yet I ask you now--"

"Not a favour," he said, taking her up quickly. "God knows I have every reason to help you if I can. Does Hartley suspect you? Does he question you? Does he try to wring admissions out of you?"

In the darkness Heath's voice rang hard and, metallic, like the voice of a man whose thoughts return upon something that maddens him.

"He has not done so, but he has asked me questions that made me frightened. It is a terrible thing to be afraid."

"And Joicey?" said Heath in a quiet voice. "I saw Joicey, but he did not stop to speak to me. Has he, too, been interrogated?"

"So far as I know, he has not. But this question presses only on me. What took you there is, I feel sure, easily accounted for, and what took Mr. Joicey there is not likely to be a matter of the smallest importance; it is _I_ who suffer, it is on me that all this weight lies. If the police begin investigations they come close upon the fact that I went there to meet a man whom my husband has forbidden me to meet. Any little turn of evidence that involves me, any little accident that obliges me to admit it, and I am lost,"--her voice thrilled and pleaded.

"It is you who are lost," he echoed dully. "I can understand how you feel. If I can ease your burden or lessen the anxiety you suffer from, you may depend upon me, Mrs. Wilder. This matter is a dark road where I, too, walk blind, not knowing the path I follow, but, at least, I can give you my word that under no circumstances shall I be led to mention your name. You can be sure of that, Mrs. Wilder. If I can add your trouble to my own burden I shall not feel its weight, but I would counsel you to be honest with your husband. Tell him the truth."

"I will," said Mrs. Wilder, with an acquiescence that came too quickly. "I assure you that I will, but even when I do, you see what a position the least publicity places me in?"

Heath got up and paced the floor with long, restless strides.

"Publicity. The open avowal of a hidden thing; the knowledge that the whole world judges and condemns, and does not understand."

"That is what I feel."

After all, he was more human than she had expected. Clarice Wilder had looked upon the Rev. Francis as a hermit, an ascetic, whose comprehension was limited; and her eyes grew keen as she watched his gaunt figure.

"To be dragged down, to be accused, to be cast so low," he continued, in his sad, heavy voice, "so low that the lowest have cause to deride and to scorn." He stopped before her. "Is it true that I can save you from that?"

"It is true."

She did not tell him that she had lied to Draycott; it did not appear necessary; neither did she tell him that Draycott's memory was long and sure and unerring.

"Then, if there is one man in all God's universe,"--Heath cast out his arms as he spoke--"one man above all others whom you could appeal to, could trust most entirely, that man is myself. Give me your burden, your distress of mind, and I will take them; I cannot say more--"

"Of course, it may never be necessary for you to--to avoid telling Mr. Hartley," broke in Mrs. Wilder quickly. Heath was getting on her nerves, and she rose to her feet. "I cannot thank you sufficiently, and I fear that I have upset you, made you feel my own cares too profoundly,"--her voice grew almost tender. "I have never known such ready sympathy, but you feel too intensely, Mr. Heath. You make my little trouble your own, and you have made me very grateful. Are you in any trouble yourself?"

Heath stopped for a moment, an outline against the light of the window. She thought he was going to speak, and she waited with an odd feeling of excitement to hear what was coming, when he suddenly retired back into his usual manner.

A light was travelling up the staircase, casting great shadows before it, and when the boy came to the door of the Padré Sahib's room, he saw his master saying good-bye to a tall, dark lady who smiled at him and gave him her hand.

"Good night, Mr. Heath, I hardly know how to thank you sufficiently."

She hurried down the staircase, and as she walked out, she met Atkins coming in on his bicycle. He jumped off as he saw her, and spoke in surprise.

"I have just been calling on the Padré," replied Mrs. Wilder pleasantly, as he commented with ever-ready tactlessness upon her presence in the Compound. "One of my servants is ill; a member of his community. By the way, do you think that Mr. Heath is quite well himself?"

"Indeed I do not think so. He overworks. I have a great admiration for Heath."

"He must be rather depressing in the rains," she said, with a careless laugh. "He positively gave me the shivers. I can hardly envy you boxed up there with him. I believe he sees ghosts, and I think they must be horrid ghosts or he couldn't look as he does."

Her car was waiting down the road, and Atkins walked beside her and saw her get in. Mrs. Wilder was very charming to him; she leaned out and smiled at him again.

"Do take care of the Padré," she called as she drove off.

"There goes a sensible, good-looking woman," thought Atkins, and he thought highly of Mrs. Wilder for her visit to Heath. He said so to the Rector of St. Jude's as they dined together, remarking on the fact that very few women bothered about sick servants, and he was surprised at the cold lack of enthusiasm with which Heath accepted his remark.

"That was what she said?"

"Yes, and I call it unusual in a country where servants are treated like machines. I've never known Mrs. Wilder very well, but she is an interesting woman; don't you think so, Heath?"

"I don't know," said Heath absently. "I never form definite opinions about people on a slight knowledge of them."

Atkins felt snubbed, but he only laughed good-naturedly, and Heath relapsed into silence.

Mrs. Wilder was dining out that night, and she looked so superbly handsome and so defiantly well that everyone remarked upon her; and even Draycott Wilder, who might have been supposed to be used to her beauty and her wit, watched her with his slow, following look. Hartley was not at the dinner-party, but afterwards echoes of its success reached him, and a description of Mrs. Wilder herself that thrilled his romantic sense as he listened.

Hartley was worried about the Padré, and he had warned the policeman to watch the Compound at night; but all the watching in the world did not explain the cause of these visits. There was a connection somewhere and somehow between Heath and the missing Absalom, and Hartley wondered if he could venture to speak to Mrs. Wilder again about the night of the 29th of July, and implore her to let him know if she had seen Heath with Absalom.

It seemed, judging by what Atkins had heard, that Heath was paying for silence, and Hartley disliked the idea of working up evidence against the Padré. The more he thought of it the less he liked it, and yet his duty and his sense of responsibility would not let him rest. Mrs. Wilder had said that she had seen Heath and Absalom, and had then refused to say anything more, but Hartley saw in her reserve a suggestion of further knowledge that could not be ignored or denied.

Mhtoon Pah was quieter for the moment. He believed that Leh Shin was being cautiously tracked, and the pointing image had held no further traces of bloodshed upon his yellow hands. Hartley had grown to loathe the grinning figure, and to loathe the whole tedious, difficult tragedy of the lost boy. If it had lain in the native quarter he could have found interest in the excitement of the chase, but if it ramified into the Cantonment, Hartley had no mind for it. He was a man first, a sociable, kindly man, and, later, an officer of the law.

VIII

SHOWS HOW THE CLOAK OF DARKNESS OF ONE NIGHT HIDES MANY EMOTIONS, AND MRS. WILDER IS FRANKLY INQUISITIVE

Darkness brooded everywhere, but the gloom of night is a darkness that is impenetrable only to our eyes because we creatures of the hard glare of daylight cannot see in the strange clearness that brings out the stars. Only in the houses of men real darkness has its habitation. Under close roofs, confined within walls, shut into rooms, and lurking in corners: there, darkness may be found, and because man made it, it has its own special terror, as have all the creatures of man's hand. Dark, menacing and noiseless, the shadows flock in as daylight wanes, filing up like heavy thoughts and sad thoughts, and casting a gloom with their coming that is not the blackness of earth's restful night.

Mrs. Wilder paced her room with the steps of a woman whose heart drives sleep out with scorpion-whips of memory; and she went softly, for sound travels far at night, and Draycott Wilder, in the next room, was a light sleeper. She was thinking steadily, and she was trying to force her will across the distance into the stronghold of Hartley's inner consciousness.

Night brought no more rest to Mrs. Draycott Wilder than it did to Craven Joicey, the Banker, but Joicey did not sit in the dark. Madness lies in the dark for some minds, and he had turned on the electric light, that showed his face yellow and weary. On the wall the lizards, awakened by the sudden glare, resumed their fly-catching, and scuttled with a dry, scurrying sound over the walls, breaking the silence with a perpetual "chuck-chuck" as they chased each other. Joicey looked as though he was dreaming evil dreams, and nothing of his surroundings was real to him. The room became another room, the tables and chairs grew indistinct, the face of a small _Gaudama_ on the mantel-piece became a living face that menaced him, and the "chuck-chuck" of the lizards, the rattle of dice falling on to a board at some remote distance miles and miles away, and yet strangely audible to his dull ears. Still he sat there, and flashes of fancies came and went. Sometimes he stood in an English garden, with a far-away sunlit glimpse of glittering waters, and a cuckoo crying in a wood of waving trees, and then he knew that he was a boy, and that he had forgotten everything that had happened since; and then, without warning, he was swept out of the garden and stood under Eastern trees, lost in a wild place, with the haunting face of the image at his shoulder. The face altered. Sometimes it was Mhtoon Pah's pointing man, and what he pointed at was never clear. The mistiness bothered him horribly.

The _Durwan_ outside played on a wistful little flute, thinking that his master was asleep; he heard it, and it did not concern him; he was dead to all outward things just then, and the flute only added to the mystery of the dream that spun itself in his brain. He wandered in a place so near actual things and yet so far from them, that the gigantic mistake of it all, and the consciousness that the inner life could at times conquer the outer life, made him fall away between the two conditions, lost and helpless. His head nodded forward, and his lower lip dropped, and yet his eyes were open, as he sat facing the small squatting Buddha, whose changeless face changed only for him.

The three little flute-notes tripped out after each other with no semblance at a tune, repeating and reiterating the sound in the dark outside, and Joicey listened as though something of weight depended upon his hearing steadily. The sound was the one thing that made him know that he was real, and once it ceased, or he ceased to hear it, he would be across the gulf and terribly lost; a mind without a body, let loose in a world where there were no landmarks, no known roads, nothing but windy space, and he was afraid of that place, and feared terribly to go there.

Something shuffled on the stone veranda, another sound, and sound was of value to Craven Joicey, since it made a vital note in the circling numbness around him. He could hear whispering voices, and the thump of the _Durwan's_ stick, as that musically-minded man walked round to the back of the house, where his lighted window showed that Craven Joicey did not sleep. Again a voice whispered, and a low sound of discreet knocking followed.

Joicey sprang up and called out hoarsely:

"Who is it?"

"Sahib, Sahib"--the _Durwan's_ whine was apologetic. "Is the Sahib awake?"

"Who wants me?"

"Leh Shin, the Chinaman."

Joicey wiped his face with his handkerchief and pulled open the door with a violent movement.

"Come in," he said, trying to speak naturally. "What is it, Leh Shin?"

The Chinaman held a tweed hat in his hand and stole into the room like a shadow.

"What now, Leh Shin?"

Joicey spoke in Yunnanese with the fluency of long habit, and even though he was angry he kept his voice low as though he feared to be overheard.

"The Master of Masters will speak for me," said the Chinaman, standing before him. "All day the police stand near to my house, and at night they do not leave it. At one word from the Master, whose speech is constructed of gold and precious metals, they can be withdrawn, and for that word I wait--" He made a quick gesture with his tweed cap.

"You will gain nothing by coming to my house, you swine," said Joicey, his eyes staring and his veins standing out on his forehead. "I will see what Mr. Hartley will do, but if you drag in my name or refer him to me you will do yourself no good, do you hear? No good."

Leh Shin watched him passively and waited until he had finished.

"I will swear the oath," he said, blinking his eyes. "I will not speak the name of the Master, but my doors are locked, my house is a house for the water-rats, and until the big Lord frees me I am a poor man."

Joicey sat down heavily on a low chair.

"It shall be stopped," he said desperately. "I will see that there is no more of this police supervision; you may take my word for it."

The Chinaman stood still, moving one foot to the other.

"In dreams the Master has spoken these promises to me before. Can I be sure that it is not in a dream that the Master speaks again?"

"I am awake," said Joicey, bitterly. "Mr. Hartley is looking for the boy, and if the boy were found, all search would stop,"--he eyed the Chinaman carefully, but the mask-like face did not change.

"And the little boy? Perhaps, Ruler and King, the little boy is gone dead."

"You ask me _that_, you devil?"

"It is for the servant to ask," said Leh Shin, dropping his lids for a second.

"Now, get out," said Joicey, between his clenched teeth. "And if you come here to me again, at night, I'll kill you."

"The Great One will not do that," said Leh Shin, placidly. "My assistant waits for me. It would be known as fire is known when the forest is dry. To-morrow or next day, if the police are gone, my little house will be open again." He spoke the words with deep emphasis.

"Get out," said Joicey, turning away his head.

Leh Shin looked at him with a sudden, oblique glance like the flash of a knife.

"Speak no more, Lord of men and elephants; the _Durwan_ is now outside the door, and he listens."

"Good-night," said Joicey loudly, and he clicked off the light and went to bed.

If the darkness was close in the large houses of the Cantonment, it was shut into the very essence of itself in the curio shop in Paradise Street. It hid the carved devils from one another, it obliterated the stone monsters that no one ever bought, and which had grown to belong to the shop itself; it dropped its black veil over the green dragons, and the china ladies, and the silver bowls and the little ivories, hiding everything out of sight; but it did not hide the figure outside in the street. The little man, with his pointed headdress and short jacket, had the clear darkness all to himself. He was just as polite by night as he was by day, and he bowed and ushered imaginary buyers up the stone steps with the same perpetual civility, and the same unceasing smile, that bagged out his varnished cheeks into joviality.

Dark as it was inside the shop, it must have been darker along the rat-burrows of stairs, and the loft-like rooms near the roof, but either up above or down below, the scent of cassia and sandal-wood clung everywhere inside the curio shop, smelling strongest around the glass cases and bales of delicate silks.

Mhtoon Pah's _Durwan_ slept across the doorway, and was therefore the only object for the attention of the little man, and likewise, therefore, he did not point to his master, who came in, in the dead, heavy hours before dawn. He could not have been far; there was hardly any dust on his red velvet slippers, and he brushed what there was from them with a careful hand. As he placed his lamp on the floor, the light threw odd shadows up the walls, turning that of Mhtoon Pah himself into a grotesque and gigantic mass of darkness, and when he stooped and stood erect it jumped with a sudden living spring.

Mhtoon Pah moved about the shop on light feet. He bent here and there to examine some of the objects closely, with the manner and gesture of a man who loves beautiful things for their own sakes as well as for the profit he hoped to gain from their sale. When he had twice made a tour of inspection, he placed an alabaster Buddha in the centre of a carved table and sat down before it. The Buddha was dead white, with a red chain around his neck, and on his head a gold cap with long, gem-set ears hanging to the shoulders, and Mhtoon Pah sat long in front of the figure, swaying a little and moving his lips soundlessly. He appeared like a man who is self-mesmerized by the flame of a candle, and his face worked with suppressed and violent emotion; at any moment it seemed as though he might break the silence with some awful, passion-tossed sound.

Suddenly, he stopped in his voiceless worship, and, leaning forward quickly, extinguished the lamp. If he had heard any sound, it was apparently from below, for he crouched on the ground with his head close to the teak boarding, and crawled with slow, noiseless care towards the door. A silk curtain covered the window, hiding the interior of the shop from the street, and, when he reached the low woodwork above which it hung, he twitched the curtain back with a sudden movement of his hand and raised himself slowly until his head was on a level with the glass.