"Well, _what_ do you think?" her mother asked sharply. "You're always
thinking something queer." "I think," the child continued dreamily, "that Daddy's already here." She paused, then added with a child's impossible conviction, "I'm sure
he is. I _feel_ him." There was an extraordinary laugh. Sir James Epiphany laughed. The
others--the whole crowd of them--also turned their heads and smiled. But the mother, thrusting the child away from her, rose up suddenly
with a violent start. Her face had turned to chalk. She stretched her
arms out--into the air before her. She gasped and shivered. There was
an awful anguish in her eyes. "Look!" repeated John, "these are the presents that I brought." But his voice apparently was soundless. And, with a spasm of icy pain,
he remembered that Palmer and Sir James--some years ago--had died. "It's magic," he cried, "but--I love you, Jinny--I love you--and--and I
have always been true to you--as true as steel. We need each other--oh,
can't you see--we go on together--you and I--for ever and ever----"

"_Think_," interrupted an exquisitely tender voice, "don't shout! _They_ can't hear you--now." And, turning, John Mudbury met the eyes of
Everard Minturn, their President of the year before. Minturn had gone
down with the _Titanic_. He dropped his parcels then. His heart gave an enormous leap of joy. He saw her face--the face of his wife--look through him. But the child gazed straight into his eyes. She _saw_ him. The next thing he knew was that he heard something tinkling ... far,
far away. It sounded miles below him--inside him--he was sounding
himself--all utterly bewildering--like a bell. It _was_ a bell. Milly stooped down and picked the parcels up. Her face shone with
happiness and laughter.... But a man came in soon after, a man with a ridiculous, solemn face, a
pencil, and a notebook. He wore a dark blue helmet. Behind him came a
string of other men. They carried something ... something ... he could
not see exactly what it was. But when he pressed forward through the
laughing throng to gaze upon it, he dimly made out two eyes, a nose, a
chin, a deep red smear, and a pair of folded hands upon an overcoat. A
woman's form fell down upon them then, and ... he heard ... soft sounds
of children weeping strangely ... and other sounds ... sounds as of
familiar voices ... laughing ... laughing gaily. "They'll join us presently. It goes like a flash...."

And, turning with great happiness in his heart, he saw that Sir James
had said it, holding Palmer by the arm as with some natural yet
unexpected love of sympathetic friendship. "Come on," said Palmer, smiling like a man who accepts a gift in
universal fellowship, "let's help 'em. They'll never understand.... Still, we can always try." The entire throng moved up with laughter and amusement. It was a
moment of hearty, genuine life at last. Delight and Joy and Peace were
everywhere. Then John Mudbury realised the truth--that he was _dead_. XV

THE TRADITION


The noises outside the little flat at first were very disconcerting
after living in the country. They made sleep difficult. At the
cottage in Sussex where the family had lived, night brought deep,
comfortable silence, unless the wind was high, when the pine trees
round the duck-pond made a sound like surf, or if the gale was from the
south-west, the orchard roared a bit unpleasantly. But in London it was very different; sleep was easier in the daytime
than at night. For after nightfall the rumble of the traffic became
spasmodic instead of continuous; the motor-horns startled like warnings
of alarm; after comparative silence the furious rushing of a taxi-cab
touched the nerves. From dinner till eleven o'clock the streets
subsided gradually; then came the army from theatres, parties, and late
dinners, hurrying home to bed. The motor-horns during this hour were
lively and incessant, like bugles of a regiment moving into battle. The parents rarely retired until this attack was over. If quick about
it, sleep was possible then before the flying of the night-birds--an
uncertain squadron--screamed half the street awake again. But,
these finally disposed of, a delightful hush settled down upon the
neighbourhood, profounder far than any peace of the countryside. The
deep rumble of the produce wagons, coming in to the big London markets
from the farms--generally about three A.M.--held no disturbing quality. But sometimes in the stillness of very early morning, when streets
were empty and pavements all deserted, there was a sound of another
kind that was startling and unwelcome. For it was ominous. It came with
a clattering violence that made nerves quiver and forced the heart to
pause and listen. A strange resonance was in it, a volume of sound,
moreover, that was hardly justified by its cause. For it was hoofs. A
horse swept hurrying up the deserted street, and was close upon the
building in a moment. It was audible suddenly, no gradual approach from
a distance, but as though it turned a corner from soft ground that
muffled the hoofs, on to the echoing, hard paving that emphasised the
dreadful clatter. Nor did it die away again when once the house was
reached. It ceased as abruptly as it came. The hoofs did not go away. It was the mother who heard them first, and drew her husband's
attention to their disagreeable quality. "It is the mail-vans, dear," he answered. "They go at four A. M. to
catch the early trains into the country." She looked up sharply, as though something in his tone surprised her. "But there's no sound of wheels," she said. And then, as he did not
reply, she added gravely, "You have heard it too, John. I can tell." "I have," he said. "I have heard it--twice." And they looked at one another searchingly, each trying to read the
other's mind. She did not question him; he did not propose writing to
complain in a newspaper; both understood something that neither of them
understood. "I heard it first," she then said softly, "the night before Jack got
the fever. And as I listened, I heard him crying. But when I went in to
see he was asleep. The noise stopped just outside the building." There
was a shadow in her eyes as she said this, and a hush crept in between
her words. "I did not hear it _go_." She said this almost beneath her
breath. He looked a moment at the ground; then, coming towards her, he took
her in his arms and kissed her. And she clung very tightly to him. "Sometimes," he said in a quiet voice, "a mounted policeman passes down
the street, I think." "It is a horse," she answered. But whether it was a question or mere
corroboration he did not ask, for at that moment the doctor arrived,
and the question of little Jack's health became the paramount matter of
immediate interest. The great man's verdict was uncommonly disquieting. All that night they sat up in the sick room. It was strangely still, as
though by one accord the traffic avoided the house where a little boy
hung between life and death.