The girl was white and
frightened, but the others were laughing and talking among themselves so
busily while they picked that they did not notice my abrupt arrival. Some game, I understood, was in progress, but a game that had become too
serious for the happiness of the prisoner, for there was a fear in the
girl's eyes that was a very genuine fear indeed. I unfastened her at
once; the ropes were so loosely and clumsily knotted that they had not
hurt her skin; it was not that which made her pale. She collapsed a
moment upon the bench, then picked up her tiny skirts and dived away at
full speed into the safety of the stable-yard. There was no response to my brief comforting, but she ran as though for
her life, and I divined that some horrid boys' cruelty had been afoot. It was probably mere thoughtlessness, as cruelty with children usually
is, but something in me decided to discover exactly what it was. And the boys, not one whit alarmed at my intervention, merely laughed
shyly when I explained that their prisoner had escaped, and told me
frankly what their "gime" had been. There was no vestige of shame in
them, nor any idea, of course, that they aped a monstrous reality. That it was mere pretence was neither here nor there. To them, though
make-believe, it was a make-believe of something that was right and
natural and in no sense cruel. Grown-ups did it too. It was necessary
for her good. "We was going to burn her up, sir," the older one informed me, answering
my "Why?" with the explanation, "Because she wouldn't believe what we
wanted 'er to believe." And, game though it was, the feeling of reality about the little episode
was so arresting, so terrific in some way, that only with difficulty did
I confine my admonitions on this occasion to mere words. The boys slunk
off, frightened in their turn, yet not, I felt, convinced that they had
erred in principle. It was their inheritance. They had breathed it in
with the atmosphere of their bringing-up. They would renew the salutary
torture when they could--till she "believed" as they did. I went back into the house, afflicted with a passion of mingled pity and
distress impossible to describe, yet on my short way across the garden
was attacked by other moods in turn, each more real and bitter than its
predecessor. I received the whole series, as it were, at once. I felt
like a diver rising to the surface through layers of water at different
temperatures, though here the natural order was reversed, and the cooler
strata were uppermost, the heated ones below. Thus, I was caught by the
goblin touch of the willows that fringed the field; by the sensuous
curving of the twisted ash that formed a gateway to the little grove of
sapling oaks where fauns and satyrs lurked to play in the moonlight
before Pagan altars; and by the cloaking darkness, next, of the copse of
stunted pines, close gathered each to each, where hooded figures stalked
behind an awful cross. The episode with the children seemed to have
opened me like a knife. The whole Place rushed at me. I suspect this synthesis of many moods produced in me that climax of
loathing and disgust which made me feel the limit of bearable emotion
had been reached, so that I made straight to find Frances in order to
convince her that at any rate I must leave. For, although this was our
last day in the house, and we had arranged to go next day, the dread was
in me that she would still find some persuasive reason for staying on. And an unexpected incident then made my dread unnecessary. The front
door was open and a cab stood in the drive; a tall, elderly man was
gravely talking in the hall with the parlor maid we called the
Grenadier. He held a piece of paper in his hand. "I have called to see
the house," I heard him say, as I ran up the stairs to Frances, who was
peering like an inquisitive child over the banisters....

"Yes," she told me with a sigh, I know not whether of resignation or
relief, "the house is to be let or sold. Mabel has decided. Some Society
or other, I believe--"

I was overjoyed: this made our leaving right and possible. "You never
told me, Frances!" "Mabel only heard of it a few days ago. She told me herself this
morning. It is a chance, she says. Alone she cannot get it 'straight'. "Defeat?" I asked, watching her closely. "She thinks she has found a way out. It's not a family, you see, it's a
Society, a sort of Community--they go in for thought--"

"A Community!" I gasped. "You mean religious?" She shook her head. "Not exactly," she said smiling, "but some kind of
association of men and women who want a headquarters in the country--a
place where they can write and meditate--think--mature their plans and
all the rest--I don't know exactly what." "Utopian dreamers?" I asked, yet feeling an immense relief come over me
as I heard. But I asked in ignorance, not cynically. Frances would know. She knew all this kind of thing. "No, not that exactly," she smiled. "Their teachings are grand and
simple--old as the world too, really--the basis of every religion before
men's minds perverted them with their manufactured creeds--"

Footsteps on the stairs, and the sound of voices, interrupted our odd
impromptu conversation, as the Grenadier came up, followed by the tall,
grave gentleman who was being shown over the house. My sister drew me
along the corridor towards her room, where she went in and closed the
door behind me, yet not before I had stolen a good look at the caller--
long enough, at least, for his face and general appearance to have made
a definite impression on me. For something strong and peaceful emanated
from his presence; he moved with such quiet dignity; the glance of his
eyes was so steady and reassuring, that my mind labeled him instantly as
a type of man one would turn to in an emergency and not be disappointed. I had seen him but for a passing moment, but I had seen him twice, and
the way he walked down the passage, looking competently about him,
conveyed the same impression as when I saw him standing at the door--
fearless, tolerant, wise. "A sincere and kindly character," I judged
instantly, "a man whom some big kind of love has trained in sweetness
towards the world; no hate in him anywhere." A great deal, no doubt, to
read in so brief a glance! Yet his voice confirmed my intuition, a deep
and very gentle voice, great firmness in it too. "Have I become suddenly sensitive to people's atmospheres in this
extraordinary fashion?" I asked myself, smiling, as I stood in the room
and heard the door close behind me. "Have I developed some clairvoyant
faculty here?" At any other time I should have mocked. And I sat down and faced my sister, feeling strangely comforted and at
peace for the first time since I had stepped beneath The Towers' roof a
month ago. Frances, I then saw, was smiling a little as she watched me. "You know him?" I asked. "You felt it too?" was her question in reply.