How a scene soaks into the place where it has been enacted;
my room, which you know was her room, is alive with her. I want nothing
better than to be here, prowling and purring over the memory of the
last time, which was the only one, that I was here. Yes, just that; and
I know how odd you must think it. But it’s true, it was here that I saw
her die, and instead of shunning the place, I bathe myself in it. For
it was one of the happiest hours of my life.”

“Because----” I began. “No; not because it gave her release, if that’s in your mind,” he said. “It’s because I saw----”

He broke off, and remembering his stipulation that I should ask him
nothing, but that he would tell me “if and when” he could, I put no
question to him. His eyes were dancing with the sparkle of fire that
burned on the hearth, for though April was here, the evenings were
still chilly, and it was not the fire that gave them their light, but
a joyousness that was as bright as glee, and as deep as happiness. “No, I’m not going on with that now,” he said, “though I expect I
shall before my days are out. At present I shall leave you wondering
why a place that should hold such mournful memories for me, is such a
well-spring. And as I am not for telling you about me, let me enquire
about you. Bring yourself up to date; what have you been doing, and
much more important, what have you been thinking about?”

“My doings have chiefly been confined to settling into this house,” I
said. “I’ve been pulling and pushing furniture into places where it
wouldn’t go, and cursing it.”

He looked round the room. “It doesn’t seem to bear you any grudge,” he said. “It looks contented. And what else?”

“In the intervals, when I couldn’t push and curse any more,” I said,
“I’ve been writing a few spook stories. All about the borderland, which
I love as much as you do.”

He laughed outright. “Do you, indeed?” he said. “Then it’s no use my saying that it is quite
impossible. But I should like to know your views on the borderland.”

I pointed to a sheaf of typewritten stuff that littered my table. “Them’s my sentiments,” I said, “and quite at your service.”

“Good; then I’ll take them to bed with me when I go, if you’ll allow
me. I’ve always thought that you had a pretty notion of the creepy,
but the mistake that you make is to imagine that creepiness is
characteristic of the borderland. No doubt there are creepy things
there, but so there are everywhere, and a thunder-storm is far more
terrifying than an apparition. And when you get really close to
the borderland, you see how enchanting it is, and how vastly more
enchanting the other side must be. I got right on to the borderland
once, here in this house, as I shall probably tell you, and I never
saw so happy and kindly a place. And without doubt I shall soon be
careering across it in my own person. That’ll be, as we’ve often
determined, wildly interesting, and it will have the solemnity of a
first night at a new play about it. There’ll be the curtain close
in front of you, and presently it will be raised, and you will see
something you never saw before. How well, on the whole, the secret has
been kept, though from time to time little bits of information, little
scraps of dialogue, little descriptions of scenery have leaked out. Enthrallingly interesting; one wonders how they will come into the
great new drama.”

“You don’t mean the sort of thing that mediums tell us?” I asked. “Of course I don’t. I hate the sloshy--really there’s no other word for
it, and why should there be, since that word fits so admirably--the
sloshy utterances of the ordinary high-class, beyond-suspicion medium
at half a guinea a sitting, who asks if there’s anybody present who
once knew a Charles, or if not Charles, Thomas or William. Naturally
somebody has known a Charles, Thomas or William who has passed over,
and is the son, brother, father or cousin of a lady in black. So
when she claims Thomas, he tells her that he is very busy and happy,
helping people.... O Lord, what rot! I went to one such séance a month
ago, just before I was taken ill, and the medium said that Margaret
wanted to get into touch with somebody. Two of us claimed Margaret,
but Margaret chose me and said she was the spirit of my wife. Wife,
you know! You must allow that this was a very unfortunate shot. When I
said that I was unmarried, Margaret said that she was my mother, whose
name was Charlotte. Oh dear, oh dear! Well, I shall go to bed with joy,
bringing your spooks with me....”

“Sheaves,” said I. “Yes, but aren’t they the sheaves? Isn’t one’s gleaning of sheaves in
this world what they call spooks? That is, the knowledge of what one
takes across?”

“I don’t understand one word,” said I. “But you must understand. All the knowledge--worth anything--which
you or I have collected here, is the beginning of the other life. We
toil and moil, and make our gleanings and our harvestings, and all our
decent efforts help us to realize what the real harvest is. Surely we
shall take with us exactly that which we have reaped....”

After he had gone up to bed I sat trying to correct the errors of a
typist, but still between me and the pages there dwelt that haunting
sense of all that we did here being only the grist for what was to
come. Our achievements were rewarded, so he seemed to say, by a
glimpse. And those glimpses--so I tried to follow him--were the hints
that had leaked out of the drama for which the curtain was twitching. Was that it? Roderick came down to breakfast next morning, superlatively frank and
happy. “I didn’t read a single line of your stories,” he said. “When I got
into my bedroom I was so immeasurably content that I couldn’t risk
getting interested in anything else. I lay awake a long time, pinching
myself in order to prolong my sheer happiness, but the flesh was weak,
and at last, from sheer happiness, I slept and probably snored. Did
you hear me? I hope not. And then sheer happiness dictated my dreams,
though I don’t know what they were, and the moment I was called I got
up, because ... because I didn’t want to miss anything. Now, to be
practical again, what are you doing this morning?”

“I was intending to play golf,” I said, “unless----”

“There isn’t an ‘unless,’ if you mean Me. My plan made itself for me,
and I intend--this is my plan--to drive out with you, and sit in the
hollow by the fourth tee, and read your stories there. There’s a great
south-westerly wind, like a celestial housemaid, scouring the skies,
and I shall be completely sheltered there, and in the intervals of my
reading, I shall pleasantly observe the unsuccessful efforts of the
golfers to carry the big bunker. I can’t personally play golf any more,
but I shall enjoy seeing other people attempting to do it.”

“And no prowling or purring?” I asked. “Not this morning. That’s all right: it’s there. It’s so much all right
that I want to be active in other directions. Sitting in a windless
hollow is about the range of my activities.