We do in some mysterious way, you’ll own at once, grow so
accustomed, so inured, if you like, to each other’s faces (masks though
they be) that we hardly realise we see them when we are speaking
together. And yet the slightest, the most infinitesimal change is
instantly apparent.’

‘Oh yes, Vicar; but you see—’

Mr Bethany raised a small lean hand: ‘One moment, please. I have heard
Lawford’s own account. Conscious or unconscious, he has been through
some terrific strain, some such awful conflict with the unseen powers
that we—thank God!—have only read about, and never perhaps, until death
is upon us, shall witness for ourselves. What more likely, more
inevitable than that such a thing should leave its scar, its cloud, its
masking shadow?—call it what you will. A smile can turn a face we dread
into a face we’d die for. Some experience, which would be nothing but a
hideous cruelty and outrage to ask too closely about—one, perhaps,
which he could, even if he would, poor fellow, give no account of—has
put him temporarily at the world’s mercy. They made him a nine days’
wonder, a byword. And that, my dear Danton, is just where we come in. We know the man himself; and it is to be our privilege to act as a
buffer-state, to be intermediaries between him and the rest of this
deadly, craving, sheepish world—for the time being; oh yes, just for
the time being. Other and keener and more knowledgeable minds than mine
or yours will some day bring him back to us again. We don’t attempt to
explain; we can’t. We simply believe.’

But Danton merely continued to stare, as if into the quiet of an
aquarium. ‘My dear good Danton,’ persisted Mr Bethany with cherubic patience,
‘how old are you?’

‘I don’t see quite...’ smiled Danton with recovered ease, and rapidly
mobilising forces. ‘Excuse the confidence, Mrs Lawford, I’m
forty-three.’

‘Good,’ said Mr Bethany; ‘and I’m seventy-one, and this child here’—he
pointed an accusing finger at Sheila—is youth perpetual. So,’ he
briskly brightened, ‘say, between us we’re six score all told. Are
we—can _we_, deliberately, with this mere pinch of years at our command
out of the wheeling millions that have gone—can we say, “This is
impossible,” to any single phenomenon? _Can_ we?’

‘No, we can’t, of course,’ said Danton formidably. ‘Not finally. That’s
all very well, but’—he paused, and nodded, nodding his round head
upward as if towards the inaudible overhead, ‘I suppose he can’t
_hear?_’

Mr Bethany rose cheerfully. ‘All right, Danton; I am afraid you are
exactly what the poor fellow in his delirium solemnly asseverated. And,
jesting apart, it is in delirium that we tell our sheer, plain,
unadulterated truth: you’re a nicely covered sceptic. Personally, I
refuse to discuss the matter. Mere dull, stubborn prejudice; bigotry,
if you like. I will only remark just this—that Mrs Lawford and I, in
our inmost hearts, _know_. You, my dear Danton, forgive the freedom,
merely incredulously grope. Faith versus Reason—that prehistoric
Armageddon. Some day, and a day not far distant either, Lawford will
come back to us. This—this shutter will be taken down as abruptly as by
some inconceivably drowsy heedlessness of common Nature it has been put
up. He’ll win through; and of his own sheer will and courage. But now,
because I ask it, and this poor child here entreats it, you will say
nothing to a living soul about the matter, say, till Friday? What
step-by-step creatures we are, to be sure! I say Friday because it will
be exactly a week then. And what’s a week?—to Nature scarcely the
unfolding of a rose. But still, Friday be it. Then, if nothing has
occurred, we will, we shall _have_ to call a friendly gathering, we
shall be compelled to have a friendly consultation.’

‘I’m not, I hope, a brute, Bethany,’ said Danton apologetically; ‘but,
honestly, speaking for myself, simply as a man of the world, it’s a big
risk to be taking on—what shall we call it?—on mere intuition. Personally, and even in a court of law—though Heaven forbid it ever
reaches that stage—personally, I could swear that the fellow that stood
abusing me there, in that revolting fashion, was not Lawford. It would
be easier even to believe in him, if there were not that—that glaze,
that shocking simulation of the man himself, the very man. But then, I
am a sceptic; I own it. And ‘pon my word, Mrs Lawford, there’s plenty
of room for sceptics in a world like this.’

‘Very well,’ said Mr Bethany crisply, ‘that’s settled, then. With your
permission, my dear,’ he added, turning untarnishably clear childlike
eyes on Sheila, ‘I will take all risks—even to the foot of the gibbet:
accessory, Danton, _after_ the fact.’ And so direct and cloudless was
his gaze that Sheila tried in vain to evade it and to catch a glimpse
of Danton’s small agate-like eyes, now completely under mastery, and
awaiting confidently the meeting with her own. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘I am entirely in your hands, dear Mr Bethany.’




CHAPTER ELEVEN


Lawford slept far into the cloudy Monday morning, to wake steeped in
sleep, lethargic, and fretfully haunted by inconclusive remembrances of
the night before. When Sheila, with obvious and capacious composure,
brought him his breakfast tray, he watched her face for some time
without speaking. ‘Sheila,’ he began, as she was about to leave the room again. She paused, smiling. ‘Did anything happen last night? Would you mind telling me, Sheila? Who
was it was here?’

Her lids the least bit narrowed. ‘Certainly, Arthur; Mr Danton was
here.’

‘Then it was not a dream?’

‘Oh no,’ said Sheila. ‘What did I say? What did _he_ say? It was hopeless, anyhow.’

‘I don’t quite understand what you mean by “hopeless,” Arthur. And must
I answer the other questions?’

Lawford drew his hand over his face, like a tired child. ‘He
didn’t—believe?’

‘No, dear,’ said Sheila softly. ‘And you, Sheila?’ came the subdued voice. Sheila crossed slowly to the window. ‘Well, quite honestly, Arthur, I
was not very much surprised. Whatever we are agreed about on the whole,
you were scarcely yourself last night.’

Lawford shut his eyes, and re-opened them full on his wife’s calm
scrutiny, who had in that moment turned in the light of the one drawn
blind to face him again. ‘Who is? Always?’

‘No,’ said Sheila; ‘but—it was at least unfortunate. We can’t, I
suppose, rely on Dr Bethany alone.’

Lawford crouched over his food. ‘Will he blab?’

‘Blab! Mr Danton is a gentleman, Arthur.’

Lawford rolled his eyes as if in temporary vertigo. ‘Yes,’ he said. And
Sheila once more prepared to make a reposeful exit. ‘I don’t think I can see Simon this morning.’

‘Oh. Who, then?’

‘I mean I would prefer to be left alone.’

‘Believe me, I had no intention to intrude.’ And this time the door
really closed. ‘He is in a quiet, soothing sleep,’ said Sheila a few minutes later.