May I
venture to ask why you are interested in the poor old thing?’

Lawford’s mind was as calm and shallow as a millpond. ‘Oh, a rather
unusual thing happened to me here,’ he said. ‘You say you often come?’

‘Often,’ said the stranger rather curtly. ‘Has anything—ever—occurred?’

‘“Occurred?”’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I wish it had. I come here
simply, as I have said, because it’s quiet; because I prefer the
company of those who never answer me back, and who do not so much as
condescend to pay me the least attention.’ He smiled and turned his
face towards the quiet fields. Lawford, after a long pause, lifted his eyes. ‘Do you think,’ he said
softly, ‘it is possible one ever could?’

‘“One ever could?”’

‘Answer back?’

There was a low rotting wall of stone encompassing Sabathier’s grave;
on this the stranger sat down. He glanced up rather curiously at his
companion. ‘Seldom the time and the place and the _revenant_
altogether. The thought has occurred to others,’ he ventured to add. ‘Of course, of course,’ said Lawford eagerly. ‘But it is an absolutely
new one to me. I don’t mean that I have never had such an idea, just in
one’s own superficial way; but’—he paused and glanced swiftly into the
fast-thickening twilight—‘I wonder: are they, do you think, really, all
quite dead?’

‘Call and see!’ taunted the stranger softly. ‘Ah, yes, I know,’ said Lawford. ‘But I believe in the resurrection of
the body; that is what we say; and supposing, when a man dies—supposing
it was most frightfully against one’s will; that one hated the awful
inaction that death brings, shutting a poor devil up like a child
kicking against the door in a dark cupboard; one might surely one
might—just quietly, you know, try to get out? wouldn’t you?’ he added. ‘And, surely,’ he found himself beginning gently to argue again,
‘surely, what about, say, him?’ He nodded towards the old and broken
grave that lay between them. ‘What, Sabathier?’ the other echoed, laying his hand upon the stone. And a sheer enormous abyss of silence seemed to follow the unanswerable
question. ‘He was a stranger; it says so. Good God!’ said Lawford, ‘how he must
have wanted to get home! He killed himself, poor wretch, think of the
fret and fever he must have been in—just before. Imagine it.’

‘But it might, you know,’ suggested the other with a smile—‘might have
been sheer indifference.’

‘“Nicholas Sabathier, Stranger to this parish”—no, no,’ said Lawford,
his heart beating as if it would choke him, ‘I don’t fancy it was
indifference.’

It was almost too dark now to distinguish the stranger’s features but
there seemed a faint suggestion of irony in his voice. ‘And how do you
suppose your angry naughty child would set about it? It’s narrow
quarters; how would he begin?’

Lawford sat quite still. ‘You say—I hope I am not detaining you—you say
you have come here, sat here often, on this very seat; have you ever
had—have you ever fallen asleep here?’

‘Why do you ask?’ inquired the other curiously. ‘I was only wondering,’ said Lawford. He was cold and shivering. He
felt instinctively it was madness to sit on here in the thin gliding
mist that had gathered in swathes above the grass, milk-pale in the
rising moon. The stranger turned away from him. ‘“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come must give us pause,”’
he said slowly, with a little satirical catch on the last word. ‘What
did _you_ dream?’

Lawford glanced helplessly about him. The moon cast lean grey beams of
light between the cypresses. But to his wide and wandering eyes it
seemed that a radiance other than hers haunted these mounds and leaning
stones. ‘Have you ever noticed it?’ he said, putting out his hand
towards his unknown companion; ‘this stone is cracked from head to
foot?... But there’—he rose stiff and chilled—‘I am afraid I have bored
you with my company. You came here for solitude, and I have been trying
to convince you that we are surrounded with witnesses. You will forgive
my intrusion?’ There was a kind of old-fashioned courtesy in his manner
that he himself was dimly aware of. He held out his hand. ‘I hope you will think nothing of the kind,’ said the other earnestly;
‘how could it be in any sense an intrusion? It’s the old story of
Bluebeard. And I confess I too should very much like a peep into his
cupboard. Who wouldn’t? But there, it’s merely a matter of time, I
suppose.’ He paused, and together they slowly ascended the path already
glimmering with a heavy dew. At the porch they paused once more. And
now it was the stranger that held out his hand. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘you will give me the pleasure of some day
continuing our talk. As for our friend below, it so happens that I
_have_ managed to pick up a little more of his history than the sexton
seems to have heard of—if you would care some time or other to share
it. I live only at the foot of the hill, not half a mile distant. Perhaps you could spare the time now?’

Lawford took out his watch, ‘You are really very kind,’ he said. ‘But,
perhaps—well, whatever that history may be, I think you would agree
that mine is even—but, there, I’ve talked too much about myself
already. Perhaps to-morrow?’

‘Why, to-morrow, then,’ said his companion. ‘It’s a flat wooden house,
on the left-hand side. Come at any time of the evening’; he paused
again and smiled—‘the third house after the Rectory, which is marked up
on the gate. My name is Herbert—Herbert Herbert to be precise.’

Lawford took out his pocket-book and a card. ‘Mine,’ he said, handing
it gravely to his companion. ‘is Lawford—at least...’ It was really the
first time that either had seen the other’s face at close quarters and
clear-lit; and on Lawford’s a moon almost at the full shone dazzlingly. He saw an expression—dismay, incredulity, overwhelming
astonishment—start suddenly into the dark, rather indifferent eyes. ‘What is it?’ he cried, hastily stooping close. ‘Why,’ said the other, laughing and turning away, ‘I think the moon
must have bewitched me too.’




CHAPTER TEN


Lawford listened awhile before opening his door. He heard voices in the
dining-room. A light shone faintly between the blinds of his bedroom. He very gently let himself in, and unheard, unseen, mounted the stairs. He sat down in front of the fire, tired out and bitterly cold in spite
of his long walk home. But his mind was wearier even than his body. He
tried in vain to catch up the thread of his thoughts. He only knew for
certain that so far as his first hope and motives had gone his errand
had proved entirely futile. ‘How could I possibly fall asleep with that
fellow talking there?’ he had said to himself angrily; yet knew in his
heart that their talk had driven every other idea out of his mind. He
had not yet even glanced into the glass. His every thought was vainly
wandering round and round the one curious hint that had drifted in, but
which he had not yet been able to put into words.