You say it may be this face, working in! God
knows. I find it easy to speak to you—this cold, clear sense, you know. The others feel too much, or are afraid, or—Let me think—yes, I was
going to ask you a question. But no one can answer it.’ He peered
darkly, with white face suddenly revealed between his hands. ‘What
remains now? Where do _I_ come in? What is there left for _me_ to do?’

And at that moment there sounded, even above the monotonous roar of the
water beyond the window—there fell the sound of a light footfall
approaching along the corridor. ‘Listen,’ said Herbert; ‘here’s my sister coming; we’ll ask her.’




CHAPTER THIRTEEN


The door opened. Lawford rose, and into the further rays of the
candlelight entered a rather slim figure in a light summer gown. ‘Just home?’ said Herbert. ‘We’ve been for a walk—’

‘My sister always forgets everything,’ said Herbert, turning to
Lawford; ‘even tea-time. This is Mr Lawford, Grisel. We’ve been arguing
no end. And we want you to give a decision. It’s just this: Supposing
if by some impossible trick you had come in now, not the charming
familiar sister you are, but shorter, fatter, fair and round-faced,
quite different, physically, you know—what would you do?’

‘What nonsense you talk, Herbert!’

‘Yes, but supposing: a complete transmogrification—by some unimaginable
ingression or enchantment, by nibbling a bunch of roses, or whatever
you like to call it?’

‘_Only_ physically?’

‘Well, yes, actually; but potentially, why—that’s another matter.’

The dark eyes passed slowly from her brother’s face and rested gravely
on their visitor’s. ‘Is he making fun of me?’

Lawford almost imperceptibly shook his head. ‘But what a question! And I’ve had no tea.’ She drew her gloves slowly
through her hand. ‘The thing, of course, isn’t possible, I know. But
shouldn’t I go mad, don’t you think?’

Lawford gazed quietly back into the clear, grave, deliberate eyes. ‘Suppose, suppose, just for the sake of argument—_not_,’ he suggested. She turned her head and reflected, glancing from one to the other of
the pure, steady candle-flames. ‘And what was _your_ answer?’ she said, looking over her shoulder at
her brother. ‘My dear child, you know what _my_ answers are like!’

‘And yours?’

Lawford took a deep breath, gazing mutely, forlornly, into the lovely
untroubled peace of her eyes, and without the least warning tears swept
up into his own. With an immense effort he turned, and choking back
every sound, beating back every thought, groped his way towards the
square black darkness of the open door. ‘I must think, I must think,’ he managed to whisper, lifting his hand
and steadying himself. He caught over his shoulder the glimpse of a
curiously distorted vision, a lifted candle, and a still face gazing
after him with infinitely grieved eyes, then found himself groping and
stumbling down the steep, uneven staircase into the darkness of the
queer old wooden and hushed and lonely house. The night air cold on his
face calmed his mind. He turned and held out his hand. ‘You’ll come again?’ Herbert was saying, with a hint of anxiety, even
of apology in his voice. Lawford nodded, with eyes fixed blankly on the candle, and turning once
more, made his way slowly down the narrow green-bordered path upon
which the stars rained a scattered light so feeble it seemed but as a
haze that blurred the darkness. He pushed open the little white wicket
and turned his face towards the soundless, leaf-crowned hill. He had
advanced hardly a score of steps in the thick dust when almost as if
its very silence had struck upon his ear he remembered the black broken
grave with its sightless heads that lay beyond the leaves. And fear,
vast and menacing, fear such as only children know, broke like a sea of
darkness on his heart. He stopped dead—cold, helpless, trembling. And,
in the silence he heard a faint cry behind him and light footsteps
pursuing him. He turned again. In the thick close gloom beneath the
enormous elm-boughs the grey eyes shone clearly visible in the face
upturned to him. ‘My brother,’ she began breathlessly—‘the little
French book. It was I who—who mislaid it.’

The set, stricken face listened unmoved. ‘You are ill. Come back! I am afraid you are very ill.’

‘It’s not that, not that,’ Lawford muttered; ‘don’t leave me; I am
alone. Don’t question me,’ he said strangely, looking down into her
face, clutching her hand; ‘only understand that I can’t, I can’t go
on.’ He swept a lean arm towards the unseen churchyard. ‘I am afraid.’

The cold hand clasped his closer. ‘Hush, don’t speak! Come back; come
back. I am with you, a friend, you see; come back.’

Lawford clutched her hand as a blind man in sudden peril might clutch
the hand of a child. He saw nothing clearly; spoke almost without
understanding his words. ‘Oh, but it’s _must_,’ he said; ‘I _must_ go on. You see—why,
everything depends on struggling through: the future! But if you only
knew—There!’ Again his arm swept out, and the lean terrified face
turned shuddering from the dark. ‘I do know; believe me, believe me! I can guess. See, I am coming with
you; we will go together. As if, as if I did not know what it is to be
afraid. Oh, believe me; no one is near; we go on; and see! it
gradually, gradually lightens. How thankful I am I came.’

She had turned and they were steadily ascending as if pushing their
way, battling on through some obstacle of the mind rather than of the
senses beneath the star-powdered callous vault of night. And it seemed
to Lawford as if, as they pressed on together, some obscure detestable
presence as slowly, as doggedly had drawn worsted aside. He could see
again the peaceful outspread branches of the trees, the lych-gate
standing in clear-cut silhouette against the liquid dusk of the sky. A
strange calm stole over his mind. The very meaning and memory of his
fear faded out and vanished, as the passed-away clouds of a storm that
leave a purer, serener sky. They stopped and stood together on the brow of the little hill, and
Lawford, still trembling from head to foot, looked back across the
hushed and lightless countryside. ‘It’s all gone now,’ he said wearily,
‘and now there’s nothing left. You see, I cannot even ask your
forgiveness—and a stranger!’

‘Please don’t say that—unless—unless—a “pilgrim” too. I think, surely,
you must own we did have the best of it that time. Yes—and I don’t care
_who_ may be listening—but we _did_ win through.’

‘What can I say? How shall I explain? How shall I make you understand?’

The clear grey eyes showed not the faintest perturbation. ‘But I do; I
do indeed, in part; I do understand, ever so faintly.’

‘And now I will come back with _you_.’

They paused in the darkness face to face, the silence of the sky,
arched in its vastness above the little hill, the only witness of their
triumph. She turned unquestioningly. And laughing softly almost as children do,
the stalking shadows of a twilight wood behind them—they trod in
silence back to the house.