"There's been a mistake somewhere," he said to himself; "I shall find a telegram when I get back to the house explaining it"—when, suddenly and without apparent cause, there stole upon him a curious lift of freedom—a sharp sense of open spaces he was at a loss to understand. It was accompanied by an increase of light. For a second it occurred to him that the great enclosing roof had rolled back and blown away, letting in air and some lost ray of sunshine. A lovely valley flitted across his thought. Almost he was aware of flowers, of music, of rhythmic movement.
"Edward! there you are. I thought you hadn't come," he heard close behind him, and, turning, saw the figure of Devonham, calm and alert as usual. At his side stood a lean, virile outline of a young man, topping Devonham by several inches, with broad but thin shoulders, figure erect yet flexible, whose shining and inquiring eyes of blue were the most striking feature in a boyish face, where strength, intensity and radiant health combined in an unusual degree.
"Here is our friend, LeVallon," added Devonham, but not before the figure had stepped lightly and quickly forward, already staring at him and shaking his outstretched hand.
So this was "N. H.," and LeVallon was his name. The calm, searching eyes held a touch of bewilderment in them, the eyes of an honest, intelligent animal, thought Filleryquickly, adding in spite of himself and almost simultaneously, "but of a divine animal." It was a look he had never in his life before encountered in any human eyes. Mason's water-colour sketch had caught something, at least, of their innocence and question, of their odd directness and intensity, something, too, of the golden fire in the hair. He wore a broad-brimmed felt hat of Swiss pattern, a Bernese overcoat, a low, soft-collared shirt, with blue tie to match.
Buffeted and pushed by the frenzied travellers, they stood and faced each other, shaking hands, eyes looking into eyes, two strangers, doctor and patient possibly, but friends most certainly, both felt instantly. They liked one another. Once again the scent of flowers danced with light above the piled-up heaps of trunks, rugs, packages. A cool wind from mountains seemed to blow across the dreadful station.
"You've arrived safely," began Dr. Fillery, a little taken aback perhaps. "Welcome! And not too tired, I hope——" when the other interrupted him in a man's deep voice, full of pleasant timbre:
"Fill-er-y," he said, making the "F" sound rather long, "I need you. To see you makes me happy."
"Tired," put in Devonham breathlessly, "good heavens, not he! But I am. Now for a porter and the big luggage. Have you got a taxi?"
"The car is here," said Fillery, letting go with a certain reluctance the hand he held, and paying little attention to anything but the figure before him who used such unexpected language. What was it? What did it mean? Whence came this sudden sense of intensity, light, of order, system, intelligence into the racial scene of muddled turmoil all about him? There seemed an air of speeding up in thought and action near him, compared to which the slow stupidity, unco-ordinated and confused on all sides, became painful, gross, and even ludicrous.
Someone bumped against him with violence, but quite needlessly, since the simplest judgment of weight and distance could have avoided the collision. In such ordinarysmall details he was aware of another, a higher, standard close. A man on his left, trying to manage several bundles, appeared vividly as of amazing incompetence, with his miscalculation, his clumsy movement, his hopeless inability to judge cause and effect. Yet he had two arms, ten fingers, two legs, broad shoulders and deep chest. Misdirection of his great strength made it impossible for him to manage the assortment of light parcels. Next to him, however, stood a woman carrying a baby—there was no error there. The panting engine just beyond them, again, set a standard of contemptuous, impersonal intelligence that, obeying Nature's laws, dwarfed the humans generally. But it was another, a quasi-spiritual standard that had flashed to him above all. In some curious way the competent "dead" machinery that obeyed the Law with faultless efficiency, and the woman obeying instinct with equally unconscious skill—these two energies were akin to the new standard he was now startlingly aware of.
He looked up, as though to trace this sudden new consciousness of bright, quick, rapid competence—almost as of some immense power building with consistent scheme and system—that had occurred to him; and he met again the direct, yet slightly bewildered eyes that watched him, watched him with confidence, sweetness, and with a questioning intensity he found intriguing, captivating, and oddly stimulating. He felt happiness.
"By yer leave!" roared a porter, as they stepped aside just in time to save being pushed by the laden truck—just in time to save himself, that is, for the other, Fillery noticed, moved like a chamois on its native rocks, so surely, lightly, swiftly was he poised.
"This! Ah, you must excuse it," the doctor exclaimed with a smile of apology almost, "we've not yet had time to settle down after the war, you see." He pointed with a sweep of his hand to the roaring, dim-lit cavern where confusion reigned supreme, the G.H.Q. of travel in the biggest city of the Empire.
"I've got a porter," cried Devonham, beckoning vigorouslya little further down the platform. "You wait there. I'll be along in a minute with the stuff." He was hot, flustered, exhausted.
"You struggle. It was like this all the way. Is there no knowledge?" LeVallon asked in his deep, quiet tones.
"We do," said Fillery. "With us life is always struggle. But there is more system than appears. The confusion is chiefly on the surface."
"It is dark and there is so little air," observed the other. "And they all work against each other."
Fillery laughed into the other's eyes; they laughed together; and it seemed suddenly to the doctor that their beings somehow merged, so that, for a second, he knew the entire content of his companion's mind—as if there was nothing in LeVallon he did not understand.
"You—are a builder," LeVallon said abruptly. But as he said it his companion caught, on the wing as it were, another meaning. He became curiously aware of the smallness, of the remote insignificance of the little planet whereon this dialogue took place, yet at the same time of its superb seductive loveliness. In him rose a feeling, as on wings, that he was not chained in his familiar, daily personality, but that an immense, delicious freedom lay within reach. He could be everywhere at once. He could do everything.
"Wait here while I help Devonham. Then we'll get into the car and be off." He moved away, threading a path with difficulty.
"I wait in peace. I am happy," was the reply.
And with those few phrases, uttered in the quiet, deep voice, sounding in his ears and in his very blood, the older man went towards the spot where Devonham struggled with a porter, a pile of nondescript luggage and a truck: "I wait in peace.... You struggle, you work against each other.... It is dark, there is little air.... You are a builder...."
But not these singular words alone remained alive in his mind; there remained in his heart the sense of thatvitality of open spaces, keen air and brighter light he had experienced—and, with it, the security of some higher, faultless standard. His brain, indeed, had recognized a consciousness of swifter reactions, of surer movements, of more intelligent co-ordination, compared to which the people about him behaved like stupid, almost like half-witted beings, the one exception being the instinctive action of the mother in carrying her baby, and the other, the impersonal, accurate, competence of the dead machinery.
But, more than this reasoned change, there burned suddenly in his heart an inexplicable exhilaration and brightness, a wonder that he could attribute only to another mode of life. His Khaketian blood, he knew, might be responsible for part of it, but not for all. The invigorating mountain wind, the sunlight, the rhythmic sound, the scent of wild flowers, these were his own personal interpretations of a quickened sense he could not analyse as yet. As he held the young man's hand, as he gazed into his direct blue eyes, this sense had increased in intensity. LeVallon had some marvellous quality or power that was new to him, while yet not entirely unfamiliar. What was it? And how did the youth perceive this sense in him so surely that he took its presence for granted, accepted, even played upon it? He experienced, as it were, a brilliant intensification of spirit. Some portion of him already knew exactly what LeVallon was.
Across the ugly turmoil and confusion of the huge dingy railway terminus had moved wondrously some simple power that brought in—Beauty. Some very deep and ancient conception had touched him and gone its way again. The stupendous beauty of a simple, common day appeared to him. His subconscious being, of course, was deeply stirred. That was the truth, phrase it as he might. His heart was lifted as by a primal wind at dawn upon some mountain top. The heaviness of the day was gone. Fatigue, too, vanished. The "civilized" folk appeared contemptible and stupid. Something direct from Nature herself pouredthrough him. And it was from the atmosphere of LeVallon this new vitality issued radiating.
He found a moment or two, while alone with Devonham, to exchange a few hurried sentences. As they bent over bags and bundles he asked quick questions. These questions and answers between the two experienced men were brief but significant:
"Yes, quiet as a lamb. Just be kind and sympathetic. You looked up the Notes? Well, that can't be helped now, though I had rather you knew nothing. My mistake, of course."
"The content of his mind is accessible to me—telepathically—in any case."
"But at one remove more distant, because unexpressed."
Fillery laughed. "Quite right. I admit it's a pity. But tell me more about him—anything I ought to know—at once."
"Quiet as a lamb, I told you," repeated the other, "and most of the way over too.Butpuzzled—my God, Edward, his criticisms would make a book."
"Normal? Intelligent criticisms?"
"Intelligent above ordinary. Normal—no."
"Hysteria?"
"Not a sign."
"Health?"
"Perfect, magnificent, as you see. He's less tired now than when we started three days ago, whereas I'm fagged out, though in climbing condition."
"Origin of delusions—any indication?"
Devonham looked up quickly. His eyes flashed a peculiarly searching glance—something watchful in it perhaps. "No delusion at all of any sort. As for origin of his ideas—the parents probably, but stimulated and allowed unchecked growth by Mason. Affected by Nature beyond anythingweknow."
"By Nature. Ah!" He checked himself. "And what peculiarities?" he asked.
"His terror of water, for instance. Crossing the Channel he was like a frightened child. He hid from it, kept his hands over his eyes even, so as not to see it."
"Give any reason?"
"All he said was 'It is unknown, an enemy, and can destroy me, I cannot understand its secret ways. Fire and wind are not in it. I cannot work with it.' No, it was not fear of drowning that he meant. He found comfort, too, in the repetition of your name."
"Appetite, pulse, temperature?" asked Fillery, after a brief pause.
"First two very strong; temperature always slightly above normal."
"Other peculiarities?"
"He became rather excited before a lighted match once—tried to kneel, almost, but I stopped it."
"Fire?"
"That's it. Instinct of worship presumably."
The barrow was laden, the porter was asking where the car was. They prepared to move back to the companion, whom Fillery had never failed to observe carefully over his shoulder during this rapid conversation. "N. H." had not moved the whole time: he stood quietly, looking about him, a curious figure, aloof somehow from his surroundings, so tall and straight and unconcerned he seemed, yet so poised, alert, virile, vigorous. It was not his clothes that made him appear unusual, nor was it his eyes and hair alone, though all three contributed their share. Yet he seemed dressed up, his clothes irksome to him. He was uncommon, an attractive figure, and many a pair of eyes, female eyes especially, Fillery noticed, turned to examine him with undeniable curiosity.
"And women?" the doctor asked quickly in a lowered voice, as they followed the porter's barrow towards LeVallon, who already smiled at their approach—the most engaging, trustful, welcoming smile that Fillery had ever seen upon a human countenance.
He lowered his head to catch the reply. But Devonham only laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "All attracted," he mumbled in a half whisper, "and eager to help him."
"And he——?"
"Gentle, astonished, but indifferent, oh, supremely indifferent."
LeVallon came forward to meet them, and Fillery took his hand and led him to the car. The luggage was bundled in, some behind and some on the roof. Fillery and LeVallon sat side by side. The car started.
"We shall get home in half an hour," the doctor mentioned, turning to his companion. "We'll have a good dinner and then get to bed. You are hungry, I know."
"Thank you," was the reply, "thank you, dear Fillery. I want sleep most. Will there be trees and air near me? And stars to see?"
"Your windows open on to a garden with big trees, there will be plenty of fresh air, and you will hear the sparrows chattering at dawn. But London, of course, is not the country. Oh, we'll make you comfortable, never fear."
"Dear Fillery, I thank you," said LeVallon quietly, and without more ado lay back among the soft cushions and closed his eyes. Hardly a word was said the whole way out to the north-west suburb, and when they arrived the "patient" was too overcome with sleep to wish to eat. He went straight to his room, found a hot bath into which he tumbled first, and then leaped into his bed and was sound asleep almost before the door was closed. Upon a table beside the bed Dr. Fillery, with his own hands, arranged bread, butter, eggs and a jug of milk in case of need. Nurse Robbins, an experienced, tactful young woman, he put in special charge. He thought of everything, divining his friend's possible needs instinctively, noticing with his keen practised eye several details for himself at the same time. The splendid physical condition, frame-work, muscular development he noted—no freakish bulky masses produced by gymnastic exercises, but the muscles laid onflowingly, smooth and firm and ample, without a trace of fat, and the whole in the most admirable proportion possible. The leanness was deceptive; the body was of immense power. The quick, certain, unerring movements he noticed too; perfect, swift co-ordination between brain and physical response, no misdirection, no miscalculation, the reactions extremely rapid. He thought with a smile of something between deer and tiger. The poise and balance and accuracy conveyed intense joy of living. Yet above and beyond these was something else he could not name, something that stirred in him wonder, love, a touch of awe, and a haunting suggestion of familiarity.
He saw him into bed, he saw him actually asleep. The strong blue eyes looked up into his own with their intense and innocent gaze for a moment; he held the firm, dry muscular hand; ten seconds later the eyes were closed in sleep, the grip of the powerful but slender fingers relaxed.
"Good night, my friend, and sleep deeply. To-morrow we'll see to everything you need. Be happy here and comfortable with us, for you are welcome and we love you." His voice trembled slightly.
"Good night, dear Fill-er-y," the musical tones replied, and he was off.
The windows were wide open. "N. H." had thrown aside the pyjamas and blankets. On this cool, damp night of late autumn he covered his big, warm, lithe body with a single sheet only.
Fillery went out quietly, an expression of keen approval and enjoyment on his face—not a smile exactly, but that look of deep content, betraying a fine inner excitement of happiness, which is the mother of all smiles. As he softly opened the door the draught blew through from the open windows, stirring the white curtains by the bed. It came from the big damp garden where the trees stood, already nearly leafless, and where no flowers were. And yet a scent of flowers came faintly with it. He caught an echo of faint sound like music. There was the invigoratinghint of forests too. It seemed a living wind that blew into the house.
Dr. Fillery paused a moment, sniffed with surprise and sharp enjoyment, listened intently, then switched the light off and went out, closing the door behind him. There was a flash of wonder in his eyes, and a thrill of some remote inexplicable happiness ran through his nerves. An instant of complete comprehension had been his, as if another consciousness had, for that swift instant, identified itself with his own.
EDWARD FILLERY was glad that Paul Devonham, good friend and skillful colleague, was his assistant; for Devonham, competent as himself in knowledge and experience, found explanations for all things, and had in his natural temperament a quality of sane judgment which corrected extravagances.
Devonham was agnostic, because reason ruled his life. Devoid of imagination, he had no temptations. Speculative, within limits, he might be, but he belonged not to the unstable. Not that he thought he knew everything, but that he refused to base action on what he regarded as unknown. A clue into the unknown he would follow up as keenly, carefully, as Fillery himself, but he went step by step, with caution, declining to move further until the last step was of hardened concrete. To the powers of the subconscious self he set drastic limits, admitting their existence of course, but attaching small value to their use or development. His own deeper being had never stirred or wakened. Of this under-sea, this vast background in himself, he remained placidly uninformed. A comprehensive view of a problem—the flash of vision he never knew—thus was perhaps denied him, but so far as he went he was very safe and sure. And his chief was the first to appreciate his value. He appreciated it particularly now, as the two men sat smoking after their late dinner, discussing details of the new inmate of the Home.
Fillery, aware of the strong pull upon his own mixed blood, aware of a half-wild instinctive sympathy towards "N. H.," almost of a natural desire now, having seen him, to believe him "unique" in several ways, and, therefore,conscious of a readiness to accept more than any evidence yet justified—feeling these symptoms clearly, and remembering vividly his experiences in the railway station, he was glad, for truth's sake, that Devonham was there to clip extravagance before it injured judgment. A weak man, aware of his own frailties, excels a stronger one who thinks he has none at all. The two colleagues were a powerful combination.
"In your view, it's merely a case of a secondary—anyhow of a divided—personality?" he asked, as soon as the other had recovered a little from his journey, and was digesting his meal comfortably over a pipe. "You have seen more of him than I have. Of insanity, at any rate, there is no sign at all, I take it? His relations with his environment are sound?"
"None whatever." Devonham answered both questions at once. "Exactly."
He took off his pince-nez, cleaned them with his handkerchief, and then replaced them carefully. This gave him time to reflect, as though he was not quite sure where to begin his story.
"There are certainly indications," he went on slowly, "of a divided personality, though of an unusual kind. The margin between the two—between the normal and the secondary self—is so very slight. It is not clearly defined, I mean. They sometimes merge and interpenetrate. The frontier is almost indistinguishable."
Fillery raised his eyebrows.
"You feel uncertain which is the main self, and which the split-off secondary personality?" he inquired, with surprise.
Devonham nodded. "I'm extremely puzzled," he admitted. "LeVallon's most marked self, the best defined, the richest, the most fully developed, seems to me whatweshould call his Secondary Self—this 'Nature-being' that worships wind and fire, is terrified by a large body of water, is ignorant of human ways, probably also quiteun-moral,yet alive with a kind of instinctive wisdom we credit usually to the animal kingdom—though far beyond anything animals can claim——"
"Briefly, what we mean by the term 'N. H.,'" suggested Fillery, not anxious for too many details at the moment.
"Exactly. And I propose we always refer to that aspect of him as 'N. H.,' the other, the normal ordinary man, being LeVallon, his right name." He smiled faintly.
"Agreed," replied his chief. "We shall always know then exactly which one we're talking of at a given moment. Now," he went on, "to come to the chief point, and before you give me details of what happened abroad, let me hear your own main conclusion. What is LeVallon? What is 'N. H.'?"
Devonham hesitated for some time. It was evident his respect for his chief made him cautious. There was an eternal battle between these two, keen though always good-natured, even humorous, the victory not invariably perhaps with the assistant. Later evidence had often proved Fillery's swifter imagination correct after all, or, alternately, shown him to be wrong. They kept an accurate score of the points won and lost by either.
"You can always revise your conclusions later," Fillery reminded him slyly. "Call it a preliminary conclusion for the moment. You've not had time yet for a careful study, I know."
But Devonham this time did not smile at the rally, and his chief noticed it with secret approval. Here was something new, big, serious, it seemed. Devonham, apparently, was already too interested to care who scored or did not score. His Notes of 1914 indeed betrayed his genuine zeal sufficiently.
"LeVallon," he said at length—"to begin with him! I think LeVallon—without any flavour of 'N. H.'—is a fine specimen of a normal human being. His physique is magnificent, as you have seen, his health and strength exceptional. The brain, so far as I have been able to judge,functions quite normally. The intelligence, also normal, is much above the average in quickness, receptivity of ideas, and judgment based on these. The emotional development, however, puzzles me; the emotions are not entirely normal. But"—he paused again, a grave expression on his face—"to answer your question as well as my limited observation of him, of LeVallon, allows—I repeat that I consider him a normal young man, though with peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of his own, as with most other normal young fellows who are individuals, that is," he added quickly, "and not turned out in bundles cut to measure."
"So much for LeVallon. Now what about 'N. H.'?"
He repeated the question, fixing the assistant with his steady gaze. He had noticed the confusion in the reply.
"My dear Edward——" began Devonham, after a considerable pause. Then he stuck fast, sighed, settled his glasses carefully upon his aquiline, sharp nose, and relapsed into silence. His forehead became wrinkled, his mouth much pursed.
"Out with it, Paul! This isn't a Court of Law. I shan't behead you if you're wrong." Yet Fillery, too, spoke gravely.
The other kept his eyes down; his face still wore a puzzled look. Fillery detected a new expression on the keen, thoughtful features, and he was pleased to see it.
"To give you the truth," resumed his assistant, "and all question of who is right or who is wrong aside, I tell you frankly—I am not sure. I confess myself up against it. It—er—gives me the creeps a little——" He laughed awkwardly. That swift watchful look, as of a man who plays a part, flashed and vanished.
"Your feeling, anyhow?" insisted his friend. "Your general feeling?"
"A general judgment based on general feeling," said the other in a quiet tone, "has little value. It is based, necessarily, as you know, upon intuition, which I temperamentally dislike. It has no facts to go upon. I distrust generalizations."He took a deep breath, inhaled a lot of smoke, exhaled it with relief, and made an effort. It went against the grain in him to be caught without an explanation.
"'N. H.' in my opinion, and so far as my limited observation of him——"
Fillery allowed himself a laugh of amused impatience. "Leave out the personal extras for once, and burn your bridges. Tell me finally what you think about 'N. H.' We're not scoring points now."
Thus faced with an alternative, Devonham found his sense of humour again and forgot himself. It cost him an effort, but he obeyed the bigger and less personal mind.
"I really don't know exactlywhathe is," he confessed again. "He puzzles me completely. Itmaybe"—he shrugged his shoulders, compelled by his temperament to hedge—"that he represents, as I first thought, the content of his parents' minds, the subsequent addition of Mason's mind included."
"That's possible, usual and comprehensible enough," put in the doctor, watching him with amused concentration, but with an inner excitement scarcely concealed.
"Or" resumed Devonham, "itmaybe that through these——"
"Through his mental inheritance from his parents and from Mason, yes——"
"——he taps the most primitive stores and layers of racial memory we know. The world-memory, if I dare put it so, full proof being lacking, is open to him——"
"Through his subconscious powers, of course?"
"That is your usual theory, isn't it? We have there, at any rate, a working hypothesis, with a great mass of evidence—generally speaking—behind it."
"Don't be cynical, Paul. Is this 'N. H.' merely a Secondary Personality, or is it the real central self? That's the whole point."
"You jump ahead, as usual," replied Devonham, really smiling for the first time, though his face instantly grewserious again. "Edward," he went on, "I do not know, I cannot say, I dare not—dare not guess. 'N. H.' is something entirely new to me, and I admit it." He seemed to find his stride, to forget himself. "I feel far from cynical. 'N. H.,' in my opinion, is exceptional. My notes suggested it long ago. He has, for instance—at least, so it seems to me—peculiar powers."
"Ah!"
"Of suggestion, let us put it."
"Of suggestion, yes. Get on with it, there's a good fellow. I felt myself an extraordinary vitality about him. I noticed it at once at Charing Cross."
"I saw you did." Devonham looked hard at him. "You were humming to yourself, you know."
"I didn't know," was the surprised reply, "but I can well believe it. I felt a curious pleasure and exhilaration."
Devonham, shrugging his shoulders slightly, resumed: "During the 'LeVallon' periods he is ordinary, though unusually observant, critical and intelligent; during the 'N. H.' periods he becomes—er—super-normal. If you felt this—felt anything in the station, it was because something in you—called up the 'N. H.' aspect."
"It's quick of you to guess that," said Fillery, with quick appreciation. "You noticed a change in me, well—but the other——? He divined my 'foreign' blood, you think?"
"It is enough that you responded and felt kinship. Put it that way. 'N. H.' seems to me"—he took a deeper breath and gave a sort of gasp—"in some ways—a unique—being—as I said before."
"Tell me, if you can," said Fillery, lighting his own pipe and settling back into his chair, "tell me a little about your first meeting with him in the Jura Mountains, what happened and so forth. I remember, of course, your Notes. After your telegram, I read 'em carefully." He glanced round at his companion. "They were very honest, Paul, I thought. Eh?" He was unable to refuse himself thepleasure of the little dig. "Honest you always are," he added. "We couldn't work together otherwise, could we?"
Devonham, deep in his own thoughts, did not accept the challenge. He turned in his chair, puffing at his pipe.
"I can give you briefly what happened and how things went," he said. "The place, then, first: an ordinary peasant châlet in a remote Jura valley, difficult of access, situated among what they call the upper pastures. I reached it bydiligenceand mule late in the afternoon. A peasant in a lower valley directed me, adding that 'le monsieur anglais' was dead and buried two days before——"
"Mason, that is?"
The other nodded. "And adding that 'le fou'——"
"LeVallon, of course?"
"——would eat me alive at sight. He spoke with respect, however, even awe. He hoped I had come to take him away. The countryside was afraid of him.
"The valley struck me as intolerably lonely, but of unusual beauty. Big forests, great rocks, and tumbling streams among cliffs and pastures made it exceptional. The châlet was simple, clean and comfortable. It was really an ideal spot for a thinker or a student. The first thing I noticed was a fire burning on a pile of rock in front of the building. The sun was setting, and its last rays lit the entire little glen—a mere gully between precipices and forest slopes—but especially lit up the pile of rocks where the fire burned, so that I saw the smoke, blue, red and yellow, and the figure kneeling before it. This figure was a man, half naked, and of magnificent proportions. When I shouted——"
"Youwouldshout, of course." Yet he did not say it critically.
"——the figure rose and turned and came to meet me. It was LeVallon."
Devonham paused a moment. Fillery's eyes were fixed upon him.
"I admit," Devonham went on, conscious of the other's inquiring and intent expression, "I was surprised a bit." He smiled his faint, unwilling smile. "The figure made me start. I was aware of an emotion I am not subject to—what I called just now the creeps. I thought, at last, I had really seen a—a vision. He looked so huge, so wonderful, so radiant. It was, of course, the effect of coloured smoke and magnifying sunset, added to his semi-nakedness. To the waist he was stripped. But, at first, his size, his splendour, a kind of radiance borrowed from the sunlight and the fire, seemed to enlarge him beyond human. He seemed to dominate, even to fill the little valley.
"I stood still, uncertain of my feelings. There was, I think, a trace of fear in me. I waited for him to come up to me. He did so. He stretched out a hand. I took it. And what do you think he said?"
Fillery, the inner excitement and delight increasing in him as he listened, stared in silence. There was no lightness in him now.
"'Are you Fillery?' That's what he said, and the first words he uttered. 'Are you Fillery?' But spoken in a way I find difficult to reproduce. He made the name sound like a rush of wind. 'F,' of course, involves a draught of breath between the teeth, I know. Buthemade the name sound exactly like a gush of wind through branches—that's the nearest I can get to it."
"Well—and then?"
"Don't be impatient, Edward. I try to be accurate. But really—what happened next is a bit beyond any experience that we—I—have yet come across. And, as to what I felt—well, I was tired, hungry, thirsty. I wanted, normally, rest and food and drink. Yet all these were utterly forgotten. For a moment or two—I admit it—I felt as if I had come face to face with something not of this earth quite." He grinned. "A touch of gooseflesh came to me for the first time in my life. The fellow's size and radiance in the sunlight, the fact that he stood there worshippingfire—always, to me, the most wonderful of natural phenomena—his grandeur and nakedness—the way he pronounced your name even—all this—er—upset my judgment for the moment." He paused again. He hesitated. "A visual hallucination, due to fatigue, can be, of course, very detailed sometimes," he added, a note of challenge in his tone.
Fillery watched his friend narrowly, as he stumbled among the details of what he evidently found a difficult, almost an impossible description.
"Natural enough," he put in. "You'd hardly be human yourself if you felt nothing at such a sight."
"The loneliness, too, increased the effect," went on the other, "for there was no one nearer than the peasants who had directed me a thousand feet below, nor was there another building of any sort in sight. Anyhow, it seemed, I managed my strange emotions all right, for the young man took to me at once. He left the fire, if reluctantly, singing to himself a sort of low chanting melody, with perhaps five or six notes at most in it, and far from unmusical——"
"He explained the fire? Was he actually worshipping, I mean?"
"It was certainly worship, judging by the expression of his face and his gestures of reverence and happiness. But I asked no questions. I thought it best just to accept, or appear to accept, the whole thing as natural. He said something about the Equinox, but I did not catch it properly and did not ask. This had evidently been taught him. It was, however, the 22nd of September, oddly enough, though the gales had not yet come."
"So you got into the châlet next?" asked the other, noticing the gaps, the incoherence.
"He put his coat on, sat down with me to a meal of bread and milk and cheese—meat there seemed none in the building anywhere. This meal was, if you understand me, obeying a mere habit automatically. He did just whatit had been his habit to do with Mason all these years. He got the stuff himself—quickly, effectively, no fumbling anywhere—and, from that moment, hardly spoke again until we left two days later. I mean that literally. All he said, when I tried to make him talk, was, 'You are not Fillery,' or 'Take me to Fillery. I need him.'
"I almost felt that I was living with some marvellously trained animal, of extraordinary intelligence, gentle, docile, friendly, but unhappy because it had lost its accustomed master. But on the other hand—I admit it—I was conscious of a certain power in his personality beyond me to explain. That, really, is the best description I can give you."
"You mentioned the name of Mason?" asked Fillery, avoiding a dozen more obvious and natural questions.
"Several times. But his only reply was a smile, while he repeated the name himself, adding your own after it: 'Mason Fillery, Mason Fillery,' he would say, smiling with quiet happiness. "I like Fillery!'"
"The nights?"
"Briefly—I was glad to see the dawn. We had separate rooms, my own being the one probably where Mason had died a few days before. But it was not that I minded in the least. It was the feeling—the knowledge in fact—that my companion was up and about all night in the building or out of doors. I heard him moving, singing quietly to himself, the wooden veranda creaked beneath his tread. He was active all through the darkness and cannot have slept at all. When I came down soon after dawn he was running over the slopes a mile away, running towards the châlet, too, with the speed and lightness of a deer. He had been to some height, I think, to see the sun rise and probably to worship it——"
"And your journey? You got him away easily?"
"He was only too ready to leave, for it meant coming toyou. I arranged with the peasants below to have the châlet closed up, took my charge to Neuchâtel, and thenceto Berne, where I bought him an outfit, and arrived in due course, as you know, at Charing Cross."
"His first sight of cities, people, trains, steamers and the rest, I take it. Any reactions?"
"The troubles I anticipated did not materialize. He came like a lamb, the most helpless and pathetic lamb I ever saw. He stared but asked no questions. I think he was half dazed, even stupefied with it all."
"Stupefied?"
"An odd word to use, I know. I should have said perhaps 'automatic' rather. He was so open to my suggestions, doing what my mind expected him to do, but nothing more—ah! with one exception."
Fillery meant to hear an account of that exception, though the other would willingly have foregone its telling evidently. It was related, Fillery felt sure, to the unusual powers Devonham had mentioned.
"Oh, you shall hear it," said the latter quickly, "for what it's worth. There's no need to exaggerate, of course." He told it rapidly, accurately, no doubt, because his mind was honest, yet without comment or expression in his voice and face. He supplied no atmosphere.
"I had got him like a lamb, as I told you, to Paris, and it was during the Customs examination the—er—little thing occurred. The man, searching through his trunk, pulled out a packet of flat papers and opened it. He looked them over with puzzled interest, turning them upside down to examine them from every possible angle. Then he asked a trifle unpleasantly what they were. I hadn't the smallest idea myself, I had never seen them before; they were very carefully wrapped up. LeVallon, whose sudden excitement increased the official's interest, told him that they were star-and-weather maps. It doubtless was the truth; he had made them with Mason; but they were queer-looking papers to have at such a time, hidden away, too, at the bottom of the trunk; and LeVallon's manner and expression did not help to disarm the man's evident suspicion. He asked anumber of pointed questions in a very disagreeable way—who made them, for what purpose, how they were used, and whether they were connected with aviation. I translated, of course. I explained their innocence——"
"LeVallon's excitement?" asked Fillery. "What form did it take? Rudeness, anger, violence of any sort?" He was aware his friend would have liked to shirk these details.
"Nothing of the kind." He hesitated briefly, then went on. "He behaved, rather, as though—well, as a devout Catholic might have behaved if his crucifix or some holy relic were being mauled. The maps were sacred. Symbols possibly. Heaven knows what! He tried to take them back. The official, as a natural result, became still more suspicious and, of course, offensive too. My explanations and expostulations were quite useless, for he didn't even listen to them."
Devonham was now approaching the part of the story he least wished to describe. He played for time. He gave details of the ensuing altercation.
"What happened in the end?" Fillery at length interrupted. "What did LeVallon do? There were no arrests, I take it?" he added with a smile.
Paul coughed and fidgeted. He told the literal truth, however.
"LeVallon, after listening for a long time to the conversation he could not understand, suddenly took his fingers off the papers. The man's dirty hand still held them tightly on the grimy counter. LeVallon began—or—he suddenly began to breathe—well—heavily rather."
"Rhythmically?"
"Heavily," insisted the other. "In a curious way, anyhow," he added, determined to keep strictly to the truth, "not unlike Heathcote when he put himself automatically into trance and then told us what was going on at the other end of England. You remember the case." He paused a moment again, as if to recall exactly what hadoccurred. "It's not easy to describe, Edward," he continued, looking up. "You remember that huge draughty hall where they examine luggage at the Lyons Station. I can't explain it. But that breathing somehow caught the draughts, used them possibly, in any case increased them. A wind came through the great hall. I can't explain it," he repeated, "I can only tell you what happened. That wind most certainly came pouring steadily through, for I felt it myself, and saw it blow upon the fluttering papers. The heat in thesalleat the same moment seemed to grow intense. Not an oppressive heat, though. Radiant heat, rather. It felt, I mean, like a fierce sunlight. I looked up, almost expecting to see a great light from which it came. It was then—at this very moment—the Frenchman turned as if someone touched him."
"Youfelt anything, Paul?"
"Yes," admitted the other slowly.
Fillery waited.
"A—what I must call—a thrill." His voice was lower now.
"Of——?" his Chief persisted.
Devonham waited a full ten seconds before reply. He again shrugged his shoulders a little. Apparently he sought his words with honest care that included also intense reluctance and disapproval:
"Loveliness, romance, enchantment; but, above all, I think—power." He ground out the confession slowly. "By power I mean a sort of confidence and happiness."
"Increase of vitality, call it. Intensification of your consciousness."
"Possibly. A bigger perspective suddenly, a bigger scale of life; something—er—a bit wild, but certainly—er—uncommonly stimulating. The best word, I think, is liberty, perhaps. An immense and careless sense of liberty." And Fillery, knowing the value of superlatives in Devonham's cautious mind, felt satisfied. He asked quietly what the official did next.
"Stood stock still at first. Then his face changed; he smiled; he looked up understandingly, sympathetically, at LeVallon. He spoke: 'My father, too,' he said with admiration, 'had a big telescope. Monsieur is an astronomer.'
"'One of the greatest,' I added quickly; 'these charts are of infinite value to France.' No sense of comedy touched me anywhere, the ludicrous was absent. The man bowed, as carefully, respect in every gesture, he replaced the maps, marked the trunk with his piece of chalk, and let us go, helping in every way he could."
Devonham drew a long breath, glad that he had relieved himself of his unwelcome duty. He had told the literal truth.
"Of course, of course," Fillery said, half to himself perhaps. "A breath of bigger consciousness, his imagination touched, the subconscious wakened, and intelligence the natural result." He turned to his colleague. "Interesting, Paul, very," he added in a louder tone, "and not easy to explain, I grant. The official we do not know, but you, at any rate, are not a good subject for hypnotic suggestion!"
For some time Devonham said nothing. Presently he spoke:
"Fillery, I tell you—really I love the fellow. He's the most lovable thing in human shape I ever saw. He gets into your heart so strangely. We must heal him."
The other sighed, quickly smothering it, yet not before Devonham had noticed it. They did not look at one another for some seconds, and there was a certain tenseness, a sense of deep emotion in the air that each, possibly, sought to hide from the other.
Devonham was the first to break the silence that had fallen between them.
"To be quite frank—it's LeVallon that appeals most to me," he said, as if to himself, "whereas you, Edward, I believe, are more—more interested in the other aspect of him. It's 'N. H.' that interests you."
No challenge was intended, yet the glove was flung.Fillery said nothing for a minute or two. Then he looked up, and their eyes met across the smoke-laden atmosphere. It was close on midnight. The world lay very still and hushed about the house.
"It is," he said quietly, "a pathetic and inspiring case. He is deserving of"—he chose his words slowly and with care—"our very best," he concluded shortly.
"And now," he added quickly, "you're tired out, and I ought to have let you have a night's sleep before taxing you like this." He poured out two glasses of whisky. "Let us drink anyhow to success and healing of body, mind—and soul."
"Body, mind and—nerves," said Devonham slowly, as he drank the toast.
"The reason I had none of the trouble I anticipated," remarked Devonham, as he sipped the reviving liquor, "is simple enough."
"There are two periods, of course. I guessed that."
"Exactly. There is the LeVallon period, when he is quiescent, normal, very charming into the bargain, more like a good child or trained animal or happy peasant, if you like it better, than a grown man. And there is the 'N. H.' period, when he is—otherwise."
"Ah!"
"I arrived just at the transition moment, so to speak. It was during the change I reached the châlet."
"Precisely." Fillery looked up, smiled and nodded.
"That's about the truth," repeated Devonham, putting his glass down. He thought for a moment, then added slowly, "I think that fire of his, the worship, singing—at the autumnal equinox—marked the change. 'N. H,' at once after that, slipped back into the unconscious state. LeVallon emerged. It was with LeVallon only or chiefly,Ihad to deal. He became so very quiet, dazed a little, half there, as we call it, and almost entirely silent. He retained little, if any, memory of the 'N. H.' period, although it lies, I think, just beneath the surface only. The LeVallonpersonality, you see, is not very positive, is it? It seems a quiet, negative state, a condition almost of rest, in fact."
Fillery listening attentively, made no rejoinder.
"We may expect," continued Devonham, "these alternating states, I think. The frontier between them is, as I said, a narrow one. Indeed, often they merge or interpenetrate. In my judgment, the main, important part of his consciousness, that parent Self, is LeVallon—not'N. H.'" The voice was slightly strident.
"Ah!"
It so happened that, in the act of exchanging these last words, they both looked up toward the ceiling, where a moth buzzed round and round, banging itself occasionally against the electric light. Whether it was this that drew their sight upwards simultaneously, or whether it was that some other sound in the stillness of the night had caught their strained attention, is uncertain. The same thought, at any rate, was in both minds at that instant, the same freight of meaning trailing behind it invisibly across the air. Their hearts burned within them; the two faces upward turned, the lips a little parted as when listening is intense, the heads thrown back. For in the room above that ceiling, asleep at this moment, lay the subject of their long discussion; only a few inches of lath and plaster separated them from the strange being who, dropping out of space, as it were, had come to make his home with them. A being, lonely utterly in the world, unique in kind perhaps, his nature as yet undecipherable, lay trustingly unconscious in that upper chamber. The two men felt the gravity, the responsibility of their charge. The same thought had vividly touched them both at the same instant.
A few minutes later they were still standing, facing one another. They were of a height, but compared to Fillery's big frame and rugged head, his friend's appearance was almost slight. Devonham, for all his qualifications, looked painfully like a shopwalker. They exchanged this steadygaze for a few seconds without speaking. Then the older man said quietly:
"Paul, I understand, and I respect your reticence. I think I can agree with it."
He placed a hand upon the other's shoulder, smiling gently, even tenderly.
"You have told me much, but you have not told me all! The chief part—you have intentionally omitted."
"For the present, at any rate," was the reply, given without flinching.
"Your reasons are sound, your judgment perhaps right. I ask no questions. What happened, what you saw, at the châlet; the 'peculiar powers' you mentioned; all, in fact, that you think it wise to keep to yourself for the moment, I leave there willingly."
He spoke gravely, sincere emotion in the eyes and tone. It was in a lower voice he added:
"The responsibility, of course, is yours."
Devonham returned the steady gaze, pondering his reply a moment.
"I can—and do accept it," he answered. "You have read my thoughts correctly as usual, Edward. I think you know quite enough already—what with my Notes and Mason's letter—even too much. Besides, why complicate it with an account of what were doubtless mere mental pictures—hallucinations—on my part? This is a matter," he went on slowly, "a case, we dare not trifle with; there may be strange and terrible afflictions in it later; we must remain unbiased." The anxiety deepened on his face.
"True, true," murmured the other. "God bless the boy! May his own gods bless him!"
"In other words, it will need your clearest, soundest judgment, your finest skill, your very best, as you said yourself just now." He used a firmer, yet also a softer tone suddenly: "Edward, you know your own mind, its contents, its suppressions, its origin; your refusal of thelove of women, your deep powerful dreams that you have suppressed and put away. Promise me"—the voice and manner were very earnest—"that you will not communicate these to him in any way, and that you will keep your judgment absolutely unbiased and untainted." He looked at his old friend and paused. "Only your purest judgment of what is to come can help. You promise."
Fillery sighed a scarcely noticeable sigh. "I promise you, Paul. You are wise—and you are right," he said. "On the other hand, let me say one thing to you in my turn. This theory of heredity and of mental telepathic transference—the idea that all his mind's content is derived from his parents and from Mason—we cannot, remember, force this transference and interchangetoofar. I ask only this: be fair and open yourself with all that follows."
Devonham raised his voice: "Nor can we, apparently,setlimits to it, Edward. But—to be fair and open-minded—I give my promise too."
Thus, in the little downstairs room of a Private Home for Incurable Mental Cases,nota Lunatic Asylum, though sometimes perhaps next door to it, these two men, deeply intrigued by a new "Case" that passed their understanding, as it exceeded their knowledge, practice and experience, swore to each other to observe carefully, to report faithfully, and to experiment, if experiment proved necessary, with honest and affectionate uprightness.
Their views were, obviously, not the same. Devonham, temperamentally opposed to radical innovations, believed it was a case of divided personality—hundreds of such cases had passed through their hands. Forced to accept extended telepathy—that all minds can on occasion share one another's content, and that even a racial and a world-memory can be tapped—he feared that his Chief might influence LeVallon, and twist, thus, the phenomena to a special end. He knew Edward Fillery's story. He feared, for the sake of truth, the mental transference. He had, perhaps, other fears as well.
Fillery, on the other hand, believing as much, and knowing more than his colleague, saw in "N. H." a unique possibility. He was thrilled and startled with a half-impossible hope. He felt as if someone ran beside his life, bearing impossible glad tidings, an unexpected, half-incredible figure, the tidings marvellously bright. He hoped, he already wished to think, that "N. H." might shadow forth a promise of some magical advance for the ultimate benefit of the Race....
The thinkers were crying on the housetops that progress was a myth, that each wave of civilization at its height reached the same average level without ever passing further. The menace to the present civilization, already crumbling, was in full swing everywhere; knowledge, culture, learning threatened in due course with the chaos of destruction that has so far been the invariable rule. The one hope of saving the world, cried religion, lay in substituting spiritual for material values—a Utopian dream at best. The one chance, said science, on the other hand, was that civilization to-day is continuous and not isolated.
The best hope, believed Fillery, the only hope, lay in raising the individual by the drawing up into full consciousness of the limitless powers now hidden and inactive in his deeper self—the so-called subliminal faculties. With these greater powers must come also greater moral development.
Already, with his uncanny insight, derived from knowledge of himself, he had piercingly divined in "N. H." a being, whatever he might be, whose nature acted automatically and directly upon the subconscious self in everybody.
That bright messenger, running past his life, had looked, as with fire and tempest, straight into his eyes.
It was long after one o'clock when the two men said good-night, and went to their rooms. Devonham was soon in bed, though not soon asleep. Exhausted physically though he was, his mind burned actively. His recentmemories were vivid. All he had purposely held back from Fillery returned with power....
The uncertainty whether he had experienced hallucination, or had actually, as by telepathic transfer from LeVallon, touched another state of consciousness, kept sleep far away....
His brain was far too charged for easy slumber. He feared for his dear, faithful friend, his colleague, the skilful, experienced, yet sorely tempted mind—tempted by Nature and by natural weaknesses of birth and origin—who now shared with him the care and healing of a Case that troubled his being too deeply for slumber to come quickly.
Yet he had done well to keep these memories from Edward Fillery. If Fillery once knew whatheknew, his judgment and his scientific diagnosis must be drawn hopelessly away from what he considered the best treatment: the suppression of "N. H." and the making permanent of "LeVallon."...
He fell asleep eventually, towards dawn, dreaming impossible, radiant dreams of a world he might have hoped for, yet could not, within the limits of his little cautious, accurate mind, believe in. Dreams that inspire, yet sadden, haunted his release from normal consciousness. Someone had walked upon his life, leaving a growth of everlasting flowers in their magical tread, though his mind—his stolid, cautious mind—had no courage for the plucking....
And while he slept, as the hours slipped from west to east, his chief and colleague, lying also sleepless, rose suddenly before the late autumn dawn, and walked quietly along the corridor towards the Private Suite where the new patient rested. His mind was quiet, yet his inner mind alert. His thoughts, his hopes, his dreams, these lay, perhaps, beyond human computation. He was calmer far than his assistant, though more strangely tempted.
It was just growing light, the corridor was cold. A cool, damp air came through the open windows and the linoleumfelt like ice against the feet. The house lay dead and silent. Pausing a moment by a window, he listened to the chattering of early sparrows. He felt chill and hungry, unrested too, though far from sleepy. He was aware of London—bleak, heavy, stolid London town. The troubles of modern life, of Labour, Politics, Taxes, cost of living, all the common, daily things came in with the cheerless morning air.
He reached the door he sought, and very softly opened it.
The radiance met him in the face, so that he almost gasped. The scent of flowers, the sting of sharp, keen forest winds, the exhilaration of some distant mountain-top. There was, actually, a tang of dawn, known only to those who have tasted the heights at sunrise with the heart. And into his heart, singing with happy confidence, rose a sense of supreme joy and confidence that mastered all little earthly woes and pains, and walked among the stars.
The occupant of the bed lay very still. His shining hair was spread upon the pillow. The splendid limbs were motionless. The chest and arms were bare, the single covering sheet tossed off. The strange, wild face wore happiness and peace upon its skin, the features very calm, the mouth relaxed. It almost seemed a god lay sleeping there upon a little human bed.
How long he stood and stared he did not know, but suddenly, the light increased. The curtains stirred about the bed.
With a marvellous touch the separate details merged and quickened into life. The room was changed. The occupant of the bed moved very swiftly, as through the open window came the first touch of exhilarating light. Gold stole across the lintel, breaking over the roofs of slates beyond. The leafless elm trees shimmered faintly. The telegraph wires shone. There was a running sparkle. It was dawn.
The figure leaped, danced—no other word describes it—to the open window where the light and air gushed in, spread wide its arms, lowered its radiant head, began to sing in low, melodious rhythmic chant—and Fillery, as silently as he had come, withdrew and closed the door unseen. His heart moved strangely, but—his promise held him....
THE following days it seemed to both Fillery and Devonham that their discussion of the first night had been pitched in too intense, too serious a key. Their patient was so commonplace again, so ordinary. He made himself quite at home, seemed contented and uncurious, taking it for granted he had come to stay for ever, apparently.
Apart from his strange beauty, his size, virility and a general impression he conveyed of immense energies he was too easy-going to make use of, he might have passed for a peasant, a countryman to whom city life was new; but an educated, or at least half-educated, countryman. He was so big, yet never gauche. He was neither stupid nor ill-informed; the garden interested him, he knew much about the trees and flowers, birds and insects too. He discussed the weather, prevailing wind, moisture, prospects of change and so forth with a judgment based on what seemed a natural, instinctive knowledge. The gardener looked on him with obvious respect.
"Such nice manners and such a steady eye," Mrs. Soames, the matron, mentioned, too, approvingly to Devonham. "But a lot in him he doesn't understand himself, unless I'm wrong. Not much the matter with his nerves, anyhow. Once he's married—unless I'm much mistaken—eh, sir?"
He was quiet, talking little, and spent the morning over the books Fillery had placed purposely in his sitting-room, books on simple physics, natural history and astronomy. It was the latter that absorbed him most; he pored over them by the hour.
Fillery explained the situation so far as he thought wise. The young man was honesty and simple innocence, but only vaguely interested in the life of the great city he now experienced for the first time. He had in his luggage a copy of the Will by which Mason had left him everything, and he was pleased to know himself well provided for. Of Mason, however, he had only a dim, uncertain, almost an impersonal memory, as of someone encountered in a dream.
"I suppose something's happened to me," he said to Fillery, his language normal and quite ordinary again. He spoke with a slight foreign accent. "There was somebody, of course, who looked after me and lived with me, but I can't remember who or where it was. I was very happy," he added, "and yet ... I miss something."
Dr. Fillery, remembering his promise, did not press him.
"It will all come back by degrees," he remarked in a sympathetic tone. "In the meantime, you must make yourself at home here with us, for as long as you like. You are quite free in every way. I want you to be happy here."
"I live with you always," was the reply. "There are things I want to tell you, ask you too." He paused, looking thoughtful. "There was someone I told all to once."
"Come to me with everything. I'll help you always, so far as I can." He placed a hand upon his knee.
"There are feelings, big feelings I cannot reach quite, but that make me feel different"—he smiled beautifully—"from—others." Quick as lightning he had changed the sentence at the last word, substituting "others" for "you." Had he been aware of a slight uneasy emotion in his listener's heart? It had hardly betrayed itself by any visible sign, yet he had instantly divined its presence. Such evidences of a subtle, intimate, understanding were not lacking. Yet Fillery admirably restrained himself.
"There are bright places I have lost," he went on frankly, no sign of shy reserve in him. "I feel confused, lost somewhere,as if I didn't belong here. I feel"—he used an odd word—"doubled." His face shaded a little.
"Big overpowering London is bound to affect you," put in Fillery, who had noticed the rapid discernment, "after living among woods and mountains, as you have lived, for years. All will come right in a little time; we must settle down a bit first——"
"Woods and mountains," repeated the other, in a half-dreamy voice, his eyes betraying an effort to follow thought elsewhere. "Of course, yes—woods and mountains and hot living sunlight—and the winds——"
His companion shifted the conversation a little. He suggested a line of reading and study.... They talked also of such ordinary but necessary things as providing a wardrobe, of food, exercise, companionship of his own age, and so forth—all the commonplace details of ordinary daily life, in fact. The exchange betrayed nothing of interest, nothing unusual. They mentioned theatres, music, painting, and, beyond the natural curiosity of youth that was ignorant of these, no detail was revealed that need have attracted the attention of anybody, neither of doctor, psychologist, nor student of human nature. With the single exception that the past years had been obliterated from memory, though much that had been acquired in them remained, there was not noticeable peculiarity of any sort. Both language and point of view were normal.
This was obviously LeVallon. The "N. H." personality scarcely cast a shadow even. Yet "N. H.," the doctor was quick to see, lay ready and waiting just below the surface. There was no doubt inhismind which was the central self and which its transient projection, the secondary personality. Again, as he sat and talked, he had the odd impression that someone with bright tidings ran swiftly past his life, perhaps towards it.
The swift messenger was certainly not LeVallon. LeVallon, indeed, was but a shadow cast before this glad, bright visitant. Thus he felt, at any rate. LeVallon wasan empty simulacrum left behind while "N. H." rested, or was active upon other things, things natural to him, elsewhere. LeVallon was an arm, a limb, a feeler that "N. H." thrust out. At Charing Cross, for instance, for a brief moment only, "N. H." had peered across his shoulder, then withdrawn again. In the car had sat by his side LeVallon. The being he now chatted with was also LeVallon only.
But in his own heart, deep down, hidden yet eager to break loose, lay his own deeper self that burned within him. This, the important part of him, yearned towards "N. H." And up rose the strange symbol that always appeared when his deepest, perhaps his subliminal self was stirred. That lost radiant valley in the haunted Caucasus shone close and brimming over ... with light, with flowers, with splendid winds and fire, symbols of a vaster, grander, happier life, though perhaps a life not yet within the range of normal human consciousness.... The fiery symbol flashed and passed.
Curious thoughts and pictures rose flaming in his mind, persistent ideas that bore no possible relation to his intellectual, reasoning life. Passing across the background of his brain, as with waves of heat and colour, they were correlated somewhere with harmonious sound. Music, that is, came with them, as though inspiration brought its own sound with it that made singing natural. They haunted him, these vague, pleasurable phantasmagoria that were connected, he felt sure, with music, as with childhood's lost imaginings. For a long time he searched in vain for their source and origin. Then, suddenly, he remembered. He heard his father's gruff, humorous voice: "There's not a scrap of evidence, of course...." And, sharply, vividly, the buried memory gave up its dead. His childish question went crashing through the air: "Are we the only beings in the world?"
"Nothing is ever lost," he reminded himself with a smile that Devonham assuredly never saw. "Every seed must bear its fruit in time."
And emotion surged through him from the remorseless records of his underself. The childhood's love, with its correlative of deep, absolute belief, returned upon him, linked on somehow to that old familiar symbol he knew to mean his awakening subconscious being—a flowering Caucasian vale of sun and wind. A belief, he realized, especially a belief of childhood, remains for ever inexpugnable, eternal, prolific seed of future harvests.
The unstable in him betrayed its ineradicable, dangerous streak. There rose upon him in a cloud strange notions that inflamed imagination sweetly. Later reading, indeed, had laid flesh upon the skeleton of the boyish notion, though derived in the first instance he certainly knew not whence. The literature and tradition of the East, he recalled, peopled the elements with conscious life, to which the world's fairy-tales—remnant of lost knowledge possibly—added nerves and heart and blood. In all human bodies, at any rate, dwelt not necessarily always human spirits, human souls....
He checked himself with a smile he would have liked to call a chuckle, but that yet held some inexplicable happiness at its heart. His rugged, eager face, its expression bitten deeply by experience, turned curiously young. There rushed through him the Eastern conception of another system of life, another evolution, deathless, divine, important, the Order of theDevas, a series of Nature Beings entirely apart from human categories. They included many degrees, from fairies to planetary spirits, the gods, so called; and their duties, work and purposes were concerned, he remembered, with carrying out the Laws of Nature, the busy tending of all forms and structures, from the elaborately marvellous infusoria in a drop of stagnant water, the growth of crystals, the upbuilding of flowers and trees, of insects, animals, humans, to the guidance and guardianship of those vaster forms of heavenly bodies, the stars, the planets and the mighty suns, whose gigantic "bodies," inhabited by immenser consciousness, people empty space.... A noble, useful, selfless work, God's messengers....
He checked himself again, as the rich, ancient notion flitted across his stirring memory.
"Delightful, picturesque conceptions of the planet's young, fair ignorance!" he reminded himself, smiling as before.
Whereupon rose, bursting through his momentary dream, with full-fledged power, the great hope of his own reasoned, scientific Dream—that man is greater than he knows, and that the progress of the Race was demonstrable.
For, to the subliminal powers of an awakened Race these Nature Beings with their special faculties, must lie open and accessible. The human and the non-human could unite! Nature must come back into the hearts of men and win them again to simple, natural life with love, with joy, with naked beauty. Death and disease must vanish, hope and purity return. The Race must develop, grow, become in the true senseuniversal. It could know God!