One Monday afternoon at the end of October—three months had gone by since the trial—Waymark carried his rents to St. John Street Road as usual.
"I'm going to Tottenham," said Mr. Woodstock. "You may as well come with me."
"By the by, I finished my novel the other day," Waymark said, as they drove northward.
"That's right. No doubt you're on your way to glory, as the hymn says."
Abraham was in good spirits. One would have said that he had grown younger of late. That heaviness and tendency to absent brooding which not long ago seemed to indicate the tightening grip of age, was disappearing; he was once more active and loud and full of his old interests.
"How's Casti?" Mr. Woodstock went on to ask.
"A good deal better, I think, but shaky. Of course things will be as bad as ever when his wife comes out of the hospital."
"Pity she can't come out heels first," muttered Abraham.
Waymark found that the purpose of their journey was to inspect a large vacant house, with a good garden and some fine trees about it. The old man wished for his opinion, and, by degrees, let it be known that he thought of buying the property.
"I suppose you think me an old fool to want a house like this at my time of life, eh?"
There was a twinkle in his eye, and a moment after he fairly burst into a laugh of pleasure. Waymark asked no questions, and received no more information; but a thought rose in his mind which occupied him for the rest of the day.
In the evening Julian came. He looked like one who had recovered from a long illness, very pale and thin, and his voice had tremblings and uncertainties of key. In fact, a feverish disorder had been upon him for some weeks, never severe enough to prevent his getting about, but weakening him to a serious degree. It would doubtless have developed into some more pronounced illness, but for the period of comparative rest and quietness which had begun shortly after the miseries of the trial. Harriet's ailments had all at once taken such a decided turn for the worse—her fits becoming incessant, and other disorders traceable to the same source suddenly taking hold upon her—that Julian had obtained her admission to the hospital, where she still remained. He went to see her in the ward two or three times a week, though he dreaded the necessity. From little incidents which occurred at such times, he was convinced that all her fellow-patients, as well as the "sister" and nurses of the wards, had been prejudiced against him by her reports and accusations. To meet their looks occasioned him the most acute suffering. Sometimes he sat by the bedside for half an hour without speaking, then rose and hastened away to hide himself and be alone with his misery.
He was earnest and eager to-night in his praise of Waymark's book, which he had just read in manuscript.
"It is horrible," he exclaimed; "often hideous and revolting to me; but I feel its absolute truth. Such a book will do more good than half a dozen religious societies."
"If only people can be got to read it. Yet I care nothing for that aspect of the thing. Is it artistically strong? Is it good as a picture? There was a time when I might have written in this way with a declared social object. That is all gone by. I have no longer a spark of social enthusiasm. Art is all I now care for, and as art I wish my work to be judged."
"One would have thought," said Julian, "that increased knowledge of these fearful things would have had just the opposite effect."
"Yes," exclaimed the other, with the smile which always prefaced some piece of self-dissection, "and so it would in the case of a man born to be a radical. I often amuse myself with taking to pieces my former self. I was not a conscious hypocrite in those days of violent radicalism, working-man's-club lecturing, and the like; the fault was that I understood myself as yet so imperfectly. That zeal on behalf of the suffering masses was nothing more nor less than disguised zeal on behalf of my own starved passions. I was poor and desperate, life had no pleasures, the future seemed hopeless, yet I was overflowing with vehement desires, every nerve in me was a hunger which cried to be appeased. I identified myself with the poor and ignorant; I did not make their cause my own, but my own cause theirs. I raved for freedom because I was myself in the bondage of unsatisfiable longing."
"Well," he went on, after regarding his listener with still the same smile, "I have come out of all that, in proportion as my artistic self-consciousness has developed. For one thing, I am not so miserable as I was then, personally; then again, I have found my vocation. You know pretty well the phases I have passed through. Upon ranting radicalism followed a period of philosophical study. My philosophy, I have come to see, was worth nothing; what philosophy is worth anything? It had its use for myself, however; it made me by degrees self-conscious, and brought me to see that in art alone I could find full satisfaction."
"Yet," urged Julian, "the old direction still shows itself in your choice of subjects. Granting that this is pure art, it is a kind of art only possible to an age in which the social question is predominant."
"True, very likely. Every strong individuality is more or less the expression of its age. This direction may be imposed upon me; for all that, I understand why I pursue it."
After reflecting, Julian spoke in another tone. "Imagine yourself in my position. Could you appreciate the artistic effect of your own circumstances?"
"Probably not. And it is because I recognise that, that I grow more and more careful to hold aloof from situations that would threaten my peace of mind. My artistic egotism bids fair to ally itself with vulgar selfishness. That tendency I must resist. For the artistoughtto be able to make material of his own sufferings, even while the suffering is at its height. To what other end does he suffer? In very deed, he is the only man whose misery finds justification in apparent result."
"I am not an artist," sighed Julian.
"On the contrary, I firmly believe that you are. And it makes me angry to see the impulse dying in you."
"What am I to do?" Julian cried, almost with a voice of anguish. "I am so helpless, so hopelessly fettered! Release is impossible. No words could express the desperate struggles I go through when I recognise how my life is being wasted and my powers, whatever they may be, numbed and crushed. Something I might do, if I were free; I feel that! But there is no hope of freedom. I shall fall into darker and darker depths of weakness and ruin, always conscious of what I am losing. What will be the end?"
"What the end will be, under the present circumstances, is only too clear to me. But it might easily be averted?"
"How? Give me some practical advice, Waymark! Let us talk of the matter freely. Tell me what you would do!"
Waymark thought for a moment.
"Does there seem any chance of her health being permanently improved?" he asked.
"I can't say. She says she is better. It's no use my asking the doctors; they despise me, and would not think of treating me with any consideration."
"Why don't you do this?" began Waymark, after another pause. "Use all means to find some convalescent home where she can be received when she leaves the hospital. Then, if her fits and the rest of it still continue, find some permanent place for her. You can afford it. Never mind if it reduces you for a time to a garret and a crust."
"She would refuse to go to such places," said Julian despondently.
"Then refuse to take her back! Sell your furniture; take one room for yourself; and tell her she must live where she likes on a sufficient allowance from you."
"I dare not. It is impossible. She would never leave me in peace."
"You will have to do this ultimately, if you are to continue to live. Of that there is no doubt. So why not now?"
"I must think; it is impossible to make up my mind to such a thing at once. I know you advise what is best; I have thought of it myself. But I shall never have the courage! I am so miserably weak. If only I could get my health back! Good God, how I suffer!"
Waymark did his best to familiarise Julian with the thought, and to foster in him something of resoluteness, but he had small hope of succeeding. The poor fellow was so incapable of anything which at all resembled selfishness, and so dreaded the results of any such severity on his part as that proposed. There were moments when indignation almost nerved him to independence, but there returned so soon the souse of pity, and, oftener still, the thought of that promise made to Harriet's father, long ago, in the dark little parlour which smelt of drugs. The poor chemist, whose own life was full of misery, had been everything to him; but for Mr. Smales, he might now have been an ignorant, coarse-handed working man, if not worse. Was Harriet past all rescue? Was there not even yet a chance of saving her from herself and those hateful friends of hers?
This was the natural reaction after listening to Waymark's remorseless counsel. Going home, Julian fought once more the battle with himself, till the usual troubled sleep severed his thoughts into fragments of horrible dreams. The next day he felt differently; Waymark's advice seemed more practical. In the afternoon he should have visited Harriet in the ward, but an insuperable repulsion kept him away, and for the first time. It was a bleak, cheerless day; the air was cold with the breath of the nearing winter. At night he found it impossible to sit in his own room, and dreaded to talk with any one. His thoughts were fixed upon one place; a great longing drew him forth, into the darkness and the rain of the streets, onwards in a fixed direction. It brought him to Westminster, and to the gate of Tothill Fields Prison. The fetters upon the great doors were hideous in the light of the lamps above them; the mean houses around the gaol seemed to be rotting in its accursed shadow. A deadly stillness possessed the air; there was blight in the dropping of the rain.
He leaned against the great, gloomy wall, and thought of Ida. At this hour she was most likely asleep, unless sorrow kept her waking. What unimagined horrors did she suffer day after day in that accursed prison-house? How did she bear her torments? Was she well or ill? What brutality might she not be subjected to? He pictured her face wasted with secret tears, those eyes which were the light of his soul fixed on the walls of the cell, hour after hour, in changeless despair, the fire of passionate resentment feeding at her life's core.
The night became calmer. The rained ceased, and a sudden gleam made him look up, to behold the moon breaking her way through billows of darkness.
The Enderbys were at Brighton during the autumn. Mr. Enderby only remained with them two or three days at a time, business requiring his frequent presence in town. Maud would have been glad to spend her holidays at some far quieter place, but her mother enjoyed Brighton, and threw herself into its amusements of the place with spirits which seemed to grow younger. They occupied handsome rooms, and altogether lived in a more expensive way than when at home.
Maud was glad to see her mother happy, but could not be at ease herself in this kind of life. It was soon arranged that she should live in her own way, withholding from the social riot which she dreaded, and seeking rest in out-of-the-way parts of the shore, where more of nature was to be found and less of fashion. Maud feared lest her mother should feel this as an unkind desertion, but Mrs. Enderby was far from any such trouble; it relieved her from the occasional disadvantage of having by her side a grown-up daughter, whose beauty so strongly contrasted with her own. So Maud spent her days very frequently in exploring the Downs, or in seeking out retired nooks beneath the cliffs, where there was no sound in her ears but that of the waves. She would sit for hours with no companion save her thoughts, which were unconsciously led from phase to phase by the moving lights and shadows upon the sea, and the soft beauty of unstable clouds.
Even before leaving London, she had begun to experience a frequent sadness of mood, tending at times to weariness and depression, which foreshadowed new changes in her inner life. The fresh delight in nature and art had worn off in some degree; she read less, and her thoughts took the habit of musing upon the people and circumstances about her, also upon the secrets of the years to come. She grew more conscious of the mystery in her own earlier life, and in the conditions which now surrounded her. A sense which at times besets all imaginative minds came upon her now and then with painful force; a fantastic unreality would suddenly possess all she saw and heard; it seemed as if she had been of a sudden transported out of the old existence into this new and unrealised position; if any person spoke to her, it was difficult to feel that she was really addressed and must reply; was it not all a mere vision she was beholding, out of which she would presently awake! Such moments were followed by dark melancholy. This life she was leading could not last, but would pass away in some fearful shock of soul. Once she half believed herself endowed with the curse of a hideous second-sight. Sitting with her father and mother, silence all at once fell upon the room, and everything was transfigured in a ghostly light. Distinctly she saw her mother throw her head back and raise to her throat what seemed to be a sharp, glistening piece of steel; then came a cry, and all was darkened before her eyes in a rush of crimson mist. The cry she had herself uttered, much to her parents' alarm; what her mother held was in reality only a paper-knife, with which she had been tapping her lips in thought. A slight attack of illness followed on this disturbance, and it was some days before she recovered from the shock; she kept to herself, however, the horrible picture which her imagination had conjured up.
She began to pay more frequent visits to her aunt Theresa, whom at first she had seen very seldom. There was not the old confidence between them. Maud shrank from any direct reference to the change in herself, and Miss Bygrave spoke no word which could suggest a comparison between past and present. Maud tried once more to draw near to the pale, austere woman, whose life ever remained the same. She was not repelled, but neither did any movement respond to her yearning. She always came away with a sad heart.
One evening in the week she looked forward to with eagerness; it was that on which Waymark was generally expected. In Waymark's presence she could forget those dark spirits that hovered about her; she could forget herself, and be at rest in the contemplation of strength and confidence. There was a ring in his voice which inspired faith; whatever might be his own doubts and difficulties—and his face testified to his knowledge of both—it was so certain that he had power to overcome them. This characteristic grew stronger in him to her observation; he was a far other man now than when she first knew him; the darkness had passed from his eyes, which seemed always to look straight forward, and with perception of an end he was nearing. Why could she not make opportunities of speaking freely with him, alone with him? They were less near to each other, it seemed, after a year of constant meeting, than in the times when, personally all but strangers, they had corresponded so frankly and unconventionally. Of course he came to the house for her sake; it could not but be so; yet at times he seemed to pay so little attention to her. Her mother often monopolised him through a whole evening, and not apparently to his annoyance. And all the time he had in his heart the message for which she longed; support and comfort were waiting for her there, she felt sure, could he but speak unrestrainedly. In herself was no salvation; but he had already overcome, and why could she not ask him for the secret of his confidence? Often, as the evening drew to an end, and he was preparing to leave, an impatience scarcely to be repressed took hold upon her; her face grew hot, her hands trembled, she would have followed him from the room and begged for one word to herself had it been possible. And when he was gone, there came the weakest moments her life had yet known; a childish petulance, a tearful fretting, an irritable misery of which she was ashamed. She went to her room to suffer in silence, and often to read through that packet of his letters, till the night was far spent.
It had cost her much to leave London. She feared lest, during her absence, something should occur to break off the wonted course of things, and that Waymark might not resume his visits on their return. After the feverish interval of those first weeks, she tried sometimes to distract her thoughts by reading, and got from a library a book which Waymark had recommended to her at their last meeting—Rossetti's poems. These gave her much help in restoring her mind to quietness. Their perfect beauty entranced her, and the rapturous purity of ideal passion, the mystic delicacies of emotion, which made every verse gleam like a star, held her for the time high above that gloomy cloudland of her being, rife with weird shapes and muffled voices. That Beauty is solace of life, and Love the end of being,—this faith she would cling to in spite of all; she grasped it with the desperate force of one who dreaded lest it should fade and fail from her. Beauty alone would not suffice; too often it was perceived as a mere mask, veiling horrors; but in the passion and the worship of love was surely a never-failing fountain of growth and power; this the draught that would leave no bitter aftertaste, its enjoyment the final and all-sufficient answer to the riddle of life. Rossetti put into utterance for her so much that she had not dared to entrust even to the voice of thought. Her spirit and flesh became one and indivisible; the old antagonism seemed at an end for ever.
Such dreamings as these naturally heightened Maud's dislike for the kind of life her mother led, and she longed unspeakably for the time of her return to London. They had been at Brighton already nearly a month, when a new circumstance was added to her discomfort. As she walked with her mother one day, they met their acquaintance, Mr. Rudge. This gentleman dined with them that evening at Mrs. Enderby's invitation, and persuaded the latter to join a party he had made up for an excursion on the following day. Maud excused herself. She did not like Mr. Rudge, and his demeanour during the evening only strengthened her prejudice. He was unduly excited and fervent, and allowed himself a certain freedom in his conversation with Mrs. Enderby which Maud resented strongly.
When they were once more in London, Maud did not win back the former quiet of mind. Waymark came again as usual, but if anything the distance between him and herself seemed more hopeless. He appeared preoccupied; his talk, when he spoke with her, was of a more general kind than formerly; she was conscious that her presence did not affect him as it had done. She sank again into despondency; books were insipid, and society irritated her. She began the habit of taking long walks, an aimless wandering about the streets and parks within her reach. One evening, wending wearily homewards, she was attracted by the lights in a church in Marylebone Road, and, partly for a few minutes' rest, partly out of a sudden attraction to a religious service, she entered. It was the church of Our Lady of the Rosary. She had not noticed that it was a Roman Catholic place of worship, but the discovery gave her an unexpected pleasure. She was soothed and filled with a sense of repose. Sinking into the attitude of prayer, she let her thoughts carry her whither they would; they showed her nothing but images of beauty and peace. It was with reluctance that she arose and went back into the dark street, where the world met her with a chill blast, sleet-laden.
Our Lady of the Rosary received her frequently after this. But there were days when the thought of repose was far from her. At one such time, on an evening in November, a sudden desire possessed her mind; she would go out into the streets of the town and see something of that life which she knew only in imagination, the traffic of highway and byway after dark, the masque of pleasure and misery of sin of which a young girl can know nothing, save from hints here and there in her reading, or from the occasional whispers and head-shakings of society's gossip. Her freedom was complete; her absence, if noticed, would entail no questions; her mother doubtless would conclude that she was at her aunt Theresa's. So she clad herself in walking attire of a kind not likely to attract observation, and set forth. The tumult which had been in her blood all day received fresh impulse from the excitement of the adventure. She had veiled her face, but the veil hindered her observation, and she threw it back. First into Edgware Road, then down Oxford Street. Her thoughts pointed to an eastern district, though she feared the distance would be too great; she had frequently talked with Waymark of his work in Litany Lane and Elm Court, and a great curiosity possessed her to see these places. She entered an omnibus, and so reached the remote neighbourhood. Here, by inquiry of likely people, she found her way to Litany Lane, and would have penetrated its darkness, but was arrested by a sudden event characteristic of the locality.
Forth from the alley, just before her, rushed a woman of hideous aspect, pursued by another, younger, but, if possible, yet more foul, who shrieked curses and threats. In the way of the fugitive was a costermonger's stall; unable to check herself, the woman rushed against this, overturning it, and herself falling among the ruin. The one in pursuit, with a yell of triumph, sprang upon her prostrate enemy, and attacked her with fearful violence, leaping on her body, dashing her head against the pavement, seemingly bent on murder. In a moment there was a thick crowd rushing round, amid which Maud was crushed and swayed without possibility of disengaging herself. The screams of the one woman, and the terrific objurgations of the other, echoed through the street. From the words of those about her, Maud understood that the two women were mother and daughter, and that it was no rare occurrence for the younger woman to fall just short of killing her parent. But only for a moment or two could Maud understand anything; horror and physical oppression overcame her senses. Her fainting caused a diversion in the crowd, and she was dragged without much delay to the nearest doorstep.
She was not long unconscious, and presently so far recovered as to know that she was being helped to enter a cab. The cab began to drive off. Then she saw that some one was sitting opposite her. "Who is it?" she asked, trying to command herself, and to see clearly by the light of the street lamps. At the sound of the voice which answered, she started, and, looking again, at length recognised Waymark.
"Do you feel better?" he asked. "Are you able to go on homewards?"
"Quite able," she answered, leaning back again, and speaking with strange calmness.
"What on earth is the meaning of this?" was Waymark's next inquiry. "How came you here at this time?"
"Curiosity brought me," Maud answered, with the same unnatural composure.
"Had you been there long?"
"No; I had asked my way to Litany Lane, and all at once found myself in the crowd."
"Thank goodness I happened to be by! I had just been looking up a defaulting tenant. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw you lying in that doorway. Why didn't you ask me to come with you, and show you these places?"
"It would have been better," she said, with her eyes closed. Waymark leaned back. Conversation was difficult in the noise of the vehicle, and for a long time neither spoke.
"I told the man to drive to Edgware Road," Waymark said then. "Shall he go on to the house?"
"No; I had rather walk the last part."
They talked brokenly of the Lane and its inhabitants. When at length Maud alighted Waymark offered his arm, and she just laid her hand upon it.
"I have seen dreadful things to-night," she said, in a voice that still trembled; "seen and heard things that will haunt me."
"You give too much weight to the impressions of the moment. That world is farther removed from yours than the farthest star; you must forget this glimpse of it."
"Oh, I fear you do not know me; I do not know myself."
He made no reply, and, on their coming near to the house, Maud paused.
"Mother's sending you a note this evening," she said, as she held out her hand, "to ask you to come on Thursday instead of to-morrow. She will be from home to-morrow night."
"Shall you also be from home?"
"I? No."
"Then may I not come and see you?—Not if it would be troublesome."
"It would not, at all."
"It is good of you. I will come."
Waymark made his way to Paddington at the usual time on the following evening, and found Maud alone. There was agitation in her manner as she welcomed him, and she resumed her seat as if the attitude of rest was needful to her. In reply to his inquiries about her health, she assured him she was well, and that she felt no painful results from the previous evening. Waymark also showed an unusual embarrassment. He stood for some moments by the table, turning over the leaves of a book.
"I didn't know you had Rossetti," he said, without looking up. "You never mentioned him."
"I seem to have had no opportunity."
"No. I too have many things that I have wanted to speak to you about, but opportunity was wanting. I have sometimes been on the point of asking you to let me write to you again."
He glanced inquiringly at her. Her eyes fell, and she tried to speak, but failed. Waymark went to a seat at a little distance from her.
"You do not look as well as when I met you in the summer," he said. "I have feared you might be studying too hard. I hope you threw away your books whilst you were at the sea-side."
"I did, but it was because I found little pleasure in them. It was not rest that took the place of reading."
"Are your difficulties of a kind you could speak of to me?" he asked, with some hesitation.
She kept her eyes lowered, and her fingers writhed nervously on the arm of the chair.
"My only fear would be lest you should think my troubles unreal. Indeed it is so hard to make them appear anything more than morbid fancies. They are traceable, no doubt, to my earliest years. To explain them fully, I should have to tell you circumstances of my life which could have little interest for you."
"Tell me—do," Waymark replied earnestly.
"Will you let me?" she said, with a timid pleasure in her voice. "I believe you could understand me. I have a feeling that you must have experienced something of these troubles yourself, and have overcome them. Perhaps you could help me to understand myself."
"If I thought I could, it would give me great happiness."
She was silent a little, then, with diffidence which lessened as she went on, she related the history, as far as she knew it, of her childhood, and described the growth of her mind up to the time when she had left home to begin life as a governess. It was all very simply, but very vividly, told; that natural command of impressive language which had so struck Waymark in her letters displayed itself as soon as she had gained confidence. Glimpses of her experience Waymark had already had, but now for the first time he understood the full significance of her early years. Whilst she spoke, he did not move his eyes from her face. He was putting himself in her position, and imagining himself to be telling his own story in the same way. His relation, he knew, would have been a piece of more or less clever acting, howsoever true; he would have been considering, all the time, the effect of what he said, and, indeed, could not, on this account, have allowed himself to be quite truthful. How far was this the case with Maud Enderby? Could he have surprised the faintest touch of insincerity in look or accent, it would have made a world's difference in his position towardsher. His instinct was unfailing in the detection of the note of affected feeling; so much the stronger the impression produced upon him by a soul unveiling itself in thenaiveteof genuine emotion. That all was sincere he could have no doubt. Gradually he lost his critical attitude, and at moments surprised himself under the influence of a sympathetic instinct. Then he would lose consciousness of her words for an interval, during which he pondered her face, and was wrought upon by its strange beauty. The pure and touching spirituality of Maud's countenance had never been so present to him as now; she was pale with very earnestness, her eyes seemed larger than their wont, there was more than womanly sweetness in the voice which so unconsciously modulated itself to the perfect expression of all she uttered. Towards the end, he could but yield himself completely to the spell, and, when she ceased, he, like Adam at the end of the angel's speech, did not at once perceive that her voice was silent.
"It was long," she said, after telling the outward circumstances of her life with her aunt, "before I came to understand how differently I had been brought up from other children. Partly I began to see it at the school where we first met; but it only grew quite clear to me when I shared in the home life of my pupils in the country. I found I had an entirely different view of the world from what was usual. That which was my evil, I discovered to be often others' good; and my good, their abhorrence. My aunt's system was held to be utterly unchristian. Little things which I sometimes said, in perfect innocence, excited grave disapproval. All this frightened me, and made me even more reserved than I should have been naturally.
"In my letters to you I began to venture for the first time to speak of things which were making my life restless. I did little more than hint my opinions; I wonder, in looking back, that I had the courage to do even that. But I already knew that your mind was broader and richer than mine, and I suppose I caught with a certain desperation at the chance of being understood. It was the first opportunity I had ever had of discussing intellectual things. With my aunt I had never ventured to discuss anything; I reverenced her too much for that; she spoke, and I received all she said. I thought that from you I should obtain confirmation where I needed it, but your influence was of the opposite kind. Your letters so abounded with suggestion that was quite new to me, referred so familiarly to beliefs and interests of which I was quite ignorant, showed such a boldness in judging all things, that I drifted further and further from certainty. The result of it all was that I fell ill.
"You see now what it is that has burdened me from the day when I first began to ask myself about my beliefs. I was taught to believe that the world was sin, and that the soul only freed itself from sin in proportion as it learned to live apart from and independently of the world. Everything was dark because of sin; only in the still, secret places of the soul was the light of purity and salvation.
"I thought I had passed out of this. When I returned to London, and began this new life, the burden seemed all at once lifted from me. I could look here and there with freedom; the sky was bright above me; human existence was cheerful and noble and justified in itself. I began to learn a thousand things. Above all, my mind fixed on Art; in that I thought I had found a support that would never fail me.
"Oh, why could it not last? The clouds began to darken over me again. I heard voices once which I had hoped were for ever silenced. That sense of sin and horror came upon me last night in the streets. I suffered dreadfully."
She was silent, and, meeting Waymark's eyes so fixed on her own, became conscious of the eagerness and fervour with which she had spoken.
"Have you any experience of such things?" she asked nervously. "Did you ever suffer in the same way?"
"It is all very strange," he said, without answering her question. "This overpowering consciousness of sin is an anachronism in our time. But, from the way in which you express yourself, I should have thought you had been studying Schopenhauer. I suppose you know nothing of him?"
"Nothing."
"Some of your phrases were precisely his. Your doctrine is simply Pessimism, with an element of dogmatic faith added. With Schopenhauer, the will to live is the root of sin; mortify this, deny the first instincts of your being, and you approach righteousness. Buddhism has the same system. And, in deducing all this from the plain teachings of Christianity, I am disposed to think you are right and consistent. Christianityispessimism, so far as this world is concerned; we see that in such things as the thanksgiving for a' person's death in the burial service, and the prayer that the end of the world may soon come."
He paused, and thought for a moment.
"But all this," he resumed, rising from his seat, and going to stand with one arm upon the mantelpiece, "is of course, with me, mere matter of speculation. There are two allegories, which define Pessimism and Optimism. First that of Adam and Christ. Adam falls through eating of the tree of knowledge; in other words, sin only comes with self-consciousness, sinisthe conscious enjoyment of life. And, according to this creed, it can only be overcome by abnegation, by the denial of the will to live. Accordingly, Christ enters the world, and, representing Humanity, as Adam had done, saves the world by denial, of Himself, even to death. The other allegory is that of Prometheus. He also represents mankind, and his stealing of the fire means man's acquirement of a conscious soul, whereby he makes himself capable of sin. The gods put him in bondage and torment, representing the subjection to the flesh. But Prometheus is saved in a different way from Adam; not by renunciation, but by the prowess of Hercules, that is to say, the triumphant aspiration of Humanity. Man triumphs by asserting his right to do so. Self-consciousness he claims as a good thing, and embraces the world as his birthright. Here, you see, there is no room for the crushing sense of sin. Sin, if anything, is weakness. Let us rejoice in our strength, whilst we have it. The end of course will come, but it is a wise man's part not to heed the inevitable. Let us live whilst it is called to-day; we shall go to sleep with all the better conscience for having used the hours of daylight."
Maud listened with head bent.
"My own temperament," Waymark went on, "is, I suppose, exceptional, at all events among men who have an inner life. I never knew what goes by the name of religious feeling; impulses of devotion, in the common sense of the phrase, have always been strange to me. I have known fear at the prospect of death; religious consolation, never. Sin, above all, has been a word without significance to me. As a boy, it was so; it is so still, now that I am self-conscious. I have never been a deep student of philosophy, but the doctrine of philosophical necessity, the idea of Fate, is with me an instinct. I know that I could not have acted otherwise than I did in any juncture of my life; I know that the future is beyond my control. I shall do this, and avoid that, simply owing to a preponderance of motives, which I can gauge, but not control. Certain things I hate and shrink from; but I try to avoid, even in thought, such words as vice and crime; the murderer could not help himself, and the saint has no merit in his sanctity. Does all this seem horrible to you?"
Maud raised her eyes, and looked steadily at him, but did not speak. It was the gaze of one who tries humbly to understand, and longs to sympathise. But there was a shadow of something like fear upon her face.
Waymark spoke with more earnestness.
"You will not think me incapable of what we call noble thought and feeling? I have in me the elements of an enthusiast; they might have led me to strange developments, but for that cold, critical spirit which makes me so intensely self-conscious. This restless scepticism has often been to me a torment in something the same way as that burden of which you speak. Often, often, I would so gladly surrender myself to my instincts of passion and delight. I may change; I may perhaps some day attain rest in an absolute ideal. If I do, it will be through the help of one who shall become to me that ideal personified, who shall embody all the purer elements of my nature, and speak to me as with the voice of my own soul."
She hung upon his words, and an involuntary sigh, born of the intensity of the moment, trembled on her lips.
"I have spoken to you," he said, after what seemed a long silence, "with a sincerity which was the due return for your own. I could have shown myself in a more pleasing light. You see how little able I am to help you; the centre-thought of your being is wholly strange to me. And for all that—may I speak my thought?—we are nearer to each other than before."
"Yes, nearer," she repeated, under her breath.
"You think that? You feel that? I have not repelled you?"
"You have not"
"And if I stood before you, now, as you know me—egotistic, sceptical, calm—and told you that you are the only being in whom I have ever felt complete confidence, whose word and thought I felt to be one; that you exercise more power over me than any other ever did or shall; that life in your companionship might gain the unity I long for; that in your presence I feel myself face to face with a higher and nobler nature than my own, one capable of sustaining me in effort and leading me to great results—"
He became silent, for her face had turned deadly pale. But this passed, and in her eyes, as they met his, trouble grew to a calm joy. Without speaking, she held her hand to him.
"You are not afraid," Waymark said, "to link your fate with mine? My life is made up of uncertainties. I have no position; it may be a long time before I can see even the promise of success in my work. I have chosen that work, however, and by it I stand or fall. Have you sufficient faith in me to wait with confidence?"
"I have absolute faith in you. I ask no greater happiness than to have a share in your aims. It will give me the strength I need, and make my life full of hope."
It had come then, and just as he had foreseen it would. It was no result of deliberate decision, he had given up the effort to discover his true path, knowing sufficiently that neither reason nor true preponderance of inclination was likely to turn the balance. The gathering emotion of the hour had united with opportunity to decide his future. The decision was a relief; as he walked homewards, he was lighthearted.
On the way, he thought over everything once more, reviewing former doubts from his present position. On the whole, he felt that fate had worked for his happiness.
And yet there was discontent. He had never known, felt that perhaps he might never know, that sustained energy of imaginative and sensual longing which ideal passion demands. The respectable make-believe which takes the form of domestic sentiment, that everyday love, which, become the servant of habit, suffices to cement the ordinary household, is not the state in which such men as Waymark seek or find repose; the very possibility of falling into it unawares is a dread to them. If he could but feel at all times as he had felt at moments in Maud's presence. It might be that the growth of intimacy, of mutual knowledge, would make his love for her a more real motive in his life. He would endeavour that it should be so. Yet there remained that fatal conviction of the unreality of every self-persuasion save in relation to the influences of the moment. To love was easy, inevitable; to concentrate love finally on one object might well prove, in his case, an impossibility. Clear enough to him already was the likelihood of a strong revulsion of feeling when Ida once more came back, and the old life—if it could be—was resumed. Compassion would speak so loudly for her; her face, pale and illuminated with sorrow, would throw a stronger spell than ever upon his senses. Well, there was no help. Whatever would be, would be. It availed nothing to foresee and scheme and resolve.
And, in the same hour, Maud was upon her knees, in the silence of her own chamber, shedding tears which were at once both sweet and bitter, in her heart a tumult of emotion, joy and thanksgiving at strife with those dark powers which shadowed her existence.Shehad no doubts of the completeness and persistency of her love. But was not this love a sin, and its very strength the testimony of her soul's loss?
Waymark had written to Ida just after her imprisonment began, a few words of such comfort as he could send. No answer came; perhaps the prison rules prevented it. When the term was drawing to a close, he wrote again, to let her know that he would meet her on the morning of her release.
It would be on a Tuesday morning. As the time drew near, Waymark did his best to think of the matter quietly. The girl had no one else to help her; it would have been brutality to withdraw and leave her to her fate, merely because he just a little feared the effect upon himself of such a meeting. And the feeling on her side? Well, that he could not pretend to be ignorant of, and, in spite of everything, there was still the same half-acknowledged pleasure in the thought. He tried to persuade himself that he should have the moral courage to let her as soon as possible understand his new position; he also tried to believe that this would not involve any serious shock to Ida. For all that, he knew only too well that man is "ein erbarmlicher Schuft," and there was always the possibility that he might say nothing of what had happened, and let things take their course.
On the Monday he was already looking forward to the meeting with restlessness. Could he have foreseen that anything would occur to prevent his keeping his promise, it would have caused him extreme anxiety. But such a possibility never entered his thoughts, and, shortly before mid-day, he went down to collect his rents as usual.
The effect of a hard winter was seen in the decrease of the collector's weekly receipts. The misery of cold and starvation was growing familiar to Waymark's eyes, and scarcely excited the same feelings as formerly; yet there were some cases in which he had not the heart to press for the payment of rent, and his representations to Mr. Woodstock on behalf of the poor creatures were more frequently successful than in former times. Still, in the absence of ideal philantropy, there was nothing for it every now and then but eviction, and Waymark more than once knew what ideal philanthropy, there was nothing for it every now and it was to be cursed to his face by suffering wretches whom despair made incapable of discrimination. "Where are we to go?" was the oft-repeated question, and the only reply was a shrug of the shoulders; impossible to express oneself otherwise. They clung desperately to habitations so vile that brutes would have forsaken them for cleaner and warmer retreats in archway and by roadside. One family of seven, a man and wife (both ill) with five children, could not be got out, even when a man had been sent by Mr. Woodstock to remove the window-frames and take the door away, furniture having already been seized; only by force at length were they thrown into the street, to find their way to perdition as best they might. Waymark did not relish all this; it cost him a dark hour now and then. But it was rich material; every item was stored up for future use.
Among others, the man named Slimy just managed to hold his footing. Times were hard with Slimy, that was clear; still, he somehow contrived to keep no more than a fortnight behind with his rent. Waymark was studying this creature, and found in him the strangest matter for observation; in Slimy there were depths beyond Caliban, and, at the same time, curious points of contact with average humanity, unexpectedly occurring. He was not ungrateful for the collector's frequent forbearance, and, when able to speak coherently, tried at times to show this. Waymark had got into the habit of sitting with him in his room for a little time, whenever he found him at home. Of late, Slimy had seemed not quite in his usual health; this exhibited itself much as it would in some repulsive animal, which suffers in captivity, and tries to find a remote corner when pains come on. At times Waymark experienced a certain fear in the man's presence; if ever he met the dull glare of that one bleared blood-shot eye, a chill ran through him for a moment, and he drew back a little. Personal uncleanliness made Slimy's proximity at all times unpleasant; and occasionally his gaunt, grimed face grew to an expression suggestive of disagreeable possibilities.
On the present day, Waymark was told by a woman who lived on the ground-floor that Slimy had gone out, but had left word with her, in case the collector called, that he should be back in less than half-an-hour. Doubtless this meant that the rent was not forthcoming. The people who lived on the first floor were out as usual, but had left their rent. Of the two rooms at the top, one was just now vacant. Waymark went on to the two or three houses that remained. On turning back, he met Slimy at the door; the man nodded in his wonted way, grinning like a grisly phantom, and beckoned Waymark to follow him upstairs. The woman below had closed her door again, and in all probability no one observed the two entering together.
Waymark sat down amid the collection of nondescript articles which always filled the room, and waited for the tenant to produce his rent. Slimy seemed to have other things in mind. After closing the door, he too had taken a seat, upon a heap of filthy sacking, and was running his fingers through the shock of black hair which made his beard. Waymark examined him. There was no sign of intoxication, but something was evidently working in the man's mind, and his breath came quickly, with a kind of asthmatic pant, from between his thin lips, still parted in the uncanny grin.
"Mr. Waymark," he began at length.
"Well?"
"I ain't got no rent."
"That's bad. You're two weeks behind, you know."
"Mr. Waymark."
The single eye fixed itself on Waymark's face in a way which made the latter feel uncomfortable.
"Well?"
"I ain't a-goin' to pay you no more rent, nor yet no one else, maybe."
"How's that?"
"'Cos I ain't, and 'cos I'm tired o' payin' rent."
"I'm afraid you'll find it difficult to get on without, though," said Waymark, trying to get into the jocular tone he sometimes adopted with Slimy, but scarcely succeeding.
"Mr. Waymark."
There was clearly something wrong. Waymark rose to his feet. Slimy rose also, and at the same time took up a heavy piece of wood, looking like a piece of a cart-shaft, which had lain on the floor beside him. His exclamation elicited no answer, and he spoke again, hoarsely as always, but with a calmness which contrasted strangely with the words he uttered.
"Do you believe in the devil and hell?"
"Why?" returned Waymark, trying hard to command himself, and to face down the man as a wild beast has been known to be out-gazed.
"'Cos, by the devil himself, as 'll have me before many weeks is over, and by the fires of hell, as 'll burn me, if you stir a step, or speak a word above your breath, I'll bring you down just like they do the bullocks. Y' understand!"
Waymark saw that the threat was no idle one. He could scarcely have spoken, had he wished. Slimy grinned at the effect he had produced, and continued in the same matter-of-fact way.
"It takes you back a bit, don't it! Never mind; you'll get over it. I don't mean you no 'arm, Mr. Waymark, but I'll have to put you to a little ill-convenience, that's all. See now; here's a bit o' stout rope. With this 'ere, I'm a-goin' jist to tie you up, 'and an' foot, you see. As I said before, if you give me any trouble, well, I'll 'ave to knock the senses out o' you fust, that's all."
Vain to think of grappling with the man, whose strength Waymark knew to be extraordinary. For a moment, the shock of alarm had deprived him of thought and power of movement; but this passed, and he was able to consider his position. He looked keenly into Slimy's face. Had the man gone mad! His manner was scarcely consistent with that supposition. As the alternative before him was of such a kind, Waymark could but choose the lesser evil. He allowed Slimy to remove from his shoulders the satchel which contained the sums of money he had just collected. It was quietly put aside.
"Now," said Slimy, with the same deliberation, "I have to arst you just to lay down on the floor, just 'ere, see. It's better to lay down quiet than to be knocked down, you see."
Waymark mentally agreed that it was. His behaviour might seem cowardly, but—to say nothing of the loathsomeness of a wrestle with Slimy—he knew very well that any struggle, or a shout for help, would mean his death. He hesitated, felt ashamed, but looked at Slimy's red eye, and lay down. In taking the position indicated, he noticed that three very large iron hooks had been driven firmly into the floor, in a triangular shape. Just beside the lower one of these his feet had to rest; his head lay between the other two. Slimy now proceeded to bind his captive's feet together with strong cord, and then attach them firmly to the hook; then bidding him sit up for a moment, he made his hands fast behind his back; lastly, Waymark being again recumbent, a rope was passed once round his neck, and each end of it firmly fastened to one of the remaining hooks. This was not a pleasant moment, but, the operation completed, Waymark found that, though he could not move his head an inch, there was no danger of strangulation as long as he remained quiet. In short, he was bound as effectually as a man could be, yet without much pain. The only question was, how long he would have to remain thus.
Slimy examined his work, and nodded with satisfaction. Then he took up the satchel again, opened it, and for a few moments kept diving his long black fingers into the coins, whilst his face was transformed to an expression of grim joy. Presently, having satisfied himself with the feel of the money, he transferred it all to a pocket inside his ragged coat.
"Now, Mr. Waymark," he recommenced, seating himself on the chair Waymark had previously occupied, "I ain't quite done with ill-conveniencin' you. I'm sorry to say I'll 'ave jist to put a bit of a gag on, to prevent you from 'ollerin' out too soon; but before I do that, I've jist got a word or two to say. Let's spend our last time together in a friendly way."
In spite of his alarm, Waymark observed with astonishment the change which had come over the man's mode of speech. In all their previous intercourse, Slimy had shown himself barely articulate; for the most part it was difficult to collect meaning from his grunts and snarls. His voice was still dreadfully husky, and indeed seemed unused to the task of uttering so many words, but for all that he spoke without hesitation, and with a reserve of force which made his utterances all the more impressive. Having bespoken his hearer's attention in this deliberate way, he became silent, and for a while sat brooding, his fingers still busy among the coins in his pocket.
"I don't rightly know how old I may be," he began at length, "but it's most like about fifty; we'll say fifty. For fifty years I've lived in this world, and in all that time I can't remember not one single 'appy day, not one. I never knowed neither father nor mother; I never knowed not a soul as belonged to me. Friends I 'avehad; four of 'em; and their names was Brandy, Whisky, Rum, an' Gin. But they've cost me a good deal, an' somehow they ain't quite what they used to be. They used to make me merry for a while, now and then; but they've taken now to burnin' up my inside, an' filling my 'ead with devils; an' I'm gettin' afeard of 'em, an' they'll 'ave to see me through to the end.
"Fifty year," he resumed, after another interval of brooding, "an' not one 'appy day. I was a-thinkin' of it over to myself, and, says I, 'What's the reason on it?' The reason is, 'cos I ain't never 'ad money. Money means 'appiness, an' them as never 'as money, 'll never be 'appy, live as long as they may. Well, I went on a-sayin' to myself, 'Ain't I to 'ave notone'appy day in all my life?' An' it come to me all at once, with a flash like, that money was to be 'ad for the trouble o' takin' it—money an' 'appiness."
The bleared eye rolled with a sort of self-congratulation, and the coins jingled more loudly.
"A pound ain't no use; nor yet two pound; nor yet five pound. An' five pound's what I never 'ad in fifty year. There's a good deal more than five pound 'ere now, Mr. Waymark; I've reckoned it up in my 'cad. What d' you think I'm a-goin' for to do with it?"
He asked this question after a pause, with his head bent forward, his countenance screwed into the most hideous expression of cunning and gratified desire.
"I'm a-goin'," he said, with the emphasis of a hoarse whisper, "I a-goin' to drink myself dead! That's what I'm a-goin' to do, Mr. Waymark. My four friends ain't what they used for to be, an' 'cos I ain't got enough of 'em. It's unsatisfaction, that's what it is, as brings the burnin' i' th' inside, an' the devils in the 'cad. Now I've got money, an' for wunst in my life I'll be satisfied an' 'appy. And then I'll go where there'srealburnin', an'realdevils—an' let 'em make the most o' Slimy!"
Waymark felt his blood chill with horror. For years after, the face of Slimy, as it thus glared at him, haunted him in dreamful nights. Dante saw nothing more fearful in any circle of hell.
"Well, I've said my say," Slimy remarked, rising from his seat. "An' now, I'm sorry I'll 'ave to ill-convenience you, Mr. Waymark. You've behaved better to me than most has, and I wouldn't pay you in ill-convenience, if I could help it. But I must have time enough to get off clear. I'll 'ave jist to keep you from 'ollerin'—this way, see—but I won't hurt you; the nose is good enough for breathin'. I'll see as some one comes to let you out before to-morrow mornin'. An' now I'll say good-bye, Mr. Waymark. You won't see Slimy in this world again, an' if I only knowed 'ow to say a prayer, why, I'd pray as you mightn't never see him in the next."
With one more look, a look at once of wild anticipation and friendly regret, Slimy disappeared.
The relief consequent upon the certainty that no worse could happen had brought Waymark into a state of mind in which he could regard his position with equanimity. The loss of the money seemed now to be the most serious result of the affair. Slimy had promised that release should come before the morning, and would doubtless keep his word. Waymark had a certain confidence in this, which a less interested person would perhaps have deemed scarcely warrantable. In the meantime, the discomfort was not extreme; to lie gagged and bound on a garret-floor for some few hours was, after all, a situation which a philosopher might patiently endure, and to an artist it might well be suggestive of useful hints. Breathing, to be sure, was not easy, but became more so by degrees.
But with the complete recollection of his faculties came back the thought of what was involved in the question of release before the following day. Early in the morning he had to be at the door of Tothill Fields' Prison. How if his release were delayed, through Slimy's neglect or that of the agent he might employ? As the first hour passed slowly by, this became the chief anxiety in Waymark's mind. It made him forgetful of the aching in his arms, caused by the binding together of his hands behind him, and left no room for anticipation of the other sufferings which would result from his being left thus for an indefinite period. What would Ida do, if she came out and found no one to meet her?
His absence would make no one anxious, at all events not till more than a day had gone by. Hitherto he had always taken his rents at once to Mr. Woodstock's office, but the old gentleman was not likely to be disturbed by his non appearance; it would be accounted for in some simple way, and his coming expected on the following morning. Then it was as good as certain that no one would come to Slimy's room. And, by the by, had not there been a sound of the turning of a key when Slimy took his departure? He could not be quite sure of this; just then he had noticed all things so imperfectly. Was it impossible to free a limb, or to ungag his mouth? He tried to turn his head, but it was clear that throttling would be the only result of any such effort; and the bonds on hands and feet were immoveable. No escape, save by Slimy's aid.
He determined not to face the possibility of Slimy's failing in his word; otherwise, anxiety would make him desperate. He recognised now, for the first time fully, how much it meant to him, that meeting with Ida. The shock he had experienced on hearing her sentence and beholding her face as she left the court had not, apparently, produced lasting results; his weakness surprised him when he looked back upon it. In a day or two he had come to regard the event as finally severing him from Ida, and a certain calm ensuing hereupon led to the phase which ultimately brought him to Maud once more. But Waymark's introspection was at fault; he understood himself less in proportion as he felt that the ground was growing firmer under his feet. Even when he wrote the letter to the prison, promising to meet Ida, he had acted as if out of mere humanity. It needed a chance such as the present to open his eyes. That she should quit the prison, and, not finding him, wander away in blank misery and hopelessness, most likely embittered by the thought that he had carelessly neglected to meet her, and so driven to despair—such a possibility was intolerable. The fear of it began to goad him in flesh and spirit. With a sudden violent stringing of all his sinews, he wrenched at the bonds, but only with the effect of exhausting himself and making the walls and ceiling reel before his eyes. The attempt to utter cries resulted in nothing but muffled moaning. Then, mastering himself once more, he resolved to be patient. Slimy would not fail him.
He tried not to think of Ida in any way, but this was beyond his power. Again and again she came before his mind. When he endeavoured to supplant her by the image of Maud Enderby, the latter's face only irritated him. Till now, it had been just the reverse; the thought of Maud had always brought quietness; Ida he had recognised as the disturbing element of his life, and had learned to associate her with his least noble instincts. Thinking of this now, he began to marvel how it could have been so. Was it true that Maud was his good angel, that in her he had found his ideal? He had forced himself to believe this, now that he was in honour bound to her; yet she had never made his pulse quicken, as it had often done when he had approached Ida. True, that warmth of feeling had come to represent merely a temptation to him; but was not that the consequence of his own ambiguous attitude? Suppose he had not known Maud Enderby, how would he then have regarded Ida, and his relations to her? Were these in very deed founded on nothing but selfish feeling? Then he reviewed all his acquaintanceship with her from the first, and every detail of the story grew to a new aspect.
Thinking of Ida, he found himself wondering how it was that Mr. Woodstock appeared to take so much interest in her fate. Several times during the past six months the old man had referred to her, generally inquiring whether Waymark had written to or heard from her. And, only two days ago, he had shown that he remembered the exact date of her release, in asking whether Waymark meant to do anything. Waymark replying that he intended to meet her, and give her what assistance he could, the old gentleman had signified his strong approval, and had even gone on to mention a house in the neighbourhood of the office, where Ida could be lodged at first. A room had accordingly been secured beforehand, and it was arranged that Waymark should take her directly thither on the Tuesday morning. In reviewing all this, Waymark found it more significant than he had imagined. Why, he wondered, had Mr. Woodstock grown so philanthrophic all at once? Why had he been so particular in making sure that Waymark would meet the girl? Indeed, from the very beginning of this affair, he had behaved with regard to it in a manner quite unlike himself. Waymark had leisure now to ponder these things, but could only conjecture explanations.
The hours went by; a church clock kept him aware of their progress. The aching in his arms became severe; he suffered from cold. The floor was swept by a draught which seemed strong and keen as a blast of east wind; it made his eyes smart, and he kept them closed, with some slight hope that this might also have the effect of inducing sleep. Sleep, however, held far aloof from him. When he had wearied his brain with other thoughts, his attention began to turn to sounds in the court below. There, just as it grew dusk, some children were playing, and he tried to get amusement from their games. One of them was this. A little girl would say to the rest:—"I sent my daughter to the oil-shop, and the first thing she saw was C;" and the task was to guess for what article this initial stood. "Carrots!" cried one, but was laughed to scorn. "Candles!" cried another, and triumphed. Then there were games which consisted in the saying of strange incantations. The children would go round and round, as was evident from the sound of their feet, chanting the while:—"Sally, Sally Wallflower, Sprinkle in a pan; Rise, Sally Wallflower, And choose your young man. Choose for the fairest one, Choose for the best, Choose for the rarest one, That you love best!" Upon this followed words and movements only half understood; then at length broke out a sort of hymeneal chorus:—"Here stands a young couple, Just married and settled: Their father and mother they must obey. They love one another like sister and brother. So pray, young couple, come kiss together!" Lastly, laughter and screams and confusion. This went on till it was quite dark.
Pitch dark in Slimy's room; only the faintest reflection on a portion of the ceiling of lamplight from without. Waymark's sufferings became extreme. The rope about his neck seemed to work itself tighter; there were moments when he had to struggle for the scant breath which the gag allowed him. He feared lest he should become insensible, and so perhaps be suffocated. His arms were entirely numbed; he could not feel that he was lying on them. Surely Slimy's emissary would come before midnight.
"One, two, three, four—twelve!" How was it that he had lost all count of the hours since eight o'clock? Whether that had been sleep or insensibility, Waymark could not decide. Intensity of cold must have brought back consciousness; his whole body seemed to be frozen; his eyes ached insufferably. Continuous thought had somehow become an impossibility; he knew that Ida was constantly in his mind, and her image clear at times in the dark before him, but he could not think about her as he wished and tried to do. Who was it that seemed to come between her and him?—some one he knew, yet could not identify. Then the hours sounded uncertainly; some he appeared to have missed. There, at length, was seven. Why, this was morning; and Slimy had promised that he should be set free before this. What was it that tortured his struggling brain so? A thought he strove in vain for a time to grasp. The meaning flashed upon him. By a great effort he regained complete consciousness; mind alone seemed to be left to him, his body was dead. Was he, then, really to be prevented from keeping his promise to Ida? All the suffering of his previous life amassed was nothing to what Waymark endured during the successive quarters of this hour. His brain burned: his eyes had no power to gather the growing daylight. That one name was his single perception; the sound of it, uttered incessantly in thought, alone seemed to keep him conscious. He could feel something slightly warm on his cheeks, but did not know that it was the streaming of tears from his darkened eyes. Then he lost consciousness once more.
The clock struck eight.