When he looked up, it was timidly, doubtfully, as if fearful of what he might see. He glanced about him anxiously from side to side, as if in search of something or some one.
"Tom!--Tom!" he said, speaking it was difficult to say to whom.
He paused, as if for an answer. When none came, he drew himself upright gradually, inch by inch. They noticed how his lips were twitching, and how the whole of his body trembled. He passed his hand over his eyes, as a man might who is waking from a dream. Then he stretched it out in front of him, palm upwards, with a something of supplication in the action which lent pathos to the words he uttered--words which in themselves were more than sufficiently bizarre.
"Do any of you believe in ghosts?--in disembodied spirits assuming a corporeal shape?--in the dead returning from their graves? Or is a man who thinks he sees a ghost, who knows he sees a ghost, who knows that a ghost is a continual attendant of his waking and of his sleeping hours alike--must such a man be in labour with some horrible delusion of his senses? Is his brain of necessity unhinged? Must he of a certainty be mad?"
Not only was such an interrogation in itself remarkable, but more especially was it so as coming from such a figure as Ballingall presented. His rags and dirt were in strange contrast with his language. His words, chosen as it seemed with a nice precision, came from his lips with all the signs of practiced ease. His manner, even his voice, assumed a touch of refinement which before it lacked. In him was displayed the spectacle of a man of talent and of parts encased in all the outward semblance of a creature of the kennel.
Madge, to whom the inquiry seemed to be more particularly addressed, replied to it with another.
"Why do you ask us such a question?"
About the man's earnestness, as he responded, there could be no doubt. The muscles of his face twitched as with St. Vitus' Dance; beads of sweat stood upon his brow; the intensity of his desire to give adequate expression to his thoughts seemed to hamper his powers of utterance.
"Because I want some one to help me--some one, God or man. Because, during the last year and more I have endured a continual agony to which I doubt if the pains of hell can be compared. Because things with me have come to such a pitch that it is only at times I know if I am dead or living, asleep or waking, mad or sane, myself or another."
He pointed to Graham.
"He has told you how it was with me aforetime; how I was haunted--driven by a ghost to gaol. When I was in gaol it was worse a thousandfold--I was haunted, always, day and night. The ghost of my old friend--the best friend man ever had--whom in so many ways I had so blackly and often wronged, was with me, continually, in my cell. Oh for some sign by which I could know that my sins have been forgiven me!--by which I could learn that by suffering I could atone for the evil I have done! Some sign, O Lord, some sign!"
He threw his hands above his head in a paroxysm of passion. As has been said of more than one great tragic actor, in his voice there were tears. As, indeed, there were in the eyes of at least one of those who heard. His manner, when he proceeded, was a little calmer--which very fact seemed to italicise the strangeness of his tale.
"The first day I spent in prison I was half beside myself with rage. I had done things for which I had merited punishment, even of man, and now that punishment had come, it was for something I had not done. The irony, as well as the injustice of it, made me nearly wild. I had my first taste of the crank--which is as miserable, as futile, and as irritating a mode of torture as was ever spewed out of a flesh and blood crank's unhealthy stomach; and I was having, what they called there, dinner, when the cell door opened, and--Tom Ossington came in. It was just after noon, in the broad day. He came right in front of me, and, leaning on his stick, he stood and watched me. I had not been thinking of him, and, a moment before, had been hot with fury, ready to dare or do anything; but, at the sight of him, the strength went out of me. My bones might have been made of jelly, they seemed so little able to support my body. There was nothing about him which was in the least suggestive of anything unusual. He was dressed in a short coat and felt hat, which were just like the coat and hats which he always had worn; and he had in his hand the identical stick which I had seen him carry perhaps a thousand times. If it was a ghost, then there are ghosts of clothes as well as of men. If it was an optical delusion, then there are more things in optics than are dreamt of in our philosophy. If it was an hallucination born of a disordered mind, then it is possible to become lunatic without being conscious of any preliminary sappings of the brain; and it is indeed but an invisible border line which divides the madmen from the sane.
"'Well, Charlie,' he said, in the quiet tones which I had known so well, 'so it's come to this. You made a bit of a mistake in coming when you did to fetch away that fortune of yours.'
"'It seems,' I said, 'as if I had.'
"He laughed--that gentle laugh of his which had always seemed to me to be so full of enjoyment.
"'Never mind, Charlie, you come another time. The fortune won't run away while you're in here.'
"With that, he turned and limped out of the cell; the door seeming to open before him at a touch of his hand, and shutting behind him as noiselessly as it had opened. It was only after he had gone that I realised what it was that I had seen. In an instant I was in a muck of sweat. While I was sitting on my stool, more dead than alive, the door opened again, this time with clatter and noise enough, and a warder appeared. He glared at me in a fashion which meant volumes.
"'Is that you talking in here? You'd better take care, my lad, or you'll make a bad beginning.'
"He banged the door behind him--and he went."
Ballingall paused, to wipe his brow with the back of his hand; and he sighed.
"I made a bad beginning, and, from the warder's point of view, I went from bad to worse. I do not know if the man I had injured has been suffered to torture me before my time, or if, where he is, his nature has changed, and he seeks, in the grave, the vengeance he never sought in life. If so, he has his fill of it--he surely has had his fill of it!--already. It was through him that I was there, and now that I was there he made my sojourn in the prison worse than it need have been. Much worse, God knows.
"That first visitation of his was followed by others. Twice, thrice, sometimes four times a day, he would come to me when I was in my cell, and speak to me, and compel me to answer him; and my voice would be heard without. It became quite a custom for the warder on duty to stand outside my cell, often in the middle of the night, and pounce on me as soon as Tom had gone. The instant Tom went, the warder would come in. Never once did an officer enter while he was actually with me, but, almost invariably, his departure was the signal for the warder to put in his appearance. I don't know how it was, or why it was, but so it was. I would be accused of carrying on a conversation with myself, reported, and punished. As a matter of fact, I was in continual hot water--because of Tom. Not a single week passed from that in which I entered the prison, to that in which I left it, during which I did not undergo punishment of some sort or the other, because of Tom. As a result, all my marks were bad marks. When I left the gaol, so far from receiving the miserable pittance which good-conduct prisoners are supposed to earn, I was penniless; I had not even the wherewithal with which to buy myself a crust of bread.
"A more dreadful form of torture Tom could hardly have invented. A man need not necessarily suffer although he is in gaol. But I suffered. Always I was in the bad books of the officers. They regarded me as an incorrigible bad-conduct man--which, from their point of view, I was. All sorts of ignominy was heaped on me. Every form of punishment I could be made to undergo I had to undergo. I never earned my stripe, nor the right of having a coir mattress with which to cover the bare board on which I was supposed to sleep. I was nearly starved, owing to the perpetually recurring bread and water. And the horrors I endured, the devils which beset me, in that unspeakable dark cell! To me, gaol was a long-drawn-out and ever-increasing agony, from the first moment to the last.
"God knows it was!"
The speaker paused. He stood, his fists clenched, staring vacantly in front of him, as if he saw there, in a mist, the crowding spectres of the past. There seemed to come a break in his voice as he continued. He spoke with greater hesitation.
"Some three months before my sentence was completed, Tom changed his tactics. While I was sleeping--such sleep!--on the bare board which served me as a bed, I'd have a vision. It was like a vision--like a vision, and yet--it was as if I was awake. It seemed as if Tom came to me, and put his arm into mine, and led me out of gaol, and brought me here to Clover Cottage. He'd stand at the gate and say 'Charlie, this is Clover Cottage,' and I'd answer, 'I know it is.' Then he'd laugh--in some way that laugh of his seemed to cut me like a knife. And he'd lead me down the pathway and into the house, to this very room. Though"--Ballingall looked about him doubtfully--"it wasn't furnished as it is now. It was like it used to be. And he'd go and stand by the door, as you did"--this was to Madge--"and he'd say, 'Now, Charlie, pay particular attention to what I am about to do. I'm going to show you how to get that fortune of yours--which you came for once before and went away without. Now observe.'
"Then he'd walk straight across the room, as you did," again to Madge--"and he'd turn to me and say, 'Notice exactly what I'm doing!' Then he'd take a foot rule from his pocket, and he'd measure three feet from where he stood along the floor. And he'd hold up the rule, and say, 'You see--three feet.' Then he'd measure four feet from the floor, and hold out the rule again and say, 'You see, four feet.' Then he'd put his hand against the panel and move it upwards, and it would slide open--and there was an open space within. He'd put his hand into the open space, and take something out; it looked to me like a sheet of paper. And he'd say, 'This is what will give you that fortune of yours--when you find it. Only you'll have to find it first. Be sure you find it, Charlie.'
"And he'd laugh--and, though it was the gentle laugh of his which I had known so well of old, there was something about it which seemed to mock me, and cut me like a whip and make me quiver. He'd take my arm again, and lead me from the house and back to the gaol, and I'd wake to find myself lying on the bare board, alone in the dark cell, crying like a child.
"In the morning, perhaps at dinner-time, he'd come into the cell in the usual way, and ask me:
"'Charlie, do you remember last night?' 'Yes, Tom,' I'd reply, 'I do.' And then he'd go on:
"'Mind you don't forget. It's most important, Charlie, that you shouldn't forget. I'll tell you what you must remember. Take this and write it down.'
"And he'd give me something, my Bible, or my prayer-book, or even the card of rules which was hung against the wall, and a piece of pencil--though where he got that from I never knew, and he'd say, 'Now write what I dictate.'
"And I did, just as you saw it on the paper which I left behind; the first line, 'Tom Ossington's Ghost'--he always made me write that; it was the only allusion he ever made to there being anything unusual about his presence there; and the second line, 'right--straight across--three--four--up.' When I'd written it he'd say:
"'Charlie, mind you take the greatest care of that; don't let it go out of your possession for a moment. It's the guide to that fortune of yours.'
"Then he'd go. And the moment he had gone the warder would come bursting in, and catch me with the pencil, and the Bible, or whatever it was, in my hand, with the writing on the flyleaf. And he'd begin to gird at me.
"'So you're at it again, are you? And you've got a pencil, have you? and been writing in your Bible? You're a pretty sort, upon my word you are. I tell you what it is, my lad, you'll get yourself into serious trouble before you've done.'
"And he'd take the pencil away with him, and the Bible, and the writing; and I'd be reported again, and punished with the utmost severity which was within the compass of the Governor's power."
Ballingall stopped again. A convulsive fit of trembling seemed to go all over him.
"Towards the end, the vision took another form. Tom would bring me to the house--only I think, not to this room, but to another--and he would do something--he would do something. I saw quite clearly what it was he did, and understood it well, but, so soon as I was out of the house, the recollection of what he had done became blurred as by a mist. I could not remember at all. I'd wake in my cell in an agony to think that all that Tom had shown me should have slipped my memory. In the morning he'd come and ask:
"'Charlie, you remember what we did last night?'
"'No, Tom, I don't. I've tried to think, but I can't. It's all forgotten.'
"He'd laugh--his laugh seeming to mock me more than ever.
"'Never mind, Charlie, I'll tell you all about it. You write down what I say.'
"And I wrote it down--the last line which was on the scrap of paper. Though I never knew what it meant--never! never! I've searched my brains many times to think; and been punished for writing it again and again.
"At last I was released. At last--my God, at last!"
His whole frame quivered. He drew himself upright, as if endeavouring to bear himself as became a man.
"I was treated, when going out, according to my deserts. I had earned no favour, and I received none. The Governor reprimanded me, by way of a God-speed; told me that my conduct, while in prison, had been very bad, and warned me that it would go ill with me if I returned. I went out in the rags in which I had entered, without a penny in my pocket--hungry at the moment of release, I have not tasted bite or sup from the time that I came out of gaol until tonight.
"In the afternoon I came round to Clover Cottage. The first thing I saw was him." He pointed to Graham. "He was afraid of me, and I was afraid of him--that is the truth. Otherwise I should have gone up to him and asked him for at least a shilling, because directly I caught sight of him I knew what he was after, and that I was going to be tricked and robbed again. While I was trying to summon up courage enough to beg of the man whom I knew had played me false, I saw some one else, and I ran away.
"I meant to get a bed in the casual ward of the Wandsworth Workhouse. But Tom came to me as I was going there, and told me not to be so silly, but to come and get the fortune which was waiting for me at Clover Cottage. So I came. But I never got the fortune.
"And ever since I've been growing hungrier and hungrier, until I've grown beside myself with hunger--because Tom stopped me when I was going to the workhouse again last night, and bade me not to be so silly, though I don't know why I should have been silly in seeking for shelter and for food. And not a couple of hours ago he came to me while I was trying to find a hole on the Common in which to sleep, and packed me off once more to fetch away my fortune. But I haven't found it yet--not yet, not yet. Though"--he stretched out his arms on either side of him, and on his face there came a strange look of what seemed exultation--"I know it's near."
In the pause which followed, Ella raised her hand.
"Listen," she exclaimed; "who's that? There's some one at the garden gate."
There did seem some one at the garden gate, some one who opened and shut it with a bang. They heard footsteps on the tiles which led to the front door. While they waited, listening for a knock, another sound was heard.
"Hark," cried Ella. "There's some one fumbling with a latchkey at the door, trying to open it. Whoever can it be--at this hour of the night? There must be some mistake."
"I think," said Madge, in her eyes there was a very odd expression, "it is possible there is no mistake--this time."
Instinctively Ella drew closer to Jack, nestling at his side, as if for the sake of the near neighbourhood. Graham advanced towards Madge, placing himself just at her back, with a something protective in his air--as if he designed to place himself in front of her at an instant's warning. While Ballingall moved farther towards the window, with that in his bearing which curiously suggested the bristling hairs of the perturbed and anxious terrier. And all was still--with that sort of silence which is pregnant with meaning.
Without in the stillness, there could be plainly heard the fumbling of the latchkey, as if some one, with unaccustomed hands, was attempting to insert it in the door. Presently, the aperture being found, and the key turned, the door was opened. Some one entered the house; and, being in, the door was shut--with a bang which seemed to ring threateningly through the little house, causing the listeners to start. Some one moved, with uncertain steps, along the passage. A grasp was laid from without on the handle of the sitting-room door. They saw it turn. The door opened--while those within, with one accord, held their breath. And there entered as strange and pitiful a figure as was ever seen.
It was the "ghost's wife," the woman who had so troubled Madge, who had done her best that afternoon to keep her outside the house. She was the saddest sight in her parti-coloured rags, the dreadful relics of gaudy fripperies.
When they saw it was her, there was a simultaneous half-movement, which never became a whole movement, for it was stopped at its initiatory stage--stopped by something which was in the woman's face, and by the doubt if she was alone.
On her face--her poor, dirty, degraded, wrinkled face--which was so pitifully thin there was nothing left of it but skin and bone, there was a look which held them dumb. It was a look like nothing which any of them had ever seen before. It was not only that it was a look of death--for it was plain that the outstretched fingers of the angel already touched her brow; but it was the look of one who seemed to see beyond the grave--such a look as we might fancy on the face of the dead in that sudden shock of vision which, as some tell us, comes in the moment after death.
She was gazing straight in front of her, as if at some one who was there; and she said, in the queerest, shakiest voice:
"So, Tom, you've brought me home at last. I'm glad to be at home again. Oh, Tom!" This last with the strangest catching in her throat. She looked about her with eyes that did not see. "It seems a long time since I was at home. I thought I never should come back--never! After all, there's nothing to a woman like her home--nothing, Tom." Again there was that strange catching. "You've brought me a long way--a long, long way. To think that you should see me in the Borough--after all these years--and should bring me right straight home, I wondered, if ever you did see me, if you'd bring me home--Tom. Only I wish--I wish you'd seen me before. I'm--a little tired now."
She put her hand up to her face with a gesture which suggested weariness which was more than mortal, and which only eternal rest could soothe--her hand in what was once a glove. When she removed it there was something in her eyes which showed that she had suddenly attained to at least a partial consciousness of her surroundings. She looked at the two girls and the two men grasped together on her right, with, at any rate, a perception that they were there.
"Who--who are these people? Whoever you are, I'm glad to see you; this is a great night with me. I've seen my husband for the first time for years and years, and he's brought me home with him again--after all that time. This is my husband--Tom."
She held out her hand, as if designating with it some one who was in front of her. They, on their part, were silent, spellbound, uncertain whether the person to whom and of whom she spoke with so much confidence might not be present, though by them unseen.
"It's a strange homecoming, is it not? And though I'm tired--oh, so tired!--I'm glad I'm home again. To this house he brought me when we were married--didn't you, Tom? In this house my baby was born--wasn't it, Tom? And here it died." There came a look into her face which, for the moment, made it beautiful; to such an extent is beauty a matter of expression. "My dear little baby! It seems only the other day when I held it in my arms. It's as if the house were full of ghosts--isn't it, Tom?"
Her eyes wandered round the room, as if in search of some one or of something, and presently they lighted upon Mr. Ballingall. As they did so, the whole expression of her countenance was changed; it assumed a look of unspeakable horror.
"Charles Ballingall!" she gasped. "Tom--Tom, what is he doing here?"
She stretched out her hands, seeming to seek for protection from the some one who was in front of her--repeating the other's name as if involuntarily, as though it were a thing accursed.
"Charles Ballingall!"
Slowly, inch by inch, her glance passed from the shrinking vagabond, until it stayed, seeming to search with an eager longing the face of the one who was before her in the apparently vacant air.
"Tom!--what's he doing here? Tom! Tom! don't look at me like that! Don't, Tom--for God's sake, don't look at me like that!" She broke into sudden volubility, every word a cry of pain. "Tom, I'm--I'm your wife! You--you brought me home! Just now!--from the Borough!--all the way!--all the long, long way--home! Tom!"
The utterance of the name was like a scream of a wounded animal in its mortal agony.
The four onlookers witnessed an extraordinary spectacle. They saw this tattered, drabbled remnant of what was once a woman, whose whole appearance spoke of one who tottered on the very borders of the grave, struggling with the frenzy of an hysterical despair with the visitant from the world of shades who, it was plain to her, if not to others, was her companion--the husband whom, with such malignant cruelty and such persistent ingratitude, she had wronged so long ago. She had held out her hands, her treacherous hands, seeking to shelter them in his; and it seemed as if, for a moment, he had suffered them to stay, and that now, since she had realised the presence of her associate in sin, unwilling to retain them any more in his, he sought to thrust them from him; while she, perceiving that what she had supposed to be the realisation of hopes which she had not even dared to cherish was proving but a chimera, and the fruit which she was already pressing to her lips but an Apple of Sodom, strained every nerve to retain the hold of the hands whose touch had meant to her almost an equivalent to an open door to Paradise. With little broken cries and gasping supplications, she writhed and twisted as she strove to keep her grasp.
"Tom! Tom! Tom!" she exclaimed, over and over again. "You brought me home! you brought me home! Don't put me from you! Tom! Tom! Tom!"
It seemed that the struggle ended in her discomfiture, and that the hands which she had hoped would draw her forward had been used to thrust her back; for, staggering backwards as if she had been pushed, she put her palms up to her breasts and panted, staring like one distraught.
By degrees, regaining something of her composure, she turned and looked at Ballingall, with a look before which he cowered, actually raising his arm as if warding off a blow. And, when she had breath enough, she spoke to him, in a whisper, as if her strength was gone.
"What are you doing here?"
Ballingall hesitated, looking about him this way and that as if seeking for some road of retreat. Finding none, making a pitiful effort to gather himself together, he replied to her question in a voice which was at once tremulous and sullen.
"Tom asked me to come. You know, Tom, you asked me to come."
He stretched out his arm with a gesture which was startling, as if to him also the woman's companion was a reality. There was silence. He repeated his assertion, still with his outstretched arm.
"You know, Tom, you asked me to come."
Then there happened the most startling thing of all. Some one laughed. It was a man's laugh--low, soft, and musical. But there was about it this peculiar quality--it was not the merriment of one who laughs with, but of one who laughs at; as though the laugher was enjoying thoroughly, with all his heart, a jest at another's expense. Before it the man and woman cowered, as if beneath a rain of blows.
After it ceased they were still. It was plain that the woman was ashamed, disillusioned, conscious that she had been made a butt of; and that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, she was still among the hopeless, the outcast, the condemned. She glanced furtively towards the companion of her shame; then more quickly still away from him, as if realising only too well that, in that quarter, there was no promise of hope rekindled. And she said, with choking utterance:
"Tom, I never thought--you'd laugh at me. Did you bring--me home--for this?"
She put up her hands, in their dreadful gloves, to her raddled, shrunken face, and stood, for a moment, still. Then her frame began to quiver, and she cried; and as she cried there came that laugh again.
The note of mockery that was in it served to sting Ballingall into an assertion of such manhood as was in him. He clenched his fists, drew himself straighter, and, throwing back his head, faced towards where the laughter seemed to stand.
"Tom," he said, "I've used you ill. We've both of us used you ill, both she and I--she's been as false a wife to you as I've been friend. Our sins have been many--black as ink, bitter as gall. We know it, both of us. We've had reason to know it well. But, Tom, consider what our punishment has been. Look at us--at her, at me. Think of what we were, and what we are. Remember what it means to have come to this from that. Every form of suffering I do believe we've known--of mind and of body too--she in her way, and I in mine. We've been sinking lower and lower and lower, through every form of degradation, privation, misery, until at last we're in the ditch--amidst the slime of the outer ditch. We've lost all that there is worth having, so far as life's concerned, for ever. The only hope that is left us is the hour in which it is appointed that we shall die. For my part, my hope is that for me that hour is not far off. And, as I'm a living man, I believe that for her it has already come; that the scythe is raised to reap; that she's dying where she stands. Have you no bowels of compassion, Tom--none? You used to have. Are they all dried and withered? There's forgiveness for sinners, Tom, with God; is there none with you? You used to be of those who forgive till seventy times seven; are you now so unforgiving? You may spurn me, you may trample on me, you may press my head down into the very slime of the ditch; you know that these many months you've torn and racked me with all the engines of the torture chambers: but she's your wife, Tom--she was your wife! you loved her once! She bore to you a little child--a little baby, Tom, a little baby! It's dead--with God, Tom, with God! She's going to it now--now, now! While she's passing into the very presence chamber, where her baby is, don't abase her, Tom. Don't, Tom, don't!"
He threw out his arms with a gesture of such frenzied entreaty, and his whole figure was so transformed by the earnestness, and passion, and pathos, and even anguish with which he pressed his theme, that at least the spectators were cut to the heart.
"I know not," he cried, "whether you are dead or living, or whether I myself am mad or sane--for, indeed, to me of late the world has seemed all upside down. But this I know, that I see you and that you see me, and if, as I suppose, you come from communion with the Eternal, you must know that, in that Presence, there is mercy for the lowest--for the chief of sinners! There is mercy, Tom, I know that there is mercy! Therefore I entreat you to consider, Tom, the case of this woman--of she who was your wife, the mother of your child. She has paid dearly for her offence against you--paid for it every moment of every hour of every day of every year since she offended. Since then she has been continually paying. Is not a quittance nearly due--from you, Tom? If blood is needed to wash out her guilt, she has wept tears of blood. If suffering--look at her and see how she has suffered. And now, even as I stand and speak to you, she dies. She bears her burden to the grave. Is she to add to it, still, the weight of your resentment? That will be the heaviest weight of all. Beneath it, how shall she stagger to the footstool of her God? All these years she has lived in hell. Don't--with your hand, Tom!--now she's dying, thrust her into hell, for ever. But put her hand in yours, and bear her up, and stay her, Tom, and lead her to the throne of God. If she can say that you've forgiven her, God will forgive her too. And then she'll find her baby, Tom."
It was a strange farrago of words which Ballingall had strung together, but the occasion was a strange one too. His earnestness, in which all was forgotten save his desire to effect his purpose, seemed to cast about them a halo as of sanctity. It was almost as if he stood there, pleading for a sinner, in the very Name of Christ--the great Pleader for all great sinners.
The woman, this latest Magdalene, did as that first Magdalene had done, she fell on her knees and wept--tears of bitterness.
"Tom! Tom!" she cried, "Tom! Tom!"
But he to whom she cried did not do as the Christ, the Impersonation of Divine Mercy, did. Christ wept with the sinners. He to whom she pleaded laughed at her. And, beneath his laughter, she crouched lower and lower, till she lay almost prostrate on the floor; and her body quivered as if he struck her with a whip.
Ballingall, as if he could scarcely credit the evidence of his own senses, started back and stared, as though divided between amazement and dismay. Under his breath, he put a singular inquiry--the words seeming to be wrung from him against his will.
"Tom!--Are you a devil?"
And it seemed as if an answer came. For he stood in the attitude of one who listens, and the muscles of his face worked as if what was being said was little to his mind. A dogged look came into his eyes, and about his mouth. He drew himself further back, as if retreating before undesired advances. Words came sullenly from between his teeth.
"No, Tom, no--I want none of that. It isn't that I ask; you know it isn't that."
It appeared as if the overtures made by the unseen presence, unwelcome though they were, were being persisted in. For Ballingall shook his head, raising his hands as if to put them from him, conveying in his bearing the whole gamut of dissent; breaking, at last, into exclamations which were at once defiant, suppliant, despairing.
"No, Tom, no! I don't want your fortune. You know I don't! All this time you've been dangling it before my eyes, and all the time it's been a will-o'-the-wisp, leading me deeper and deeper into the mire. I was unhappy enough when first you came to me and spoke of it--but I've been unhappier since, a thousand times. You might have let me have it at the beginning, if you'd chosen--but you didn't choose. You used it to make of me a mock, and a gibe--your plaything--whipping boy! To-night the lure of it has only served as a means to bring us here together--she and I!--when you know I'd rather have gone a hundred miles barefooted to hide from her my face. I don't know if there is a fortune hidden in this house or not, and I don't care if behind its walls are concealed the riches of Golconda. I'll have none of it--it's too late! too late! I've asked you for what I'd give a many fortunes, and you've laughed at me. You'll not show, by so much as a sign, that you forgive her--now, at this eleventh hour. There's nothing else of yours I'll have."
In reply, there came again that quiet laughter, with in it that curious metallic quality, which seemed to act on the quivering nerves of the two sin-stained, wayworn wretches as if it had been molten metal. At the sound of it they gave a guilty start, as if the ghosts of all their sins had risen to scourge them.
From her demeanour, the laugher, diverting his attention from Ballingall, had apparently turned to address the woman. In accents which had grown perceptibly weaker since her first entering, she essayed to speak.
"Yes, Tom, I'll get up. If you wish me, Tom, of course I will. I'm--tired, Tom--that's all."
She did get up, in a fashion which demonstrated she was tired. The process of ascension was not the work of a moment, and when she had regained her feet, she swung this way and that, like a reed in the wind. It was only by what seemed a miracle that she did not fall.
"Don't be angry--I'm tired--Tom--that's all."
In her voice there was a weariness unspeakable.
Something, it seemed, was said to her--from which, as Ballingall had done, only in her feebler way, she expressed dissent.
"I don't want your money, Tom. It's so good of you; it's like you used to be, kind and generous. You always did give me lots of money, Tom, But--I don't want money--not now, Tom, not now."
Something else was said, which stung her, for she clasped her hands in front of her, with a movement of pain.
"I--didn't wish to make you angry, Tom--I'm--sure I didn't. Don't speak to me and look at me like that, don't, Tom, don't! You don't know how it hurts me, now--that I'm so tired. I'll go and fetch your money if you wish me--of course I will, if--you'll show me--where it is. I'll go at once. Upstairs? Yes, Tom--I don't think I'm--too tired to go upstairs, if--you'll come with me. Yes, Tom--I'm--going--now."
The woman turned towards the door hastily.
With a swift, eager gesture, in which there was something both mysterious and secretive, Ballingall addressed the four onlookers, the spellbound spectators of this, perhaps, unparelleled experience in the regions of experimental psychology. He spoke beneath his breath, hurriedly, hoarsely, with fugitive sidelong glances, as if before all things he was anxious that what he said should be heard by them alone.
"He's going to show her where the fortune is!"
The woman opened the door.
She stood, for a second, with the handle of the open door in her grasp--as if she was glad of its support to aid her stand. Then, with a quick glance backwards, as of pleading to the one who exercised over her so strange a spell, she tottered from the room. She continued speaking as she went, as if deprecating the other's wrath.
"I shall be all right--in a moment--if you don't--hurry me at first. I'm only slow because--I'm a little tired. It'll soon go, this tired feeling, Tom--and I'll be sure--to be quicker when it's gone."
Ballingall hung back as she passed from the room, seeming, from his attitude, to be in two minds whether to follow her at all. The others, as if taking their cue from him, seemed hesitating too--until Madge, with head thrown back, and fists hanging clenched at her sides, went after her through the door. Then they moved close on Madge's heels--Bruce Graham in front, Ballingall bringing up the rear.
The woman was staggering up the stairs, with obvious unwillingness--and, also, with more than sufficient feebleness. It was with difficulty she could lift her feet from step to step. Each time she raised her foot she gave a backward lurch, which threatened to precipitate her down the whole of the distance she had gained.
Madge's impulse was to dash forward, put her arms about the unfortunate creature's wrist and, if she needs must go forward, bear her bodily to the top of the stairs. But although, at the pitiful sight which the woman presented, her fingers tingled and her pulses throbbed, she was stayed from advancing to proffer her the assistance which she longed to render by the consciousness, against which she strove in vain, that between the woman and herself there was a something which not only did she dare not pass, but which she dare not even closely approach. Over and over again she told herself that it was nonsense--but a delusion born of the woman's diseased and conscience-haunted brain. There was absolutely nothing to be seen; and why should she, a healthy-minded young woman, suffer herself to be frightened by the vacant air? But in spite of all her efforts at self-persuasion, she allowed a considerable space to continue to exist between herself and the trembling wretch upon the stairs.
Slowly the queer procession advanced--the woman punctuating, as it were, with her plaintive wailings every step she took.
"Tom! Tom! Tom!" She continually repeated the name, with all the intonations of endearment, supplication, reproach, and even terror. To hear her was a liberal education in the different effects which may be produced by varieties of emphasis.
"Don't hurry me! I'm--going as quickly as I can. I--shall soon be at the top! It's so--so steep--a staircase--Tom."
At last the top was reached. She stood upon the landing, clinging to the banisters as she gasped for breath. Her figure swayed backward and forward, in so ominous a fashion that, halfway up the staircase, almost involuntarily Madge stretched out her arms to catch her if she fell. But she did not fall--nor was she allowed much time to recover from her exertions.
"I'm going--if--you'll let me--rest--for just one moment--Tom. Where do you wish me to go?"
It seemed as if her question was answered, for she gave a shuddering movement towards the wall, and burst into a passion of cries.
"No, Tom--not there! not there! not there! Don't make me go into our bedroom--not into our bedroom!"
The command which had been given her was apparently repeated, for, drawing herself away from the wall, she went with new and shuddering haste along the passage.
"I'm--I'm going! Only--have mercy--have mercy on me, Tom! I don't wish to anger you, only have mercy, Tom!"
The bedroom in front of the house was the one which was occupied by Ella, It was towards this room that the woman was moving with hurried, tremulous steps. Her unwillingness to advance was more marked than before, and yet she seemed urged by something which was both in front and behind her, which she was powerless to resist. They could see she shuddered as she went; and she uttered cries, half of terror, half of pain.
And yet she advanced with a decision, and a firmness, and also a rapidity, which was unlike anything she hitherto had shown. On the threshold of the room she stopped, starting back, and throwing out her hands in front of her.
"It's our bedroom, Tom--it's full of ghosts! Ghosts! Ghosts! Don't make me go into the bedroom, Tom."
But the propelling force, whatever it might have been, was beyond her power to withstand. She gave a sudden, exceeding bitter cry. Turning the handle, she flung the door right back upon its hinges. With a peal of laughter, which grated on the ears of those who heard almost more than anything which had gone before, she staggered into the room. As she disappeared they stopped, listening, with faces which had suddenly grown whiter, to her strange merriment.
"This is our bedroom--ha! ha! ha!--where you brought me when we were first married! Why, Tom, how many years is it since I was here? Ha, ha, ha!--I never thought I should come back to our bedroom, Tom--never! Ha, ha, ha!"
All at once there was a change in her tone--a note of terror. The laughter fled with the dreadful suddenness with which it had come.
"Don't, Tom, Don't! Have mercy--mercy! I'll do as you wish me--you know I will; I'll--get your money. Only--I didn't know--you kept it--in our bedroom--Tom. You didn't use to."
So soon as the laughter, fading, was exchanged for that panic cry, Madge hurried after her into the room--the others, as ever, hard upon her heels. The woman stood in the centre of the floor, looking about her with glances of evident bewilderment, as if seeking for something she had been told to look for. She searched in vain. Her eagerness was pitiful. She looked hither and thither, in every direction, as if, urged to the search, she feared, in speechless agony, the penalties of disobedience. All the while she kept giving short, sharp cries of strained and frenzied fear.
"I'm looking! I'm looking, Tom, as hard as I can, but--I see nothing--nothing, Tom! I'm doing as you tell me--I am--I am--I am! Oh, Tom, I am! But I don't see your money--I don't! I don't! If you'll show me where it is, I'll get it; but I see nothing of your money, Tom! Where is it?--Here!"
She moved towards the wash-hand stand, which was at the side of the room.
"Behind the washstand?"
She lifted the piece of furniture on one side with a degree of strength of which, light though it was, one would not have thought that she was capable. Getting behind it, she placed against the wall her eager, trembling hand.
"But--your money isn't here. There's nothing but the wall. Take the paper off the wall? But--how am I to do it?--With my fingers!--I can't tear off with my fingers, Tom. Oh, Tom, I'll try! Don't speak to me like that--I'll try!"
With feverish haste she dragged the apologies for gloves off her quivering hands.
"Where shall I tear it off?--Here? Yes, Tom, I'll try to tear it off just here."
Dropping on her knees she attacked with her nails the wall where, while she remained in that posture, it was about the height of her head--endeavouring to drive the edges through the paper, and to pick it off, as children do.
But her attempts were less successful than are the efforts of the average ingenious child.
"I can't, Tom, I can't! My fingers are not strong enough, and my nails are broken--don't be angry with me, Tom."
She made frantic little dabs at the wall. But her endeavours to make an impression on the paper were without result. It was plain that with her unassisted nails she might continue to peck at it in vain for ever.
Madge turned to Mr. Graham.