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BENSON
IMAGE
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SCIENTIA
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
In one volume, Crown 8vo., 6s. each.
THE CHALLONERS.
Pall Mall Garette.-"The story . . . is essentially serious, but, being
by Mr. Benson, it is, of course, also very interesting. .. Of course,
he is never dull, but in "The Challoners” he has gone further than
producing a vivid and am‍using book. It is full of suggestion, and
permeated throughout with a generous philosophy of life.'
THE RELENTLESS CITY.
Manchester Courier.—'A clever book by a clever author, written in
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beginning to end, and is full of go.'
SCARLET AND HYSSOP.
Pall Mall Gazette.-'Scathing in satire and relentless in exposure.
In point of construction, "Scarlet and Hyssop" seems to us to mark
a distinct advance in the author's work. ... A really brilliant piece
of work, unsurpassed by anything Mr. Benson has given us.'
THE PRINCESS SOPHIA.
Westminster Gazette.-'This book is a gay and spirited performance,
and the Princess herself a clever picture. It is lively reading, and
the characters bubble along in true Bensonian fashion.'
LONDON:
WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21, BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
In one volume, Crown 8vo., price 6s. each.
MAMMON AND CO.
Daily Telegraph.-' Mr. Benson has returned to the world of Dodo.
"Mammon and Co.” is bright, piquant, and entertaining from
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by men and women who are merry and captivating.'
THE LUCK OF THE VAILS.
•
•
The Times.-'One might begin to read "The Luck of the Vails"
lying back in a comfortable chair, and chuckling over the natural
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THE BOOK OF MONTHS.
Athenæum.-'The book contains fine work, notably the beautiful
word-pictures of "Spring in April," of "Capri in September," and
half a dozen others, which in themselves make it well worth reading.'
AN ACT IN A BACKWATER.
The World.—'Mr. Benson's latest novel, "An Act in a Backwater,"
furnishes yet another example of the variety of his talent and the
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of life.'
•
LONDON:
WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21, BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
The Image in the Sand
•
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
In One Volume, Crown 8vo., price 6s. each
THE CHALLONERS
THE RELENTLESS CITY
THE PRINCESS SOPHIA
MAMMON AND CO.
SCARLET AND HYSSOP
THE LUCK OF THE VAILS
THE BOOK OF MONTHS
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
21, BEDFORD STREET, W.C.

The Image in the Sand
By
E: F. Benson
Author of
¿
'Dodo,' 'The Challoners,' Mammon and Co.,' etc.

H
London
William Heinemann

1905
Copyright, 1905. Library of Congress, Washington
This Edition enjoys copyright in
all countries signatory to the Berne
Treaty, and is not to be imported
into the United States of America

CHAPTER I
It was drawing near the hour of sunset, which is also the hour
of the arrival of the post-boat from Cairo, and each of these
events furnished a sufficient reason why the greater part of
the inhabitants of Luxor were strolling expectantly up and
down on the high embankment which faces the Nile, on the
eastern bank of that mysterious river. The sunset certainly,
that evening miracle and intoxication of kaleidoscopic colour,
was worth waiting for; the post-boat might or might not
bring friends or desirable letters, but the other never played
false, nor cheated the beholders of its series of inevitable
glories. Already the Libyan hills across the river, peaks
and ramparts and terraces of golden sandstone, were beginning
to flush with a rose-colour incredibly soft and tender, and
the shadows that lurked in their valleys and crevices were,
every moment, in contrast to those ethereal pinks and
madders, growing bluer and yet more blue. Straight over-
head the sky was still a luminous turquoise, but towards the
Western horizon it was turning green, a translucent watery
green like the living internal light of aquamarines, and, re-
flecting it, the water under the western bank of the Nile was
changing to a sheet of patinated bronze. The day had been
very hot, and the sandy foreshore there, baked through and
through, still set the air above it quivering, like a jarred string,
but otherwise, up to the horizon of the hills, all the features
of the landscape were cut out with the delicate precision of
the Southern desert-encompassed land. Just above the top-
most ramparts of the hills small fleeces of rosy cloud hung in
wisps and carded streamers, and the cultivated land beyond
the river, the maize and the fields of young green corn, and
bean crop in full expanded odour of flower, were growing
momently darker in hue; blue of all shades down to deepest
indigo mingled with the green, till the stretches of vegetation
were like some huge mile-long peacock's tail. Far out, too,
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
in that ocean of young growth, but dwindled at this distance
to pigmy size, stood the huge statues of the vocal Memnon
and his dumb fellow-giant, hands on knees, and heads up-
raised with eyes that looked ever Eastwards to salute the
rising of the day. In that dazzling gorgeousness of colour,
everything, even the brown mud-houses of Luxor village,
was transfigured, and for the moment all was golden and
rose-coloured, jacinth and jasper.
The crowd, too, on the river-bank was hardly less poly-
chromatic than the sunset, which so wonderfully made har-
mony of the tones which in less triumphant light would
have jarred and jangled. Brown-faced, milky-toothed Arabs
were there, dressed in gabardines of all shades of blue, with
red shawls cast round their necks, and on their heads turbans
of all colours, green to show that the wearer had made the
sacred pilgrimage to Mecca, or red or blue or vivid orange.
Then to the accompaniment of a jingle of bells and strange
cries, a gray, mouse-coloured donkey would be steered like a
ship between shoals along the crowded path, decked out in
necklace of glass beads and stamped brass disks, with its
red and high-peaked saddle bearing on it some mild-faced
English spinster in an immense pith helmet and blue goggles,
with the inevitable Baedeker in her hand, her guide trotting
by her side, paddling along in the dust with brown square-
toed feet. Here, squatting like hens by the wayside, two or
three donkey-boys would be squabbling over the fair division
of their backsheesh, with extravagant wealth of gesticulation
and in shrill-voiced tones that would portend in the less
mercurial races of the North some imminent and blood-
thirsty quarrel. Not so with them in another moment all
the heat of the discussion was over, the division of the odd
piastre was satisfactorily settled, and they were all laughing
at once and nibbling amicably at the stick of sugar-cane
which one had pilfered from a passing cart, and shared with
the others before this financial question had caused the tem-
porary estrangement. Women with faces half hidden by
their veils and sly sidelong glances were filling their porous
water-jugs at the margin of the Nile, ebony-faced Nubians
sauntered through the crowd, straw-hatted Englishmen
lounged on the terrace over the hotel gate, dealers in doubtful
antiquities swore by the lives of their fathers and grand-
fathers that their green varnished scarabs and blue glaze
figures were straight from the Tombs of the Kings, a couple
of dayabeahs moored to the bank were a blaze of Syrian
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
3
awnings, lateen-sailed native boats drifted like black long-
winged birds across the mirrored sky of the river, the whole
world of colour and light and chattering crowds was awake
and alert, and moving and shifting and changing.
The glory of the evening hour grew more and more vivid in
ever-increasing crescendo of colour, even as a fugue played by
some master-organist rises from climax to climax as bank after
bank of out-drawn stops and keyboard coupled to keyboard
makes the air thick with tumultuous melody. Then the
supreme moment arrived, as the sun touched and began to sink
behind the Libyan hills. Then in a second all was changed:
rose and gold, blue and green, were sucked from land and sky,
as if sinking sponge-like into the earth, and gray, the echo
only of colour, but gray of all shades and hues, from the
luminousness of sunlit mist to the dark brooding gray of
sea beneath thunder-cloud, took its place. A little cool wind
awoke, and blew from the full-flowering avenue of mimosas
in the hotel garden, filling the air with thick ineffable fra-
grance; the song of birds in the bushes, the chattering of
sparrows, the flute of the hoopoe, ceased; and the sudden
night of the South fell in layer after rapid layer over the
sky.
Of this chattering crowd on the river-bank two had wan-
dered somewhat apart, and were strolling some quarter of a
mile from the pier upwards beyond the village towards the
sugar-plantations, which were stirring and rattling in the
soft breeze of the sunset. One was an elderly man, clean-
shaven in face, with that look of spotless cleanliness and
neatness which-so, anyhow, the English believe—is charac-
teristic of the Anglo-Saxon. He was, perhaps, scarcely of
middle height, and seemed not so tall as his companion,
while about his face there was a certain mobility and look
of sensitiveness which foreign nations, anyhow, do not
reckon to be a salient feature in the type of John Bull. It
would be hard indeed to find an English epithet which could
give in a word the keynote of this rather un-English look.
It was neither weak nor womanly, but even less did it suggest
Saxon inflexibility. It was the face of a man who, though
middle age and he had long been companions, still retained
the unsullied eyes of youth, and something of youth's divine
unsatisfiedness. In any case, the ordinary observer would
have looked twice at so attractive and sympathetic a face,
unless, indeed, his eyes had happened first to fall on his com-
panion. This other was a girl of not more than eighteen,
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
tall and with the poise and carriage of a goddess. She had
taken off her hat, which she carried in her hand, and the
glory of her hair shone like a gilded halo round her head.
It was pale gold in colour, of an extraordinary thickness,
and, growing low on her forehead, more than half framed
the short oval of her face. Her eyebrows, unlike her hair,
were very dark, and almost level above her eyes, which were
pure violet, the true violet of flowers which bear that name.
So much the first moment of his glance would tell the passer-
by, but if (and no alternative was possible) he looked longer,
he would see that, beautiful as her face was, it was even more
interesting than beautiful, so full was it of slight irregularities,
entrancingly suggestive. Her nose was a little tip-tilted, full
of eager curiosity; her mouth, thin and finely formed as to
its upper lip, showed a lower lip that drooped far more than
was in the least consistent with perfect beauty, but expressed
an extraordinary degree of kindly tenderness. She carried
her head very high, yet not so as to suggest disdain: for not
otherwise does a flower, dew-refreshed by night, stretch its
stem upwards into the air and the light. And air and light
seemed to have gone to the making of this beautiful girl.
This radiant vision was very simply and very well dressed;
a man, at any rate, might have said to his wife, 'My dear,
why don't you dress the girls like that?' while she, if edu-
cated in such matters, would have replied, 'Yes, if you will
pay for the most expensive Paris cut.' She had on a thin
white blouse, rather low in the neck, with a sort of white
Eton jacket over it, a white leather belt, and a white canvas
skirt. Into the belt she had tucked a couple of yellow
feathery sprays of mimosa, plucked, as she came out, from
the hanging tassels in the avenue of the hotel, but apart
from that there was no colour of any kind in her attire,
except in her big flapping straw hat, which was trimmed
with a huge scarlet bow. Nothing could have been simpler,
but Paris was writ large over it all. She walked with
great ease and grace, and kept almost step for step with her
companion, talking in a very low and clear voice.
Ah, let us wait a moment, father,' she said. 'Just look
at the hills. Do you know that dreadful little critic-is he
not?—Mr. Garner, told me to-day that sunsets were out of
date, and I ought not to admire them. Was it a joke, do
you think?'
'Mr. Garner jokes with difficulty,' remarked her father
cautiously.
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
5
'Then I am afraid I did the wrong thing, because I laughed.
Never mind; he's not here now, so we can admire without
exciting his undistinguished disapproval. And what is so
extraordinary is that, though you and I have looked at a
sunset a day for nearly two months now, we have never seen
one that was at all like another. Or is it that one is really
looking at the same sunset, but discovering fresh colours and
effects? There, the sun has set.'
Her father turned as she spoke, and at the moment the
whistle of the approaching post-boat was heard, and in the
still air the rhythmical beating of its paddles was audible.
Soon after it appeared round a bend of the Nile, a black blot
on the steel-coloured grayness of the river. Sir Henry Jervis
watched it approaching for a moment or two in silence, as if
considering a thought which its appearance had suggested to
him.
'Mr. Henderson is probably coming up to-night, Ida,' he
said at length. You did not meet him in Cairo, did you?'
The girl thought for a moment.
'Not that I can remember,' she said.
'Ah, then, you certainly did not, or you would remember.
Mr. Henderson has absolutely none of the quality of obliviality.'
The girl smiled.
Who is he?' she asked. 'A friend of yours? I thought
I knew all your friends.'
Sir Henry let this pass.
'I think he will arrive by the post-boat,' he said, 'and
though perhaps it seems inhospitable, as he is my guest, I
think we will not meet him. I told Abdul to be there. The
reason is, dear girl, that I think I should like to tell you about
him first.'
They turned away again from Luxor and the approaching
post-boat, and retraced their steps up the river.
'Is he a medium ?' asked the girl, with a slight additional
interest in her voice.
'No, a student only, an inquirer. But he has inquired
far. He has systematized a great deal that has hitherto been
vague, and he is now working and putting his theories to the
test of practice. In particular he has studied certain ancient
Egyptian doctrines concerning the immortality of the soul,
and has found that they suggest possible means of communica-
tion with souls that have crossed the bridge or are waiting to
cross, in a manner hitherto undreamed of. Materialization,
for instance: he has some ideas about that.'
6
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
His voice was raised a little in obedience to some vibrating
excitement, and his pace quickened as he broke off, following
up his thought to himself in silence. But as he spoke a slight
look of trouble came into the girl's eyes, and her voice was
nervous and frightened.
But surely, father,' she said, 'you will not meddle with
that? Surely Abdul would be very strongly against that,
would he not? You know what he has always told us about
the dangers of it?'
'Yes, but I am not prepared to trust implicitly to all
Abdul's tenets. They contain limitations which I think
cramp one's powers. And what he says, after all, is mere
theory.'
That look of trouble increased and darkened in Ida's face.
'But, anyhow, his theory is that it is Black Magic,' she said.
Surely he would put that under Black Magic. I know he
does. Of course, he has never denied that it is possible.'
Her father did not reply for a moment.
'I do not feel sure that he is right,' he said at length:
'The nature of all spiritualistic phenomena must depend, so
it appears to me, on the motives which lead one to seek and
inquire. And I'
He paused again.
(
Ah, poor father!' said the girl, 'I see what you want.'
Yes, dear; I want by any means to communicate more
closely with your mother. That may be weak of me, it may
argue a lack of faith, but I have such an awful need of it. I
want to see her, to touch her
The grays of the hour after sunset had deepened and
deepened as they walked, and already the stars large and
luminous had begun to hang their lamps in the deep velvet
blue of the sky. In the East flamed Jupiter, higher up
towards the zenith Venus blazed and burned, and midway
up in the Western quarter of the heavens a tiny slip of crescent
moon nursed in its lap, as it were, the dark shadow of the rest
of the unilluminated orb, and seemed certainly paler than the
more concentrated magnificence of the great planets. The
upper horn of it pointed to the Pleiades, no longer enmeshed
through this clear dry air in their golden net, but showing
seven minute but distinct points of light; and low in the
North, and swinging upside down-unrecognisable to the
unaccustomed eye-hung the Great Bear, insignificant com-
pared to the greater lights. Star after star, as if kindled by
some celestial lamp-lighter, started into luminous being, and
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
7
soon down to the very horizon, so that the stars sat on the edge
of the desert like distant camp-fires, the innumerable company
of the worlds flamed into sight, glorious beyond all conception
to those who have never seen the splendour of the Southern
heavens, for they burned with no vague diffused radiance,
but, in this Southern night, with a hard, jewel-like blaze:
On their right, as the two still strolled southwards away
from the village, lay the great ancient and mysterious Nile,
the river which from generation to generation has supported
and fed the oldest and the wisest of all civilizations, supplying
all the wants of the myriads who for thousands of years have
lived and loved and died on its banks, giving them the bread
that nourished them, the water that they drank, the cottons
that clothed them, out of its sole illimitable fertility. On
its produce alone for thousands of years have the teeming
millions of Egypt lived, and not of its water alone but of
its mystery have they drunk, of the secrets of life and death
and of the knowledge of the immortality of the soul of man.
From the earliest records of six thousand years ago down
to the present day has this strange secret folk lived in the
atmosphere and the study of the occult and the mysterious,
never proselytizing, never desirous to impart knowledge, but
being content to know, pondering and learning of matters as
inscrutable as itself. They keep silence, too, about the great
silence which stretches for ever round the tiny moment of
activity which we call life, so that a man, if he is not an
inquirer into such affairs, can spend a lifetime in Egypt, yet
never guess that aught but piastres concerns the chattering
children of the Nile.
Sir Henry Jervis and his daughter Ida had been now in
Egypt nearly four months, of which they had spent the latter
two up at Luxor. For the last sixteen years, since the death
of Ida's mother, Sir Henry had passed the greater part of his
time away from England, travelling in the first instance to
seek distraction from the grief that had threatened to swamp
and overwhelm his whole being, but for the last six years in
zealous and continuous pursuit of occult knowledge. During
these years his daughter had been his constant companion,
and, like her father, her realest life was lived, not in the world
of material things, but in that which to so many is synonymous
with all that is fantastic and fraudulent, yet to the few is so
infinitely more real than the mere external phenomena with
which the conscious life is surrounded. India had been at
first their winter-quarters, but for the last three years they
со
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
had come every autumn to Egypt, making their original visit
only in passage to India, but staying here and returning after-
wards, since they found that deep in the heart of the land
the knowledge of the mysterious and spiritual forces that
reside in man was here more closely and deeply studied than
in any other country of the world. To the majority of those
who visit Egypt, Cairo is but a place of bazaar and dance,
Upper Egypt but a shooting-ground of quail or a panorama of
temples, according to individual taste, but the curious inquirer
will find other things than these. Probably, too, he will not
care to talk about them, for these are things too serious for
general discussion, and those who draw near to the secret
things of life and death find that they are life and death indeed.
Father and daughter continued their walk a little longer
through the star-lit aromatic twilight, but nothing further
was said between them on these subjects, and they dis-
cussed instead their plans for the next few days. Mr. Hender-
son, Sir Henry's expected guest, had not, apparently, visited
Upper Egypt before, and they made a hospitable design of
expeditions to the various temples and remains in the neigh-
bourhood. Karnak would occupy one day, the Temples
over Nile another, the Tombs of the Kings a third. They
might even, if Mr. Henderson was not tied for time, go up
to Assouan for a couple of nights, and take a farewell look
at Phylæ, before the stupendous vandalism of the dam
destroyed the unique and exquisite charm of the place. This
particular subject always roused Sir Henry's usually placid
spirit to unreasoning rage, and the fact that so many millions
more of acres would be rendered crop-bearing brought no
counterweight to his mind. This explosion of wrath over,
they turned, and, retracing their steps past the cotton-fields
and plantations of sugar, got back to the hotel gate not long
before dinner-time.
Then, after the hundred yards' walk through the fragrant
tunnel of the avenue formed by the mimosas that met over-
head, they came out on to the front of the white hotel. Abdul,
Sir Henry's personal servant, was standing on the flagged
terrace outside, looking out for their return, and sitting on
the low wall of the balustrade, clearly seen in the light from
the hall, was a young man, very dark of complexion, who
got up with a quick, light movement when the two appeared.
Sir Henry briskened his pace a little when he saw him,
and held out a welcoming hand.
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
9
Ah, Mr. Henderson,' he said, 'I am delighted you have
come. You arrived, no doubt, by the post-boat. Allow
me to present you to my daughter, Ida. Ida, this is Mr.
Henderson. Yes, Abdul, what is it?'
You will dine out in the garden, Sir Henry ?' asked the
man: He spoke English with that foreign precision that
seems to give to each word its separate individual value.
'Certainly if you are not afraid of the night air, Mr.
Henderson. On warm nights my daughter and I usually
dine in the garden. I think you will find that there is no
night-chill in the air.'
'An
That would be very pleasant,' said the young man.
hour indoors is always a waste of time, if one could have spent
it out.'
The garden at the Luxor hotel is a delectable place of
palms. Sixty to eighty feet high they stand, slender, slim,
and dusky-stemmed, and high up at the top of the trees
stretch the glorious fern-like fronds of foliage beneath which
hang the clusters of yellowing dates. Here rises a thicket
of bamboos, tremulous and quivering even on the stillest
and most windless nights, and a great cat-headed statue,
wrought in black granite, and taken away from the neigh-
bouring temple of Mut in Karnak, looks with steadfast gaze
out and beyond over the Eastern horizon, with eyes focussed
beyond material range, as if waiting for the dawn of the
everlasting day. Over trellis-work foam pink cascades of
bougainvillea, gorgeous scarlet creepers and hibiscus shoot
wayward flames through the dark-green foliage, and the
scent of hundreds of roses is thick in the air:
It was close beside the great cat-headed god, sheltered
by the thicket of bamboo and withdrawn a little from the
publicity of the path, that Abdul had caused their table to
be laid, and the white tablecloth, glistening with silver and
lit by shaded candles, made a vivid and a modern note in
the antique darkness. And in spite of the fact that father
and daughter had lived so little in the world, and devoted
themselves so much to occult and archaic lore, this note of
modernity was echoed also in the perfectly light and easy
conversation that flowed very naturally from all three during
the earlier stages of dinner. But behind in the shade and
close to them stood the great cat-headed statue, and Abdul
in his green turban and black gabardine, of the mysterious
and ancient race, waited silently on their wants. In the
ΙΟ
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
shade, too, of the minds of all of them flowed a river of thought
more essential, more vital than their present talk, which,
so to speak, but buzzed like flies over its surface. And before
long these flies and surface things were dispersed: the rush
of the river became gradually audible.
6
Well, Ida, I must say, is usually a good prophet,' her
father was saying, 'and if she says there is going to be Sirocco
it makes one pause before making definite arrangements to
see the Tombs to-morrow. But the sky is quite clear yet,
and there is no wind.'
Yes; why do you think we shall have a sirocco, Miss
Jervis?' asked Henderson. 'It comes from south-west here,
I suppose ?'
'It comes from my bones,' said Ida. 'Sirocco starts in
the middle of my spine, like the vibration of a kettle on the
boil. From there it runs up to my brain, where it effervesces
and tingles-I wonder you can't hear it: it is behaving like
this glass of Apollinaris-from there, no doubt, it takes a
leap to the south-west and comes back again externally:
There, the palm-trees are beginning to whisper.'
As she spoke a gentle murmur, as if some overhead presence
said 'Hush!' made itself heard above them. Then, in
obedience apparently, all was still again.
And your brain tingles to-night?' asked Henderson.
'Yes. I am excited, and also I am rather frightened. You
may call it the jumps if you like, but it is Sirocco. The sight
of a big crowd gives me that feeling, too. Ah, what a dreadful
thing a big silent crowd is! one is in the presence of so much
force.'
'Ah, force is always present,' said her father. We can't
get away from that. Personally, the presence of force strikes
me most when I am alone.'
'But in presence of a crowd it is made visible. And
Sirocco gives me the impression of a huge crowd still unseen,
but coming nearer.'
Again their talk deepened: the river took a sudden down-
ward leap.
A curious thing happened in the bazaar at Cairo the other
day,' said Henderson. Quite unexplainedly in the middle
of the afternoon there was a panic and a general stampede.
Fear suddenly leaped into the middle of the crowd, like an
escaped wild animal. I was there at the time; indeed, the
panic started close to me.'
He paused a moment, and then went on: I was bargaining
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
II
over a curious little amulet I found in a stall, when suddenly I
saw frightened, terror-stricken faces round me. In ten minutes
the panic had spread from end to end of the bazaar. My
shopman fled with the rest, and I was left quite alone. I
might have looted the whole place if I had felt disposed.'
There was a crash of broken crockery at this moment:
Abdul, whose deft, quick fingers were unknown to do such a
thing, had dropped a plate, and Sir Henry, looking up at the
noise, saw him standing there empty-handed and unmoving,
staring at the speaker. But in a moment he recovered him-
self, picked up the fragments, and went on with his serving.
That is very curious,' said Sir Henry. And it was quite
unexplained?'
Absolutely. It was, I suppose, one of those sudden
mysterious forces that move crowds,' said Henderson. Some
deep-sea current, as it were, some uncharted tide. I remember
a few years ago a similar thing happened in England, but on
that occasion to animals. In the middle of the night all over
Hampshire and Wiltshire there was a regular panic among
sheep and cows. They broke through fences, galloped down
roads, and were found miles from home in the morning.'
'And what happened then-in the bazaar, I mean?'
asked Ida.
Henderson laughed.
A dreadful anticlimax,' he said. 'I waited there, as I
tell you, quite alone for some ten minutes. Then the folk
began to come back, looking rather shamefaced and puzzled,
but still, I fancied, a little nervous. I continued my bar-
gaining and bought my amulet. A quarter of an hour later
chattering and chaffering were going on as briskly as ever.'
'And what was your amulet ?' asked Ida suddenly. Ah,
there are the palms whispering again!'
'A rather curious one. I have never come across one like
it. It is concerning somebody's Ka-his ghost, you know,
or his astral body, if you prefer it. I have it somewhere
upstairs: I should like to show it you.'
Once again Sir Henry, looking up, saw that Abdul was
observing his guest very attentively, and once again, evidently
with an effort, he recalled himself to his duties.
Sir Henry turned in his chair towards Henderson with an
air of great interest.
'That is extremely curious,' he said. 'Have you de-
ciphered it ?'
Sufficiently. The astral body or ghost of Set-nekht was
I2
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
apparently a very uneasy spirit, and used to haunt very
vividly the scenes of his earthly life. The amulet which
I bought was evidently intended to lay it, and let it rest.'
Sir Henry leaned forward in some excitement.
Set-nekht?' he said. 'He was the architect of several
temples here. And they have lately found the statue of his
Ka. I mean quite lately: only a few days ago.'
For the third time Abdul was watching very intently, but
at the moment the glass doors of the hotel drawing-room
giving on to the garden were opened, and the folk of the
hotel, emerging from the table-d'hôte, began to stream out
into the dusky warmth of the evening. Many passed near
where our party was dining, and their privacy was inter-
rupted for the present. Soon after the rather shrill tinkle
of the bell of the English chapel which stood at the back of
the garden, some fifty yards away, began to sound, and
presently the chaplain with several large hymn-books in his
hand came out of the hotel. He was a rabbit-faced little
man, intensely Protestant, and devoted to lawn-tennis,
dancing and the care of his migratory flock. He made a
point always of talking to everybody in the hotel in virtue
of his pastoral relation, and as he passed close to the table,
where dinner was all but over, he came forward with a Christian
and mildly jovial air. Religion, as he often said in his
sermons, ought not to make one melancholy, nor inapt to
enjoy the blessings and pleasures of this temporal world, so
long as they are innocent.'
How wise of you, Sir Henry, to dine out of doors this hot
evening!' he said. 'Miss Jervis, I picked up a beautiful scarab
this afternoon, very fine blue, which I must ask you and your
father to decipher for me. So cheap, too : only ten piastres.'
Sir Henry turned to him with a rather abstracted air, but
most polite.
'With pleasure, Mr. Raymond,' he said. 'Will you not
join us here, and take some coffee?'
Mr. Raymond beamed with innocent pleasure.
'I am afraid I have not a moment now,' he said, 'as we
have a choir practice for next Sunday. That is why the bell
is ringing. We are going to attempt an anthem by Barnby.'
And he hurried off to this musical feast, humming to himself
like a honey-gathering bee.
But this interruption broke for the time the current of
their conversation, which was not, however, far diverted, but
ran down a parallel channel.
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
13
'Nothing can equal the childlikeness of superstition,' said
Ida. 'There was an eclipse of the moon last month, and
terror was rampant. It was supposed that Allah was shutting
up the windows of heaven or that an evil spirit was eating the
moon, and all the time the eclipse lasted the whole population
was beating drums and blowing on horns to frighten the evil
spirit away. It is all exactly what an ordinary child would
conjecture to be the matter, and the ordinary child would
take just such a step to stop this infernal meal.'
And it was successful?' asked Henderson gravely.
Well, for the time, but next time that the moon was nev
it was seriously feared it had been not only swallowed, but
digested. Ah, there is the wind beginning again. I know
Sirocco is coming.'
This time the "Hush!" was louder, and they could hear
the clashing together of the dry palm-leaves; then came a
sudden hot gust of wind through all the garden, and over-
head the long, dry palm-fronds were tossed about as if the
tree was waving its arms in some sort of dreamland despair
and terror. At the sound a strangely vivid and nervous look
came into Ida's eyes; violet as they were by day, by night
they were black, and now they shone with a strange dark
tremulousness as of water shimmering in some deep well.
She got up quickly from the table, dinner being just over.
'I can't sit still,' she said. 'I must walk about or go indoors.
I am sure you will excuse me, Mr. Henderson, but the effect
of this dreadful wind on my nerves is absolutely irresistible.'
She left the table and went down the path towards the
hotel, a flutter of white drapery. Halfway up it she met
Abdul bringing the coffee.
You will have coffee, miss ?' he asked.
No, it would only excite me more. Oh, Abdul, why is
the wind so wicked? There is something dreadful in the
wind to-night.'
He smiled at her, showing his milk-white teeth.
'I cannot make you think differently,' he said, 'yet the
wind hurts no one.
His face grew grave again.
But there are things in the air to-night that I, too, do not
like,' he said. The protection of all good be near us.
The other two were sitting in silence when he came to
them, and in silence they took their coffee. The wind was
rising and falling again, still no more than a breeze, but very
hot and dry, as if coming from some open furnace-door far
14
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
away. Hymns apparently were to be practised too, for from
the wide-flung door of the chapel came the rather nasal whine
of the harmonium, and then the voices took up the tune of
A few more years shall roll.'
At that Sir Henry spoke.
'How extraordinarily dramatic that is!' he said.
'Here
are you and I, two modern Englishmen, seated under the
trees in this immemorial land, with who knows what spirits
of the thousand-year-old dead around us, close to us. And from
that chapel we are reminded that all time is so infinitesimally
short, so minute a point in the unending scroll of eternity.'
He paused a moment, while Abdul retreated noiselessly
again towards the hotel.
'I am glad for certain reasons that Ida has gone,' he said,
'because I want to talk to you about things I would prefer
not to speak of before her-not at present, at any rate. You
told me last time I met you that you had been investigating
the phenomena of certain spirits apparently clinging to
certain spots.'
Henderson thought over this a moment, as if recalling some-
thing.
'Yes, I believe I was studying that last autumn,' he said.
"Yes, of course, of course: it was à propos of haunted houses
generally, and in particular of the haunted tomb at Beni-
Hassan, where, as I think I told you, human sacrifices had been
made. But I have been employed for the last month or two on
a different line of investigation, and to me a far more interest-
ing one. The two are closely connected, though: one cannot
exactly call them different.'
Sir Henry finished his coffee, and passed the cigarettes over
to the other.
'It would interest me very much to hear about your work,'
he said.
Again a great gust of hot wind buffeted its way through the
troubled garden. A scarlet blossom of hibiscus fell on to the
white table-cloth, and lay there in the candle-light like a fallen
flame. From the church near by the practising choir sang
A few more suns shall set.'
Henderson waited till the gust had passed, and, nursing his
match, lit a cigarette. Everything he did, every physical
motion, was astonishingly neat: the flame of his match burned
as steady in the shrine of his enclosing hands as in a room.
'Well, it seems to me nearly certain that there are two sorts
of haunting spirits,' he said, either of which it is possible to
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
15
naterialize. Some haunt places, notably when such places
re the scenes of some crime which they have committed in
ife. Many haunted houses come under this group of appear-
ences, so, of course, also does the tomb at Beni-Hassan, which
eems certainly to be an authentic story, and a rather grue-
ome one. In fact, it is impossible to doubt the existence of
this phenomenon. The other class of haunting spirit is that
which remains—for how many years, who shall say ?—close
o someone on the earth whom in life it loved, by whom it was
beloved. To materialize such is, for what reason I do not
know, more difficult. But it is possible. Some such idea,
ome such design, perhaps has crossed your mind?' he added
softly, looking up at Sir Henry.
Sir Henry leaned forward across the table.
For sixteen years that idea has continually crossed and
ecrossed my mind,' he said, ' and for the last six months it
has been with me like an obsession. It crosses and recrosses
no longer it burns there like a flame.’
"
Your wife, you mean,' said the other.
'Yes.'
There was a silence, and the figure of Abdul appeared to
lear away the table. But seeing his master and his guest
till sitting there he withdrew again. Another hymn was
being sung by the choir; the words were distinctly audible,
And then for those, our dearest and our best.'
Then Jim Henderson spoke again.
Have you found any tangible, definite difficulty which has
revented your success in this materialization?' he asked,
nd his face suddenly looked rather thin and sharp in the
wavering light.
Sir Henry shook his head.
'I will tell you why I have never even made the attempt,'
le said. It is because I have several times in séances been
arned not to. I have been told that should I succeed in the
materialization it would make the spirit of my wife earth-
ound, or, at any rate, there would be the danger of its doing
o. Another danger also has been hinted at, which I do not
quite understand."
Ah, I know-I can guess anyhow,' said Henderson, tapping
he table with a sudden show of impatience. Quiet and
ourteous as his manner usually was, there was something
lot quite well-bred in this: his tone, too, hectored a little.
You have been warned that what you succeed in materializing
may not be the spirit of your wife, but an impersonation of her
16
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
by some evil control. You will excuse me, but how can such
an old-wives' tale concern us ?'
Sir Henry did not answer: by his silence, however, he ad-
mitted the truth of Henderson's conjecture.
'The former reason, too,' continued he, ' that also seems to
me very insufficient. For, given that your wife is now a
haunting spirit, and is continually near you-
And how certain I feel of that!' said Sir Henry.
'If that is so, I say, she is already to that extent earth-
bound. Either of her own will or in obedience to conditions
which we do not understand, she is constantly by you, nor can
any materialization-such, at least, is my view-produce any
bad effect on her. If, however, she is not a haunting spirit,
it is quite certain that you will not be able to materialize her,
and again no harm is done.'
Sir Henry was staring straight in front of him, clenching
and unclenching his hands nervously.
Ah, if I could only see her!' he said. 'So many doubts
and questionings would be set for ever at rest in my mind.
They come to me flapping round my head, like dreadful bats,
till at times they bewilder me utterly. And you know I have
so often tried, in company with my daughter and Abdul, to
get the materialization by other means-means which are
certainly safe.'
What means ?' asked Henderson.
Prayer and one's own will. And so often I feel sure we
have been on the very edge and turning-point of success.
Her presence has been more real to me than the presence of
the sky or the earth, or those human beings who are present
with me.
But never have I quite seen her-never quite.'
Abdul is your servant?' asked Henderson after a pause.
Yes, and my master. Another time I will tell you about
him. It is a curious story.'
Again a sudden hot blast coursed its way through the garden
as a wave swirls among the seaweeds of the shore. Then for
a moment came a lull, and Abdul again appeared round the
thicket of bamboo, waiting to move in the apparatus of
dinner. Sir Henry rose.
'Yes, clear away, Abdul,' he said. 'Shall we stroll by the river
for a little? The heat is getting very oppressive: we may
find it a little cooler there. My daughter was quite right.
Sirocco is certainly coming up. It is strange what dread she
has of Sirocco: a nervous affection, I suppose. She always
says that some day Sirocco will bring dreadful things to us.'
1
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
17
It was evident that this discussion had very profoundly
moved Sir Henry, and that he did not wish for the present to
speak of it further, for he returned immediately to the subject
of the amulet. But this was but a boomerang flight: their
talk, obeying obscure but irresistible laws, must soon return
to its starting-point.
'A charm for laying the spirit of Set-nekht, I think you
said,' he remarked. 'It is a curious coincidence too, is it not?
that Set-nekht's Ka statue has lately been discovered here.
A very fine sandstone portrait statue, in excellent preserva-
tion.
Henderson laughed.
CO-
Ah, I have quite abandoned the word and the idea
incidence," he said. There is no such thing. All things
that happen are links in a chain. There would be no links
missing if one were more clear-sighted, and there would seem
to us to be nothing that was not a link. But this particular
link appears to me most important, a very big strong link.
The temple is near here, I think you said. I must go there.'
He laughed again rather excitedly.
<
'Perhaps Sirocco has got into my head too,' he said, ' as it
has into Miss Jervis's: anyhow, my brain is tingling-what
was her expression ?-yes, effervescing like mineral water.
Cannot you guess what I am going to do ?'
Sir Henry thought a moment, pausing on his step.
'No, I have no idea,' he said.
'I am going to have a séance there,' said Henderson, and
if there appear indications that spirits are present, I shall
smash the amulet to atoms. For supposing, supposing that
the inscription on this amulet is true, genuine-and the
ancient Egyptians were very practical people-supposing that
it has been efficacious all these years in laying the spirit of
Set-nekht, if I break it, may not the spirit of Set-nekht become
unquiet again? I must show you the amulet to-morrow.'
He broke off suddenly, and then continued more rapidly:
Perhaps even we could materialize it. . . . Ah, what a
possibility, a miracle to stagger the unbelief of a Thomas!
And now, Sir Henry, will you come with me and see? Prob-
ably nothing will happen. But again———
They had turned to the right on coming out of the mimosa
avenue that led to the river-path, and paused opposite the
temple of Luxor. In the dim, sand-burdened air, the columns
rose gigantically magnified, and between two they could see
the colossal Rameses sitting patiently waiting for what the
2
18
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
great wheel of circling centuries should bring. Further down
the obelisk lifted its slim finger into the sky, and beyond slept
the huddled roofs of the villagers. The air was already thick
with the sand blown from the desert, and in the last half-hour
the wind had risen almost to a gale. Firm and strong it blew,
hot with its passage over countless miles of desert, coming
from the mysterious heart of Africa. Already above them the
stars that had burned with so bright and excellent a flame in
the hour after sunset were veiled, and for the clear blue velvet
of the sky they had a thick air gray with dust. And whether
the excitement of Sirocco had infected Sir Henry also, or
whether the contagion of his companion's excitement had
spread to him, certainly a sort of recklessness seized him.
Yes, I will come with you,' he said, ' and after that we will
go a step further together. But we will not talk about that
to-night. You must show me the amulet, if you will, to-
morrow, and we must talk over what our first experiment
shall be. Has Sirocco got into my head, too, do you think?
I feel strangely disquieted and excited. Or is there indeed
some dreadful potency awake to-night? Let us go back to
the hotel. The wind is unbearable out here.'
They turned and retraced their steps again through the
tunnel of mimosa. Though it was still not very late, but few
people were about, and the white-robed servants flitted about
ghostlike putting up shutters everywhere to keep out the in-
filtration of the dust. In the garden the palms were moaning
and waving wild arms, the choir practice was over, and the
church shut only the great cat-headed statue sat silent,
and immobile, looking out with patient eyes over the Eastern
horizons.
6
CHAPTER II
SIR HENRY was seated next morning in his sitting-room in the
hotel. Sirocco still raged outside, and though the air was
stiflingly hot, it was impossible to have the least chink of
window open, else in an hour the room would have been
smothered in sand. The wind outside blew with a steady roar
and violence like the outpouring of some great cataract in
flood, without abatement or cessation, and though it was near
noon-day a thick palpable twilight reigned outside. And in
front of him was standing Abdul, his eyes shining, and speaking
with vehement gesticulation, not as a servant to his master,
but as a superior to his subordinate.
'I tell you no,' he said. 'It is black; all such work is the
Black Magic. And I know well who has brought it here.'
He paused a moment, and his eyes softened.
'I beseech you, effendi,' he said.
Sir Henry rose.
'I
and
I must, Abdul,' he said. 'I can resist my desire no longer,
my
real and honest belief is that I am not bidden to resist
it. I know you think otherwise.' He paused a moment.
Abdul, I don't undervalue your faithfulness and your devo-
tion. I know, too, how utterly astray I seem to you to be
going from the way, but I must make the attempt, try to raise
the spirit of Set-nekht, and if that is successful try through him
to bring her back to me. You call it Black Magic. But what
you call Black Magic is regarded as perfectly right and proper
by many of our students in England.'
6
It is the Black Magic,' said Abdul. And you run more
dangers than I can tell you of. But one danger is this: the
spirit you try now to raise may be of awful power and of evil
power. What if you do raise it, and what if it come to you
in the form of her whom you seek? If to raise it is possible,
the other is possible also."
Again he paused.
19
2-2
20
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
'It may be different in England,' he said; 'what is black
here may be white there, even as your folk are white and we
black, but here in Egypt such work is black. The panic at
the bazaar that was spoken of last night, the amulet of the
Ka of Set-nekht, all that, too, is the Black Magic, effendi; it
is the stirring of the Pool of Evil, and a man had better stir
the water of the Black Lake of Medinet, and inhale its vapours,
than stir the Evil Pool. And the stirring you speak of goes
deeper than the panic and the amulet. The very slime and
horror of the pit are moved.'
"I have told you of no stirring,' said Sir Henry.
No, perhaps you have not, but I know-my very bones
know it. You would raise her, just to speak with her and
touch her. Have you so little faith? You do not know
what you do.'
A sudden blast of the fury of the wind buffeted round the
house so that the room shook.
(
'Effendi, I am forty years old,' said Abdul, for forty
years have I lived here, and never in my memory has Sirocco
raged like this. The wind is evil: there is death and danger
in the wind.'
Sir Henry felt, somehow, unaccountably relieved at this:
Abdul, at any rate, was in this wholly unreasonable, for he,
like Ida, was converting the ordinary effects of barometric
pressure into psychical terms. Also the remark was utterly
contrary to Abdul's whole philosophy, for he held that in
Nature there was neither danger nor evil.
'Why, Abdul,' he said, ' how often have you told me, and
Miss Ida too, that all Nature was beneficent, working for
good?'
'To those that seek for good,' said he. 'Yet there is evil
abroad to-day. And I speak for the last time.'
And then?'
If you persist I leave Luxor this evening,' he said. 'I
will not be here while Black Magic is abroad. I will not be
of the household of one who meddles there.'
Sir Henry got up with some impatience.
You shall do nothing of the sort,' he said. 'I give you
the order not to go. In all things you have yourself told
me it is your path to serve me.'
In all but in this,' said Abdul, ' for I will not serve evil.'
For the first time in these three years he turned to leave
the room making no obeisance to his master. But before
he reached the door a tap came and Jim Henderson entered.
1
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
21
Abdul drew back for him as if to avoid contact, and when he
had entered, left the room.
Ordinary morning greetings passed between the two; and
Henderson took a seat.
'Miss Jervis was right,' he said. 'It is Sirocco with a
capital S, the very king and apotheosis of wind. Do you
know, I am not naturally nervous, but I really believe that
man of yours will murder me if he gets a chance. I should
so like to know why; really, I think I would let him cut my
throat, if he would first give me a quiet, reasonable explana-
tion of why he was doing so.'
(
Sir Henry did not smile.
He will get no such chance, I am glad to say,' he remarked,
because he has this moment left my service.'
Henderson looked interested perhaps the explanation
would come without the throat-cutting.
Indeed?' he said. Then after a pause: You were going
to tell me about him this morning,' he added.
I will do so,' said the other. You will not, I hope, mind a
somewhat lengthy narrative. The cigarettes are by you.'
He pushed back his chair from the table where he had been
working, and leaned easily back in it, as if for a long talk.
'It is three years ago,' he said, 'that I first saw Abdul,
during the first winter I spent in Egypt. I had been intro-
duced in Cairo to Achmet Pasha, whom you may know, at
whose house in the Sharia-el-Makabh I attended my first
native séance. Two other Pashas were there, a couple of
Englishmen, myself, and a man whom I had several times seen
outside Shepheard's, an ordinary dragoman, who, as a matter
of fact, had once taken me through the bazaars, who had
been recommended to me because he was thoroughly trust-
worthy, and spoke English really perfectly. That was
Abdul. Now, the first thing one learns in Egypt, so I found,
is to be surprised at nothing. So I shook hands with him,
for I was introduced quite formally by Achmet Pasha, and
Abdul in the most natural way said he knew of a dealer who
had several turquoises which we might care to buy-we had
gone turquoise-hunting-and if I pleased he would take me
to him next day. But I suppose I had not learned my lesson
of not being surprised quite thoroughly yet, for Achmet said
-you know his courteous manners Ah, Abdul has been
your dragoman, and you are surprised to meet him here,
Sir Henry. But here we are all equal, except Abdul, who is
our superior."
22
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
'I need not trouble you at any length with the details of
that séance, which, however, was the first of the sort that I
had the privilege to attend. Abdul was the medium, and I
was asked to impose what tests I pleased. I imposed tests
which were quite unnecessary, but somewhat stringent. I
tied his ankles together and he smiled. I tied his wrists
together and he smiled. I tied him round the shoulders
and he still smiled. I locked the door and pocketed the
key, I bolted the windows, I examined the table, which was
very large and heavy, and I searched the room with really
painstaking thoroughness. Then, in all innocence, I said that
with the leave of all there present I would close the shutters,
draw the blind and make`darkness. At that Abdul smiled
again. Does the effendi desire darkness ?" he asked.'
Ah, that is interesting,' said Henderson. 'One manifesta-
tion in the light is worth fifty in the dark. I detest conjurors.
I beg your pardon-
That, I allow, surprised me again, and I explained that I
supposed darkness was necessary. But Abdul said, “Dark-
ness or noonday, it is all one!" Then we sat round the table,
and in clear light the séance began. Then Abdul, tied and
examined, smiled no more. He said a prayer in which both
Mussulman and Christian could join, for it was addressed to
the Omnipotent Spirit of Good. It was in Arabic, a language
which I understood but imperfectly then, but I have heard it
often since. And rendered into English what it amounts
to is, “Lighten our darkness, O Lord, we beseech Thee
our third evening collect. Then Abdul fixed his eyes on the
crystal which had been placed on the table in front of him,
and began breathing very deeply.'
Sir Henry paused a moment: outside the wind was maniac ;
inside Henderson's chair creaked as he leaned forward.
'I suppose not more than five minutes elapsed,' said Sir
Henry, before Abdul went off into what we should call deep
trance. I tested that too, the knife on the back of the hand
you know the test; conjurors would not like it. His
hand was absolutely unsensitive. Then immediately the
phenomena began. The table rocked violently, and there
were deep tremors that passed through it, like like the
tremors of a fishing-rod when you have hooked a heavy salmon.
Then there came a sound of rain falling heavily, a phenomenon
curious in Egypt, and a strong wind passed round the room.
Then one tap, very loud. And Achmet Pasha said: "Will
you question the spirit, Sir Henry ?"
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
23
((
'I asked a very simple question, and one that is usually
critical. What am I thinking of ?" And my wife's voice
said, Of me."
((
Now, nobody but myself knew my wife's voice, which, I
may assure you, was very individual. I have never heard a
voice which I could have mistaken for it. Also, to the best of
my knowledge, I had never spoken of her to any of those
present: I am, too, quite certain that Abdul's lips did not
move. And I went on questioning. Answers came. “I have
been dead sixteen years. "I have always been near you.'
She has violet eyes." That was in answer to a question
about my daughter.
Then I asked when I should see my
wife again. And the answer was that I should see her this
month, this March in which we are now living. And in this
very month you come to me holding out this possibility.'
Jim Henderson took another cigarette, but he held it unlit,
and Sir Henry continued.
'I will pass over other details,' he said, 'but next morning
Abdul was waiting for me outside the hotel. He made no
allusion at all to the events of the afternoon before, and we
went, with Ida, to the merchant of turquoises, where he
bargained for me like an ordinary gesticulating dragoman.
We dined at home that night, and sat in the hall afterwards
drinking our coffee. Suddenly I saw Abdul enter, and he
came straight up to me. "Are there any orders ?" he said.
Now, that again surprised me. Here was an ordinary
dragoman, whom I had employed twice only, coming for
orders. I did not then understand in the least degree what
it meant. I merely told him that he had been quite satis-
factory, and if he wished I would write in his testimonial-book,
but that I was doing no more sightseeing for the present, and
should not require his services. And I gave him a small tip.
He put it down on the table. Next morning he was squatting
outside the hotel, and rose when I went out as one's servant
rises. He sat there all day, and when he was given a job by
the porter of the hotel he said he was engaged. That evening
again he came in and asked for orders.
That went on for nearly a week. He refused to go up the
Nile with some rich Americans as dragoman on their daya-
beah, saying he was engaged to me. Eventually I asked him
what it all meant. The order has been given me," he said ;
I am the servant of the effendi. You will give me no wages,
but board and clothes-what I require only.
((
'To the English mind this was distracting, and I sought advice:
24
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
((
I went to Achmet Pasha, told him the whole story, and asked
him what he made of it. He did not seem in the least sur-
prised, and told me he had expected it. And if you do not
give him board and clothes," he said, he will starve. He
will take no other work. He refuses to be a medium for me
any longer. I think he is hungry already.”
""
Then he burst out quite unlike the courteous Achmet we
know. "Fool, fool!" he said. Abdul has had his orders,
cannot you understand that? He will black your boots, or
do anything you tell him, but he has had his orders, to serve
you, or to live with you as guest, or to go to the North
Pole with you. Only he has got to be with you. The Power
that he serves has commanded it.'
Sir Henry paused again, and again the wind tore at the
windows, like some distracted presence seeking admittance.
'He has been with me ever since on these terms,' he con-
tinued. 'I give him board and lodging and clothes, but he
will take no wages. He does the ordinary work of a valet
in a very efficient manner. And he is my constant medium :
through him I communicate, as I have told you, with the spirit
of my wife. For three years I have been in continual communi-
cation with her, hearing her voice speak to me, but no more
than that. And just now-an hour ago-Abdul has left me.'
'Is it impertinent to ask why?' said Henderson. If so,
I do not ask it.'
Then quite suddenly the wind fell entirely, and for the
moment there was a dead hush outside: it was as if the wind
itself listened.
No, not the least impertinent,' said Sir Henry. 'It is
because I am determined to go further, to meddle with the
forbidden thing, with what he calls Black Magic.'
He sprang up.
My God! my God!' he said, 'it is only her voice that he
can bring to me. And I would give my immortal soul for
the sight and the touch. Her—it is her I want to see again,'
he cried. 'A voice may be imitated-yes, that has often
occurred to me. And I am afraid of nothing if I can get
the complete realization of her presence. I will hear, I will
see, I will touch. Ah, deaf and blindfold, I shall know the
feel of her fingers. That will convince me : the sight of her
will convince me, and by any means I wish to be convinced.
Is not that a proper, a legitimate desire? And then I will
go down on my knees, and sob out my gratitude to the
eternal and invincible Spirit of Good!'
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
25
The passion that had lifted him upon his feet slowly sub-
sided again, and the wind that had subsided rose again from
crescendo through crescendo to a redoubled violence. In the
room the darkness of the noonday grew to a portent. A grayish
pallor of twilight, deepening in the corners and unlighted
places to blackness, seemed to be pouring in from the closed
windows, while outside in the garden the fronds of the palm-
trees raised agonized arms and let them fall again in terror,
moaning and sighing as they writhed and struggled in the grip
of the tempest.
Jim Henderson moved rather impatiently in his chair.
Parting with a faithful servant is always a painful thing,'
he said, ‘if the man has served you well, and particularly if
your servant has—has advanced you on the Way, if through
him you have been granted spiritual experiences.'
He paused a moment.
But the Way is so dominant, so autocratic in its demands,'
he said, that one has, so to speak, to kick ladders down
behind one, even when one is really attached to those ladders,
really grateful to them for their help hitherto if, in mixed meta-
phor, the ladder you have left behind, off which you have
now stepped, interferes with your further progress. Nothing
matters in comparison of truth and our knowledge of truth.
Abdul, if you will excuse my saying so, stands dead in the way
of your further progress, Sir Henry. He talked, for instance,
so you have told me, of Black Magic. That is hopeless. We
are all children in such matters; we none of us know. But if
we refuse to go forward, if we say, "It is dark; perhaps there
is a bogie there," we are worse than children: we are imbeciles.
And whatever one's quest, imbecility is for ever and ever the
one irredeemable sin. We can be wicked, and good may come
of it, but we cannot be foolish, and expect wisdom to be the
net result. Nor can we be cowards, and hope vaguely that our
act of cowardice may be the parent of bravery.
He got up with a quick, light movement, an agility which sug-
gested great physical strength in spite of his slim, slight figure.
'So you have dismissed Abdul,' he said, 'or, at any rate,
have accepted his own self-dismissal. I congratulate you. You
have probably, Sir Henry, never done a wiser thing, or a thing
more in accordance with your highest welfare. Now, personally
I fear nothing: I only want to know. Are you willing to take
hands with me, and come in search of knowledge? The
knowledge you want, as of course I see, is the knowledge, the
conviction, of the continuance and certain immutability of
26
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
love. Will you follow up whatever hints we may gain with
the ruthlessness of a bloodhound? I don't know any more
than you what will happen, but my theory is that all that
happens to us is consequent on action or thought of ours.
Will you, in fact, do and think without fear? We are going
to try a strange experiment in trying to raise the spirit of
Set-nekht and seeing what he can do for us. But chance or
fate has put into my hands this amulet, and I am going to see
if there is anything in it. The chances are that nothing will
happen. Well, if so, we shall have wasted our time. But
there is a chance that something may, in which case we may
possibly be running some risk. But, after all, what do you
and I matter ?'
This last question was to one of Sir Henry's tempera-
ment full of a moral compulsion. That life should be given
freely, be poured out like water, for the sake of the faintest,
bleared light of authentic truth was a commonplace to him.
According to his whole theory of existence, the individual
mattered so very little (especially if the individual in question
was one's self) compared to the smallest addition to the
precious pages of the book of spiritual knowledge. He
would, indeed, cheerfully have immolated himself on that
austere altar if he had been assured that from his ashes would
rise the faintest and most evanescent flame. And the appeal
itself, as made him by this man much younger than himself,
far more vigorous in the mere physical vitalities of life, made,
too, with such insouciance and disregard of self, was strangely
attractive to him. On the other side, it is true, was Abdul,
with his three years of devoted attendance and his extra-
ordinary psychical gifts. Yet here again the individual
weighed light: here was a further possibility within the
horizons-a possibility concerned not with the chance indi-
vidual, but with everlasting truth. And without pause he chose.
Fear is always evil,' he said, 'and if I hesitate it is from
fear. But I do not hesitate any longer. I will find what can
be found, I will learn what can be learned.'
He paused a moment.
But if we learn nothing from this,' he said, 'or if the
learning seem to me a traffic with or a concession to something
which is of evil origin, what Abdul calls Black Magic, at that
moment I will stop. And I will ask Abdul, I will entreat him,
to come back. Never yet have I seen so wonderful a controller,
but you tell me that more is possible. As I said to you last
night, then, I will seek with you.'
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
27
Henderson threw himself back in his chair with a certain
air of relief.
'I must honestly say I am extremely glad you have chosen
so,' he said, 'because, really, I came to Luxor on the chance of
your deciding to sit in séance with me. As you know, a
certain homogeneity in the circle produces results which are
unattainable if there is spiritual want of affinity, and I am
sure that you and I together can insure a very favourable
atmosphere. But-you will pardon me-I should suggest
that at our first experiment, when, in fact, we try to set the
Ka of Set-nekht free from the spell of the amulet, your
daughter should not be present. I fancy she holds somewhat
the same views about what Abdul would call Black Magic as
he does himself—the Abdul heresy, shall we call it? Her
presence, therefore, might perhaps interfere with our success.'
Sir Henry assented to this.
'I should have proposed that myself if you had not,' he said.
Indeed, I shall not let her know that any experiment is going
on, partly for the sake of the experiment, partly for hers.
As you say, she holds Abdul's views about Black Magic. For
that reason, I should suggest that we should, if possible, do it
quickly, before she could guess we have made any arrange-
ments.'
Henderson smiled.
'Indeed, there are very few to be made,' he said.
If, as
I suggest, the breaking of this amulet will cause the Ka of
Set-nekht to be loosed again—evidently he was a haunting
spirit-we merely want to get a medium, and visit with him
some spot which Set-nekht's Ka is likely to haunt, though we
may, of course, have to visit several. Somehow or other, any-
how, we ought, especially with a good medium, to hook on to
the Ka of Set-nekht. But you told me, I think, that the
statue of his Ka had been lately discovered. Where is it?'
'It is still-or it was yesterday-in the temple of Mut at
Karnak,' said Sir Henry.
'Clearly, then, that is a good place in which to try the
experiment,' said Henderson. 'We will go there this evening,
if that suits you.'
'Through this ?' said Sir Henry, pointing to the blinded day.
Henderson shrugged his shoulders.
I confess I am anxious to begin,' he said.
'Very well. There is a man here whom I have used as a
medium before, and, what is satisfactory, he has no fear
whatever of Black Magic. He is also extremely sensitive.'
28
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Henderson rose.
'I will leave you, then,' he said, ' as there are certain things
I want to think over, in order to give us the best possible
chance of success. I have left the amulet in my room, I find,
but I will show it you before this evening. I must also think
out what precautions we must take in case of—of an unusual
experience coming to us; for one wants, naturally, to run no
risks that can be avoided, though I tell you plainly I don't
personally feel as if I was going to embark on a dangerous
enterprise.'
He paused and looked out of the window.
'If one believed in spiritual agencies affecting external
Nature,' he said, 'one would be tempted to think that there
was something very uneasy going on to-day. By the way, Sir
Henry, have you a barometer ?'
Sir Henry stretched out his hand to a small leather case on
the table.
Yes I have not looked at it. I should not wonder if it
had gone down an inch.'
He opened it, and looked at it for a moment in silence.
'It is set fair,' he said. 'It has not stirred since yesterday
morning.'
Henderson chuckled.
'That is strange,' he said, 'because my barometer also
refuses to recognise the existence of this storm. I thought it
might be out of order. But what about yours? That would
be an odd chance, that yours was out of order too in some
precisely similar manner. So let us say we don't understand it.'
After Jim Henderson had gone, Sir Henry sat long in silent
thought, trying in his own mind to stifle something within
him (whether it was conscience or mere childish fear of the
dark he hardly knew) that cried out against the course to
which he had now committed himself. Again and again in
wild bursts of entreaty it besought him to have no part or
finger in this. 'Black Magic! Black Magic!' it shrieked to
him with the wild flutings of the wind. Yet when he sat down
and soberly examined the ground of his disquiet, behold,
there was nothing in the least degree reasonable there. There
was nothing more evil in the mere breaking of an antique
amulet than in the mixture of two drugs for a chemical experi-
ment. Some new potency, it may be, might be evolved
from it, just as some new by-product might be a chemical
result of the mixture of the drugs. And whatever else he was
he determined within himself not to be superstitious: a new
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
29
field of knowledge was conceivably being thrown open, yet he
feared to enter. Why? Because Abdul had pronounced that
the panic in the bazaar which he connected with the amulet of
Set-nekht was of the order of Black Magic. In the same way,
so Sir Henry now argued to himself, a savage, seeing for the
first time an express locomotive drawing its huge train of
carriages at speed hitherto inconceivable to him, would cer-
tainly pronounce this mere machine of steel and steam to be
some devil. When he knew more, however, he would know
that there was nothing whatever inherently evil about it: it,
to the more instructed, was only an application of natural laws
that were at work everywhere in the world and at every
minute: expansion produced by heat was but made a servant,
made to work within limits of steel.
The illustration when it occurred to him was consoling.
Abdul, an adept on his own lines, just as the savage might be
an adept in the throwing of boomerangs, was here confronted
with phenomena he knew nothing of, and he therefore labelled
them evil. How strongly Abdul felt that might be gauged from
his self-dismissal; but the parallel again held, for the savage
would indubitably run away from the vicinity of the train.
Sir Henry was naturally a man of almost transcendental
honesty, and he wished in this self-examination of the
motives that had led him to throw in his lot with Henderson,
and in the review he made of what lay before him, not
to stifle or extenuate anything. The first experiment he
and Henderson were going to make consisted merely of the
smashing of the amulet in séance, taking, it is true, as the scene
of the séance, some spot which the spirit might naturally be
supposed to have haunted before the amulet laid it. Yet
surely, if any innate scruple held them back from this, so that
he was conscious, as was the case, that he feared what might
come, it was nothing but superstition that prompted that
scruple. What, in fact, to proceed to the instance in point,
could be more superstitious than to suppose that this amulet-
this piece of glazed clay-was the repository of occult power?
To take a sane view, indeed, what, as the probabilities went,
could be more likely to destroy any latent germs of superstition
than to submit this to the test? He was to go that evening
to the temple where the Ka statue of Set-nekht had been
found, and in séance there to see broken an amulet which,
apparently, was made to lay the ghost of this three-thousand-
year-old dead. Then, supposing that any result was theirs,
what an addition to knowledge would be theirs also! On
30
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
this possibility he hardly dwelled: breaking a piece of clay
was all that might be definitely expected to occur, that and
the waiting to see what might conceivably follow. Sir Henry
guessed what would follow: the wind would whistle, the medium
would eventually be awakened, and would say 'Khalas,'
which means It is finished,' and they would ride back to
Luxor again, the medium, in all probability, insinuating that
his services were worth twenty-five instead of twenty piastres.
Again-it was harder now-Sir Henry was honest with
himself. Supposing by some remote, unheard-of chance the
breaking of the amulet was succeeded by some manifestation,
by some appearance or control, undreamt of except by him-
self and Henderson, what should be his next step? And
before he asked himself the question he knew the answer :
for every fibre of his being demanded one thing-the visible,
tangible materialization of his wife. As he had said, that to
him would be the solution of the bat-like doubts that so
constantly hovered round him, and by that his knowledge
of the eternity of love, of the futile nothingness of death,
would be crystallized and firm for ever. Whatever brought
him that certain knowledge could not be evil he would
invoke the aid of any potency to bring him that.
Then suddenly, with a pang almost of regret, of remorse,
his mind went back to the faithful servant who had left him
only this morning. Abdul had refused to stop longer with
him when he heard that he was going to attempt to meddle
with that force which, so he said, had caused the panic in
the bazaar at Cairo-the force, that is to say, resident in the
amulet. Yet how fantastic a suggestion: for the panic, Abdul
held, was a premonition. That instinctive terror of the crowd
was due to the fact that once again a black and deadly soul
would be recalled from silence and rest to its evil and haunting
activities. Abdul had, it is true, guessed the further step-that
is to say, that if the breaking of the amulet let loose on the
séance the ghost, uneasy again, of Set-nekht, Sir Henry would
go a step further, and ask, through the aid of that same power,
to see and touch his wife. So much he was determined to do ;
yet he did not at this moment hope for the possibility. He
believed-again honest-that the breaking of the amulet
would have no effect, that they might as well break a stone
from the roadside or a sprig of hibiscus. But if, if-
An interruption to his thoughts, not wholly unwelcome,
came at this moment, and Ida entered.
'I want Abdul,' she said. 'Is he not here? The hotel
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
31
We
people told me he was here. How stupid they are!
must counter-order all our plans for to-day and to-morrow.
No one could go out in this furnace of hot sand.
Oh, this
wind, it drives one mad! Where is Abdul, father?'
She sat down heavily in a seat, and pushed back her hair
from her forehead. In this uncertain light, this veiled and
bleared day, he could see but indistinctly, but she seemed to
him to look ill. Her eyes, too, those lakes of violet, were
dim and clouded, tired, and without their wonted lustre.
Where is Abdul?' she said again, getting no answer to
her question.
'Abdul gave me notice this morning,' said her father. 'I
suppose he has gone down to Cairo.'
Ida sprang up.
'And we are left alone here ?' she cried.
I, and the wind?
We, you and
Why did he go? Has he left us, do you
mean? And while this-this devilry is going on?'
Conscience or fear again startled her father.
Devilry?' he said.
'Yes, this wind, this haunting sense of the ominous,' she
cried, getting up and walking restlessly about. 'And Abdul
gone: I feel as if a shield, a protector, had been taken away.'
Sir Henry got up.
My dear Ida,' he said, going to her, 'do not give way
like this to moods which are entirely due to the weather.
Sirocco gets on the nerves of all of us, I suppose, but one
expects one's self as a responsible being to make an effort
not to behave like a child.'
But she hardly seemed to hear him, and shook her head,
still looking out of the window with fearful glance, as if
afraid of seeing some dreadful presence there.
'No, it is not that-it is not that,' she said.
Sir Henry looked at her a moment with a little anxiety.
Prey as she always was to the influences, benign or baleful,
of sun and storm, of cloud or dewy brightness of morning,
he had never seen Ida quite so far escaped from her own
control as this.
You are not ill, dear?' he asked; and again in a sort of
moan-
'No, it is not that—it is not that,' she answered him.
Before mid-day, however, the violence of the storm had a
good deal abated, and after lunch if was possible for Sir
Henry and Mr. Henderson to stroll out to tell the donkey-
32
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
boys that they would want animals that evening, and to
secure the medium. This latter was a young fellow of not
more than twenty, whose mediumistic powers Sir Henry had
learned on his first visit to Luxor, now three years ago.
Abdul had on this occasion tried him with the simple experi-
ment of the ink-mirror, and found him extraordinarily sensi-
tive to suggestion. Till this year Sir Henry had often
employed him, but a few weeks ago Abdul had detected him
in some small theft, and for that reason had refused to sit with
him any longer.
'He is not honest,' he had said, ‘and if he is not honest
over piastres, he is honest over nothing. A thief cannot help
us on the Way.'
Abdul-
But not long after the boy had made an appeal to Sir Henry.
'I stole,' he said, 'it is quite true, but I was hungry, and
my mother was dead. Oh, very wrong. But I can show
you more curious things than Abdul. And I swear by my
life and the life of my father I will not steal again.
Abdul, he hates me, because I can do more than him.'
Sir Henry could not resist a further inquiry: his own
opinion was that Abdul had been rather hard on the boy.
What can you do, Mohammed,' he asked, 'that Abdul
(
cannot ?'
The boy looked quickly round as if to see that no one else
was in hearing.
'I afraid of nothing-white
Abdul '-he waved his arms
'Abdul, he afraid,' he said.
or black, for it is all one.
scornfully- can do pretty little things for children. I show
you magic for men.'
At the time Sir Henry had merely laughed at this: it
was Arab all through, and as transparent as need be. But
later on certain confirmation of Mohammed's boasts had
occurred, for one night shrieks of terror had been heard from
the house where he lived, and a couple of Arabs had rushed
out terror-stricken, saying that he had raised an evil spirit,
who appeared with eyes as large as plates, and a face yellow
like the moon. Certain it was, at any rate, that they thought
they had seen something which frightened them nearly out
of their wits, and Abdul, when referred to, was quite serious
about it.
'It was the Black Magic,' he said.
Mohammed was found among the donkey-boys at the outer
gate of the hotel, where he was telling stories to the others
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
33
with dramatic gestures. But in answer to Sir Henry's beckon-
ing he sprang up amid cries of disappointment from his
audience, and jollowed him. Black Magician though he
might be, he was an extraordinarily engaging young fellow,
olive brown of complexion, with a laughing eye and a mouth
of shining ivory. He wore a crimson fez and a bright blue
gabardine, tied at the waist with a gold-embroidered sash.
'Abdul no good at all,' he remarked affably; 'he went away
by the train this morning. I see him off at station. Yes, sir.'
Henderson smiled back at the boy.
'So you raised the devil the other day, did you?' he said.
He doesn't seem to have been much damaged,' he added to
Sir Henry.
Mohammed grinned.
That was not magic,' he said confidentially.
I just made
dreadful eyes of orange-peel and stuck them here. Those
men they ran away, and I sat down and laughed. It was
what you call joke.
But when the business of the evening was made known to
him, Mohammed did not laugh at all, in spite of his avowed
indifference to all colours of magic.
'I not like that temple,' he said. 'No Arab would go
there after dark. There are ghosts there, real ghosts, not
like mine.'
'I thought you weren't afraid of anything, Mohammed ?'
said Sir Henry.
Mohammed shifted from one foot to the other, still shaking
his head, and Henderson made the right suggestion at the
right moment.
呀
​We shall have to send for Abdul again, then,' said he.
The Arab flushed under his brown skin, and spat on the
ground.
'I will come with you,' he said.
The storm showed further signs of abating, and before
sunset the wind had died down to only a breeze, and behind
the gray clouds the sun itself was faintly visible, but pale
and unluminous, like a plate of tin. But the violence of the
morning tempest, and her jangled nerves, had given Ida a
really severe headache, and when the two men returned to
the hotel, they found she was lying down. Sir Henry, how-
ever, went to see her in her darkened room.
'Poor dear child!' he said, 'but you will soon be better
The wind has almost ceased: it has blown itself out.'
now:
3
34
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Ida turned uneasily on her sofa.
'Yes, but it is coming on again worse than ever,' she said.
'I feel it coming it will be an awful night.'
'My dear,' said her father, it really is clearing up extra-
ordinarily. We have been out. Besides 'he hesitated a
moment—' the barometer is quite high.'
(
It will come back,' said the girl again. 'I know better
than the barometer.'
She sat up with a dismal little laugh.
And this headache is all my own fault,' she said,
$ for
allowing myself to get agitated. But when Sirocco comes I
feel I can't help it. Yet I suppose if I sat down and did
needlework, and took some long breaths, I should not get
in such a state. But I am rather better and I think I can
go to sleep a bit.'
You won't come down to dinner, dear ?' asked her father.
'No, I think I shall have something up here. I dare say I
shall be all right again to-morrow. I haven't done any medi-
tation to-day. But I could no more concentrate my thoughts
than I could fly.'
'Don't attempt it,' said her father. Spare yourself all
effort for to-day. You are sure to be better to-morrow
morning. Good-night, dear.'
He kissed her gently on the forehead, and left her.
CHAPTER III
ABOUT the time of sunset the wind ceased altogether, yet no
relief came to the hideous oppression and heat of the air.
Clouds gray and leaden-coloured obscured the sky, and the
sun setting behind them flushed the West with a coppery glare.
Yet no coolness nor refreshing breeze from the North succeeded,
as was usual, to the lulling of the wind; only a stifled and un-
natural calm sat heavy over the earth—a calm, it seemed, out
of which must burst some terrific convulsion of forces.
Ida, as she had arranged, had a little food sent up to her
room, and Sir Henry and Jim Henderson dined alone. Now
that the hour was approaching, the former at least felt a
certain nervousness and foreboding of evil growing like some
night-reared mushroom in his mind, but, sensibly enough, put
it down to this oppression of the air. Just before dinner he had
examined the amulet with which the experiment was to be
made, and had come to the conclusion, being expert in these
antiquities, that it was beyond all doubt genuine, and, as far
as his knowledge went, unique. This latter fact he felt bound
to tell his companion: a hundred-pound note was certainly
being thrown on the altar of investigation.
Indeed, my dear Henderson,' he said, 'I cannot really
consent to take part in this, unless you will be so good as to
let me purchase it from you first at what, as far as I can judge,
is a fair price.
Jim Henderson laughed.
I gave twenty piastres for it,' he said; 'I am perfectly
willing to accept ten from you if you wish, and we will thus
go halves. In fact, Sir Henry, if you will pay for my donkey
this evening, our score will be cleared.'
The British Museum would give you certainly eighty
pounds for this,' said the other; it is, as I say, unique, and of
remarkable workmanship, wonderful glaze, and most beauti-
fully engraved.'
35
3-2
36
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
'Ah, but in no case should I have taken it to the British
Museum,' said Henderson; 'whether you had been here or
not, I should have broken it. Ten piastres is all my conscience
will let me accept. Now, would you read it, please, to see if
my reading agrees with yours.'
The amulet was some four inches long and hexagonal in
shape, of most brilliant colour, and very beautifully engraved,
with the exquisite neatness of the work of the eighteenth
dynasty. Sir Henry drew a sheet of paper to him, and very
carefully made a transcription of the hieroglyphics. Five
minutes more sufficed for the translation, and after running
over it once more he read aloud :
Set-nekht, overseer of the gardens and heifers of Amen,
and chief over the slaves of Amen, and steward of the King
Seti, who lives for ever, and builder of his temples.
Seeing that the ghost of Set-nekht is unquiet, and haunts
those that were his friends and those of his house, behold they
have made great sacrifice of sheep and oxen to the number of
a hundred in the precinct of the temple of the lake, so that his
ghost may have peace, and be stayed from wandering. There-
fore, as long as this stone shall endure there shall be rest to
his spirit.
And if this stone cease to endure, then shall he be
unquiet again until love has made light of death, and is stronger
than death.'
Sir Henry read this, then got up quickly.
The temple of the lake,' he cried, that is where we are
going to-night: that is where they found his Ka statue only
a few days ago! It is the temple of Mut in the horseshoe
lake, of which also Set-nekht was the architect. Henderson,
Henderson, what may not be before us ?'
Henderson whistled low to himself.
By Jove, we are in luck!' he said. 'His ghost was laid in
the temple where we propose to raise it again? His Ka
statue is there too? Certainly one could not have better
conditions.'
He got up rather excitedly, and walked up and down the
room, lighting a cigarette and throwing it away again.
Now tell me what your arrangements for the séance are to
be,' said Sir Henry.
I mean to take all possible precautions,' he said. Sup-
posing, supposing that we do succeed in materializing his
spirit, we shall have to deal with something strange, I expect.
Of course, it is a million to one chance against us. Still,
there is that one chance, and, by Jove! I mean to make the
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
37
most of it. Well, we shall all three of us be in the circle, and
if crux ansata and Swastikas and Pentagrams-everything, in
fact, which evil spirits are supposed to find hard to cross-are
of any use, we shall be safe enough.
He paused a moment.
'Now, Sir Henry,' he said, 'I neither wish myself to run
any risks, nor that you should run them. Therefore I ask you
to obey me implicitly. After I have made the circle, which I
shall make close to the Ka statue, we shall all three-you,
Mohammed and I get inside it. Then we shall get the medium
into trance, and as soon as there is any sign of spiritual
presence I shall smash the amulet, and call on Set-nekht.
But from that circle you do not step till Mohammed is abso-
lutely and completely out of his trance.'
Sir Henry lit a cigarette, and his companion noticed that
his hand was trembling slightly.
'But all this, the circle, the signs, do you believe in it?'
he asked.
'I believe that we may be going to embark on an unknown
sea,' said Henderson; at least, it is for that possibility we
are going to the temple on this deadly night. Let us, then, be
provisioned for all sorts of contingencies. You may say that
it is impossible that cabalistic signs are of any use. I, in the
same spirit, would answer you that it is impossible to raise
this spirit. But as we think it worth while to try the one,
we had better try the other also.'
This, too, Sir Henry considered.
'I may
may ask questions ?' he said.
By all means—as many as you like.'
It was soon after dinner that they set off on their two-mile
ride for the temple in the horseshoe lake just outside Karnak.
Mohammed, rather grave and nervous, was waiting for them
outside the hotel gate, and they mounted their donkeys, he
walking close to them, with head muffled against the wind,
which had begun to blow fitfully again. But they could
scarcely urge the beasts out of a foot's pace, and the heaviness
and heat of the air was such that even at this leisurely going
the sweat poured down Sir Henry's face. Soon they passed
outside the village, where, though it was still but little after
eight, no one seemed to be abroad, and emerged on to the raised
road between the low-lying fields. Though so heavy a blanket
of clouds overset the sky, it was strange how much light filtered
from the stars through that opaque covering, and objects
many yards from them were distinctly visible. Then in due
38
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
course they passed the English cemetery, where white grave-
stones lamented over the exiled dead, and, turning soon after
to the right, crossed the strip of dried mud, curled like pancakes
newly fried, that fringed the horseshoe lake, which lay gray
and still before them, and went up the steep path to the outer
courtyard of the temple. Round it, the result of recent ex-
cavations, were rows of cat-headed statues, similar to that by
which they had dined in the Luxor garden the night before,
sitting there grave and dark, like a congregation turned to
stone, waiting for some magician-priest to wake them into
life again. Just outside this courtyard they left their donkeys
with the two donkey-boys, and the three entered the actual
precincts of the temple.
Sir Henry led the way through this courtyard into the
temple itself, followed by the others. The statue of which
they were in search had been last seen by him on the outside
bank of the promontory facing the lake, but they found it had
been moved, no doubt by the Museum authorities, into the
temple itself, where it now stood in the centre of the inner
courtyard.
Sir Henry pointed to it.
This is it,' he said to Henderson.
Mohammed had said nothing whatever during the passage
from Luxor, but here he suddenly covered his face in his
hands.
'I am afraid-I am afraid,' he said. 'Something is
coming. Make the circle quickly, effendi, and make it safe
twice over.'
Henderson gave a short laugh.
'Rather eerie, isn't it?' he said, glancing round. 'And
so that's Set-nekht. Well, we've come to wake you up, old
man,' he added, with a ghastly sort of gaiety. You've had
a long sleep.'.
Eerie it certainly was-a scene of awful and antique desola-
tion. The temple had been very much destroyed, and the
walls of the temple building into which they had now passed
were at the utmost not more than eight or ten feet in height.
Down the centre ran a double row of broken lotus-columns about
the same height; by the gate through which they had entered
from the outer court stood, one on each side, two gigantic
cat-headed figures, one much perished and defaced, and looking
like some deformed and mutilated animal. The floor had not
been as yet completely cleared, and drums of columns lay
about, while close to the Set-nekht statue was a group of four
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
39
hideous statues of baboons, erect on their hind-legs, carved in
black granite, about six feet in height, which seemed in this
dim light to be executing some sort of infernal minuet. But
of all the traces there of a bygone and mysterious ritual, the
statue of Set-nekht himself was the most terrific. He knelt
grasping an altar in his arms, and a cruel, sensual face smiled
above it-a face full of the knowledge of dreadful things,
strong and satyr-like. And round them was the desolate
emptiness of sand, a hot and windless calm broken from time
to time with a sudden buffet of air that seemed to come from
nowhere, a pallor of dim light.
Henderson examined the statue a moment longer, after his
rather grimly humorous salutation of it, and then with a
trowel proceeded to his work. The earth was soft and sandy,
and he dug a circular trench some three yards in diameter.
Round it in the sand he cut the symbols across which and
between which no malignant spirit may pass, and as he worked
the sweat poured from him. Ever apt and quick with his hands,
the mystical signs were carved with extraordinary speed and
nimbleness, and as he worked he talked to himself with the
same rather ghastly gaiety with which he had addressed the
statue.
Yes, crux ansata at the corner,' he said, 'so that, if the old
man thinks he can get in there, he is jolly well mistaken.
Then he'll go on, and find a couple of Swastikas stopping his
way there, and, really, if he's at all like his statue, we don't
want him inside. He doesn't look a very pleasant old fellow,
does he, Sir Henry? Perhaps his sleep may have put him in
a better mood, provided he doesn't get out of bed the wrong
side.'
'Ah, don't, don't,' said Sir Henry suddenly. I can't jest
about it.'
Henderson resumed his work in silence, and toiled on for
some minutes. Then he looked carefully at what he had done,
and got up.
That is enough,' he said.
Sir Henry stood by while this was going on, struggling with
himself. The thought of Abdul, the thought of all the simple
and gracious manifestations he had seen with him, the thought
of Abdul's horror of all this sort of thing, this black work,
pulled one way, but on the other side was knowledge, the possi-
bility of learning something new, and behind all and above all
the possibility of seeing his wife. That was the predominant
factor, and for years he had indulged that wish so passionately
40
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
that the truth was that nothing now had really power to hold
him back. And he acquiesced in going through with it, come
what might.
The voice of Henderson again roused him.
We will step inside,' he said in a most matter-of-fact
tone, as if he were referring to a house or a paddock, ´ and
you do not move outside, Sir Henry, till you receive my
spoken permission. I have your promise.'
Then he turned to Mohammed.
Sit down there,' he said, ' and look steadily at my eyes.'
Again there was absolute silence, and two or three minutes
passed. Then Mohammed's eyes closed suddenly, and his
head dropped forward.
Take his hand and mine,' said Henderson to Sir Henry.
Again dead silence: then suddenly Mohammed began
moaning softly to himself, and his slow breathing changed to
sudden short pants for breath, as if he was pursued or was
frightened.
It is coming, it is coming!' he said, his voice rising sud-
denly into a scream.
There was a sudden stir in the air, and, though they still
sat in windlessness, some current high above them began
tearing the clouds asunder, and the whole scene grew gradually
lighter, as the stars began to appear through the torn fleeces
of the clouds. The walls of the temple, covered with hiero-
glyphics and bas-relief, stood out plainly; the ape-statues
grew more grotesquely horrible, as they faced each other for
their dreadful dance; and close beside them, just outside the
circle, leered and grinned the cruel features of Set-nekht.
Then there was a sudden sound as if from somewhere close
beside them, muffled hands were clapped together, and a
sharp, angry voice near them said a couple of words which
neither recognised.
At that Henderson took the amulet out of his pocket,
dropping hands with Sir Henry, laid it on a stone, and with
the handle of his trowel hit it with all his force. Twice
it resisted his blows, only jumping from the stone where
it was laid, but the third blow shivered it to atoms.
*
*
*
*
Ten minutes after they had left the hotel, Ida came down-
stairs. Her headache had gone, but she was feeling un-
accountably tired and heavy, and preferred to sit for a little
while in the garden, to catch any wandering breath of coolness
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
41
that might be stirring. On her way out she inquired for her
father, and learned that he and Henderson had not long ago
set off for a ride.
At this she went, not into the garden, but to the gate of
the hotel, where a few donkey-boys were squatting, and asked
if anyone knew where her father and the other gentleman had
gone, intending, perhaps, to go out a little way to meet them.
She was answered at once.
'To horseshoe lake with Mohammed. Oh, Black Magic!
You take my donkey, lady.'
And next moment she was cantering after them, bareheaded,
tired and oppressed no longer, but full of terror, a nameless
terror that would not be put into words.
*
*
*
*
*
In the temple after the smashing of the amulet, there was
silence again, except for the low moaning of Mohammed.
Then again came the beating of muffled hands. This time
they were much louder, and again a babble of strange words
sounded from close at hand. For the moment Henderson
thought he recognised one or two of them. Then Sir Henry
spoke.
Who is with us ?' he said. 'Be seen, whoever you are.'
He heard Henderson take a sudden deep breath, and saw
that his eyes were fixed on the statue of Set-nekht, which
stood outside their circle, between it and the gate into the
courtyard. Sir Henry turned his head to where Henderson
was looking.
Behind the statue there shone a faint radiance, coming, it
would seem, from a bright spot invisible to them. The light,
whatever it was, did not give the impression of being fresh or
clear it looked stale and impure. This grew slowly brighter,
and slowly in the illuminated air there began to form white
vaporous lines, intertwining with each other, and growing
every moment more distinct. Simultaneously, even while
they watched, there sounded the dry pattering of hoofs not
far away.
Every moment the hoofs sounded nearer, every moment
the shifting intertwining white lines began to take form.
The body, tall, a woman's body, grew rapidly more definite
in this boil and whirl of dim light; arms bare to the shoulder
were stretched out on each side of it: then above came a
face, framed in golden hair, violet-eyed.
42
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Sir Henry took one long breath and sprang up. Round
the gate of the courtyard there ran in a white-clad figure,
crying 'Father, father!' Then Henderson's tones rang out
peremptory and stern.
'Don't for your life go outside, Sir Henry,' he cried:
But Sir Henry heard nothing: he saw only that smiling and
beloved face; with the cry of the lover joined again to his
beloved, he sprang towards it, as it held its arms out to
him.
Then the phantom face changed suddenly, the curves of
that beautiful mouth grew fierce and sneering and sensual,
the eyes started and leered inwards in a horrible squint; the
whole face was a mask of virulent evil, the replica of the face
of that statue behind which it appeared, but vastly more
terrible, more potent, more vitally evil.
Then Henderson saw Sir Henry throw his arms out as if
to keep off that dreadful vision, and next moment he fell
forwards, as Ida, with a stifled cry, went on her knees before
his prostrate body.
Henderson shook Mohammed by the shoulder with both
hands and wrestled with him like a man demented.
'Wake, wake!' he screamed. 'Wake! it is done it is
finished!' and again he shook and tore at him.
Mohammed gave one long shiver that passed through all
his limbs, and his drooped head raised itself.
'It is finished,' he said, rubbing his eyes.
At the moment that the boy came out of trance the
phantom figure vanished, and Henderson sprang outside the
circle to the two who were there.
Ida was bending over her father, kneeling by him, in the
attitude in which she had flung herself by him as she rushed
through the gateway of the courtyard. But her eyes were
bent not on him, but were directed upwards and inwards
towards the place where the terrible face had been. At that
first moment, when Henderson took one step to them, she
seemed half dazed, her hands groped blindly in the sand, and
she looked, not at her father, seeming not to know he was
there, but upwards and inwards, squinting frightfully. As
for him, he lay prone, face downwards; he had barely, it
appeared, crossed the circle; one foot, bent under him, was
outside it, the other was still inside. But instantaneously
Ida came to herself, and her blind groping fingers sought her
father: her eyes for the first time looked at him.
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
43
Ah, Mr. Henderson, what has happened? What is it?'
she cried.
Suddenly the wind that had sounded only overhead came
nearer. The defeated battalions of clouds fled from the
face of the sky, and the glorious company of stars shone
out. The crescent moon had an added lustre as of day,
the white temple showed clear in that wonderful twilight
of night; and clearer and more ghastly the black baboons
trod their measure, and clearest of all leered and grinned the
stone mask of the temple's architect. Mohammed, now com-
pletely awakened from his deep trance, was the cheerful,
merry Arab again.
We go back now?' he asked. 'Will the effendi give me fifty
piastres? There was very good magic to-night. I am tired!'
'Go and fetch the donkeys in here at once, Mohammed,'
said Henderson.
Sir Henry lay face downwards on the ground; Henderson
turned him on his back and felt his pulse, and in answer to
an unasked question he replied to Ida.
'Not dead nor anything like it!' he said. 'He has fainted
merely. He had a shock, a surprise. Where are we?
Where is the lake? Yes, lay him flat. Now a little water!'
He climbed over the high wall and ran down the steep bank
to the lake. Then he filled his hat with water, came back
and dashed it over Sir Henry's face. For a moment they
waited in silence. Then he stirred, and suddenly sat up.
Where am I? What is happening?' he asked.
Henderson was close beside him, and as his eyes began
to search again for the familiar objects of life, he stood up,
screening from him the statue of Set-nekht.
'You fell, Sir Henry,' he said. 'You tripped over some stone.'
Sir Henry looked round vacantly for a moment.
You here, Ida ?' he said.
Then his voice rose sharply.
You were inside ?' he cried. 'Tell me you were inside.'
Ida looked across him at Henderson, who nodded to her.
'Yes, dear,' she said, 'I was inside. It is all right. Really
it is all right.'
Her father sat where he was a moment longer breathing
heavily.
'Let us go back, then,' he said.
He rose slowly, as if stiff. Then his eye fell on the inscrut-
able, grinning statue.
44
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
'You devil! you devil!' he cried, and suddenly losing all his
self-control as the memory of the horror that had preceded
his unconsciousness came on him in full flood, he beat with
his hand on the statue's face.
And Mohammed-where is Mohammed?' he shrieked.
'What has happened? I saw her, and it was not she. It
was something else, something terrible that hates me. Ida,
you were inside ?' he cried.
For a moment she turned a bewildered, hopeless glance
on Henderson. Then her courage and her woman's instinct
came to her aid.
Yes, dear father,' she said. 'We were all inside-we
were all—all safe,' she hazarded at a guess, and looked for
confirmation to Mr. Henderson. And to his nod of approval
she continued.
You have dreamed something, father,' she said. 'Nothing
happened; indeed, there was nothing. Ask Mr. Henderson,
ask Mohammed. Ah, here is Mohammed with the donkeys.'
That cheerful jingling of bells and trappings perhaps did
more to restore Sir Henry than any words could have done.
But a moment after there was not one of them but started
and cowered, for with a shriek and scorching heat, for all that
the stars beamed so coolly overhead, the full force of the
sirocco was again upon them. Sheltered though it was by
its high banks, this horseshoe lake grew white with foam,
and a cloud of sand, palpable as a man's hand, drove over
the temple. In a moment the clear starlight was expunged,
the air was thick as Thames-valley fog, smarting, too, and
biting to the skin with the driven sand. All earth and
heaven vanished in that maniacal storm: to attempt to see
meant a blinding, and of hearing there was nothing possible;
for the wild shriek of the maddened air drowned all else.
Darkness as of the nether pit obscured everything, and they
felt their way to the shelter of the gate of the temple courtyard.
Of them all, as they fought their way back to the village,
Sir Henry was the only one who seemed to suffer nothing
from the unspeakable uproar. Sheets of rain, hot and
steaming, a portent to this latitude, swept the earth, turning
their road into liquid mud. Lightning flickered above them,
and thunder replied, instantaneous and deafening. More
than Sirocco was loose:
Drenched and blinded they arrived at length at the hotel
All round the entrance lanterns were swinging, half
door.
1
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
45
of them every moment extinguished, and the next moment
relit. The whole population of the village was huddled
together, it seemed, to await their return, and panic reigned
there. Some mysterious force was abroad, the muttering,
frightened crowd showed that, and when they arrived, it
was as if some storm-wrecked vessel had, almost beyond
expectation, gained the hardly-won beach. That mysterious
terror had spread beyond the Arabs, and mixed with the
crowd were English visitors waiting out in the pouring
tempest to see them return. For, in the secret, inexplicable
way of the bazaars and the crowded villages of the Nile,
they had hardly been gone half an hour before it was known
throughout all Luxor that some dark incantation was on
foot in the temple of Mut, and though none dared stir a step
out on the road, yet none dared go to bed until that mysterious
ritual, whatever it was, was over.
But at the sight of them returned, the whole crowd broke
out into sobbing relief, broken phrases of thanksgiving, and
prayers for the averting of evil. Even as at the eclipse of
the moon, half the men assembled there carried drums and
rude wind instruments, which they beat and blew for the
frightening away of the malignant agencies that all knew
were abroad to-night. Mohammed had melted away into
the crowd of natives, willing to wait, apparently, for his
wages till the morrow, and Sir Henry, getting stiffly off his
donkey, walked rather unsteadily into the hotel, leaning on
Henderson's arm, and followed by Ida. She looked deathly
pale and tired, but, so thought Henderson, strangely unmoveď.
She showed, it seemed to him, no more concern or anxiety
for her father, her mouth even had a bitter little smile on
it, and her eyes, an effect, no doubt, of the dancing crooked
shadows cast by this crowd of lantern-bearers, seemed to
him to be strangely expressionless. Also they did not look
quite straight in front of her, but a little inwards.
They had come to the door of the hotel itself, still in silence,
when suddenly up the mimosa avenue from the river came
the sound of steps running swiftly. Next moment a man in
a black gabardine, drenched to the skin, threw himself at
Sir Henry's feet.
Pardon, pardon!' he cried; 'I have sinned, I have erred
from the way, I left you in anger, effendi. You are safe ?
You are safe? I should never have gone-oh, I should never
have gone.'
Sir Henry looked at him quietly.
46
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
'So you have come back, Abdul,' he said.
He passed his hand over his forehead, frowning.
'There was something I wanted to say, Henderson,' he
said, but I can think of nothing to-night. I am so fright-
fully tired. Good-night. Good-night, Ida.'
But Ida made no reply, and stood there, quite still. Hender-
son looked at her a moment, then followed Sir Henry down
the passage to his room. But Abdul, whose eyes had fallen
on her, remained where he was, his breath coming and going
quickly, and blanched to an awful pallor below his brown
skin, looking at her with some speechless, nameless terror.
Then Ida took a step towards him, and spoke very quietly.
Abdul . . .,' she said, 'I had gone to fetch him home, and I
was outside the circle in which they were sitting. And just
as I came to him, It, whatever it was, turned and looked at
me; and that look,' she said, touching her forehead, 'entered
here. It was cold and hot together, and black.'
Still Abdul said nothing, but looked at her with the same
terror and an entreating tenderness.
'It was nothing,' he said, stammering.
nothing.'
The girl shook her head.
'Indeed it was
'I feel half stunned,' she said. 'I shall want to see you
in the morning. And I think I must ask you to give me your
arm. I am so tired I can hardly move.'
At her door she turned to him.
'Good-night, Abdul,' she said.
The door closed behind her, and in his drenched clothes he
stood in the passage. Then he lay down quietly across her
door, so that none could enter. All night he lay there, never
closing his eyes, but below his breath all night he whispered
the name of God with ceaseless iteration.
Morning dawned soft, warm, and incredibly calm all the
portentous riot and tumult of the wind and storm was over,
clear blue sky was spread from horizon to horizon, and a light
north wind blew up the river; only the wreckage of trees, the
beaten-down plants, and stripped stems spoke of the blind
furies that had swept over the earth. And even as it was
but a few hours' work for the gardeners to restore order to
the paths and sweep away the broken fragments of leaves
and branches, so for the mercurial, merry people of Egypt
a little conversation in scattered groups was soon sufficient
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
47
to carry away that strange panic and fear that had run through
the village the night before. Thoroughly characteristic, too,
was it of Mohammed, that he was one of the earliest to wait
at the hotel gate for the exit of any of his party, since last
night he had really quite forgotten to get his pay. He was
ready, too, this morning to bargain, to wheedle, and if neces-
sary to hint dark things to any extent, in order to secure as
much as could possibly be extracted from the English lord.
Of what had happened the night before he had very little
remembrance: he knew only that before he had gone into
trance he had been most hideously conscious of some very
imminent presence and peril, and that on returning to it
he had the sensation of being dragged back from some im-
mense distance out of some frightful horror of darkness. So
this morning his common-sense told him that there was very
strong magic present, and the stronger the magic,' thought
Mohammed to himself, the more should be the piastres.'
He had just arrived at the agreeable conclusion, when
Abdul came out of the hotel enclosure and looked round.
Seeing the boy, he beckoned him inside.
'Take it,' he said—'take the wages of blackness. But if
ever you speak to the effendi or to the lady again, I will kill
you. I will kill you with my hands, strangling you, you dog!'
And he dropped into Mohammed's hands five English
sovereigns, turned his back on him, and went again into the
hotel.
Now, Mohammed's wildest dreams of avarice had not con-
ceived this golden result: in his most sanguine moments he
had only gone so far as to suppose a fifth part of the sum was
within the possibilities, and, Arab-like, restless and never con-
tented, he sought counsel within himself as to what this could
mean, and, since this fortune had dropped into his hands with-
out any effort on his part, he considered whether, since money
was so plentiful to-day, he could not manage to increase his
own share in such amplitude of wealth. Never before in all
his sittings with Sir Henry had more than a tithe of this been
his pay for much longer hours, and he argued that perhaps
the new gentleman was the benefactor. This was ingenious,
and also fell out conveniently, since Abdul was a person not
given to speaking lightly, and Mohammed had not the
slightest desire to meet his doom. So, with all this spinning
in his brain, and his five pounds already securely tied up in
a corner of his vest, he sat down again, prepared, if necessary,
48
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
to wait all day for the chance of a word with the new English
gentleman.
By degrees the hotel began to stir and emerge scenes of
indescribable riot and confusion over doubly-ordered donkeys
occurred at the gate, and to east and west, and south and
north, the visitors rode off for their day's amusement or
exploration. Some were going to Karnak, others across the
river, others to see the newly-discovered statue of Set-nekht
in a small temple at the horseshoe lake. But Mohammed's
eyes he having successfully sub-let his donkey for the day
-were ever fixed on the gate, waiting for the advent of the
new Englishman. At length, among the rest, came familiar
figures: Sir Henry and Ida came out together, Henderson was
walking a few paces behind them, and last of all, bearing a
basket of lunch, came Abdul. Sir Henry started slightly as
he met the young Arab's black glance, but he passed down
to the river without speaking to him. Ida passed him, too,
without apparently seeing him: then came Henderson, whose
eye Mohammed caught. But at the moment Sir Henry
turned and said something to his friend, and all three went on
together. But Mohammed did not move: some swift sense
told him that Henderson wished to speak to him, and he sat
there looking down the road where they had gone. Nor had
he to wait long in a couple of minutes Henderson came
back alone, and beckoned him out of the throng of tourists
and donkey-boys into the hotel garden.
‘Be here this evening, Mohammed,' he said, 'and wait till
I come. I may get out soon after dinner, but I may be late.
Anyhow, wait till I come. I shall have another job for you.
Yes, sir,' said Mohammed. And will you pay me for last
night? Last night I went home without the backsheesh. I
was tired.'
Henderson felt in his waistcoat pocket, and produced a
sovereign.
You can earn more than that if you are good,' he said.
You did very well last night.'
And he turned again and went quickly after the others.
Truly it was Tom Tiddler's ground this morning, and
Mohammed tied his added riches in a different corner of his
vest, and swaggered out again among the donkey-boys.
'That is my friend, and he is the richest lord in England,'
he said. 'He will take me to England when he goes back,
and give me a horse to ride, and a wife to cook my dinner.
I shall drink wine, too, every day. Then next year I shall
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
49
come out to Luxor and beat the dirty little heads of all the
donkey-boys with my gold stick.'
The others meantime were sailing across the Nile to the
sand-bank on the other side, where their donkeys were waiting
for them. A cool and crisp north wind blew gently upstream,
but with force enough to send their light boat along at a pace
which made rowing unnecessary, and caused the severed
water to rise in a little feathery frill at the bow. A wonderful
sunlight was overhead, caressing and mellow, and seeming
almost to penetrate the landscape of hills, desert, and growing
crops. Father, daughter, and guest had all met at break-
fast that morning in the garden, congratulated themselves
on this delicious change in the weather, and quite naturally
arranged to take their proposed expedition of the day before
to the temple of Deir-el-Bahari. Sir Henry in particular
was completely his courteous, equable self, affectionate to
his daughter and charming to his guest. Ida, too, found,
apparently, no obstacle in the road of normal behaviour, but
all the time she was conscious that somewhere deep inside
her, as if it had soaked in during the night and left the surface,
there was some secret spot of horror. She knew, too, that
Abdul's eye as he served them was drawn back again and
again to her, and that he watched her anxiously. None
alluded directly or indirectly to the scene of the evening
before by tacit consent it was buried. Yet all the time
each knew that it must some time have its resurrection :
none, however, could face the discussion of it at once.
:
The temple of Deir-el-Bahari lies on the edge of the desert,
and rises in three terraces against a great cliff of red-gray
limestone that separates the plain in which it stands from
the valley of the Tombs of the Kings. Excavation was in
progress there, and some while before the party got to it
they could see that an excitement of some sort was going on,
for the workmen were all collected at one spot, swarming and
running to and fro about it, like ants when their hill is dis-
turbed. Coming closer, they could hear the confused murmur
of many voices talking at once, punctuated now and then by
the authoritative tones of some overseer.
Ida had been riding in front with Henderson, who was
asking her a question or two about the temple they were
coming to see. Their donkeys, great white animals, stand-
ing almost as high as an English cob, were much faster than
4
50
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
those of Sir Henry and Abdul, and their steady lobbing canter
had far outdistanced the others. They had but lately
noticed how far they were ahead, and had just reined up to
a walking pace.
It was built by King Seti,' Ida was saying in reply, and
is full of most interesting things. In one of the halls is
carved the story of the expedition he sent to the land of Punt,
and there are pictures on the walls showing the embarkation
of his boats, bringing back with them heaps of frankincense,
and apes, and bars of gold, and giving in exchange beads and
necklaces, just as people barter now with savages. That is
on the second terrace. As you see, there are three.'
And who built the temple?' asked he.
(
architect ?'
Ida looked straight in front of her.
Who was the
'It dates chiefly from Queen Hatasoo,' she said. The
architect, I believe, was called-no, I forget his name. But the
really interesting thing about it is the work of a man called
Set-nekht, and it is in the chamber where his life and deeds
are recorded that all the crowd are working now. Perhaps
they have found something. It would be odd- And she
stopped suddenly. Let us wait for my father here.'
But before they had waited very long, they saw a man in
English dress riding swiftly towards them in the direction
of Luxor. He recognised Ida and drew rein for a moment.
Good-morning, Miss Jervis,' he said. 'There has been
an accident, I am sorry to say, and a column has just fallen
in the hall of Set-nekht, pinning two workmen underneath it.
I am riding to get a doctor. One is killed, I am afraid.'
And he put his donkey into a canter again and rode on.
Ida had answered nothing, but Henderson looking at her,
saw that her breath came and went quickly, and that her
teeth were tight closed on her lower lip as if to control a cry
that almost escaped her, and they waited in silence till Sir
Henry and Abdul joined them.
Henderson explained what had happened, and without
another word, but only a speechless avoidance of the looks of
each other-for each knew well what was in the minds of them
all, and shunned to see the suggestion in the eye-they turned
back again. Then after a time Sir Henry recovered himself,
enough, at any rate, to find speech.
It would have been impossible to go there, Mr. Henderson,
would it not, after-after all that has happened?' he said;
'but if you wish you can visit Medinet. Personally I think,

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51
if you will not consider me rude, I shall go back to Luxor. It
is rather upsetting, and I do not feel quite myself this morning.
But I hope you will take an expedition with my daughter and
Abdul : it is a pity that you should lose so beautiful a day.'
Abdul cast one glance of a sort of mingled hatred and
terror at Henderson.
'I go back to Luxor with you, Sir Henry,' he said bluntly:
Henderson's excellent adroitness bridged over this rather
awkward moment.
'Of course, of course,' he said; 'and you, Miss Ida? I see
you are terribly affected too, and no wonder. Now may I
take a little lunch from your basket, and with my Baedeker
explore Medinet, and anything else neighbouring. I assure
you I shall enjoy a day of quiet study; you have no idea how
terribly ignorant I am of these antiquities. And to-morrow
I hope we may perhaps all make an expedition together,
when I shall be perhaps a rather less backward pupil.'
He chattered on with great tact and naturalness, until
he had definitely parted from them, they taking the road
back to Luxor. Then, followed by the donkey-boy, he
cantered off towards the temple in which he was to spend
the day of quiet study.
His proceedings subsequently, however quiet they might
be, were not immediately studious. As soon as he was out
of sight of the rest of the party, he stopped his donkey, found
a convenient yard or two of shade beneath some bushes of
tamarisk, removed some awkward fragments of stone, and,
stretching himself comfortably on the sand, proceeded to
think. He had plenty of food for thought, and that rather
rare gift of being able to think consecutively without a
wandering mind.
Coincidence! How futile and meaningless was the whole
notion of mere coincidence! It was as if a man should say
that it was by coincidence that the thunder followed on the
lightning. No: every circumstance that can happen in this
world, as he had said to Sir Henry, is an arc, however small,
of a circle, a link in a chain, and no more set there by chance
than it is by chance that the goldsmith forges and adds link
to link in the necklace he is making. Already in this strange,
mysterious adventure, begun so unexpectedly a few days ago
in the bazaar at Cairo, there were several links lying heavy
and solid in his hand. What were they exactly? What
was their full significance, and to what might they be expected
to lead? In particular, what exactly had happened last night?
4-2
52
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
First, then, he had come across this amulet, which, according
to its own account, was commemorative and symbolical at
any rate of the laying of the ghost of Set-nekht. With it he
had come to Luxor to find that discovery had just been made
of the statue of this same spirit. They had smashed the
amulet in a place which the ghost might be supposed to have
haunted, the temple, that is to say, of Set-nekht's building,
where originally the ghost had been laid by sacrifice, having
present a most extraordinarily sensitive medium in a state
of deep trance.
Henderson sat up, with his head in his hands. He wanted
to note exactly what his own impression had been of that
which followed. Disturbances of a very extraordinary kind.
had taken place, that smiting of muffled hands-hands, so
he pictured them to himself, swathed in the cerements of
the dead—that voice from somewhere close beside them but
outside the circle, and that growing luminousness behind the
Ka statue. Out of that a figure had built itself up, the face
of which he had not at once clearly seen himself. But Sir
Henry, beyond all doubt, had mistaken it for his wife, and,
unable to resist, had risen to go to it. At that moment it
had become clearer to Henderson: it was beyond doubt the
face of Set-nekht. That Sir Henry had, it would seem, per-
ceived too, and had fallen forward, but not wholly outside
the circle. At this moment there had rushed up his daughter,
close to this dreadful manifestation, and altogether unpro-
tected. She had seen something, too, something which for
the first moment or two she stared at with surely a dreadful
squint, unmindful, unconscious even of her father, who lay
stretched beside her on the ground.
Here, then, they had perfectly clear evidence, the evidence
of three persons, that some materialized spirit had appeared
on the breaking of the amulet which for thousands of years
had laid it. That spirit now was unquiet again, it was once
more a haunting spirit. To Sir Henry, for a moment at least,
it had taken the form of his wife: that, of course, might have
been due to his own intense desire to see her: it might, on the
other hand (though he had himself called such an idea an
old-wives' tale), have been an impersonation on the part of
the evil spirit, taken up, possibly, with the purpose of getting
Sir Henry out of the circle. His daughter, however, had at
that very moment come near to it, unprotected: that, per-
haps, was enough for it, and it showed at once what it truly
was:
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
53
Henderson found himself almost smiling at this: it was too
fantastic for him, yet certainly it fitted in admirably with the
circumstances. To continue:
The spirit of Set-nekht was loose again: it had perhaps
already begun to take possession of Ida. It was busy too,
full of active evil-fresh from its long waiting under the
threshold. For this morning a column of his building, and
inscribed with his deeds, had fallen, bringing death.
Now, the materialization of a haunting spirit was, as
Henderson well knew, no easy experiment, or one on which
success was likely to wait, except after long and repeated
efforts, and often and often he had thought himself hand-
somely rewarded if, after a whole series of séances, he had
been able at the end to get a materialization at all. Yet here
at the very first séance, and almost as soon as the medium
had gone off into trance, the phenomenon had occurred.
Circumstances, of course, had been extraordinarily favour-
able: they had been at the very place where the ghost had
been originally laid, the amulet stated specifically that its
peace was dependent on the existence of itself, and he had,
he was sure, got hold of a medium of almost unique sensitive-
ness. The combination at any rate had proved extremely
powerful, and it remained to find out how, so to speak, both
he and Ida ‘stood' with regard to Set-nekht's ghost, and to
conjecture how, supposing it had already taken possession
of the girl, the future would shape itself.
Then a sudden impatience, parenthetical to the consecutive
flow of his thoughts, came over him. How much fuller, how
much richer in experience his life would be, if only there
was not this haunting question of money always with him!
How, if he were richer, he would ransack this mysterious land
for mediums, for forgotten secrets, for marvels which should
reveal the ancient wisdom of the ages, as miners delve for the
hidden riches of the earth. Even those who, like Sir Henry,
were very assiduous inquirers, who, like him, had practically
no limit to what they might so profitably spend on the
subject, were so uninventive, so narrow and elementary in
the fields of their inquiries. Sir Henry, for instance, if he
only chose, could employ a whole staff of men to search syste-
matically through these ancient primeval villages, testing,
inquiring, bringing to him their results, unearthing who
knew what ancient and magical lore, yet not miss a farthing
of what they spent in the work. And here was he himself,
54
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
who cheerfully spent every farthing not demanded by his
frugal living, on the subject which seemed to him more worth
investigation than anything in the world, already wondering
if he could afford to take Mohammed down to Cairo, and
conduct a series of séances there, possibly even take him to
England, which in the present state of interest in occult
matters might turn out a good investment. Just the want
of a few lumps of yellow metal would be what stood in his
way, if he found he could not manage it.
Then suddenly a plan, a policy flashed remotely like
reflected lightning through his busy weaving brain. He him-
self, in conjunction anyhow, with Mohammed, had almost
without effort raised this ghost again. It was conceivable
that by virtue of his raising it he had some authority over
it. And it, so it was also conceivable, had begun at the
very moment of her utterly unlooked-for but extraordinarily
dramatic entrance into the temple to take possession of Ida.
CHAPTER IV
TO-NIGHT, again, just as forty-eight hours ago, the three had
dinner in the hotel garden, served by the noiseless ministra-
tions of Abdul, and an intimate friend even of any of the
three might easily have thought, to judge by the quiet ease
and perfectly natural conversation of all of them, that the
horizon of each, mental, spiritual, and physical alike, was
absolutely as fair and unclouded as it was two days ago.
This point struck Henderson as extremely dramatic earth-
quake and convulsion had occurred, storms and horror beyond
all power of description were, he knew, reigning in the breasts
not only of his two companions, but of the silent-footed Arab
who was always at one's elbow, even before one knew that
one wanted something. Yet in externals there was practi-
cally no change at all from the dinner of two evenings ago.
They did not, it is true, during the meal talk on psychical
subjects, speaking rather of more obvious and superficial
interests; but Sir Henry was the same courteous host, with
regret for the unavoidable interruption to their expedition
to-day, and hope that Henderson had enjoyed his ramble,
though solitary, among the other temples. Ida, perhaps, was
a little more silent than she had been before, but there was
nothing noticeable about it: it would not have occurred to
a man that anxiety or suspense of any sort lay behind her
sparingness of speech, for her mouth was ever on the brink
of a smile, and her eyes often rested with interest on
Henderson when he spoke, and with affection on her father.
Her beauty, too, and the extraordinary charm of her face cer-
tainly were in no whit eclipsed; to Henderson, indeed, perhaps
from growing familiarity with her, it seemed that he had not
half realized how full of suggestion her loveliness was. She,
too, was apologetic, yet sanguine that he had enjoyed his
day; but when she spoke to him directly the first time, he
was conscious that it cost her an effort: she had to pull her-
55
56
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
self together. But she was quite successful in doing so, and
the effort made, the feat of speech was smoothly accomplished,
and her manner was quite light and natural.
Really, I was very considerate this morning, Mr. Hender-
son,' she was saying. I really wanted to come with you,
but I know myself so well how, perhaps, the best days of all
among these temples are those when one is quite alone-
anyhow, when one is not obliged to talk, and if I had come
mere politeness would have necessitated that. But when
one is alone one gets the atmosphere unmixed, and nobody
asks one to pass the salt at the moment one, perhaps, is trying
to project one's mind back three thousand years.'
Henderson looked at her with his direct dark gaze. His
mother had been an Italian, and he had that lucidity of eye
which is so characteristic of the South. His face was of that
spare, strong type which looks immensely in earnest what-
ever occupies its attention, and made his interlocutor feel
that he was devoting his whole mind to the subject in hand.
He smiled back at her.
'It is horrible to say it, and you must forgive my rudeness,'
he said, 'but when it was settled that I was going to spend
my day alone, I was really rather glad. It is exactly as you
say, I entirely agree-it is impossible to be safe if there are
other people with one: they may whisk one back by the
mere mention of salt, at the moment one was sinking down,
down, like a stone in the well of years.'
(
Then for the first time an echo of last night sounded.
The well of years,' said Sir Henry.
What are years,
when in ten minutes one can reach back to and realize what
has been dead-
The echo was heard by Ida, too.
'Father, father,' she said, her voice a little raised.
Then the dreadful make-believe that nothing had happened
began again: horror had peeped out for a moment, like a
lizard from some crevice of a wall, but it was gone again as
soon as it appeared. Someone praised the admirable toilet
of roses on the table-cloth, and the name of one particular
copper-coloured blossom was debated; sugar-growing was for
a moment on the tapis; Sir Henry, who had a great aptitude
for figures, told them how many extra millions of acres would
be brought into cultivation by the dam at Assouan; and the
relative advantages of the system of poor-rates as compared
with the custom of giving to beggars, were skirmished round.
But after dinner, when coffee had been served, the veneers
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
57
of polite society suddenly cracked off, blistered and consumed
by the heat within, and the real wood appeared beneath. A
somewhat long silence, so to speak, was the immediate cause
of the cracking. Sir Henry during this had been playing
nervously with his coffee-spoon: suddenly he dropped it on
the cloth, and leaned forward: the breaking-point had come,
the tension could not be longer borne.
'Mr. Henderson,' he said, 'Ida and I have been sitting
here in this garden all day, seeing only horror in each other's
eyes. We have been afraid to question, we have been afraid
to talk. We have sat and looked at each other and wondered,
making, as we have been doing at dinner, dreadful little
attempts to speak of the hundred other affairs which it
would otherwise have been natural for us to talk about.
I cannot keep that up any longer, so let us have it out at
once. Now, what happened?'
Ida looked at him anxiously.
Had you better know to-night?' she said. 'Mr. Hender-
son, he has had a bad headache all day, and I am sure he is
feverish. He thinks he caught a chill last night, and he has
had malaria very badly several times. Would he not be
wiser, if what you have to tell us is agitating, not to hear it
now, but to go to bed, and take his remedies, and go to sleep
-try to go to sleep.
A sudden awful shrinking look, such as was in his face last
night, when that dreadful transformation of the phantom took
place, started into Sir Henry's eyes.
Till I have heard,' he said, I could no more sleep than
I could pray. I would sooner know that my worst fears were
true than bear this deadly uncertainty. So tell me. Or
first I will tell you what I thought I heard and saw.'
He paused a moment and moistened his mouth with a sip
of water, for it was as dry as the sand of the desert.
<
I heard hands,' he said, 'which sounded muffled, twice
clapped together. I heard a voice twice speak a short sen-
tence which I did not understand. Then I saw a growing
light behind that statue, and gradually in the middle of it
white weaving, interlacing lines fashioned themselves into the
figure of my wife. Her arms were stretched out to me, for me
her lips smiled, she beckoned to me with her eyes. And if all
the powers of heaven and hell,' he cried, 'had at that moment
tried to hold me back, I should have been stronger than they
I sprang up and took, I think, one step towards her, by
that moment, and in the space of a second, her face ch

58
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Sir Henry paused, and with his handkerchief mopped away
the cold sweat that stood thick on his forehead. Then again
he took a sip of water, and went on.
"
It was as if the actual head of the statue from behind
which the figure rose had come to life with all the evil of
which the sculptor has shadowed the merest hints and sug-
gestions, incarnate and living on it. There was some com-
motion and bustle at the gate of the temple, I fell back in
horror, and I suppose lost consciousness, for how long I
don't know. When I came to myself, Ida and you were by
me; the temple was otherwise empty.'
Henderson looked up at Ida. For a moment, as Sir Henry
described what he had seen, she had shudderingly hidden her
face in her hands. But her weakness, that involuntary
shrinking, was but momentary; she recovered herself at
once, and one thought only was in her mind-the desire to
help and bring comfort to her father. So when Henderson
looked up at her, he found that her eyes, those pools of pure
violet, were fixed on him with eager intentness, and she
almost imperceptibly shook her head. But her meaning was
as plain as if she had shouted to him, and he took it.
My impressions were rather different from yours, Sir
Henry,' he said. 'I heard what you have described, but
when the figure appeared the face to me was dim for a time.
When I saw it-clearly, after you had seen it—it was, as
you say, the face of Set-nekht, and—and not a pleasant face.
The moment you fell I awoke the medium: the appearance
-I think we may call it the materialization of Set-nekht-
vanished, and a few moments afterwards Miss Ida appeared
on the scene.'
Sir Henry gave a long, deep sigh of relief.
You mean the presence had gone before she came ?' he
said.
'Certainly.'
Then another thought occurred to him, and he turned to
Ida with a puzzled look.
But last night, Ida,' he said, 'surely you told me you
were inside the circle.'
She had made up her mind that the all-important thing
was that her father should believe that no evil could have
come to her, and to secure that she would have told any
falsehood if that would screen the truth from him. And
her woman's wit was quick.
ow, dear father,' she said. 'I do remember saying

THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
59
that, but I did not stop to think. You asked me whether I
was inside the circle: I, of course, then did not know what
circle you meant. I only saw you were in an agony to know
if I was safe. I merely wanted to tell you I was safe.
Again I tell you that.'
You promise me that, you really promise me that?' he
asked once more.
If he had asked her to swear by all she held sacred, she
would not have hesitated.
Yes, indeed, indeed, it had gone before I came,' she said.
Mr. Henderson has told you so, too.'
Suddenly Sir Henry's eyes grew dim with unshed tears,
and he raised his hands to his head.
Ah, what a lesson I have had!' he said, 'and, oh, how
gently, how mercifully given! I knew I was doing wrong:
I knew I had been warned more than once-that an evil
spirit might take her form, and my carnal, yes, my carnal
desire to see her was such that my faith was swamped like
a cockleboat in a tornado. Oh, thank God, thank God!'
He sat quite still a moment; then he shivered very violently
from head to foot.
<
And now I will take my quinine, and hope to go to sleep,'
he said. You will excuse me, I am sure, Mr. Henderson :
it does not do to neglect the warning of these attacks. I
am afraid that without doubt I am in for one.'
He went indoors with Ida, and Henderson, though he
knew that Mohammed was waiting for him at the hotel gate,
though he was all eagerness to again raise, if possible, that
image of terror that had appeared last night, lingered still
here in the cool fragrance of the garden. After the tele-
graphy of eyes that had passed between them, he knew that
question and answer, some discussion, must also pass, and
from his own point of view he was more than willing that it
should, for such a talk could not fail to advance their inti-
macy. And to do him bare justice, his policy of this morn-
ing was not utterly cold-blooded, and it was no forced or
unwilling tribute of attraction and admiration that he paid
her for herself. And even since this morning his admiration
for her, like a river with rain in the hills, had risen enormously,
for above all qualities almost he respected bravery, and just
now she had been superbly brave-splendide mendax. Not
a quiver of an eyelash, not a faltering over a syllable, not a
tripping word on the tongue, had betrayed the complete
lies she told, yet all the time she knew that, if there had
60
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
been danger last night it was she who had been exposed
defenceless to the whole brunt of it: it was on her that
brutal malignancy had been poured in flood, pent up as it
had been for all these years. Yet no thought of personal
danger had made a quiver in her voice; her sole thought
had been for her father; for him the whole of her address
had been unfaltering. She was the person most damaged
in this frightful accident, yet she attended to the hurts of
others, disregarding her own wound, which might yet be mortal.
Henderson had not long to wait, for in a couple of minutes
he saw her emerge again from the hotel, and come straight
to where he was sitting. White-clad, she came moth-like
towards him past the sombre and ghostly shrubs of the
garden. But as she passed that cat-headed statue from
the temple, he thought in the dim light that she shuddered.
Yet her bravery did not falter now: she had gone through
worse than this to-day. She held out her hand to him.
Thank you very much,' she said, ' for backing me up like
that. My father must never know. Now, Mr. Henderson,
I want your advice, and if possible your help.'
She sat down by him.
Something last night entered,' she said. Entered, do
you understand, for I can't describe it otherwise there is
no word except that-it entered. I don't know what it was.
That moment is to me now like some terrible dream which I
can't remember, but which I know has some deadly import.
All I can remember seeing is a frightful mask of a face, which
hovered just above the statue, and round it played some
pale light, some flame. But it was no real flame, unless it
was a flame of hell. All the time my father was lying face
downwards close to it, but only that flame really concerned
me. It lengthened out quickly towards me, as you can pull
out dough, and it touched me, like some dreadful hot slug.
I felt no pain, only a sickening helplessness: it went in and
in, through here, between my eyes, till it got to the very
centre of my being. All last night, all to-day, it has re-
mained there, lying still, so I figure it, for the present, and
just looking round. And all I know is that it is no dream: the
thing happened. It is a sober, deadly reality, this nightmare.'
She paused a moment, still quite mistress of herself. Then
she turned to him again.
'What am I to do ?' she asked.
Now, Henderson knew perfectly well that there was no use
in merely trying to soothe her with empty assurances, or
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61
arguments that such a thing could not happen, that Sirocco
had excited her to a supernormal sensitiveness. Instead,
he treated her with the simplest frankness.
(
'I don't know enough about the appearance last night to be
able to tell you anything for certain at present,' he said, ´ but
I am going to-night and to-morrow, if necessary, and for as
many nights as is necessary, to the temple to find out more.
Honestly, I do not believe that any spirit can take possession
of one unless one voluntarily admits it, though one may
easily imagine that it has done so. So don't allow yourself
to imagine that: fight that idea of yours by every means in
your power. And do not so much fight it consciously as
distract your mind from it: if you find you are beginning to
think about it, turn your thoughts deliberately elsewhere:
think of anything sooner than it. One knows how possible it is
to work one's self into a state of mind that really is dangerous.'
Ida shook her head.
What does it matter whether I think of it or not?' she said.
As you see, I am not hysterical or agitated about it; that, I
know, would be worse than useless. But it would be also
useless not to face it. For it is here.'
That is just what you must not allow yourself to say,' said
Henderson. 'And don't, if you really wish my advice, dwell
on kindred subjects, on anything that would be likely to lead
your mind back to it. If I were you, for instance, I should
give up meditation altogether. It is putting yourself into the
same field with the other.'
Ida looked at him in surprise.
'Surely that, prayer and meditation, is the one chance I
have,' she said. 'It is in them that my real chance of safety lies.'
'No; my advice would be to drop everything psychical
altogether for the time.'
'I think it is brave of you
And she shuddered as she
Ida was silent a moment. Then she rose.
'I am keeping you,' she said.
to go back to that place again.'
spoke.
<
'There is no danger at all,' he said. And I shall be most
sincerely thankful if I can help you in any way. But if one comes
to talk about bravery—
And he held out his hand to her:
Sir Henry was very much worse the next morning. He
had passed a feverish, wakeful night of intermittent dozing
and disordered dreams, and had sent for his doctor as soon as
Abdul called him in the morning. His temperature was then
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found to be alarmingly high, and, a symptom which Dr. Nares
did not at all like, he showed very marked signs of cardiac
weakness. What exactly this fever was could not be pro-
nounced as yet for certain: it might conceivably be a severe
attack of influenza, but when Dr. Nares had been told of his
two previous attacks of malaria he looked grave, and shot
out a solemn underlip.
And two evenings ago,' he said to Ida, 'your father went
after dinner to the temple of Mut, I think you said.'
'Yes. And he got wet through coming home.'
Dr. Nares nodded.
'I have not forgotten your return,' he said dryly. 'I was at
the gate myself. I should like to ask you one question about
that. Did anything occur which agitated Sir Henry very much?
His state suggests to me that he has had some great shock.'
Ida looked at him directly.
Yes, he had a great shock,' she said, ' and some hours of
great anxiety. But all cause for that is now removed.'
The doctor nodded.
'I am glad to hear it,' he said, ' and we must trust to the
recuperative powers of Nature to restore his strength. Well,
Miss Jervis, I have given his servant all directions, and I will
visit him again before lunch.'
Ida made a great call on her courage.
Please tell me how serious it is,' she said. 'Do you
consider him very ill?'
The doctor appreciated this, and did exactly as she asked him.
'He has very high fever, and he is in a very weak state,' he
said. 'I had better tell you that he may at any moment
become very ill. But now that his anxiety is removed, we have
reason to hope for the best.'
I may go and sit with him?'
Certainly, by all means. There can, after what you have
told me, be no doubt that he has a return of malaria, which,
as you know, is not conceivably contagious.'
Sir Henry was lying propped up in bed, and turned his head
wearily as Ida entered. His eyes, for all his tossing, troubled
night, were bright with fever.
Poor, dear father!' she said, 'it is wretched for you. Are
you feeling dreadfully uncomfortable ?'
He smiled at her.
'Ah, dear girl,' he said, if only I could tell you what an
extraordinary peace and happiness has come to me.
He stretched out his hand to her.
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63
(
Oh, Ida, Ida,' he said, 'what a merciful escape has been
allowed me! what a lesson, how soul-searching, has been
taught me ! For two days, as I have told Abdul, there was
nothing I would not have done to get the sight or the touch of
her whom I long for day and night. And I deceived and hood-
winked myself; I told myself that that would strengthen and
confirm my faith. It was not so.'
How, then, dear father?' said she.
'It was a longing of the flesh,' he said, with a sudden rising
agitation and trembling of his hands.
She came closer to him.
"
But surely, dear father,' she said to quiet him, that
cannot be wrong. It cannot be wrong to long very intensely
for the presence of someone whom one has loved.'
'But I had that,' he said, his voice rising again. She was
always present with me; her presence was more real than the
sun. And in spite of that I wanted something lower-my
hands so yearned to touch her, my lips to kiss hers once more.
To get that I was willing to use any means, means that I knew
were wrong.'
He paused a moment.
'I do not blame Mr. Henderson or judge him,' he said. 'I
do not believe he was acting against his view of what was
right. But I was, and it is the motive of an act which deter-
mines its nature. And she said I should see her again this
month. I persuaded myself to think she meant that. But I
know now she did not. She meant something else-something
else,' he repeated softly.
Abdul had been sitting by the window. He rose noiselessly,
poured out the medicine the doctor had left, and came to the
bedside with the glass.
'It is time, effendi, for the dose,' he said.
Then, raising his eyes, he met Ida's, and like an electric
spark, instantaneous and deadly, the dreadful knowledge that
they were concealing from her father leaped backwards and
forwards between them. Then, taking the glass from his
master's hand after he had drunk, he suddenly stood up
straight with a quivering lip, looking not at Ida, but in front
of him. Great beads of sweat started out of his forehead:
the man was in an agony.
'I have deceived,' he cried,
deceit. And there is no peace
The Way commands me.'
Ida had sprung up.
and I have lent myself to
here or hereafter for such.
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<
Abdul, Abdul!' she shrieked. 'No, you must not!'
But he seemed not to hear her, and turned to Sir Henry,
while Ida sank down again with hands raised in agonized
pleading.
No, no,' she moaned; he is ill, not now.'
Abdul drew a long breath, and the sick man turned his head
quickly to look at Abdul, with a foreboding and dreadful
anticipation in his eyes.
She was there,' he said.
was, outside the circle.'
She was close to it, whatever it
Sir Henry had been lying very still, very inert, but at this
he sat up with a sudden convulsive movement, his eyes filled
with terror and a nameless horror, his hands plucked at the
bed-clothes.
'What, what?' he cried. You, Ida, there ?'
Then he suddenly put his hand to his heart, and fell back on
the pillows.
Dr. Nares had gone straight from Ida to the breakfast-room,
and had hardly yet begun, when Abdul rushed in.
Come, come!' he said. 'Sir Henry!'
A minute later the doctor was bending over his bed,
listening for his heart.
'When did this happen?' he asked quickly.
Just now, two minutes ago,' said Ida.
Is he is he
No, he is not dead. Go to my room, Abdul, and fetch the
case that stands on my table, just as it is.'
He turned to Ida.
Did he have some sudden shock?' he asked:
'Yes.'
'It is very serious, Miss Jervis,' he said, ' and I am going to
inject ether. His heart may not respond. There is, however,
a certain chance that it will bring him round. That rally may
be temporary, or it may be, so to speak, permanent. Now,
if he comes round, can you in any way reassure him, mitigate
the shock he has had, counteract it?'
Ida looked at him quite directly.
'No, not in the smallest degree,' she said:
'Is the sight of you likely to agitate him further ?'
She cast one long look at the unconscious face on the pillow.
'Yes, I will go,' she said. 'But I will remain outside, and
if he wishes to see me, you will call me.'
Abdul returned at this moment with the case for which the
doctor had sent him, and Ida went out into the passage.
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65
It seemed to her, as she stood there waiting, that all power
of thought, all power of feeling even, had been taken from her.
She supposed it was she who stood quite firm and dry-eyed
out in the long dim passage, but there was, so to speak, nothing
in her sensations by which she could identify herself. An
acquiescence, helpless as that of a bound and condemned
murderer, had possession of her, and though she had at the
moment so passionately tried to dissuade Abdul from uttering
the word which had caused this seizure, she felt as if it had to
have been uttered. Great forces, the lords of life and death,
had been putting them all like pieces at chess into their places;
rebellion, even regret, was hardly possible; these decrees that
were being executed were so huge, so inscrutable, that she felt
she could only watch what was being done with the puppets
that acted.
Then suddenly Abdul, who had remained in the room, opened
the door, beckoning to her, and she entered. The doctor was
standing by the bed; her father, with eyes half closed, was
lying flat: the pillows had been taken away. Ida bent over him.
'Yes, dear father,' she said.
Twice he tried to speak, and the doctor whispered to the girl.
'Suggest to him what he wants to say; he is sinking fast.'
Then human love, his sweet tenderness and care for her all
these years, came to her aid.
Dear father,' she said again, 'it was not your fault: it
was nobody's fault. So there is nothing to forgive. I almost
wish there was: I should so love to forgive you anything.'
His eyelids fluttered a moment, and his hand made a quick
trembling movement toward hers, but he was already past
speech.
Ida's beautiful mouth quivered as she spoke again, and her
eyes grew dim.
So you will see her, dearest, again this month, even as
she told you. We know now it was that she meant. And you
will wait for me together, and never cease to pray for me.'
The grasp of his hand slackened, his eyelids closed again.
There was one long painful effort to draw breath, and then he
lay perfectly still.
*
*
*
*
*
Ida knelt there long, and when she rose she found the
doctor had gone and Abdul was there alone. That fit of
passionate sobbing which had seized her after she saw what
had happened had passed entirely, and she spoke to him
quite calmly.
5
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'You were right to tell him, Abdul,' she said, ' and if ever
I regret, you must remind me that even at this moment
I said you were right. He knows now.'
The face of the man lit up.
Yes, he knows,' he said.
(
Praise God for His abundant
love, who has taken him into the everlasting peace.'
The girl was silent a moment.
6
The
You must never leave me, Abdul,' she said.
Except if I am bidden to die for you,' he said.
ordinance that was laid upon me to serve is still there. Till the
end, which is the beginning, I am your slave and your servant.'
All that day Ida saw no one, for she wanted to be alone and
try, at any rate, to grasp clearly within her mind all that had
happened within the last forty-eight hours. At first she felt
dazed, unable to concentrate her mind on any one thing ;
it was as if a newspaper had been put into her hand, and in
every column she saw something of vital and of horrible
import she could not at first read one paragraph, because of
the others that caught her eye. But death in itself seemed
to her, used as she was all her life to talk with and to talk of
those beyond the veil, as if they were actually present, to be
a thing not horrible at all, scarcely even painful. True, for
the constant daily intercourse there would be substituted—
for never for a moment did she doubt that she would be able
constantly to communicate with her father-the less frequent
intercourse, but the latter had to her a preciousness of its
own. It was without other distractions: soul spoke to soul
directly, without the intervention of that envelope of body.
Dear though his physical presence had been to her, so dear
indeed that, if she thought of that loss alone, she felt utterly
desolate and lonely, she could not take death piecemeal like
that; she had lost his bodily companionship, it is true, but she
had gained that nearer and more intimate communion.
Often in the long bright sunlit hours of this solitary day she
thought of her father's repeated words that his wife's presence
was constantly more real to him than was the presence of the
people with whom he was sitting. And now even in the first
hour of her bereavement Ida knew the truth of that. How
could she, she wondered now, have been so weak and un-
worthy as to wish that Abdul should not tell him that which
was the immediate cause of his death! That indeed was
materialism itself: tender as was her physical love for him,
she knew that there was a finer relation between them, and
one that would have been hurt, maimed, had he passed into
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67
life-real life-deceived by her. Truly in the midst of death
there is life.
Thus it was with perfect naturalness that she made all the
arrangements that had to be made. The rabbit-faced little
clergyman came with beautiful set speeches for her: it struck
him as such a wonderful coincidence that only two nights ago
they should have been singing 'A few more years shall roll.'
He was, if the truth be told, a little shocked at Ida's unaffected
fortitude, for he was ready with kind pressures of the hand
and extraordinarily suitable reflections, which could hardly
fail to console. He came, in fact, to offer her spiritual consola-
tion and support, and was a little disconcerted at the fact that
she seemed already supplied with what he brought her.
Then there were telegrams to be sent : she had only one
near relation in the world, her father's widowed sister, who
in the ordinary course of events would have joined them in
a fortnight's time here. To her Ida merely sent the news,
for there was no breaking of it possible, and suggested that
she should still come out, and meet her, if this was not incon-
venient, in Cairo. She telegraphed also to a girl friend of
hers, Beatrice Montague, who was to have come out with
her aunt the rest of her despatches were addressed only to
solicitors, business men, or acquaintances merely. The
paucity of this somewhat appalled her she had not yet
realized how very lonely she had suddenly become, how large
a percentage of the ordinary everyday routine of love and duty
and happiness had been withdrawn. And then once again
her fortitude failed her, and she sobbed herself sick.
:
The afternoon shadows were lengthening when she took
up the burden again. She felt sure she had forgotten some-
thing all these hours. Then she remembered it, something
dark, something that he, Mr. Henderson, had advised her not
to think about. It was there still, lying quiet, perhaps, but
it was there.
Then she remembered several things: she remembered a
talk she had had with her father—yet it was scarcely a talk,
it was merely a plan, an idea of his, which he had mentioned
to her on the morning after Mr. Henderson's arrival. She
remembered, too, for the first time, that Henderson had gone
last night again to the temple of Mut.
Abdul entered at this moment with letters. Some were
addressed to her father, and at this, so little, yet so intimate
a thing, she suddenly winced with pain. Abdul was watching
her with loving, patient eyes.
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'Ah, my lady,' he said, 'realize it by greater truths than
the mere scratching of a pen.'
'I know,' she said, 'I know. But it is these common
things that hurt.'
Abdul still looked fixedly at her.
'But we are not children,' he said, 'and' His voice
broke suddenly.
Do not give way,' he said; 'do not let your real self give
way. There are things-ah, it is better to face that-more
difficult in front of us, than that which has happened to-day:
Death? What is death?' he said. 'I tell you it is just life.
Just the beginning-
Ida put the letters down.
'I wish to see Mr. Henderson,' she said. 'It is an order.'
No, never, never!' he cried.
Then for a moment something cruel, something utterly
unfeeling, dictated to the girl.
So I suppose you will leave me as you left my father,' she
said.
Abdul started suddenly as if he had been stung or stabbed.
She saw it and all her best self condemned what she had
said.
'Oh, Abdul, help me,' she said; 'there is no one left but
you now.'
Instantly all the intense, inspired devotion of the man
sprang to the surface.
Ah, not so, not so,' he said, her previous speech instan-
taneously utterly expunged from his mind. 'He, the
effendi, will help you more than ever, more than he ever could
before, for always his human love impeded the great love.
He was like that. But is it an order ?'
'Yes, it is still an order,' she said. 'It is concerned with
a wish of his.'
A few minutes afterwards Henderson came in. He re-
tained her hand a moment longer than the meaningless
everyday hand-shake would have enjoined, but neither he
nor she thought words of sympathy were necessary.
She motioned him to a chair.
'Mr. Henderson,' she said, 'two mornings ago my father
happened to let drop to me that he hoped you would be his guest
for a month at least, till we went down to Cairo again. He
also hoped you would come down there with us on the dayabeah
which was to meet us here in April. Please-please con-
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69
sider his wish as, not binding at all-the word is a bad one-
but one which most naturally I should wish to fulfil.'
There was a moment's pause: the inflection of her voice
told him that she had not quite finished.
'I am sure you have questions of interest here,' she said,
which occupy you. Do not shorten your stay. You were
his guest: I ask you to consider yourself mine.'
I will do so,' he said.
‘Thank you. That, then, can be easily settled. It is crude,
but simple.'
She moved to her writing-table, took out a cheque-book,
signed and dated the cheque, and left the rest blank.
Thank you very much,' she said.
She moved back from the table to the chair she had origin-
ally been sitting in.
About last night,' she said simply.
Henderson paused a moment, adjusting his trousers about
his knees. Then he looked up.
'I saw it again,' he said. And I saw it more clearly. I
tried to speak with it, but could not. But I think-I think,'
he said, that I have a certain power over it. I shall find
that out.'
'How can that be?' asked the girl.
'I can tell you nothing for certain yet,' he said, 'but the
fact that it comes so instantly when I call leads me to think
that it is like a genie. You see, I broke the amulet. I called
it into activity again.'
A gleam of hope came into the girl's eyes.
Pray God it is so,' she said.
Amen to that,' said he.
Ida rose.
I shall leave for Cairo the day after to-morrow,' she said.
He will, of course, be buried to-morrow, within the twenty-
four hours. I think-I think he would like you to be there.
After all, it was a part of him that we shall put to rest, a very
small part, but yet one loved it. And I shall have roses
planted all over the grave-roses and one piece of hibiscus.'
Of course I will be there,' he said, ' for, as you say, it was
a part of him, and to that one wishes to say one's Ave atque
vale. And that is a beautiful idea of yours. Roses, for the
fragrance of his earthly life; one piece of hibiscus, the flower
of flame, his soul.'
Again they shook hands.
And whatever happens, you will tell me,' she said.
CHAPTER V
MRS. DESMOND, Sir Henry's sister and Ida's aunt, was
gardening. This is an elastic term, often misapplied and
misused, and has been known to be applied to the mere
picking of sweet-peas or the cutting of a bunch of flowers.
But Mrs. Desmond's gardening was of the sternest and most
genuine description; the thick boots and thick gloves she
wore were imperatively necessary for operations so thorough-
going and laborious as those in which she indulged. She
dug with a large spade huge holes for her beloved roses, she
filled the holes in with the most delectable mould, she trod
the earth about their roots with a large boot firmly planted;
she was no lily-handed gardener. Or if weeding occupied
her, it was no finicking job in her capable hands: the utmost
fibre of the plantain was pulled up, the dandelion's tap-root
was extricated entire. Even the more gruesome branch of
slug-hunting was not shirked by her in the early summer
days, when seedlings are tender, but with orange-skin, sliced
potatoes, and the brine-pot she pursued her abhorrent mission.
And the plants, so it appeared from their subsequent be-
haviour, fully appreciated the attentions of this large and
wholly delightful woman.
But to-day no such dreadful business enchained her, for
the month was November, and the skies poured down a
gentle but extremely persistent dribble of rain, for which
Mrs. Desmond was thoroughly grateful. In her rose-garden,
shut in by its low red-brick walls, no breath of air stirred;
it was warm, wet, and softly sultry. The minor inconveni-
ences of such a day, as considered as productive of heat and
wetness on the part of the labourer, were by her entirely
disregarded. All that mattered was that never since the
days of the original and primeval rose had there been such
an excellent afternoon for planting, and with spade and bent
back and big boot and loving hand she planted.
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71
At length even she was for the moment exhausted, stood
up, and, stepping on to the grass path that bordered the bed
she was engaged in, wiped with her spade huge clods of
mud from her boots. A couple of feverishly-toiling gardeners,
employed in cutting a new bed, did not, however, venture to
relax their efforts for a moment. But she surveyed with a
very kindly eye the progress that their work had made with-
out very closely examining it, and eventually spoke to one.
of them.
'I have been to see your wife, Tom,' she said, ' and I went
into every room of your cottage and opened every window.
And if ever I see them all shut again, I will order that every
second window-frame be taken out. Of course, she looks pale
and run-down. She is being starved, not of food, which doesn't
particularly matter, but of air, which matters very much.'
Tom grinned rather sheepishly.
6
She'll catch a worse cold, ma'am, then, in all them
draughts.'
'Not a bit of it. Such nonsense. It's shut windows that
have made her weak and liable to catch cold. Also I found
a bottle of cough-drops. I emptied them into the kitchen fire.'
Tom, still faintly grinning, touched his cap, and turned his
attention to his turf-cutting again. At the moment the long
French window in the drawing-room of the house, which
stood immediately above the rose-garden, opened, and a
girl's figure came up the path towards where Mrs. Desmond
had already begun digging another hole. She stepped rather
daintily and disgustedly between pools of water, and had a
smart silk umbrella up.
'Dear Mrs. Desmond,' she said, 'haven't you made enough
mud-pies for the present? You've been making them ever
since lunch, you know. I came out, which was very kind of
me on such an awful afternoon, to tell you it is half-past
four, and your guests will really be arriving before you can
clean—I mean, dress yourself.'
Mrs. Desmond laughed, a splendidly satisfactory laugh,
head back, mouth open.
'Clean, clean,' she said; 'it's a good English word, and
exactly describes what I shall have to do. In fact, there is
no other word for it, except scrub, which I shall have to do
also. Half-past four, is it really? How time flies when one
is really congenially occupied! And what have you done
since lunch, Beatrice ?'
'I went to my room,' said Beatrice. 'I shut the window,
72
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I lit the fire, I ate some sweets, I read a book for ten minutes,
and I went to sleep for an hour. A warm, refreshing sleep.
Oh, how very squashy the grass is !'
Sowing the seeds of tuberculosis,' remarked Mrs. Desmond,
taking a glove off.
I am afraid I am at this moment. And Ida has telegraphed
that she will arrive this evening, instead of to-morrow. That
is another thing that I came out to tell you.'
And the black man ?' asked Mrs. Desmond.
I suppose so she never moves without him, does she?'
Mrs. Desmond's attention wandered, and was glued to the
labour of the two gardeners. Her eye had caught sight of
the pile of turfs they had cut to make the new rose-bed.
Thick and thin,' she said, with deep sarcasm:
( some of
the turfs are like slices of bread, the rest like the butter you
put on them. Well, you had better get home, both of you.
It does seem,' she added, as a great concession,' to have been
a little damp this afternoon. I really had not noticed it
before. I was busy.'
The other glove had come off by this time, and Mrs. Des-
mond went towards the house with Beatrice.
Dearest Ida,' she said, ' and her black slave! I shall even
be glad to see the black slave, since he implies Ida. And he
certainly is most devoted to her. But black people always
seem to me rather eerie, and I am apt to refer to them as
niggers, which I am told is a most offensive thing to do.
And the consciousness that at any moment I may do so makes
me nervous in their presence. I referred to Abdul once as a
nigger, and Ida got quite crimson. What a wonderful day
for planting, is it not? And what a pity to go in! She said
he was far more educated than any of us, and was probably
of purer blood. So I hastened to add I was sure his blood was
quite remarkable, and his education unique. I never mind
climbing right down to the ground if I have made a mistake.'
Again she laughed with jolly, kindly amusement.
And tell me who else is coming to-day, Beatrice,' she said.
'I ask people, and if they say Yes," I dismiss them alto-
gether from my mind. They are all right, they are coming,
but in the interval I generally forget who they are.'
'Mr. Carbery, I think you told me,' said Beatrice, and
Leonard Compton.'
How nice, not a party!' said Mrs. Desmond with satisfac-
tion. 'I was afraid it might be a party. Just five of us, so
you four shall play bridge, and I shall be left in peace. There
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73
is a whole pile of bulb-catalogues which I have not read yet.
I shall really enjoy myself. I never come across a novel
which is half as entrancing to read as a really good catalogue
of bulbs.'
'You've got a party next week, you know,' said Beatrice.
'I do, but I shall have put the garden to bed and tucked
it up by then also I shall have finished my catalogues and
got the bulbs in. So I shall enjoy it immensely. Also Ida
will be here to help.'
:
She is going to live with you permanently now, is she
not?' said the girl.
Yes, at last she has consented to do the reasonable thing.
Dear Ida usually ends in deciding to do the reasonable thing,
but she usually also takes time about it.'
Beatrice laughed.
'Well, she has practically lived with you, after all, since
last March,' she said. She has been doing the reasonable
thing, though she may not have decided on it.'
<
Practically, perhaps. But she wouldn't say that her
home was with me. She was taking me on trial, I suppose,
and now she pronounces me satisfactory.'
You are the most satisfactory person I know,' said the
girl. Then she gave a little shriek, as Mrs. Desmond's ex-
tended arm threatened a caress. But, dear Mrs. Desmond,
you are so very wet at this moment. And-and, you know,
you haven't cleaned yourself yet.'
The scene of Mrs. Desmond's serious gardening was on the
pleasant uplands of Sussex, some six miles from East Grin-
stead, a place remote and roomy. Straight in front of the
house rose the heathery braes and sandy hollows of Ashdown
Forest, over which industrious golfers from morning to night
hunted for gutta-percha, and scattered sheep for sustenance.
She herself was Scotch by birth, and hardly a day passed
when she was here on which the pines, the sense of space,
the ridges of tufted heather, did not bring back to her an
echo of her land, and to-day, with its steady drizzle of warm
rain, seemed to her peculiarly native. Her house, Tudor and
Stewart in date, had also about it the same air of windy
spaciousness that was so characteristic of the forest. The
rooms were large and high and panelled for the most part,
in plain oak, and with these excellent proportions and
materials put ready for her, she had not obscured nor buried
them (since the dish, so to speak, was admirably good) in
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excess of sauces in the way of curtains and padded surfaces.
Her floors were of polished boards, with a few warm-hued
Persian rugs laid down on them; her chairs were chiefly
Chippendale, comfortable, but with outlines unspoiled by
spurious show of comfort: each room in fact looked, to the
eye mistakenly accustomed to consider cushions and padded
edges as a sign of ease and warmth, as if it was furnished in a
manner angular and cold; to the artistic eye, however, as Mrs.
Desmond's quite undoubtedly was, they satisfied the whole-
some desire for line; while to any experimentalist, artistic or
otherwise, they turned out to be most delightful rooms to live in.
While she was in the country, however, Mrs. Desmond
troubled her charming house but little. In London, it is
true, she was an insatiable Londoner, and took, by reason
of her invariable geniality, an especially prominent place in
that gay and jostling procession which marches so untiringly
from luncheon party to concert, from concert to dinner, and
dinner to ball or evening party. But, with her eye for fit-
ness, her habits of London were left behind with her London
clothes when she went down to Ryssop. The same, actually
the same Mrs. Desmond would appear to her guests-it was
no other woman, at any rate—but it was so completely another
side of her that wrestled with roses to that which in London
appeared to be, and was, completely absorbed in the social
kaleidoscope, that people were puzzled. Nobody, however,
had ever thought of suggesting that she posed, or that in one
of these aspects she was insincere. For insincerity and Mrs.
Desmond were such hopelessly incompatible terms, that not
even the most sanguine dissector of character and qualities
could hope to find anything in common between them.
The garden, then, and not her delightful house, was her
country-seat. Full south it faced, and if a flower was to be
grown, Mrs. Desmond grew it. She was no general gardener,
planning, however successfully, for vague and pleasing effects.
The pleasing effects, such was her skill, were inevitable, but
of vagueness there was none at all. She never
planted
promiscuous,' in the hope of discovering some good effect
caught at venture from her original experimentalism. She
knew, a virtue most rare in everybody, especially in mothers
and gardeners, how young things would look when they grew
up, and she made her arrangements (having duly enriched
her beds) with the sure and certain hope of their doing so.
She could tell you within a week when, for the last six years,
the rose-garden was worth the visitor's eye; for herself, the
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75
rose-garden was always worth the eye, and, what is more, the
pruning or the sulphur-sprinkling were, and the fruits of her
care were hardly more delectable to her than the care she so
freely lavished to obtain those fruits. But being many-sided
herself, she allowed always for the absence of any particular
side in her friends, and if Beauté inconstante, even in full
flower, did not attract, there was the motor, the croquet-
lawn, the bridge-table, always ready.
For herself, it is true, in the country, one thing existed and
sufficed, the garden. Wars and rumours of war had less sig-
nificance to her than that. Politics, which in London some-
what occupied her, for she was a redder Radical (disapproving
of everything) than had probably ever been known to exist,
were the echo of an echo to her here. True, if some guest
insisted on winding the horn of politics, she would prick up
her ears and champ the bit, for such an attitude was no
more than what politeness indicated, even as a dog on the
hint of biscuit will sit up or lie down, whatever his training
may have inculcated; but plants, plants and animals, were the
obsession to her here.
The garden was in three terraces. A broad gravel-path
ran below the drawing-room windows, and tubs painted white
with black bands punctuated it at intervals. These tubs,
which were one of the many trials of her gardeners, varied
with the changing seasons, though their colours remained ever-
vivid. In earliest spring snowdrops and aconites made a
brightness for the eye: then (other tubs being substituted)
daffodils danced together. In most years the daffodils
danced till they were a little tired and wilted, for every
gardener knows the inevitable pause that follows on bulbs.
After that, however, the fun was fast and furious; it was
but a question which tubs to wheel out from their nursery
behind the greenhouses, where they stood in serried lines.
Campanulas and Canterbury bells, with perhaps a brief
prelude of Oriental poppies, and scarlet geum succeeded;
Spanish iris followed, or was alternate and simultaneous,
slightly formal, but exquisite in shape and unexpected in
hue; then clematis, with its constellations of purple stars in
a green heaven, writhed in ecstatic knots round the wires
provided for its tendrils; turquoise delphiniums, sunflowers,
phloxes, hollyhocks, evening primrose, salvias, dahlias,
Michaelmas daisies, all clamoured for representation through
summer and early autumn, as if they had been aspirants for
female suffrage.
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
The rest of this top terrace, as the imaginative gardener
will have guessed, was entirely herbaceous. In the deep
borders sloping downwards from the back, plants wrangled
together and fought for precedence, yet with indulgence on the
part of the stronger, for obscured growths put up sudden faces
in lands that seemed inevitably to belong to another. Below
and beyond lay the rose-garden, a desert of stunted bushes, so
it seemed, to the untutored eye in the November of roses and
of the year, and it was here that Mrs. Desmond had been at
work this afternoon; beyond that again a triumph of tran-
sition from garden to untutored Nature. For, like all suc-
cessful flower-tenders, Mrs. Desmond was for ever pulling up;
her progress through the herbaceous borders was like the
march of an executioner, but never a single plant did she throw
away unless it was dead, really dead. Instead, if its place
in her borders was needed, the evicted vegetable was carefully
dug up, and, like a horse that is past its work, turned out to
grass, and the large meadow beyond the rose-garden was full
of the overflow of her beds. At one time of the year it would
be a carpet of forget-me-nots with clumps of budding daffodils
and crocus; honesty blossomed and seeded itself at its will;
bushes of lavender were fragrant in summer-time, and rambler
rose thrust up its sappy stems in the hedges. Bamboos
raised their tall feathered stems by the stream that ran through
it, and clumps of iris dabbled in the shallows. From there
a hundred yards of grassy lane led on to the open heather of
the Forest.
Mrs. Desmond had not yet appeared from the process of
cleaning herself, and Beatrice was alone in the drawing-room
when Ida arrived. The two had, in spite of Ida's long sojourn-
ings abroad, been the greatest friends since early girlhood, and
Beatrice sprang up with an eager cry of welcome.
'Ah, Ida,' she cried,' but it is good to see you! What ages
you have been away!'
They kissed warmly.
Well, that is all over now,' said Ida. 'Dear me! it is
nice to have made up one's mind, and feel one has come home.
All the way down in the train, all the way from the station, I
had the feeling of home-coming, the thrill and warmth of
home-coming, if you know what I mean. Abdul is pleased,
too. Who is there here, Bee ?'
'At the moment no one but Mrs. Desmond and me;
Leonard Compton-the nerve specialist, you know-is
coming this evening though, and Mr. Carbery.
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77
(
Ah, your cousin, is he not-Mr. Compton, I mean? But
who is Mr. Carbery? I don't think I know him.'
You can't know him if you think you don't,' said Beatrice.
He is the wholesomest young man in the world.'
Ida drew off her gloves.
That is a very good thing to be,' she said. 'A very good
thing indeed. I've lived a good deal among strange people,
but I never lost the taste for wholesome people. I want my
nice white bread every day. Father was so aboundingly
wholesome,' she added.
Beatrice looked at her affectionately.
'I don't think you are really apt to disagree with people,'
she said.
Ida laughed, but for the moment a rather scared, hunted
expression came into her face: it was easily interpreted, how-
ever, in her friend's mind as a very natural tiredness, for she
had travelled all day.
'Some-
Ah, I wish I was quite certain of that,' she said.
times I think I am full of dark corners. Little places under
the stairs, you know, where dust collects. And you aren't quite
certain what else may not be there on stormy evenings. Ah,
here is the beloved aunt! Dear Aunt Julia, how nice to see
you again, and to see you for always now! I was telling
Bee that I have had the home-coming feeling all day.'
Aunt Julia had cleaned herself to some purpose, having in
addition put on a gorgeous brocade tea-gown, so that her
clothing, like the King's daughter, was of wrought gold. She
dressed quite magnificently in a certain big and regal style
which suited her admirably. On other occasions, however,
as has been seen, such as gardening, she was wise enough to
dress as the nature of her occupation demanded, and wore
things which her maid would have turned from with a con-
tumelious lip, had it been suggested that she should clothe
herself in the style of her mistress. She was a very large
woman, and also extremely stout, but she held herself superbly,
and moved with that ease and grace which makes every
motion a pleasure to watch.
Dearest, dearest,' she said to Ida as she kissed her again
and again, it is charming that you have come, and that you
have settled not to go away again. Tea, how nice! Yes,
Bee, give me a cup instantly with plenty of cream in it. And
what was London like? One big mud-pie as usual, I suppose,
peppered over with soot, and insufficiently lit by a bilious-
looking plate which can have been nothing but the sun.'
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Beatrice poured out her tea.
'I thought, though I may be wrong,' she said, ' that there
was a mud-pie in the garden this afternoon, and that you were
wallowing in it. Only there was no bilious plate down here.'
Mrs. Desmond looked at the buttered buns.
That seems to me also rather a bilious plate,' she remarked,
taking one. 'And have you brought the black man, Ida,
and must I put up a mosque for him?'
Ida's smile died off her face: she became quite grave.
Ah, you mustn't laugh at Abdul,' she said. 'He is a very
important person to me.'
Mrs. Desmond saw that Ida was serious, and became
serious too.
Yes, dear, yes, dear,' she said, and I know his devotion
to your father-
And father's to him,' said Ida quietly.
Trivial intimacies, the thousand and one little threads that
have to be picked up again between friends who have just
met after some weeks of parting, formed the staple of half an
hour's talk. Ida had scarcely seen her aunt since the end of
the London season, and had spent these last three months in
visiting old friends, and making several new ones from among
those acquaintances the cultivation of whom had been so
largely and constantly interrupted by her prolonged absences
abroad. Aunt Julia, the kindest and simplest soul in the
world, had also a good deal of that perception which if it
exists alone may rightly be called worldliness, and she had
urged this course on her niece with some earnestness.
You see, Ida,' she had said,' you have not really hitherto
been at all like the ordinary English girl. You have lived
with all sorts of strange, out-of-the-way people at all sorts of
strange, out-of-the-way places; but now you have decided,
dear, and I think quite rightly, to make your home in England.
In that case you must spend a certain amount of your time
over things which your father and you, perhaps, would call
not worth wasting time on. You must go about to other
people's houses, and for a certain number of weeks do nothing
particular except make yourself pleasant.'
Ida had turned an imploring eye on her.
'Dress? Politics? Golf?" she had asked vaguely.
Yes, certainly, dress, politics, and golf,' said Aunt Julia,
but not derisively like that. All the chatting, the frivolous
conversation which you will hear and take part in, is the
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79
symbol of something much more important-of kindliness, in
fact, interest in your fellow-creatures, sociability.'
'But what a waste of time!' said Ida. And week after
week!'
Mrs. Desmond began to find that her remark about the
difference between Ida and the ordinary English girl was
extremely true.
'Yes, dear, I know,' she said. 'You have been accustomed
to spend all your time in deep and occult studies. But to
think that all the gaiety and ripple of laughter which goes on
in the world is frivolous, shows, as I say, that you are not
deep enough. It is all a symbol, an outward expression of
very fine things, of humanity and affection for your kind.
Besides, even if it was not so, which it certainly is, there is
some truth in the proverb about doing at Rome as Rome does.
You must, even with the highest aims, adapt yourself to the
people you will live with. Also you will find them very
charming, so be a good girl. Do as I tell you, and spend three
solid months seeing your father's friends. He had a great
many, Ida. That was so wonderful in him; for though he
lived abroad so much, he had more friends than almost any
man I ever knew.'
This evening Mrs. Desmond was delighted with the success
of the plan she had advised. Charming as Ida always was,
she had missed in her before that touch of instinctive amia-
bility, of desire to amuse and to be amused, which was so
characteristic of herself, and, to do it justice, is so character-
istic of the world. Gravity, seriousness of purpose, and aim.
in life Mrs. Desmond would willingly have granted to be
most excellent and important things, but she also rated very
high the gayness and jollity of men and women, which, as she
had said, she looked on as the sign and symbol of qualities
which were hardly less excellent. And these three months
seemed to her to have done a great deal for Ida in this respect.
She had somehow gained a lighter touch, a more spontaneous
gaiety, which was exactly that for which Mrs. Desmond had
urged her to spend the autumn in other people's houses.
And this added gaiety and geniality combined wonderfully
well with that air of sincerity which had always been natural
to the girl, and Aunt Julia told herself that certainly her
niece was a person of immense charm.
Mrs. Desmond, when she had met Ida at Cairo directly after
her father's death, had been, it must be confessed, somewhat
So
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
shocked at what she had found. Ida was perfectly calm, she
had never for a moment broken down, and this to her aunt,
who knew her devotion to her father, seemed somewhat un-
natural. There had been, as far as she knew, no outburst of
grief on Ida's part, and this self-restraint, though admirable
as a sign of fortitude, must have been a tremendous tax.
Another thing, also, which she had not liked was that again and
again, both during the ten days they had stopped there and
on their voyage home, a sudden hunted look had started into
Ida's eyes, as if the girl was fleeing from some horror that had
sprung upon her from the shadows in her mind, with claws and
teeth, ready to devour. Sometimes that look would just pass
like the shadow of a wind-blown cloud over her face, but at
other times it would be there for an hour or more at a time.
Then Ida would sit looking out over the ship's side, her book
unread in her lap, with eyes of terror and mouth that quivered
with some nameless secret. Often her aunt had tried to per-
suade herself that this represented Ida's inward struggle not
to give way to her grief, yet as often she had to mistrust this
interpretation. It was not grief that set her mouth quivering;
it was terror. And yet death, as she knew, had no terror for
her niece: it was something more terrible than death. Even
when that look was not on Ida's face, the shadow of it was
there; all day, though she might be talking of perfectly in-
different things, some part of her seemed to listen for the
approach of that which would again seize and possess her:
never for a moment was she at ease.
But to-night, though Beatrice had for a moment seen a hint
of it spring into Ida's face when she talked with her before her
aunt came in, there was no further recurrence of it, and Ida
seemed to her most typically a charming and beautiful English
girl. Aunt Julia had an innate horror of all that was queer
and strange, and Ida seemed to her to show now no trace of the
life which she had led with her father, which appeared to Mrs.
Desmond to be very queer indeed. Ida, like the Children of
Israel, had shaken off the dust of the land of Egypt and
come forth from captivity. One trace, one legacy of Egypt
alone remained-that silent-footed Arab. But Abdul, so
Mrs. Desmond felt herself bound to confess, was an admirable
servant. Even her own butler, to whom darkness of com-
plexion seemed naturally to be synonymous with blackness of
heart, had lost all his racial distrust, and had welcomed Abdul,
on his return with Ida, with as near an approach to wa mth
as was consistent with his own exalted position.
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81
Beatrice was not, at any rate, guilty of absurd exaggeration
when she described Jack Carbery as the wholesomest young
man in England. The word, indeed, could not have been more
aptly chosen, yet the description was so obviously correct that
it would have been imbecility not to have chosen it. He stood
some six feet in height, was nearly as broad as he was long,
and was devoted to every form of athletic exercise. His
capacity also for laughter was amazing, and his mouth, clean-
shaven, seemed always to be smiling so as to be ready for the
laughter which was sure to be not far off. He was not in the
least clever, but he was even more markedly not in the least
stupid, and brains very serviceable for the straightforward
conduct of his life pursued their pleasant thoughts beneath the
thick crop of rather curly hair. Just now his face wore an
expression of ludicrous perplexity, for they were playing
bridge, and for the moment he had quite forgotten whether
that somewhat important card the ace of trumps had been
played or not.
Leonard Compton, his right-hand adversary, gave a little
sigh.
It has remarks about "duty threepence" on it, Jack,' he
said, ' if that will help you to recall the look of it.'
'Don't confuse me by irrelevant information,' said he.
Let me think. Yes it has been played;' and he drew a
card from his dummy's hand.
The tenseness of the situation was suddenly broken, and
Ida, his partner, gave a ripple of laughter as Leonard played
the card that Jack had settled had been already played. Jack
gave a great sigh of despair.
(
I play with extraordinary correctness until I begin to
think,' he remarked. But in thought I lose myself. Awfully
sorry, Miss Jervis, and I lose your money, I am afraid, too.'
This remarkable piece of play on the part of Jack brought
the rubber to an end, and Ida pushed back her chair with a
laugh.
Oh, I so sympathize with you, Mr. Carbery,' she said.
'Thought is such a confusing process, especially if one com-
plicates it by talking. Dear Aunt Julia, may Bannister give
me some money? How much have I lost, Mr. Carbery?"
Oh, shan't we play again?' said Beatrice. 'Yes, Leonard,
you did it all too beautifully, but I've already told you so twice.'
Leonard Compton tapped on the table for silence. He had
a face like a rather good-looking monkey, shrewd, plain for a
human being, and almost painfully intelligent.

6
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
'The ace did it,' he said. 'If I hadn't made the remark
about "duty threepence," even Jack would have guessed I
had it in my hand. But it was morally impossible that I could
say "duty threepence" when it was staring me in the face.
That is why I did it, and that particular function of the mind
is called finesse.'
Jack looked at him in justifiable indignation.
'I have heard it called card-sharping,' he remarked with
suavity. 'But that, perhaps, is too severe a view.'
Ida flew to the aid of her partner.
'Oh, Mr. Compton, how mean of you!' she cried. Yes,
shan't we have one more rubber? Mr. Carbery, let's double
everything and get our money back. Thirteen shillings?
How awful! And my account is overdrawn.'
'Ah, then it doesn't matter, Miss Jervis,' said Jack.
The rubber was played, and Ida lost. The policy of doubling
to get her money back had not been markedly successful.
Mrs. Desmond, who had been reading the Gardener in an arm-
chair, got up also.
And I hope you have all won,' she remarked genially,
or, if that is impossible, that nobody has lost."
May I have a pound?' asked her niece.
'Oh, Ida, have you lost that ?'
Ida gave a little laugh of amusement.
No, but I want half a crown for the collection to-morrow,'
she said. 'How tiresome of you, Aunt Julia! I thought a
pound sounded so likely.'
You should have said a pound and sixpence,' remarked
Leonard. That would have gone unchallenged, owing-
owing to its spurious air of accuracy.
'Leonard, your English is too beautiful to be in the least
probable,' remarked Beatrice.
Yes, but who wants to be probable?' said he. 'Probable
people are always obvious. Jack, for instance, is far too
probable.'
Jack squirted some soda-water into a glass.
Leonard asked me a question the other day desiring in-
formation,' he said. 'I gave him the information he wished-
it happened to be quite correct, and he said “Probably.”
That struck me as singularly offensive.'
Ida was standing by the fire with her arm round Beatrice's
waist.
Also I
'I quite agree with you, Mr. Carbery,' she said.
quite disagree with Mr. Compton. Probable people are so
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83
satisfactory; at least, one's friends should always be probable:
I don't like squibs by the fireside.'
Beatrice turned a face of reproach on her:
Ida, your English is almost as beautiful as Leonard's,' she
said. And I wish you weren't six inches taller than me.'
Ida drew herself up to her full height. Her face was flushed
with delicious rose; her violet eyes, black by the artificial light,
sparkled with extraordinary animation: she was radiantly
beautiful.
6
Six only, Bee?' she said. Surely more. Aunt Julia,
how late you sit up in your house! In Scotland everybody
used to snore in their chairs by ten o'clock, and stagger heavily
to bed at half-past. We all used to sleep a great deal and eat
a great deal, and agree that it was most bracing.'
Leonard Compton lit a cigarette.
'I hate being braced,' he said; 'being braced means that
one has to take violent exercise to work off one's energy.
The really healthy condition is not to want to sleep or eat
or be violent.'
This doctrine was anathema to Mrs. Desmond.
'Leonard, that is an abominable theory,' she said. 'Do
you teach it to your patients? The only happy and therefore
healthy condition is to want to do twice as much as you
possibly can. You are describing the existence of a cow.'
Leonard turned to Ida.
'I'm sure Miss Jervis agrees with me,' he said.
'Yes, I think I do,' she said, 'but I want to know as much
as I can.'
Mrs. Desmond bustled towards the door.
You
Dear Ida, you know far too much as it is,' she said.
know all sorts of strange and upsetting things. Come, let us
go to bed,'
6-2
CHAPTER VI
THIS pleasant little party, starting as it did from very pro-
mising beginnings, grew very quickly in intimacy. Leonard
Compton, for instance, was Beatrice's first cousin; aunt and
niece, both devoted to the other, were there; and the fifth
wheel was the wholesomest young man in England, and already
a great favourite with Mrs. Desmond. It was not to be
wondered, therefore, especially since Ida and her friend sat
up for an hour in Ida's bedroom discussing things in general
and their immediate surroundings in particular, for an hour
or two that night, while in the smoking-room the two young
men were doing precisely the same thing, each party also
finding much cause for satisfaction in the immediate outlook,
that the next morning found them all on an immensely ad-
vanced stage of friendliness. The conversation in the smoking-
room contained nothing of particular note, Jack's contribu-
tion to criticism as regards Ida and her friend being chiefly of
the sort' I think they are both rippers,' but the talk between
the other two went nearer, as women are wont to do, to the
essentials. It began, as was natural, on externals.
Ida had sent her maid away after she had brushed out her
hair, and sat before the fire with Beatrice, with that river of
gold flowing down below her waist. It was extraordinarily
thick and fine, with a texture of floss-silk, and Beatrice was
just holding it up in her hands wondering at the weight of it.
'You extremely lucky person!' she was saying.
Oh, you
have so much.'
Hair?' asked Ida.
'That goes without saying, and I didn't think you would
fish for compliments. Oh, Ida, what an excellent barmaid
you would make! You would draw them in.'
Ida laughed.
'If I've been fishing for compliments, I've rather caught the
other thing,' she remarked.
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85
'Not a bit of it. You would draw them in. You see, you
happen to be adorable. There's a compliment, and another
is coming. You have improved quite enormously.'
Ida laughed again.
'You temper your compliments to the shorn-the shorn
subject of them,' she said. 'What was there so wrong about
me before?'
'You weren't quite human,' said Beatrice. You were
rather too astral for everyday use.'
Ida looked up at her quickly.
'Ah, I hope what you say is true,' she said.
If sorrow or
anxiety are good for one, they are good just for that.
I hope I am a little more human.'
Yes,
Once again the hunted look came into her eyes: Beatrice,
however, standing behind her, did not see it.
<
Yes, yes,' she went on, one learns, I hope, to allow for
everyone having awful and secret sorrows and anxieties that
they cannot tell to anyone, and yet, if they are brave, they
will manage to turn a smiling face to the world: they will not
let sorrow make them bitter, nor anxiety make them sus-
picious and distrustful of the whole big design. And when their
anxieties lessen, when their apprehensions and fears grow
more remote, nearer to the vanishing-point, they will come
back to the dear little joys of life with a redoubled gaiety.
And the little sorrows of life they will bear more patiently.'
She seemed to Beatrice to be speaking more to herself than
to any listener, and a long pause succeeded. Ida was sitting
looking at the fire; at length she roused herself.
So I am going to put the past behind me,' she said, ' and
be very grateful for the present and very hopeful for the
future. Just now the present seems to me enchanting. I have
had a charming evening. Oh, Beatrice, how nice people are!'
'Which in particular?'
Oh, you, if you wish, and Aunt Julia. Also Mr. Compton.'
So you leave poor Jack Carbery out?'
No; I was trying to say something special about him. It
is hard, because there is nothing special about him. How
very, very clean he is! And is that a symbol of his mental
cleanliness, just as Aunt Julia says that such an evening as we
have been spending, nice silly talk, silly bridge, is the symbol
of kindliness ?'
6
'Ah, I am glad you like him,' said Beatrice. That is
another sign of your improvement. A couple of years ago
you would have thought him a nonentity.'
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Ida considered this.
'I should have been wrong then,' she said. 'Because it
seems to me now that some people put in practice instinctively
all that others get to, or try to get to, with a great deal of
thought and meditation. If one can do that, it seems to me
a very admirable short-cut to make.'
(
This led her friend into a different line.
Do you still meditate ?' she asked.
Ida looked up in some surprise.
Oh yes, always,' she said, ' for an hour a day. What an
odd question! You might as well ask me if I still washed my
hands.'
Beatrice gave a great sigh.
I tried it once,' she said. 'I sat down and began to think.
I thought of everything under the sun at least three times. I
found that it had taken exactly ten minutes.'
Ida smiled.
And I only think of one thing,' she said, ' and I never
finish. But I must get more constant: Abdul meditates two
hours a day always. And I am so slack: supposing I am very
busy or very tired, I cut it short.'
Beatrice was disposed to be frivolous.
'I can't conceive it possible to meditate like that,' she said.
I couldn't meditate on a new dress for more than a minute.
But I dare say I think rather quicker than Abdul. And is he
going to remain with you always?'
Oh yes, always,' said Ida.
She gave a little shiver.
'It is impossible that he should leave me,' she added.
The next morning was delightfully bright and sunny, a sort
of apology and most handsome reparation for the darkness
and drizzle of the day before, a golden November morning,
glorious above with white fleeces of washed clouds drifting
over the blue-glorious, too, with every tint of russet and
orange and brown, the sunset of the leafage of the trees.
There had been some slight touch of frost in the last starry
hours before morning, and the air was brisk with the unutter-
ably clean smell of the early cold. And though the gray skies
and weeping clouds of the day before had been ideal for
planting, it appeared this morning that this day of windy
brightness was but another instance of perfection, and Mrs.
Desmond at breakfast firmly announced that, whatever any-
body else might do, her day was completely arranged for.
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87
'Fate has ordained that I shall be a gardener all morning,'
she said, ' and a farmer all afternoon. Pigs arrived yester-
day-but pigs, how I adore them! Black Berkshire little
piglets with curly tails.'
And their latter end,' remarked Leonard. Eight o'clock
on a fine morning, a huge butcher in a blue smock. And you
will try to say to yourself, Mrs. Desmond, that it is only the
cat. But your voice will ring false. Later on, again, you will
forget that, and instead you will think of them at breakfast.
Bacon, like this-how delicious!'
Beatrice put down her fork.
Leonard, how intensely unpleasant you are!' she said.
'My interior demands a diet of meat, but my sensibilities
demand not to think about it. And I was so hungry.'
'My dear, vegetarianism based on principles is an inde-
sensible fad,' said Mrs. Desmond. 'One lays down a rule that
one will not take life, yet one devours thousands of bacteria
a day. Also, if one is a vegetarian, one eats vegetables,
particularly cauliflowers. Can one give orders to the cook
that all slugs found thereon are to be put back into one's
herbaceous border ? Such nonsense!'
'I was only pleading for pigs,' remarked Leonard, eating
his bacon placidly. What do you think about it all, Miss
Jervis ?'
Ida's foreign life had stopped in her the English habit of
breakfast: she had a cup of coffee only and a roll.
'I can't see why anyone makes such a fuss about death,'
she said. Surely death is a very incidental affair.'
Now, this was the sort of remark of which Mrs. Desmond
had a vague horror. It implied more behind,' and her
healthy mind shrank from that on the general grounds of
morbidity, as a healthy body shrinks from the idea of disease.
'Oh, Ida, I have no patience with you,' she said. 'Death
makes so much more material difference than anything which
one can imagine. One may have an estrangemeat with a
friend, which it may take years to heal. But death is irre-
mediable—even to my poor little Berkshire pigs. Yet I eat
bacon still. And I shall continue to eat it without giving a
thought to it. Yes, a slice of cold tongue,' she said to a
footman.
She attacked her new plate with delightful appetite.
Days are so full,' she said, 'that one never has time to
think. I am sure on general principles that I am right to see
the cook after breakfast, and make sure there will be something
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
to eat at dinner: I am sure I am right to garden; I am sure
I am right to see that the Berkshire pigs are comfortably
housed. I can't sit down all morning and consider whether
I could not be spending it better than in gardening. Ida, I
am sure you will disagree with that, dearest ?'
Ida opened her eyes very wide.
'Not at all,' she said. 'I thoroughly approve. I think
that is just what one ought to do, to settle once and for all the
broad general principles of our lives, and then not bother to
consider whether at a given moment one might not be doing
something better.'
And what are your broad general principles for to-day,
dear?' asked Mrs. Desmond.
'It depends on what anybody else wants me to do,' she said.
My broad general principle until tea-time is to be amiable.'
And after tea you are going to break down, and be in a bad
temper, dear?' asked Beatrice. 'How wise to arrange that
sort of thing beforehand!'
'Be very amiable, then, after lunch, Miss Ida,' said Jack
Carbery, and come and play a foursome with us. Leonard
and I propose to have a single this morning.'
Ida got up.
'I don't know whether you will continue to think me
amiable if I do,' she said. My golf is supposed to resemble
superficial gardening, slight hoeing of the soil.
Oh, let us do that,' said Beatrice. 'It doesn't matter
how one plays on a nice day it's the day itself that is suffi-
cient to make one happy. It is only necessary to hit the ball
properly if there is an east wind.'
The two young men accordingly strolled off to the links
soon after breakfast, while the girls took chairs into the
garden. For though the day was of November, the sun
under shelter of the house made sitting out delightful, though
still in the shade a little hoar-frost made ribbons of white on
the vivid green of the grass. But it had not been severe
enough to blacken the great purple clump of Michaelmas
daisies that still stood up bravely in the border, as did the
scarlet of the few salvias that lingered there. Delightful,
also, was it to watch Aunt Julia toiling with as much effort
as, and far more ardour than, the gardeners, and more delight-
ful still when from sheer fatigue she rested from her labours
and joined them.
Ah, how delicious and how healthy it is,' she said, as she
took off her leather gauntlets, to work hard with one's
(
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hands in the real earth! If I spend the morning reading
some book of the highest educational value, I feel as if the
day was half wasted. But give me a patch of weeding to do,
something hard and definite and practical, of which I can see
the result!'
Ida laughed.
'Dear aunt,' she said, 'you have been trying to make me
express disagreement from you all morning, and it is really
cruel to disappoint you. But to-day I, too, am going to be
definite and practical, and if you come with us round the links
you will see again the definite results of my golfing. They
take the form of large black mouths cut in the ball, and large
pieces of turf dug industriously from the soil, and usually not
replaced.'
That will be very interesting,' said Beatrice, 'because I
want to see whether Mr. Carbery can lose his temper. Per-
sonally, I don't believe he can, and if he doesn't with Ida, I
shall know he can't.'
Inability to lose one's temper strikes me as rather a defect
usually,' said Mrs. Desmond. It implies a want of vitality.'
Ah, there's no want of vitality in Mr. Carbery,' said Ida:
'I don't think I ever met anyone who had more. Abdul
thinks so, too. Now, that is curious-
Surely you
Dearest Ida, why?' asked Mrs. Desmond.
don't require much occult power, if you only set eyes on Mr.
Carbery, to tell that he has got an immense amount of vitality.'
'Ah, but Abdul does not mean by vitality big muscles and
a red face-not that Mr. Carbery has a red face-he means
inward vitality, power.'
Mrs. Desmond did not like this: it approached too near to
the borderland of occultism. She sighed.
'I have often noticed,' she said, that Southern races are
the very worst judges possible of character. Poor Mr. Car-
bery! if you hinted that he was possessed of occult power, he
would have a fit, and certainly a red face, because he would
think you were laughing at him.'
Ah, he may have it without knowing it,' said Ida. 'One
doesn't know of the existence of any power till something
calls it into play. But I didn't mean occult power, nor did
Abdul, but simply force. As Abdul said, That is a man to
be obeyed."'
And
That is probably quite true,' said Mrs. Desmond, relieved
to find that occultism dropped below the horizon again.
now, Ida dear, I want to be practical and definite again. I
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shall have finished in the garden in a week, and we shall be
half way through November. Shall we go up to London for a
month before we come down here for Christmas? I love this
place, but my ardour cools a little in December. And there
is something rather cheery about London then. There are
nice cosy little things to do, and not so many people that one
can't see any of them, as is the case in the summer.
June in
London is rather like the Royal Academy: the immense mass
of objects exposed for view shuts out the view of them all.'
The roving London eye,' said Beatrice, 'how well I know
it! In the very act of saying, "How glad I am to see you!"
the owner of the roving eye will have seen a dozen other
people to whom she—it is usually a woman-wishes to talk.
And as she talks to each her eye will still be roving on, always
elsewhere.'
'I know: whatever one is doing, one is thinking of what
one is going to do next. It is an insane state of mind,' said
Mrs. Desmond. Yet how is one to prevent it?
I'm sure
you can tell me, Ida.'
Well, dear aunt, I should recommend you to concentrate
your mind on what you happen to be doing,' said Ida gravely.
I really believe you would find that that helped considerably.'
'I'm sure it would, but it is no practical use telling one to
concentrate one's mind; of course, if I could do that, the
question would be solved. But I can't.'
Ida got quite grave.
'Of course, it is the hardest thing in the world,' she said;
if one can really do that, all the rest follows.'
(
'All the rest ? What rest do you mean?'
Why, Aunt Julia, anything you want to do. If you can
concentrate your mind on anything, really concentrate it, I
mean, the thing is yours.'
There was an Ida here whom Mrs. Desmond hoped had
been exorcised by the visits of the last three months, the
psychical Ida, so she mentally labelled her, who had always
been to her a rather embarrassing personality. Yet the girl
looked so normal, and, what is more, so beautiful, that she had
not the heart to stop her.
'I don't understand, dear: tell me,' she said.
The girl looked at her inquiringly.
It will not bore you?' she asked. 'And you will not
laugh at it?'
Mrs. Desmond got up a moment and peered over the
terrace, where the gardeners were working. The horticul-
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91
tural mind being then at ease, since both were strenuously
employed, she sat down again.
Dear Ida,' she said, do you not know me well enough
to know that I am incapable of being bored while anyone
talks to me about anything that interests him? A child
confides in me about its dolls-could anything be more fas-
cinating? All shop talked by the shopkeeper in question is
absorbing. It is only when the bootmaker talks chiffon that
he becomes so tiresome.'
This was certainly the soundest sense, and in a way ex-
plained the extraordinary popularity and position of Mrs.
Desmond in London. Nothing could be more unfair than
to call her the vaguest cousin to a lion-hunter, yet the roaring
of all sorts of lions was never silent in her house. In any
case, this seemed to Beatrice to explain things: it was quite
probably the reason why so many utterly different people
were alike in this, that they considered Mrs. Desmond the
most agreeable person in the parish.
'So that's the secret,' she could not help exclaiming:
Dear Beatrice, I don't know what secret you mean,' said
the elder woman. We want Ida to tell us about concentra-
tion.'
A sudden burst of shyness incarnadined the girl's face,
and for the moment she was silent. For it is always a step
that gives pause, that admitting of others into the private
workroom of one's soul, where it weaves its secret stuffs,
and the woof and warp of its loom makes its fabric, its beliefs
and its convictions.
I suppose it will sound fantastic to you,' she said, 'but,
you see, I have lived my whole life among these fantasies,
and they are more real to me than anything else. Now, con-
centration-I said just now it was the hardest thing in the
world. I might have said more-namely, that it was quite
impossible without long and daily practice.'
She paused a moment.
Ah, let me send for Abdul,' she said. 'He knows so
infinitely more about it than I.’
This suggestion, again, contained the principle of shop from
the shopkeeper, and as such Mrs. Desmond acquiesced with
more than willingness. Even things occult gained her toler-
ance, when the shopkeeper spoke of them.
So Abdul came out, lean, brown, a strange note of the
antique and mysterious on this uncomplicated English land-
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scape. He refused to sit in the presence of his mistress, and
stood in front of the three. A sentence or two of Arabic
passed between him and Ida.
What is that?' asked Mrs. Desmond. 'I want to know it all.'
Ida laughed.
'He only asked me if you were quite ignorant,' she said.
And I said, "Quite." It was necessary, dear Aunt Julia :
you would have understood nothing unless he began at the
beginning.'
Then Abdul spoke with the eager voice and lightning
gesticulations of his race, and his audience was less to him
than the fly that buzzed in the window of the drawing-room
behind. Mussulman though he was, and to be classed, if
class was wanted, with Jew, Turk, and infidel, yet in what
he said there was no word which a Bishop might not have
endorsed. He spoke of the Way, that Way which leads by a
royal highroad without any groping in by-paths or stumbling
in the dark of devious forests to the one great Light. All the
human race, he told them, whether they would or not, knew
that the Way was there: yet each might choose whether he
turned his face towards the Light or away from it. But of
the existence of the Light and of the way which led to it none
could doubt.
Now, Mrs. Desmond was a very good, but not in the least
a religious woman. Kindliness and sympathy shone in her :
of meanness or lying she was incapable; her thoughts were
a well unsullied. But all these things belonged to her, so to
speak, by birthright. Also she hated cant, and the opening
of Abdul's discourse, in substance, reminded her vaguely of
nasal Puritanism. But it did not remind her of that long.
Another word passed between Ida and the other, and after a
moment Abdul continued :
It is only by thinking intensely and with concentration of
these things,' said he, 'that their reality becomes real. We all
have to live this external life: the shoemaker has to make his
shoes, the baker bakes his bread; we can never make into
nothing-I say it badly-the material world, the body's
needs. But it is vastly more our business not to make into
nothing the more real realities, the needs of the spirit. And
since, except rarely, one cannot hear or see those who make
these realities real to us, as our eyes and ears show us the
realities of material things, it is by constant meditation and
concentration, by dwelling on these things with a mind and
spirit eager and attentive, that we must advance in the Way.
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93
For not to advance means to recede: the material things
close in round us; they blear our eyes to true sight, and dull
our ears to true hearing.'
Abdul's voice sank a little, but it vibrated with an intense
eagerness.
A countless company of spirits,' he said, ' encompasses the
Way, those who have gone before us and wait on the
Threshold. To some of them it is given to help us, but to
obtain their help we must dwell constantly in the reality of
their presence. To others, fewer, it is allowed to speak with
us, and, as through a veil, to let us behold them. Others,
again, may be constantly with us, may be heard by us, but
may not, unless we wish them to become earth-bound, appear
to us. And to all these we approach, we get their help, by
our will, by our concentrated endeavour to make their reality
real to us.
Again his voice sank, till it was scarcely audible.
'Ŏther spirits there are, too,' he said, those who have
turned their backs on the Way, and on the Light which shines
there. These, too, it is possible to approach, for they are as real
as the others; we are able to hear them, and also to see them.'
But suddenly Ida's face changed: her lips writhed with a
nameless pain; her eyes came together looking inwards, and
as if there was something close to her, near her face, she bent
her neck back, as to avoid it. A nervous shiver passed through
every limb, and her hands trembled violently. But the seizure
only lasted a moment, and at once she collected herself again.
But Abdul had seen and sprang to her, and again a few words,
unintelligible to the others, passed between them.
Mrs. Desmond had just caught a glimpse of Ida's face; that
look of horror and shrinking had been almost momentary,
but she had seen enough to alarm her.
'You looked-
Dear Ida, what is the matter?' she said.
you looked terrible. And what are you saying now? Ah, I
do not like this business in the very least.'
But Ida had quite recovered herself.
I was telling him we had had enough for the present,' she
said. 'You have my leave to go, Abdul.'
Again the Arab made a deep, silent obeisance and passed
down the lawn, his foot noiseless on the grass.
So the first lesson ends,' said Ida.
found it horribly fantastic, Aunt Julia.'
And I'm sure you
Mrs. Desmond, whose eyes were still looking uneasily at
Ida, got up.
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'No, horribly real, some of it,' she said. 'Ida, you looked
dreadful just now: you looked as if you saw some dreadful
thing like those your mysterious Arab was describing.'
<
Ida pushed back her hair from her forehead.
Indeed it was nothing,' she said, and as for what you
suggest, I am sure you, Aunt Julia, would be the first to tell
me how utterly impossible it was.'
But Mrs. Desmond for the moment had been thoroughly
alarmed, and fright of any kind, though the moment itself
may be but infinitesimal, is always unsettling. The fright has
shaken like an earthquake the fabric of the mind, and though
it has not tottered, it does not know if a second shock may not
be coming. And her voice when she spoke was trembling
with real earnestness.
<
Oh, Ida,' she said, ' how I wish you would give it all up!
You approach it, I know, in the right spirit; it is all spiritual
to you, all part of religion. But, dear, is not the Bible, are
not the Gospels, enough for us all? Why meddle with things
that may be on the borderland that separates right and wrong?
Your long shuttings of yourself up into your room, till you
come out looking as if you hadn't gone to bed for a week?
Can't you be more simple? Just say your prayers, and do
the day's work, and at the end ask God to forgive you for all
that has been amiss? Surely that is enough for us all.'
Beatrice had gone inside when Abdul's discourse came to an
end, and the aunt and niece were alone. Ida did not answer
at once.
'It is my life,' she said at length. 'I could no more do
without constant concentration and meditation about those-
those whom I have loved and—and not lost, than I could do
without food or air.'
'But this servant, this Abdul,' cried Mrs. Desmond,—‘it is
he really who strikes me as so uncanny. Think about your
father, dear, and all whom you have loved, but why is it neces-
sary to go about always with a man who looks as if he came
out of the Pyramids, and makes cold shudders go down the
spine of the average Englishwoman?'
Ida raised her eyebrows.
'Don't you know? Have I never told you ?' she asked.
'Never I am bound to say it is my fault. I have always
refused to talk about these things to you.'
'He is the medium,' she said. 'I have often and often
talked with my father through him. And in many other
other ways
he helps me more than anybody else could.'
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95
I wish you would send him home,' said Mrs. Desmond
suddenly.
Ida shook her head,
I could not possibly. Besides, he would not go.'
But what would the man do, then ?'
He would remain as near me as he could,' said Ida, ' and,
necessary, starve. It was laid on him.'
Mrs. Desmond gave a little snort of impatience.
'That is what people say if an exceedingly nice appointment
is offered them,' she remarked. Abdul has a remarkably
pleasant place: no wonder it is laid on him.'
But Ida still looked grave, and distress and trouble came into
her eyes. At that Mrs. Desmond sprang up, all her affection
and love for the girl roused by a sudden compunction.
<
Ah, dear Ida,' she said, 'you mustn't take any notice
of my nonsense. Don't look worried and bothered, dear.
Abdul is an admirable servant: he is also devoted to you.
And as for those other matters, about which I know nothing
and understand nothing, let us agree to leave them alone.'
The girl gave a little sigh of relief.
'I am sure that is the best plan,' she said.
Mrs. Desmond went back to the beloved roses, but somehow
this talk had caused to arise in the sky, that had been so clear,
a little cloud, like a man's hand. It was as yet quite low on the
horizon, and blotted out not one ray of the very genial sun
which habitually shone on her life and outlook generally.
Yet, small and remote as it was, it had arisen, and with a
prescience, dim certainly, but none the less real, she did not
like the look of it. Yet, though now, as she gardened, she
turned over in her mind their conversation and the homily of
Abdul with suspicious scrupulousness, it was in vain that she
tried to fix or identify the cloud, so to speak: she had never
seen one like it before. Abdul's homily, indeed, was on the
whole, better than she had hoped for; the man might or
might not be a Christian, but it was perfectly evident even to
Mrs. Desmond's mind, which was hostilely disposed, that a
very deep and earnest morality, a very strong sense of right,
was, if not the mainspring, at any rate a most important wheel
in the mechanism that moved him. She had, as has been
mentioned, a sort of instinctive horror of the occult and the
unusual, but to-day, as it had been revealed to her, there was
certainly small cause for horror.
!
Then quite suddenly and unexpectedly she found she knew
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at what moment the little cloud had appeared. It was when,
on the mention of evil spirits, that strange look of shrinking
and terror had crossed Ida's face. And she knew now how
a dreadful interpretation of it had suddenly flashed into her
mind. For all the sweetness, the kindliness, the humanity even,
had been struck from the girl's face: for one minutest fraction
of a second an idea had occurred to Mrs. Desmond, and unbidden
there had flashed across her mind the memory of the face in a
picture of that strange French artist Mirabou. The picture
was called 'La Démoniaque.' She had only seen it once, and,
with a natural impulse of her very sane and healthy mind, she
had turned away from it at once: her eyes had not dwelt a
second on it, yet something in that momentary glimpse had
stuck in her memory, and the look on Ida's face, momentary
also, had reminded her of what she had seen.
Yet still her remote uneasiness was to herself as inscrutable
as ever. With her whole honest and upright soul she utterly
disbelieved in any such possibility as that which had thus,
unbidden, been present to her. The whole idea was fantastic,
incredible: it had leaped into her mind out of one of those
dim thickets of thought into which we can never penetrate,
yet out of which, as if by control as external to us as the
surprises that dreams give us, images spring:
millionth part of a second, this, like some unconjectured night-
mare, which may hold things more horrible than we have
ever thought of waking, had fastened upon her. It was no
longer there now: her reasonable and conscious self rejected
the possibility of its existence. But it had been there, and to
the end of her life the memory of this bright November
morning, with its radiant, rejoicing sun, its warm serenity,
almost unseasonable, the happiness that was hers, and the
vague, remote feeling of the gradual approach of something
dreadful, was never completely absent from her mind. For
on that morning the seed of horror burst its husk, and showed
itself to be alive.
As had been arranged, the four younger members of the party
set off soon after lunch for the links, and if cobwebs or dust
in dark places lurked in the brains of any of them, as Ida had
hinted to her friend the evening before, it would have been
strange if those benign influences of sun and wind did not, as
by the action of some celestial housemaid, sweep them away
and let in the light. Heather (more delightful, perhaps, to
the student of graceful growth than to the propeller of india-
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97
rubber) short and springy grass, rolling uplands on which
flamed the last brief glory of the autumn tints, were the key-
notes of the place, late larks still carolled, and the great benign
effulgence of the sun gathered the impressions of sight and
hearing and sound and motion together, and made of them all
a day of high festival. And of the four of them it was Ida
who, above all, was conscious of an extraordinary exuberance
of happiness. Life to her that afternoon seemed like a clear,
translucent pool of water, shot to its lowest depths with sun.
True, only a few hours ago, the spasm that had crossed her
face was but the faintest reflection of a sudden horror that had
seized her spirit, but that had passed as completely as the pain
of having a tooth extracted, and now, though she marvelled
at it herself, her recollection of it was dim, even as the recollec-
tion of physical pain vanishes almost with the pain. From
whatever cause, anyhow, that mysterious barometer of the
mind had shut up to finer weather than had been hers since a
certain day in March, now six months ago, and the shadow
that had every day since then been on her, now darker, now
less dense, seemed for the moment, at any rate, to have passed.
This serenity and sudden feeling of security may have been
responsible for her play, which certainly partook very little
of the nature of agricultural operations, such as her partner
had been led to expect. Beatrice, however, a bitter opponent,
had an unkind theory to advance with regard to it. She
herself was playing with notable imbecility, which may tem-
porarily have soured her.
(
I have always said golf was a game of pure chance,' she
said to Leonard, as they searched in very thick heather for
a ball that Beatrice had cut smartly to cover point, and our
experiences to-day-Ida's, at least-seem to me to prove it.
There she's done it again,' she said, as Ida made a per-
fectly clean straight brassy shot.
Leonard laughed.
It is certainly pure chance if we find this,' he said, ' and
the odds are strongly in favour of its being unplayable if we
do. Let's go on.'
It was your ball, wasn't it?' said Beatrice doubtfully.
Yes, and who sent it here ?'
'I,' said Beatrice quite cheerfully.
(
Come along, Leonard.
Was it a Haskell? And new ? How dreadful! Where are
the others? Oh, there, look, they're miles ahead! How very
unsociable of them!'
'They look to me rather sociable,' said her cousin.
7
CHAPTER VII
It was a morning early in December; watches and clocks at
least indicated that it was nearly mid-day, but to judge by
the light, or rather the entire absence of it, it seemed that
palpable midnight rather than noonday was at hand. Morn-
ing in this town of London could not be said to have dawned
at all; night of extraordinary density had continued to reign,
and through the windows of Mrs. Desmond's charming house
in Berkeley Square no ray except those of the gas-lamps out-
side penetrated. Ida was standing by one of these windows.
talking to her aunt, who was writing letters.
'Yes, I think a London fog is perfectly heavenly,' she was
saying. There is a mystery about it which I find fascinating.
It excites me, too. Supposing we should never see the sun
again, Aunt Julia : supposing it should spread over the whole
earth.'
'I should put all my money into gas-companies and electric
light. Also candles,' said Mrs. Desmond, with remarkable
common-sense.
'Dear aunt, how commonplace of you! Don't you see how
frightfully romantic and mysterious it is? Oh, something is
happening. A great copper-coloured patch has appeared in
the sky.'
Aunt Julia laid down her pen and came to the window.
Ida, you are truly refreshing,' she said. 'I have often
lately wondered at your immense capacity for pleasure, but
even I did not suppose it was so all-embracing as to include
a London fog as its subject-matter. I wonder if you will
find them entrancing when you have seen more of them.'
Well, the first one is quite adorable,' said Ida. 'Oh,
look! did you ever see such an extraordinary sight ?'
Indeed, even to Mrs. Desmond, in whom familiarity with
London fogs had bred a very considerable dislike, though not
exactly contempt, that which she saw, looking out now at
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99
Ida's bidding, and infected perhaps with the girl's wonder,
seemed worth looking at. A sudden draught apparently had
swept across the sky, and where before the thick black curtain
had been opaquely stretched, there came sudden rents and
illuminations. Swirls of orange - coloured vapour were
momently mixed with the black, as if the celestial artist
was trying the effects of some mixing of colours on his sky-
palate, and through these gigantic rents there suddenly
appeared, like the spars of wrecked vessels, the chimneys of
the houses opposite. Then the rents would be patched up
again, and the dark chocolate-coloured pall swallowed up the
momentary glimpse. But the commotion among the battling
vapours grew ever more intense: blackness returned to one
quarter, but in another all shades from deepest orange to the
pale colourless gray of dawn succeeded one another. Then
suddenly a beam of the sun itself smote through them all, and
gilded the crooked-timbered plane-trees of the square, and in
ten minutes more the fog had gone, and clear winter sunshine
brooded placidly over the town.
Ida turned away from the window with a sigh.
'I never saw anything so wonderful,' she said. 'Yes, it is
my first London fog. And now I suppose one must get to
one's businesses again. Oh, Aunt Julia, it was a good plan
of yours to come up to London. I think London is enchant-
ing. I love nice little cheery everyday things to do, and nice
cheery normal people to talk to. There are so many of them,
too: their numbers are so delightful. I must go and arrange
the flowers in the dining-room. At least, there seems a pros-
pect of people being able to find their way to Berkeley Square.'
Ah, they have sent flowers up from Ryssop this morning,'
said Mrs. Desmond.
'Yes, a delicious hamper of chrysanthemums,' said Ida.
I shall have a charming time arranging them. I love the
touch of flowers: it is like the touch of a child. But I wish
they could speak, like the flowers in "Through the Looking-
glass. It is so easy to be charming if you never open your
"}
mouth.'
Ah, I don't agree at all,' said Mrs. Desmond, turning over
her engagement-book. It is their silence I love. One can
read so much more into silence than speech.'
You rather agree with Mr. Compton, then,' said Ida, still
lingering. He said the other day that nothing which one
can say is ever worth saying: that the only things worth
saying are just those which are unsayable.'
WorM
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Mrs. Desmond laughed.
'That is so like him,' she said, ' and so delightfully untrue.
He is himself such an excellent instance of the falsity of it.
He talks such a great deal, and says such exceedingly sugges-
tive things. He is coming to lunch here to-day.'
'Anyone else?' asked Ida.
Yes, it appears that most people are coming to lunch.
They are all amusing, though; it is rather a menagerie, but
I so love all sorts and conditions of men and women. Just
ring the bell, dear, as you pass.'
Mrs. Desmond was as careful and as thorough-going in the
selection and mixing of her social entertainments as she was
in the arrangement of her garden beds, and by dint of years
of trouble had arrived at an instinctive feeling after perfec-
tion in these matters. Daring, though calculated daring,
she considered to be a high merit in the mixing both of her
flowers and of the guests at her table, and just as she loved to
see the brilliant purple of her clematis mingle with the scarlet
of her ramblers, so she delighted in the violent contrasts pre-
sented by the variously-coloured natures of her friends. All
fine, strong, pure colours, such was her gospel, would mix
with each other: so, too, with few exceptions, all vivid people,
however widely their views diverged, could not wholly dis-
agree, for their very vividness made a social harmony. She
would, however, acknowledge in her more unguarded moments
that she had made a slight error when the Prime Minister at
an acute political crisis found himself next the wife of the
leader of the Opposition. Even this, however, she would
have subsequently qualified, the defence being that this
estimable lady was not sufficiently vivid. But the crisis
during lunch was: it was impossible to conceive anything
vivider.
The delicious chrysanthemums had received at Ida's hands
a due recognition of their charms; the table blazed, and
Hugh Arnold, who could always be trusted to set the ball
rolling, took his text from them. He was in this particular
a very useful person, for he was charged to the muzzle with
things to say, never missed fire, and always went off at
once. He was a minor poet, but precious at that, and his
preciosity rather overflowed into his conversation, which was
a mistake, since it rendered it almost completely valueless.
'Chrysanthemums!' he exclaimed, sufficiently loud to be
universally audible. How exquisite ! The flower of gold!
That, I suppose, accounts for the fact that these are quite
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ΙΟΙ
obviously copper, and not gold. What a pity that copper is
not our standard coin: a new penny is so much more beautiful
than a sovereign. The tint of copper is so much warmer.
And beauty is so much more valuable than bullion.'
His wife, a charmingly pretty American, was sitting oppo-
site. She had only lately married him, and almost flirted
with him still.
(
Well, pray don't pay me my pin-money in new pennies,
counting each as a sovereign,' she said. But I'll give you
several beautiful new pennies for every dirty old sovereign,
Hugh.'
Jack Carbery, to his great delight, found himself next Ida.
Are they from Ryssop?' he asked. 'The chrysanthe-
mums, I mean.'
'Yes and I arranged them. Do you know, they rather
remind me of that afternoon we played golf. It was a coppery
gold afternoon.'
Jack laughed.
It was a half-crown afternoon,' he said, 'owing to your
excellent play.'
Did I play well?' asked Ida. 'I had forgotten that. I
only remember the afternoon.'
"A suicidal policy,' said Sir James Denton in a sudden
uproarious voice to Mrs. Desmond. He always opened a
subject as if he had been contradicted, in an explosive and
violent manner. That, however, soon
That, however, soon wore off, and he
became merely didactic and generally tedious. These most
valuable qualities, coupled with wealthy respectability, had
led to a portfolio in the Cabinet. We begin by introducing
slavery into South Africa, and in two years from now the
slaves, I tell you, will have their foot on our necks. And it
is owing to our hideous greed for gold that we have done this
—gold, which, as Mr. Arnold so rightly remarks, is so far less
beautiful than copper."
A faint scream was heard, and Mrs. Marston, very early
Victorian in dress, but very late Victorian in everything else,
raised her voice. If she wanted to say something, which she
constantly did, she always screamed a little first it made
the pause she wished for. She was an actress-manager, and
managed better than she acted.
'Why do we not all of us,' she said, as she adjusted a huge
pearl that had got entangled in some priceless Mechlin lace-
why do we not all of us just leave this dreadful question of
wealth alone, and pursue our own idea of beauty and the
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beautiful life? We are so mercenary; we ought to be all so
much simpler.'
She heard Hugh Arnold clear his throat, which was, as she
knew, preparatory to speech. So, as she had not quite finished,
she screamed again, indicating this.
(
Surely everybody is rich enough,' she said. 'All of us, I
mean. Poached eggs and tea, for instance—that is what I
had for dinner last night. And I sat on the hearthrug after-
wards. What more can one want?'
She helped herself to some stewed truffles as she spoke,
and, forgetting to scream, lost her place.
(
A charming doctrine,' said Hugh Arnold, but quite im-
practicable. If ever-it is rare-I see anything in a shop
which I faintly desire to possess, I always find it is the most
expensive thing in stock. I wanted the other day to buy a
little wedding-present for Mrs. Cornwallis, who, as you know,
has the most glorious red hair, and I thought a ruby would be
suitable. I saw a delicious cabochon ruby, not large at all,
in Streeter's, and inquired the price. It was four thousand
pounds, but the urbane gentleman who showed it me thought
that perhaps three thousand seven hundred might secure it.
I happened to have fixed on the best ruby that had ever come
into the market.'
Mrs. Marston executed her celebrated writhe.
'Please, please, you bought it ?' she said. 'Mr. Carbery,
do support me! Whatever the price was, if it really was
right, if it really was preordained for Mrs. Cornwallis, and
utterly suited the colour of her hair, ought not Mr. Arnold to
have bought it, whatever the price was ?'
I suppose the question of paying for it may have com-
plicated his decision,' said Jack.
Mrs. Desmond paused in her conversation with Sir James
Denton on the subject of Chinese labour, and threw a remark
in.
'Nothing can be more uncomplicated than not paying for
what you buy,' she said. 'But it is a system requiring a good
deal of disinvolture. You have to be on a glorious scale.
No, Sir James, I can't agree with you. If the Empire is to
go on at all, we must run it on economical lines.~ A little
waste in a cottage does not particularly matter, but it is
when you have a big house that you have to go into details.
Now, the British Empire-
Mrs. Marston recovered her place.
'That is so true,' she said what was true she did not ex-
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103
plain. We have all got to work-all proper people work.
Well, if we all work as well as we can, if we do our little best,
why should we the little-besters-not form a guild of those
who never pay for anything?'
The guild is already formed,' remarked Leonard Compton ;
though it is not officially recognised. The membership, how-
ever, is quite full. There is no subscription.'
Hugh Arnold-he had married an extremely wealthy
woman, and was therefore unbiassed in the matter of cheques
-applauded this suggestion.
(
'I will be put on the waiting-list, then,' he said. That
seems to me an ideally beautiful scheme. We work; Mrs.
Marston gives us her divine impersonations, Mrs. Desmond
gives us her her delightful lunch, Mr. Compton studies
ganglia for us, and we all leave the sordid question of paying
for things alone, and just order, just enjoy, what we feel we
are in need of. Besides, I always feel that I have a sacred
claim on anything I want, provided my conscience really
tells me I need it. Personally, my conscience tells me that
I am in need of a six-cylinder Napier car.'
Why, if I didn't order it yesterday,' said his wife.
There was a laugh at this, and Arnold took some chaud-
froid.
'Then I am at peace with myself,' he said.
at peace with one's self is the whole duty of man.'
'And to be
Ida had been talking on the merest trivialities to Jack
Carbery, but at this she turned to Hugh Arnold, who was on
her right.
That is very true,' she said quietly. But how is one for
certain to get that peace? One signs the truce: but some-
body else has to countersign it.'
The froth died off at this: Hugh Arnold, who was really
very intelligent, saw that she was speaking of deeper things
than had at present come on the tapis a fuller vintage than
this light luncheon wine was being offered to his notice.
I don't see how any countersigning is necessary,' he said.
One's self, one's ego, is both one's self and one's enemy.
The moment you can say, "There is harmony; the machine-I
—is working smoothly," no external circumstance can count
for anything. One's own conscience is the only guide that
one can possibly have. "To thine own self be true. What
an extraordinary knack Shakespeare had of putting his finger
on the spot, like that patent medicine!'
Ida went back to the last remark but one.
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*
'Yet how can one be certain one is being true to one's self ?'
she said. What if there is some inherent falsity in one, some
deep-set flaw which disturbs everything, some some dreadful
possession ? You can only know you are doing your best :
but what if all the time you are colour-blind?'
Hugh laughed.
‘Ah, you are driving me into corners,' he said. You want
me to say that it is the business of the homicidal maniac to
commit crimes of violence; that if he is to live in harmony
with himself he must do his murder a day.'
Mrs. Marston shrieked again.
'Ah, how horrid you are!' she cried. 'The very word
makes me feel ill. I am very silly and childish, I know, to
be so sensitive, but murder is so dreadful. Please, please,
let me live my life out. It is my own, and I won't do any
harm. Oh, Mr. Arnold, tell me my life is my own.
Some-
times, you know, when I am acting, I feel that another force,
not me at all, has possession of me, and I have to do as it
bids me. That frightens me it takes one back to dreadful
ideas about spirits and witches.'
Ida, sitting on the other side of Hugh Arnold, had not
heard this, for Mrs. Marston's voice had shrunk to the curdling
whisper which she employed with such success in thrilling
situations, and she turned to Jack Carbery.
And I hear you are going out to Egypt at Christmas,' she
said. You will go up the Nile, of course.'
'I wanted to talk to you about that,' said Jack. I shall
only have a bare month there, and I want your advice as to
how to spend it.'
'Ah, I can't take that responsibility,' said she, for I
might tell you to go up the Nile, and when you did so, you
might find only what an American once spoke to me of as
these lonely old temples. She added that the very men-
tion of the word "dynasty" made her feel sick.
You see,
>
I don't know sufficiently well what you like.'
He laughed.
Oh, my needs are very simple,' he said. 'I really want
to sit in the sun: you can promise me that, I suppose. And
if one could get a little shooting-is that very barbaric of
me?' he added.
'I suppose it can't be,' said Ida, ‘because I am sure you
are not barbaric. But personally I cannot see how kind
people can like killing things. Do you remember that
broken-winged thrush which you carried home at Ryssop,
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105
and mended its wing? Yet supposing it had been a pheasant
without a broken wing, you would have shot it.'
'Ah, but the thrush was suffering,' said Jack. 'Would
you have had me leave it ?'
'And the pheasant was not, therefore you kill it ?' said Ida.
Jack crumbled his bread for a moment or two in silence, his
eyes on the table. Then he raised them, clear and honest, to Ida.
'I give it up,' he said. What's the answer? It is like
war, is it not? You kill as many men as you can, and treat
those that are wounded as if they were your brothers.'
Sir James Denton had heard this.
Quite right, quite right, Mr. Carbery,' he said. War is
the most hopeless imbecility in the world, and the ruler or
governor who permits it I hold to be a homicidal maniac of
the most deadly kind. You were talking just now of Egypt,
were you not? We got a most extraordinary piece of news
this morning at the Foreign Office connected with that
country which we have-ah-stolen.'
This was by way of amende to Mrs. Desmond, with whom
he had been disagreeing violently on South African topics,
an olive-branch held out to her. She accepted it at once with
her satisfactory laugh.
'I forgive you for South Africa over that, my dear Sir
James,' she said. Now, do tell us your news, particularly
if you ought not.'
A certain hush had fallen on the table, and even Mrs.
Marston stopped in mid-scream, a rare phenomenon, for Sir
James was quite delightfully indiscreet, and consequently
worth listening to when he talked on political matters. He
waved his hand.
Ah, nothing political,' he said, and a murmur of disap-
pointment ran round the table, but I thought it might
interest Miss Jervis-and indeed, perhaps,' he added, noticing
the silence, one or two others of you. Well, about two
months ago an Englishman applied for the protection of the
Government to travel into certain very little-known oases
west of Wady-Halfa. The object of his journey was to
investigate some psychical and occult secrets of which he
believed certain men in these distant Arab tribes had know-
ledge. Well, psychical phenomena are not at present con-
sidered matters of imperial importance, and so we could not
extend our shield over him. So, like a brave and sensible
man, he went without.'
Sir James's oratory was of a certain heavy though rather
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distinguished order, and he made his effects largely by the
well-considered use of pauses. These he interpolated at
points where his listeners wanted him to get on and not to
pause, and they acted as most efficient whets to the appetite.
He went without,' repeated Sir James. He is naturally
of a very dark complexion, and dressed himself as an Arab
from Northern Egypt, saying he was a doctor. Now, small-
pox, we knew, was raging in the villages outside Halfa, and
after he had gone, news came in now and then of a wonderful
doctor who cured it. This the authorities at Halfa took to
be our friend. And though they could not give him safeguard,
they were delighted to know that he was safe.'
(
Ida looked up at this.
Was his name Mr. Henderson ?' she asked.
That was the name. Do you know him ?'
'Yes; I met him in Egypt at Luxor last spring. Do tell
us, Sir James, what happened to him.'
I was about to do so,' said he, with just a hint of pompous-
ness. He was absent, so it appears, two or three months.
Then one day he reappeared as quietly as he had set off. He
was never a talkative man, I expect people who do that
sort of thing seldom are--and, since he had gone without any
sort of Government protection, he was perfectly at liberty to
say on his return as little as he pleased. But he seemed well
satisfied with the result of his expedition, and he has cer-
tainly been where no European has ever set foot before.'
And what has happened to him since ?' asked Ida, who
was listening very eagerly.
He left Halfa after a few days on his way back to England.
But he waited at least a week at Luxor.'
'My dear Sir James,' cried Mrs. Desmond, 'I had no idea
the Foreign Office had such a thorough system of investiga-
tion into the movements of independent Englishmen. There
is something truly Russian about your story; it sounds as
if you had an elaborate detective agency in Egypt, which
reported the movements of everybody to the Foreign Office.'
Sir James seemed disposed for a moment to appropriate
and absorb this tribute to the power of his department, but
thought better of it.
'Ah, Mr. Henderson is not quite an ordinary independent
Englishman,' he said. At least, the population of Egypt
do not consider him at all ordinary. Some news of where
he had been and of what he had done passed through the
bazaars like lightning. You know-
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107
He paused and lit a cigarette from a fire-mouthed dragon.
'You know Egypt is a very extraordinary country,' he
said, and hardly any Englishman knows anything about it.
At the Office, at any rate, we think we know something,
because we know that we know nothing, and to know that
clears the ground a little; it is the first step towards learning.
The simple facts are these: At Assouan, a couple of days
before Mr. Henderson got there, it was known that he was
coming, and the bazaars were in an uproar, a ferment of
expectation. Why there was so much excitement nobody
knew. To the native mind he had become a personage far
more important than the Khedive or the British Agent, and
the whole town-literally the whole town-turned out to
meet him. A friend of mine, Mr. Alister, is stationed there,
and is in charge of certain works connected with the dam.
But on the afternoon when Mr. Henderson was expected, out
of the two thousand men of whom he has charge hardly a
dozen turned up to work. It was inconvenient, but he had
to swallow it: you cannot dismiss your whole body of work-
men. Yet he could find out nothing whatever of why they
all preferred to lose their day's wage than lose the sight of
our wonderful Mr. Henderson.'
Mrs. Marston's scream was heard.
'How too deliciously eerie! How deevily mysterious!' she
cried. And what next? I tremble to know what next.'
All down the river it was the same thing,' said Sir James.
'But perhaps the most incomprehensible thing is that, though
Mr. Henderson went straight down as far as Luxor by the
quickest possible transit, yet the news of him went quicker.
That is one of the mysteries of Egypt-indeed, of the East
altogether. News, rumours, travel faster than is to be
possibly accounted for.'
That is quite true,' said Ida. I remember that the
Mediterranean fleet one winter came unexpectedly to Alex-
andria. Not an Englishman in the place knew it was coming :
it had set out from Malta with sealed orders. But the bazaar
knew.'
About Mr. Henderson,' continued Sir James rather
severely: 'I was saying that he stopped a week in Luxor,
where he seemed to inspire a sort of terror. He had been
there before, I think you said, Miss Jervis. He stopp
couple of days in Cairo, and I am told had a long tall
the authorities there. No doubt if anything of imp
passed, the next despatches from Egypt will inform

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Then he left for Sicily, and expects to be in England by the
end of the year.'
He grew rather more departmental; the solemnity of his
face approached the sublime.
He is the sort of man who may be very useful to us,' he
said. 'We may perhaps offer him some small Government
post, with the prospect, of course, of a rise. He has certainly
got into touch with a very little-known class in Egypt-the
country-folk, the fellahin. To understand the people,' he
said rather gorgeously, that is the secret of successful
colonization. It is the acting in the spirit of democracy that
makes the English race loved and successful where other
nations are hated and fail.'
Ida laughed she could not help it and leaned forward
across to Sir James.
And yet in Egypt you do not think that psychical phe-
nomena are of imperial importance ?' she asked. 'Don't you
see, Sir James, that all the incomprehensible travelling of
news in the East, all the excitement about Mr. Henderson, is
psychical? Or how else do you propose to account for it ?'
Conversation had sprung up again in different quarters on
the conclusion of Sir James's generalizations on the colonial
system, and her question was addressed to him alone. But
at the same moment Mrs. Desmond rose, and the women left
the room, while the men lingered a minute or two more over
their cigarettes and coffee.
It was characteristic of Mrs. Desmond's house that her
guests at luncheon were always slow to go away, and sub-
sequently in the drawing-room Jack Carbery found an oppor-
tunity to get hold of Ida again.
'Do tell me more about the mysterious Mr. Henderson,' he
said.
Ida looked at him with bright eyes and heightened colour.
Oh, Mr. Carbery, you would think it such nonsense,' she
said. Let me plan out a month's tour for you in Egypt, or
let us discuss the union of kindliness and the killing instinct
as co-existent in the same person.'
Jack Carbery had a certain quiet persistence about him that
usually got its way.
Mr. Henderson, then,' he said.
d? And does he shoot ?'
aughed.
'Let us take his case. Is

sure he doesn't shoot,' she said, ' because I remember
e as much. And I shouldn't say he was at all kind.'
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109
He looked at her quietly a moment.
'You are immensely interested in him,' he observed.
Ida raised her eyebrows: somehow the remark struck her
as slightly impertinent: it had a hint of disapproval about
it which she resented, for he had no earthly right to hint dis-
approval at anything she did or thought.
I am indeed,' she said. He is a most interesting person.'
Then suddenly she saw a certain hint of disappointment
come into Jack's face for the first time since she had known
him a shadow was there. Why, she did not trouble to ask :
her instinct was merely to remove it. And the instinct was
rather strong.
'But I don't think I altogether like him,' she added.
Jack gave a little sigh of relief, which he fully meant her
to hear.
'Ah, that's better,' he said.
Just as all that was out of doors in the country was more
important than what was within walls, so in town, according
to Mrs. Desmond's admirable view of life, interiors were
paramount. And certainly this house of hers in Berkeley
Square where she lived with her niece was excellently adapted
for the convenience of its inmates. On the ground-floor was
a big double reception-room and the dining-room; on the
floor above was what she called her flat, consisting of bath-
room, bedroom, and sitting-room, with a spare bedroom and
dressing-room; and on the floor above a suite somewhat
similar, appropriated to Ida's exclusive occupation. Here,
however, the sitting-room had been cut by some previous
occupant into two small rooms, and this arrangement Ida
had settled to keep. And since complete independence
seemed to her aunt to be the only thoroughly satisfactory
basis for comfort among cohabitants, she had naturally let
Ida have her way. Yet genial and utterly without small-
ness as Mrs. Desmond was, the secrecy which Ida had observed
with regard to the use to which she put the inner and smaller
of these rooms seemed rather curious to her aunt. More than
curious, it was never labelled in Mrs. Desmond's mind: her
desire that her niece should have all the liberty she wished
entirely swamped any of that perfectly natural curiosity as
to what she did with it. But there had been a slightly
difficult moment when the two moved from Ryssop up to
Berkeley Square. Aunt Julia, as her nature, custom and
instinct dictated, had wished Ida to be at home with her
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without any reservation, and Ida in her survey of her London
quarters had been enthusiastic.
'It is exactly all that I should choose, dear Aunt Julia,'
she had said, 'and you shall not see it till it is all
arranged.'
So for ten days after they had come to London the sound
of moved furniture was thunder above Aunt Julia's head, and
Ida was hot and tired, and washed her hands extremely often.
It was with some pomp that at the end of this time Mrs. Des-
mond and Beatrice were conducted to the upper story. The
smell of paint-Mrs. Desmond's 'do what you want' meant
'do what you want '-still lingered in the air.
Ida's bedroom was the first visit of inspection. It was a
charming panelled room, and it was all white, except the floor,
which was black.
'Only permanganate of potash,' said Ida, ´and two bear-
skins. A couple of prints-you gave me one, Aunt Julia.'
Certainly the bedroom was delightful. There was a bed-
stead of wood painted white. A big toilet-table stood in the
window; there were a couple of white wardrobes; a washing-
stand and three or four chairs completed the furniture. Two
white polar-bear skins lay on the floor; the two prints hung
on the walls-otherwise there was nothing in the room.
Both of the inspectors, Mrs. Desmond and Beatrice-the
former of whom was a sort of sanitary fanatic with regard to
bedrooms-gave unqualified approval, and Ida led the way
to the sitting-room. That was a girl's room pure and simple:
it was small, but there were comfortable chairs and comfort-
able corners a piano, set at right angles into the room served
as a screen from the door, a window-seat was massed with'
cushions, a revolving bookcase held a set of the Edinburgh
Stevenson, a Tennyson, half a dozen Thackerays, and about
the same number of volumes of Dickens. Mrs. Desmond
spun this revolving bookcase with a satisfied eye.
What nice books you have, Ida !' she said. Nice straight-
forward, jolly books, which you are ready to begin all over
again as soon as you have read them once.
Such nonsense,
people talking about the hundred best books, as if twenty
were not enough for a lifetime! And you have arranged the
room too charmingly-one corner, two corners, room for three
friends and yourself. And three simultaneous friends are a
real surfeit of richness. And your third room, dear, what
have you done with that ?'
Up till now Ida had exhibited the pride of proprietorship,
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III
but on this question the pride was extinguished, though she
parted with nothing of the proprietorship.
I have done nothing with it,' she said. 'There is a couch
there; there is really nothing else. Of course, you shall see
it if you wish.’
Mrs. Desmond's quickness of perception instantly recog-
nised the change of voice, and her tact helped her to maintain
the cheerful indifference of her own. It seemed to her so
clear that she might see it if she wished, but the fact that
Ida stated this showed it was not so clear as she had supposed.
'Ah, you will just keep it as a little private cabinet. How
wise, dear!' she said. 'I am charmed with this room, though,
Ida. You have managed it excellently. I shall be constantly
tapping at your door, to know if I may come in and sit with
you.'
Ida's relief at the abandonment of the topic of the third
room was again quite perceptible to Mrs. Desmond.
'Dear Aunt Julia,' she said with great cordiality, 'I shall
be furious if you ever tap at my door. I am so glad you like
my little arrangements. And you are a dear! Now you and
Bee must have tea with me here this afternoon, as a house-
warming.'
It was to the third room, however, into which neither
Aunt Julia nor Beatrice Montague had ever penetrated, that
Ida went this afternoon, when the last lingerer of the luncheon
guests the same being Jack Carbery-had taken his de-
parture.
A smile very childlike was in her eyes and on her
mouth-a smile whether of anticipation of happiness or of
recollection, it was hard to say, for while her eyes were large
and alert, her mouth drooped a little as if in reverie over the
past. But her face, anyhow, was radiantly happy.
6
Happy she certainly was, yet that term is capable of a
thousand dissimilar ancestors. To a malade imaginaire a
moment's right digestion will give it ; to the more spiritually-
minded, the splendour of a sudden thought' will fill the
horizon. But to the ordinary yet thinking human being,
a variety of conditions have to contribute. Ida certainly had
not got indigestion, she was not, either, conscious of sudden
splendour in thought. But this afternoon she had a general
harmony; no condition, as far as she knew, required remedy.
It was close on five o'clock when she came upstairs, and
she would have to go to dress, on present arrangements, soon
after six, since she and her aunt were going to the theatre,
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dining beforehand at a quarter to seven, in order not to miss
the first act, a thing abhorrent to Mrs. Desmond's practical
sense. She had thus a clear hour to herself, secure from inter-
ruption, for she left word with her maid that she did not want
to be disturbed till it was dressing-time. On reaching her
landing she went first to her bedroom, took off her smart
London gown, and put on instead a loose white dressing-gown.
Then, standing before her glass, she let loose the coils of her
glorious hair, and a river of gold like a cataract in flood rolled
and tumbled in thick, heavy skeins of floss-like texture below
her waist. At that sight for one moment, innocent and only
half-conscious admiration of that violet-eyed, golden-haired
image in the glass that looked so sweetly at her touched the
girl's mind. Yet it was scarcely egotism from which it
sprang, though it was at her own beauty she looked; she her-
self was hardly present to her own mind: all that she saw she
no longer really regarded as hers, but another's. All this, this
beautiful mirrored reflection, was but a gift she had already
made. Then, with her thought still wistfully indwelling,'
she passed out of her bedroom, through her sitting-room and
into the little room beyond. And there even that thought
so frankly impersonal to her was purged, and it existed no
longer.
This third room was very simply and plainly furnished :
a couch with a wooden frame and a pile of thick square
cushions stood by the window, by which was hung a heavy
dark-blue curtain, so that all light could be excluded by the
drawing of it. A couple of plain rush-bottomed chairs were
there, and a small round table, on which stood an electric
lamp, heavily shaded. On the far side of the room stood a
prie-dieu of plain dark oak; above it on the wall hung a small
bookcase, containing not more than a dozen volumes. all
bound alike in white vellum. These she knew well; their
presence, indeed, was unessential, for her mind reminded her
as distinctly as the pages she would turn.
Ida locked the door behind her, and turned on the electric
light. The shade of it was of dark blue, and left all the room
in dimness except for a small bright circle immediately below
it, large enough to read by. Then she opened the window
wide. All round the circle of illumination the dimness of
the London evening already approached to night, but she
drew the curtain across the window, and kneeling down at her
prie-dieu, she remained there for some five minutes. After
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113
that she rose, crossed to the couch, and lay down, her hands
extended by her, breathing long, slow, deep breaths, filling
her whole lungs with each inspiration. Outside the dim roar
of London sounded like a steady, remote sea breaking muffled
on sand, with a continuous murmur of sound and a sort of
rhythm in it which was strangely soothing and deadening to
the ears.
The girl lay there with closed eyes, her smile not yet gone
from her face, but lingering there as the pale broad lights of
sunset linger, after the sun itself has set; it seemed, indeed, a
reflection of some far-away brightness that flooded her soul.
Between her parted lips her breath came evenly, yet she did
not look in the least as if she was sleeping: some vivid vital
alertness was on her face, and her intense quietude looked
like the quietude of strength and life and energy-a quietude
of soul-life, which is never so radiant with vitality as when the
body is absolutely at rest. Then the girl's lips moved, the
smile on them deepened, and, so to speak, went inwards, and
in a low voice she spoke.
The dawn of the everlasting day,' she said very slowly,
' and of the full knowledge of the One Spirit which moves the
world. Infinite Lord of life, shine on me ; make me to know
that there is but one all-encompassing power, that everything
that might seem to me an exception, an evil, is but the effect
of my own blindness. Pour, then, thy light upon my eyes; re-
move the shadows from me and the doubtings. Let thy cloud
of witnesses be close about me, and, though not visible, make
it known to me that they watch, that they wait, that my
soul, too, even now is one of them, is as close to them as is
my body to those who with me live on this earth. Fill me
with the knowledge of their presence, of their nearness to me
and of their dearness, and even as I fill my whole being with
the air I breathe, let this knowledge of my communion with
them flood and overflow my soul.'
Then to her as she lay there, still smiling, still with shut
eyes, the dim hum of the London traffic melted away, and
through her closed lids it seemed to her that there dawned
and grew a rosy light. And with her soul alert and intent
she watched the brightening of this inward day, not forcing
nor helping with her imagination that vision of things unseen,
but just letting it take its own way. Slowly that incredible
rose flamed with more and more radiant softness: then across
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the field of the vision of her closed eyes there appeared,
faintly at first, and then with increasing vividness golden
rails dividing her from what lay beyond. And to-day it
was given her to draw near to the barrier of partition, and she
seemed to herself to float nearer and nearer to it, till, kneeling,
she leaned her forehead on the cool gate of death or the gate
of life, for the two were one. And close to her, so close that
she felt that if she moved her hand it would grasp another
hand, yet so real that she needed no evidence of sound or
sight or touch to convince her of the spiritual presences that
hovered round her, the souls of those who wait on the
threshold were in communion with her, and it would have
been, so she knew in this supreme moment, a concession, a
baseness, a failure of faith, to desire anything that partook
of material or tangible evidence: they were with her, soul
penetrated to soul, the bar of the body melted mistlike, and
nothing stood between her and those with whom she com-
muned. Absorbed, yet fully awake, she lay there; lost in,
interpenetrated by, the presences that are of the life ever-
lasting, on whom there shines the light of the eternal day.
Never before to anything like this degree had their nearness
been so vivid to her; hitherto she had, so to speak, but looked
out into the sunlight; this evening she basked in it: she took
a further step along the Way.
Then, nearly an hour later, when her maid tapped at the
door, it was as if she returned from some infinite distance.
Yet through all the journey from where she had been to where
her body lay, the presences shone beside her, and it was with-
out any sense of shock that at length she found herself again
in the little barely furnished room, with the hum of London
like a distant sea coming in through the open window.
CHAPTER VIII
LEONARD COMPTON and Jack Carbery were together in the
rather luxurious bachelor quarters occupied by the former
near the top of St. James's Street smoking the last smoke
before Jack went home. Leonard was standing on the hearth-
rug, and appeared to be giving advice.
There are marked symptoms of funk and absent-minded-
ness about you to-night, Jack,' he said. 'Now, I will not
waste the sweetness of my very unexpected conversation on
the desert of an absent-minded friend. So what is it?
You told me you have paid all your bills up to date. That,
by the way, is symptomatic. Therefore I won't ask "What
is it ?" but Who is she ?" "
Jack made an impatient movement in his chair, and
threw his leg over the arm of it.
Oh, rot!' he said.
As if you didn't know.'
'My dear fellow, of course I do,' he said,' but I thought it
was only manners to give you a chance of telling me if you
thought of it. So it is taken as said, is it? Have you pro-
posed to her yet?'
'No, of course not. I should'nt feel as if I were standing on
one leg, with all heaven spinning round one way above me, and
all hell spinning round the other way below me, if I had,' said
Jack, with unusually imaginative phrase.
And you just stuck there in the middle, like Mohammed's
coffin,' remarked Leonard. Giddy work, isn't it ?'
Jack got up.
Giddy is not the word,' he said.
just from sheer emptiness."
'Leonard, I shall burst
Leonard considered this remarkable metaphor.
'Yes, you'll do,' he said at length; 'such a wonderful con-
fusion of terms indicates that intense morbid exaltation of the
mind which is a sign-
Morbid?' said Jack, with contemptuous emphasis.
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Yes, diseased, not normal-morbus, disease, you know.
That is a symptom to get rid of. You can only get rid of it
one way. Go to Miss Jervis, and say, "Will you kindly be
my wife ?"
Jack gave a hollow groan.
Oh, how can I?' he said. 'A stupid, ugly brute like me
going to her and saying that! She would think I was per-
fectly mad. Leonard, did you ever see such a face? Did
you ever think it possible there could be such a girl ?'
Leonard lit another cigarette with paralyzing calmness.
'There are plenty of people like her,' he said. My cousin
Beatrice, anyhow, is quite as good-looking. But the fact that
you don't think so indicates that you are biassed in favour of
the other.'
Jack took a turn up and down the room. He repeated the
word 'biassed' once or twice, and stopped opposite the fire-
place.
Did you notice her at lunch to-day ?' he said, 'how deeply
interested she was in what that old boy said of Henderson?
Is she do you think she's in love with him ?'
Leonard sighed.
'I have not asked her,' he said. 'But you will probably
find out when you propose to her. If she is in love with him,
she will refuse you. If not-ah, she may be in love with some-
body else. I forgot that. Girls usually are in love with some-
body else, I am told.'
(
Jack looked at him perfectly gravely, with a kindled eye.
I wish she wasn't so awfully rich, too,' he said.
Wealth is not generally considered a bar to matrimony,'
said the other; in fact, it usually helps things on. I have,
indeed, known it to be a predisposing cause.'
Jack got suddenly red in the face.
Yes, to mercenary brutes like you,' he said. 'I remember
your telling me once you were looking out for a girl with a bit
of money of her own. I think that's the most horrible thing
I have ever heard said.'
'I rather believe I've found her,' said Leonard in the same
unruffled voice. I am also quite certain now that on that
occasion I succeeded in doing what is so rudely called “pulling
your leg." Take some whisky, Jack. You are agitated.
There, look how your hand shakes !'
As a matter of fact, the whisky which Jack tried to pour into
his glass was half of it spilled on the table-a fact which
Leonard noted with extreme interest. In spite of his youth-
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117
he was but little over thirty-he was a great authority on
nervous diseases, and though old-fashioned doctors of the
port-wine and beef-tea school, who still in the main thought
of 'nerves' as the things which render the extraction of teeth
painful, considered him a quack, if not a charlatan, he had a
large and extremely fashionable clientèle in London. His
popularity and success, indeed, in this line was not far to
seek for while he took the world in general very lightly, he
took his patients extremely seriously, and gave each to under-
stand that nervous disorders were the sign of a highly strung
and interesting temperament. At the same time, he made it
perfectly clear to them that, though they were possessed of so
beautiful a temperament, it was highly desirable to get rid of
this particular mode of its manifestation. His private opinion
on the whole subject was that most people thought they had
nervous temperaments, and by dint of continued meditation
on the subject induced them. Such were not really interest-
ing, except in so far that it was curious to observe that the
action of the mind over the body would cure nervous disease
in exactly the same way as it would produce it. Indeed, though
a specialist in nervous diseases, his conclusion up to now was
that nervous disease was in itself (considered, that is to say,
in the same light as chicken-pox or typhoid) extremely rare;
that the nerves of most of his patients, even those who suffered
very much, were in themselves quite good enough to last them
through the ordinary lifetime, and stand quite safely the strain
and tension which would probably be required of them. Yet
severe nervous disease might easily, so he believed, be spon-
taneously generated that a man should think his nerves were
all wrong was often, in fact, sufficient cause for the caprices of
their subsequent behaviour. But he admitted to himself,
though never to others, that there was one very common and
very curious form of nervous disease which was practically
independent of the sufferer. It was to fall in love. For this
reason the case of his friend Jack Carbery seemed to him,
though only momentarily, of some small importance. And
when Jack, the steadiest-handed of all his acquaintance, who
would sit wakeful all night in a punt on a marsh and shoot duck
with hideous accuracy about five o'clock in the morning, could
not pour out a tablespoonful of whisky into a large-mouthed
glass without spilling half of it on his admirably-polished
French table, the case, medically considered, seemed to him to
be worth, at any rate, patience on the part of the skilled observer.
But whisky on French polish is corrosive, and before going
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further into the case he sacrificed a surreptitious pocket-hand-
kerchief to the cause of polish.
You have lost your head a little, Jack,' he said; 'for why
in just one action in life should you think it terrible, profane,
to consider money? Whatever else one does, one considers
money, unless, that is to say, one has so much that one never
considers it at all. To those altitudes I have, I may confess,
though it is really no fault of mine, not yet risen.'
Jack had mixed something drinkable, and drank it in gulps:
Ah, that is just it,' he said, fired with a sudden intuition.
'We all move on the same planes, but to each of us there is
one thing, one only, on a higher plane than anything else:
And when one gets there, you may throw into the opposite
scale all that you otherwise think highly of in life, and up the
scale will go and kick the beam !'
'Yes?' said Leonard.
'You agree, then ?'
'Not in the least. I believe that there are many people
who value two or three things about equally highly, but
nothing really more than any one of them. Do they each of
them in turn kick the beam? Or do none of them perform
that very violent action ?'
Jack calmed down enormously he even became a shade
patronizing.
'My dear chap,' he said, ' when you have fallen in love you
will find that you have at last begun to live. Till then you are
a caterpillar, a chrysalis.'
And then ?'
Well, you become a butterfly. I don't say you are of any
more use than you were before, but-but you fly. Does that
convey anything to you? You don't just eat and sleep, but
you fly.
And it is not until you fly that you learn that you
have hitherto been crawling.'
Jack finished his whisky with a final gulp, and gave an
immense yawn. Evidently there was to be no further exhibi-
tion of symptoms that night. He stretched himself with long,
luxurious straining of his big limbs. He was certainly a
remarkably large and solid butterfly.
How I have jawed!' he remarked. And have I said
things more than usually stupid?'
You are altogether slightly exaggerated to-night,' said the
other. And if I were you, I should go to bed.’
'I was just going,' said Jack rather indignantly.
hospitable fellow you are!'
'What a
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'Good-night,' said Leonard.
Jack left him on this, but Leonard did not at once go to bed:
He walked quietly about his room once or twice, and then sat
down in his chair again, his ugly, intelligent face looking very
keen and sharp, and his eyebrows drawn together into a
frown half puzzled, half interested. He was one of those real
searchers after truth who know that the further one goes in
one's inquiries, it only means that one gets the nearer to the
heart of some insoluble mystery, and that the highest possible
outcome of human knowledge in any line almost consists in
no less than this-that one can state with something like
correctness, not the key to the mystery, the answer to the
riddle, but the riddle itself, the exact conditions under which
the unanswerable exists: The riddle, of course, is many-sided;
the geologist sees one aspect of it, the astronomer another,
the doctor a third, and to him the riddle presented itself in
terms something like this: Can we put any limit to the power
of mind over material things?
His profession, of course, brought this question into his
mind a hundred times a day, but during the last few hours
certain circumstances and observations had cast, as it were,
not an added light, but an added shadow, on to it. And chief
of those was the account that Sir James Denton had given of
the returning progress of Henderson from the oasis west of
Wady-Halfa. Compton had for some time devoted himself
to the study of occultism and spiritualism in England, but
he had found so much nonsense mixed up with it, and so
much fraud mixed up with the nonsense, that he had despaired
before the task of sifting the evidence, detecting the fraudulent,
and not minding the nonsensical, and had put the whole
question on one side, preferring to concern himself with
medical and psychological facts which he could himself check
and verify.
At the same time, even when he turned his back
on the séance, he freely acknowledged to himself that there
were secrets there which fully deserved the most minute in-
vestigation, and would some day, he felt sure, yield a high
assay of the gold of knowledge. But the vein lay deep in
the earth, an immense amount of rubbish had to be bored
through before it was reached, and, to put the matter prac-
tically, he had not the time to devote to doing this:
But he was willing to grant the possibility of truth even
in the most outrageous phenomena, since it is only by granting
the possibility of truth that truth can be arrived at; and of all
outrageous phenomena, he held that materialization was the
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most impudent, and the most constantly associated with
fraud. Believer as he was in the immortality of the soul,
he could not bring himself to believe that at the bidding of a
semi-detached little Cockney from Tooting a soul should quit
its resting-place, envelope itself in yards of conveniently
portable muslin, and give vent in the pitch darkness of the
séance to a few unspeakable banalities with regard to a
future state, and words of maundering assurance of the
nearness and dearness of the near and dear. He remembered
even with a smile one such séance he had been to, in which
he, the austere and rising doctor, had sat hand in hand
with some really unspeakable people in the pitch dark,
singing, 'O Birdie, come! O Birdie, come!' Birdie being the
control in question. Eventually Birdie came, and told them
in a rather squeaky voice to be of good cheer, and the sobs
and gasps of the faithful sounded moistly round him in the
darkness. Birdie was a faintly-luminous personage, and
rather shy, so it seemed to Leonard, of approaching him.
Eventually, however, Birdie came near, and Leonard had
been quite unable to resist the temptation of seizing him.
Lights were turned up, and struggling in his grasp, incoherent
with indignation, was found the medium whom the faithful
supposed to be in the deepest trance behind the curtain of
the cabinet. Even for this regrettable accident he had been
offered a very verbose explanation, which might deter him
from publishing his own very dry account of it. Something
had gone wrong, apparently, with the dematerializing fluid.
It was as if you asked for tea, and found you had been given
coffee (in the spiritual world, of course). This, too, he pub-
lished, and the faithful longed to scratch him.
All this was discouraging: he was not, as far as intention
went, investigating second-rate conjuring tricks, but psychical
phenomena, and for the time he turned his back in disgust on
all things occult. Yet to-day he could not help being im-
pressed with Sir James's account of the return of Henderson :
even this bare outline looked very like a far more genuine
article than Birdie. Miss Jervis, too, in her story of how the
bazaars at Alexandria knew that the fleet was coming before
it was known to the English officials, treated this mysterious
telegraphy of news as a perfectly commonplace fact. Given
that one accepted certain possibilities, which he, Leonard,
did not at present accept, the whole thing seemed merely an
example the more of a mysterious though existent law of
Nature, for all laws were natural, or at any rate corollaries
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121
from such. But as regards the return of Henderson from
this remote oasis, what current, what soul-wave, had
preceded him? What was it that made two thousand
men at Assouan leave their work and forfeit their pay?
How could they, in fact, know that Henderson was
coming, and how, if he came or if he did not come, did
it matter to them? Had some extraordinary secret, some
lost piece of cabalism, such as was at one time known in
the East, been entrusted to him? Or was it merely that
he was known to have visited some Mecca of spiritualistic
lore, and was thus an object of reverence or curiosity? At
present this was insoluble: Henderson, however, would
shortly be in England, and if, as Compton somehow sus-
pected, he was of the class to which-well, adventurers belong
(though there might be others in this class), there seemed to him
no doubt whatever that in this extraordinary wave of curiosity
about things occult which at the moment flooded and engulfed
London, he would speedily be made a lion. And as lion it was
to be hoped that he would roar at the top of his voice.
Then suddenly his thoughts paused, poised and descended
again, not on Henderson, but on Miss Jervis. From the first
moment he saw her he had been extremely interested in her;
in almost every aspect she was a type, perfect and flawless. of
the well-bred, beautiful, and, he added to himself, rather
commonplace English girl. Climate and culture and cold
baths turned them out by the hundred, and, indeed, it was
impossible to have too many of them, only they were all
rather alike, and thus, as a class, rather uninteresting. But
in one point Miss Jervis seemed enormously removed from
her sisters, for he had once, just for a fleeting part of a second,
seen terror incarnate sit on her face. The moment had passed
at the time unnoticed by others: it was one evening at
Ryssop, when, the talk being on occult subjects, some men-
tion had been made of evil control. It had passed like a
flash of lightning, none probably had noticed it but he, and
immediately afterwards the talk had veered. But it had
been there. It was not mere nerves-in fact, he had hardly
ever seen a girl whom it was less possible to suspect of being
victim to that particular form of torture; it was terror, sheer
unreasoning terror, terror of something unseen, and to her,
at least, horribly real.
Now, this extremely attractive girl, so he had learned from
Beatrice, was an advanced spiritualist; she had passed all
her life in touch with things occult; she spent a solid slice
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of time every day in silent concentration; her servant was
this mysterious Arab, himself a medium, and possessed of who
knew what curious antique lore preserved through generations
of his race. But, like flame to a struck match, there flared
into his mind the conclusion that this moment's terror in Ida's
face was in origin something darker and more mysterious
than the mere knowledge of psychical secrets it was more
personal: it was a fear into the face of which she looked,
and looking trembled.
He had not seen Ida again after his visit to Ryssop until
to-day at lunch, a month intervening. And if her moment's
terror on that first occasion was as complete and overwhelming
as it was unaccountable, hardly less embracing was the huge,
serene happiness that to-day had seemed to be part of the
very atmosphere she breathed. Her face was like the face
of a child who has never known the terror of the dark, whose
smile is for ever breaking into a laugh for no cause except
that it laughs; her gaiety had, too, for others the same
spontaneous, irresistible charm of childhood. It seemed
impossible that the terror he had once seen there should have
left no trace, for there were years of deep-staining horror in
that one look-unless the cause of the horror had been re-
moved, had been destroyed root and branch, so that not even
the burned ashes of its memory remained. How deep-seated
that terror had been he learned from the look he had once
seen on her face; from that, too, he could conjecture from how
vital a cause it must have sprung, something that touched the
deep springs of life and death, the things under the earth.
He got up and looked at his watch, surprised to see how
long his reverie had been. His engagements for next day
were rather numerous, but he determined, if possible, to see
Ida"again. With this in his mind he went to his bedroom and
began to undress, dismissing, for the sake of sleep, this subject
that so interested him. Perhaps his long meditation had
tired his brain and dulled its perceptions, for he did not at
once add to the chain he had begun to make another finished
link: But just as he was dropping asleep it came to him,
and he half sat up in bed.
And why was she so absorbedly interested in hearing about
Henderson's return?' he said to himself. And why was it
that the child-like return of gaiety had followed at once upon
Sir James's account of some mysterious power which Hender-
son seemed to have acquired, some power that let him pass
unscathed and venerated through hostile tribes, and made
his return an event to the villages of the Nile ?'
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123
Then, moving crab-like, he patched Jack Carbery's sug-
gestion on to it. But it would not fit: the idea that Ida
was in love with Henderson was somehow, though he could
not say how, preposterous. No, Jack was not in danger there.
And the word ' danger' kept ringing in his head, like a muffled
bell, till it mingled with his dreams. It swung in spondees.
'Dan-ger-dan-ger,' it said.
Jack Carbery, in spite of the trembling hand and all the
hesitations of the evening before, was not the least in the
world a young man given to hesitation or trembling, and the
next morning found him well up to the average of courage
common to men in his circumstances. He had had, it is true,
a wakeful night; his breakfast appeared to him as an un-
needed collation; and he was hopelessly incapable of consecu-
tive thought, though preternaturally observant of tiny and
trivial details. Thus, he noticed a blue-bottle singing on the
window-pane, a fact remarkable in December, and wondered
if it was married, and what it had said to the lady of its affec-
tions. That blue-bottle: it assumed an enormous importance:
Was it a bachelor, or was it a widow? It really seemed to
matter. But it only buzzed on the pane, and would answer
no questions of his. Then his tea-urn was prey to a sudden
convulsion, letting escape a small puff of steam. This startled
him horribly for a moment, but directly afterwards the
analogy of volcanoes and earthquakes occurred to him,
and this seemed to him a very brilliant piece of illustration,
fit for a handbook of science, and likely to impress for ever
on the infant mind the nature of subterranean convulsions.
Then the phrase 'Tom Tiddler's ground' occurred with
amazing vividness to his mind, and for a few minutes all he
ate and drank was set to the rhythm of it. He wondered, too
-a really original thought-why, if there was both gold and
silver lying about, it was worth anyone's while to pick up the
silver, unless the proportion of silver pieces was very far in
excess of the gold. But in this case the song ought to have
said so the mind, without that, formed a very imperfect
picture of what Tom Tiddler's ground was like.
Then, like the passing of a dream, all these inanities
vanished, and one image only, Ida, filled his soul. Was it
possible, was it ever so faintly possible, that he would obtain ?
He was very humble of spirit, and though it seemed to him at
one moment that, of all the beautiful and wonderful things of
the world, she and she alone was Matterhorns removed from
his reach, yet he knew well that he was going to try for nothing
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less. By the right of his own love for her he claimed her:
nothing else nor everything else could ever take her place.
In the secret place of his life he had builded a sanctuary for
her it could not be that she would deny herself to the wor-
shipper, that the shrine should for ever be empty of the goddess
to whom it was dedicated.
Then, absolutely unbidden, and coming out of the dark and
going back into the dark again as some bat by night flits into
the circle of illumination cast by a lamp and away again,
another image flashed into his mind. The Garden scene in
Faust was there; Faust sprang to Marguerite's open window.
And out of the darkening garden sounded the laugh of Mephis-
topheles, the eternal mockery of evil.
Ida had arranged to go with him and Beatrice that morning
to an exhibition of pictures in Bond Street; he was to call for
them both in the house in Berkeley Square, and he had no
more time for fruitless or trivial meditation if he was to be
there in time. Out of doors pale winter sunshine flooded the
streets, primrose-coloured, and exquisite to any eye subtle
enough to catch the extraordinary delicacy of London atmo-
sphere. Haze shot with gold and palest blue hung over the
distances in the Green Park, and beyond the winter-gray of the
grass the houses of Piccadilly looked remote and fairy-like, as
if built of soap-bubbles. The whole town was astir, and the
romance of London, the mingling of crowds of men and women,
each with his own secrets, each with his private life, so infini-
tesimal in the sum of things, yet so vastly more important to
its possessor than seas and continents, struck Jack with a new
vividness, a sudden freshness. All was so alive, all pulsated
with the eternal energy of God.
Ida and her friend were already waiting for him when he
arrived, and they walked together to the exhibition, the work
of a French artist called Mirabou, little known in England, but
one about whom critics were extravagant in all directions.
To some he seemed but a skilled technical dabbler in horrors
-like Nero, ' an angler in the lake of darkness'; to some his
pictures appeared vague and meaningless daubs; but in the
opinion of the few-Hugh Arnold had recommended Ida at
lunch yesterday to go and see them-the generations of artists
had painted and guessed and imagined and toiled, working out
the slow evolution of Art in order that Mirabou might be
possible.
'He is an absolutely new phenomenon,' he had said. 'He
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125
is quite new and is as unlike any other artist as is "Tristan and
Isolde," unlike anything in the kingdom of music. Nobody
happened to have thought of anything of the kind before,
though you can easily, as I say, see that many other artists
have been, so to speak, devoured and assimilated by him. I
don't say you will like him, but there he is. You can no
more disregard him than you can disregard a frightful peal of
thunder immediately overhead, and it is no use saying it is
only the thunder. The thunder drowns your conversation
and your tinklings on the piano. So does Mirabou.'
Mrs. Desmond was to have come with them, but this
critique of Arnold's as detailed to her by Ida with the view of
exciting her curiosity had the effect of altogether quenching it.
'The chances are, dear, that I should not like his pictures
at all. And to see things you don't like is very bad for the
eye, and produces a sort of ocular indigestion. Do come back
to lunch, Mr. Carbery.'
So the three set off, leaving Aunt Julia behind, and she
stood for some little while looking out of the sunny serenity
of her mind on to the serene sunshine out of doors. A tiny
little detail, a thing of no consequence, however, for the
moment just clouded her. She had some vague memory
connected with Mirabou, something rather unpleasant. Surely
she knew some picture of his, a picture that had been in her
mind not so long ago.
Then she remembered.
•
The pictures themselves seemed to justify any view that
might be taken of them: there was every excuse, for instance,
for one man finding‘La Mort de la Mort' a meaningless daub,
so vague and pale, so uncertain in outline, and in places so
positively false in drawing, was the nude figure stretched on a
bed of withered foliage, while in the sky there was gradually
dawning the light of an eternal day. Yet the same picture to
another might convey suggestions so subtle, so overwhelmingly
true and so brilliantly delineated, that, like Hugh Arnold, it
might seem that Art had been toiling through generations of
workers for just this.
'La Porte ouverte,' again, showed through an open door
the dim interior of a cottage, by the window of which leaned
an old woman grotesque in face, awkward in attitude, large-
handed, ill-dressed yet extraordinarily tender in treatment,
looking out on to a cold gray sky, with a coppery glare of
sunset low on the horizon of bleak hills. But in the room,
between her and the open door, stood a vague black oblorg.
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
A little closer examination showed it was supported on
trestles. Outside above the cottage door flowered a glorious
rose: cascades of glowing scarlet with long sprays of green
bubbled over the dim tone of the whitewashed wall, and
streamed over the thatch above the low eaves-the door was
open from death to life.
Certainly at present to all of the three the verdict remained
undecided; these first two pictures were undeniably interesting.
Ida and Beatrice were competent to criticise technique and
drawing; Jack, on the other hand, was, if nothing else, com-
petent to give an honest opinion of what he saw. Beatrice,
it is true, had to say to him before this last picture :
'You see, that is a coffin: the poor old woman is alone now.
And the door-that is what you will: it leads, perhaps, to the
rose outside, which is quite alive.'
But when this was clearly-unnecessarily clearly-indicated
to him, he was perhaps the most convinced of the three.
The gallery was very sparsely occupied a few lost-looking
people straggled about consulting catalogues, which is always
a sign of feebleness either of observation on the beholder's
or of execution on the painter's part; but a group of some
density was gathered opposite a picture at the far end of the
room. But Ida, really interested, quite refused to go straight
to that.
'It would be so wrong,' she said. 'One may be sure that one
will understand it better if one has seen most of the other
pictures first. On the other hand, it may be something quite
obvious and banale. We shall see when we get there. I am
qu
going straight round rather slowly, because Mr. Arnold says.
you can't begin to see any picture till you have looked at it
several minutes.'
The exhibition was admirably arranged. The pictures did
not form, as at the Academy, a sort of mosaic from ceiling to
floor, but each was set in a decent interval of neutral-coloured
wall. But after the 'Porte ouverte,' things on the border-line of
comedy, to the frivolously-minded, followed. 'Naissance,' for
instance, showed a weird figure of a woman apparently sitting
on a glacier over which hung gray mists feebly pierced by a
pale sun. A naked child-by the scale a very young baby-
was sucking a spear of ice which it had picked up, so the
beholder imagined, from the glacier. The mother looked pro-
foundly depressed, and, indeed, with justice. It was hard to
imagine anything more forlorn than to be left without visible
means of sustenance on a glacier with a young baby.
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127
'Foi' was hardly better. A gentian with one brilliantly blue
bud sprang from a barren rock. Round the rock curled snakes
and monsters unimaginable. And Jack hazarded a criticism.
Why not "Delirium Tremens"?' he asked.
At that, and at the solemnity of the procession that wished
to worship and had not as yet found an authentic idol, giggles
seized them. 'Salome' was a pure joke: for' Salome' was
merely the picture of a leering tetrarch of abhorrent demeanour.
No dancer was there: only a bearded man leaned on his elbow
and sucked a piece of valerian.
Jack again loosed the bonds of the giggles.
Surely there is a mistake in the catalogue,' he said. 'I
always thought Salome was a woman. I'm sure she was: she
danced before Herod.'
Then this irreverent party all laughed. It was hopeless to
look at more pictures. Even what they had seen, those that
had been impressive while they were still inquirers, became
ridiculous in the light of 'Salome.' On the moment they had
joined the scoffing majority: Mirabou was a charlatan of the
worst description, one who trusted to a certain gloomy
Maeterlink mood on the part of the beholder on which to
impress these vague nightmares of incoherent thought.
Besides, Salome was a woman; it was perfectly true.
But Ida, after a helpless pause, pulled them together again.
People are still looking at something at the end of the
room,' she said, and I give up my idea of going slowly round:
we are too idiotic. Now, in our present mood, it is hopeless
for us all to go together. Let us go one by one, while the others
wait, and see what the picture is. If we go together, we are
perfectly certain to laugh, whatever it is. After that we will
go away. Eldest first: that is you, Mr. Carbery; and even
if it wasn't you, you would have to pretend it was. So go and
look at the picture, and then call us a hansom. Then Beatrice
will go, and then I.'
This plan was adopted, and while Jack, after a short struggle
in which to recover his gravity, went singly to look at the
picture, the other two sat on a settee near, and waited for his
return. The inspection did not take him long, and he came
back to them, frowning. His gravity was now quite un-
assumed he did not any longer in the least wish to laugh.
I wouldn't look at it, if I were you,' he said; it isn't
all funny: indeed, it is rather dreadful. Let us all go
I will go and get a hansom.'

Beatrice got up.
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Yes, don't let us look at it, Ida,' she said. 'I hate horrors.'
But Ida glanced towards the far end of the room, where the
crowd round the picture had grown larger.
'I must have one look, Bee,' she said, 'but don't come if
you don't wish. Go out with Mr. Carbery: I shan't be a
moment. After all, if one doesn't like it, one doesn't like it :
a picture can't hurt one.'
Jack looked at her, as she walked quickly up the gallery,
with some little annoyance.
'I rather wish she hadn't gone,' he said. 'The picture is
ghastly. It is called "La Démoniaque." It is the sort of
thing that might haunt one, if one was nervously disposed.
I am like you, Miss Montague: I don't like horrors either.
Besides-oh, well, it's only a picture. Let us go out and
get a hansom. I rather wish we hadn't come here.'
It took Ida a moment or two to edge her way into the little
shifting crowd standing there, and as she waited to get a
sight of what the long black frame, of which she could just
see the top, contained, she still smiled at the thought of
'Salome' and the exquisite justice of Jack's observation.
Then a parting came in front of her, and she was standing
close to the picture.
It represented the full-length picture of agirl leaning
forward on a half-ruined column, with hands that clutched
it, in full face towards the spectator. The dress was alto-
gether modern: only the ruined column suggested some
antique scene. And though the face was turned directly
towards the beholder, yet the eyes did not look at him,
for they were both inclined inwards in a horrible squint.
Her mouth, beautiful in itself, was distorted with a hideous
grinning grimace; something dreadfully evil had changed those
soft curves into that leering, satyr-like expression. Behind,
a gray leaden sky brooded over bare sand-hills, and to the
right of the central figure, painted so that the lines of land-
scape behind showed through it, was a gray shadowy form,
faintly suggested only in dim white lines. One hand was
laid on the girl's head, and a face of infinite malice looked
down on her. Below was the title La Démoniaque.'
For one instant the room, the crowd, all vanished from
Ida's sight; only that dreadful face directed straight towards
vet not looking at her, was visible. For that moment her
seemed paralyzed: she could only receive just this one
ion, an impression of herself, or rather some wraith of

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129
herself, buried and risen again, confronting her. Then normal
consciousness returned, and she went quickly down the room
and out after the others. But at that moment some little
black withered spot in her brain had become alive again, and
spread like some dreadful stain over her whole being. Yet
even as she turned away that deadly sudden vitality was still
again she had the consciousness only of having had some
terrible shock, which made her hands to tremble and her
knees to feel unsteady beneath her. And she felt that she
scarcely knew even a moment afterwards what it had been.
The others were waiting outside when she rejoined them,
and she knew she could not have been long, since the hansom
which Jack Carbery had just hailed was even then draw-
ing up at the pavement. He seemed relieved to see her
so soon, and her perfectly natural manner further reassured
him.
'You were quite right, Mr. Carbery,' she said. 'It was a
horrible picture; it quite sickened me, and I must try to
forget about it as soon as possible. Let us concentrate our
minds on 66
Salome." Dear me, how frightfully I laughed! it
hurt me.'
Jack felt as if an immense weight-one, too, that he could
not understand or account for-had been lifted from his mind.
For as he looked at the picture himself, it had struck him that
in some awful undefined way that terrible grinning face re-
minded him of Ida, Ida with her whole nature utterly changed
and turned upside down, all her sweetness and goodness ex-
punged, and a flood of nameless evil poured into her soul.
But the notion was so preposterous to himself that he had
not advised her with any seriousness not to see the picture ;
it was not really ever so faintly possible that a similar idea
might occur to her. And now her complete naturalness con-
vinced him of the utter absurdity of that wild notion which
had started unbidden into his head. It had been a mere
trick, a freak of his brain springing from nothing, and now
returned into nothingness.
Mrs. Desmond was ready, and lunch also, when they got
back. Beatrice, however, was otherwise engaged, and could
not wait, and the three others lunched alone. Ida was com-
pletely herself, rather more talkative than her wont, and had
formed very clear ideas about the exhibition they had been
to see.
There was one very fine picture,' she said, 'but if one
9
130
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((
takes all the others into consideration, one is bound to think
that it was a fluke. I think you agreed with me, Mr. Carbery,
and I know Beatrice did: I mean La Porte ouverte." All
the same, Aunt Julia, you were wrong not to come. We had
the most hopeless_giggles, which is always a good thing:
Mirabou's method, I truly believe, is to squirt various colours
on to his canvas, mix them up with a palette-knife, and then
sit down to think what it resembles.'
(
And if it doesn't resemble anything?' asked Mrs. Desmond.
Then he calls it "Naissance," or "La Mort de la Mort." It
appears to be really a matter of indifference what it is called.'
Mrs. Desmond took a substantial helping of beef: her un-
pleasant little memory about Mirabou ceased to trouble her :
she had disquieted herself in vain.'
+
But, after all, pictures almost as much as music are sub-
jective,' she said; the same arrangement of line and colour
may suggest fifty different things to fifty different people.
Any fine or imaginative work, it always seems to me, reveals
to one's self a mood of one's own.'
Once again for an infinitesimal moment that dead secret
spot in Ida's brain became alive, and grew to a horror of
great darkness. The fork that she was holding dropped from
her hand. But again it sank back into nothingness: it was but a
momentary seizure, a reflection of the shock she had received
when standing in front of the picture.
Ah, I like definiteness, I think, in all art,' she said.‘Either
the painter means something, or else he means nothing. If
he means something, I like to have the meaning clearly stated.
If he means nothing, why should I cudgel my brains to invent
something which he didn't put there?
'Ah, but a great work of art is often performed in a sort
of dream, I think the artist may mean something, and yet
not know what he means.'
Ida laughed.
Then it is very unlikely that the spectator will be able to
guess,' she said.
Immediately after lunch Ida left her aunt and Jack still
at their coffee in the dining-room, finding she had a note or
two to write before she went out. Jack had been rather
silent and distrait: he seemed to her to be fighting some secret
nervousness.
And you, Mr. Carbery,' she said, 'do your views coincide
with Ida's about Mirabou ?'
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131
Then Jack took his courage in his hands:
'Do you know, I hardly thought about Mirabou,' he said:
'Indeed, it is many days since I have thought about any but
one subject.'
He stood up, looking extraordinarily pleasant and hand-
some, his colour high, his eyes very bright.
You guess, don't you, Mrs. Desmond ?' he asked.
Mrs. Desmond, like all nice women who earnestly desire
happiness for others, was an ardent match-maker; both the
town Mrs. Desmond and the country Mrs. Desmond were that.
Ah, my dear young man!' she said, holding out her hands
to him. Of course I guess. And I have wanted it so much.
It seems to me a very good thing. You have not spoken to
her yet?'
Jack shifted from one foot to the other and back again.
No, I thought it was right that I should speak to you first.'
Mrs. Desmond smiled at him and nodded.
'You have my leave to go,' she said, ' as Ida says to Abdul.'
Then the wine of love ran riot in him, and all trace of
hesitation and doubt vanished. Humble as he was, he knew
that it must be so : life was an impossible thing without her:
And next moment the door closed behind him.
C
Ida was in the drawing-room, and looked up as he entered.
And Aunt Julia ?' she began, then stopped, for she knew
that he had not come to speak of Aunt Julia.
He went straight up to her, strong, masterful, loving:
Ida,' he said, 'Ida !—I have no words, but I want you so
much. I don't want anything else. There is nothing but
you.'
She looked long at him, and the smile of welcome she had
given him as he entered faded, for something very solemn,
love, was with them:
Yes, Jack,' she said:
Then suddenly she rose, and with arms outstretched she
came to him.
'Oh, Jack, Jack, love me with all your strength! I want
strength so much. No, but wait a moment.
Let us suppose
just for a minute that you have said nothing yet, for I want
to tell you something first.'
She waved him away, though she felt that her physica
strength was hardly sufficient to enable her to do it.
'Just this,' she said. 'I am very queer and odd and
strange. There may be something terrible about me. It
would sound nonsense to you if I told you. But whatever
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it is, I believe that love is stronger than it, and if you are
sure, if you are sure
But her strength to resist was greater than his; if hell had
lain within her arms he would have taken both. And yet it
was with awe and reverence as well as love in his heart that
he kissed her.
Everything is unreal except you, my darling,' he said.
So once more that beautiful miracle by which one soul in
this great populous world finds the soul for which it was pre-
ordained, without which it would be imperfect even to the
uttermost of eternity, was accomplished. The ring of belief
and sincerity was in his voice, and she knew he spoke truly,
and to her at that moment it seemed as if something within
her that had tossed on dark and foam-flecked waters like a
rudderless ship put into port. It might have to go forth again
on billow-tossed adventure, but for the moment anyhow it
had found a haven.
CHAPTER IX
LEONARD COMPTON was dining the same evening with the
Arnolds. He enjoyed an evening there on the whole very
much, but at the same time it was a little fatiguing, since
both Hugh and his wife were so extraordinarily up-to-date, so
absolutely in line with the very latest fact, or theory, or event,
that he always felt himself to be slightly obsolete and medi-
eval. As he had once said, you could, conversationally
speaking, dine out for a month on what you had gleaned at
the Arnolds; and though this was quite true, the gleanng
itself was rather hard work. The latest lion was always there,
and at feeding-time, as was right, since the human lion roars
not before it is fed, but while it is being fed, the lion roared.
Sometimes there were quite a quantity of these noble beasts
present: on these occasions the tranquil-minded guest might
think of the Zoological Gardens as a place of ease and tranquil
repose.
The party to-night was not a large one, for the Arnolds
never fell into the mistake of confusing quantity and quality,
or swamping the latter in the former, and it must be con-
fessed that Leonard felt a strong sense of satisfaction when
he found that there was nobody in the least leonine expected.
The explanation was immediately forthcoming he had felt
sure that there must be one.
'Such a disappointment, Mr. Compton,' said his hostess.
as she shook hands; but the influenza just plays old Harry
with one's plans. The Prime Minister was coming and
Madame Blafond, and I only found their telegrams when I
came in to tea. Impossible to fill their places; but it's too
tiresome.'
(
Madame Blafond ?' asked Leonard.
Yes; haven't you met her? Why, we're all wild about
her. She does the most uncanny things. Why, I've seen
chairs and tables move about when she is in the room, without
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her ever touching them. And the rappings! I thought she
might be induced to tell the Prime Minister's fortune, and
then we should all know when the Government would go
out, which would be a great convenience. Yes, you sit on
my right.'
Leonard proceeded to glean.
When will it go out ?' he said. 'It seems to me like a
man with a fatal disease; but even the most skilful doctors
cannot say when the disease will kill him. Meantime, it is
rather gloomy watching by the bedside.'
Well, the Chancellor was here this afternoon,' said Mrs.
Arnold, sinking her voice to a confidential tone, ‘and he told
me he thought he would be able to go yachting in March.
Later on one of the Liberal Whips was here, and he said he
was afraid he would have to be in England all the spring.
Well, two and two make what they always did!'
· Five, I suppose,' said Leonard, storing his memory.
'Five, of course, because one has to add on one for con-
tingencies. Well, and what is your news?'
Leonard laughed.
My dear lady,' he said, ' the Chancellor has been here this
afternoon, and the Liberal Whip came afterwards. You are
rather exigeante.'
Mrs. Arnold raised her very pretty eyebrows. These were
very fine and straight, and gave a great charm of irregularity
to her face, for they never moved absolutely together, though
they were both very mobile.
(
"Exigeante ?' she said, the American nasality appearing for
a moment. She could keep it out of her English, but not out
of her French. Why, what on earth is the use of news three
hours old? Even two hours ago is like yesterday's paper:
And yesterday's paper is like last winter's snows: we have
forgotten all about it.'
But Leonard suddenly recollected something; he was so
used in the Arnolds' house to receive and not to give, that he
quite forgot at times the blessedness of the latter.
Ah, perhaps you have not heard,' he said, ' yet it happened
directly after lunch, and five hours ago at least.'
'Not Sir James Denton's motor smash ?' asked Mrs.
Arnold. 'I saw it. I was at the corner of Dover Street at
the time. He cannot be seriously hurt, because he walked
to the Bath Club.'
Here again Leonard gleaned, for he had not heard of this,
but was insincere, because he implied that he had,
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135
'No, not that, of course,' he said; 'but Miss Jervis's engage-
ment.'
Mrs. Arnold looked at him in genuine surprise; quite cer-
tainly she had not heard this, though it was so many hours
old.
(
Well, I never!' she said. 'But how interesting, Mr.
Compton! Whom is she engaged to, pray? I had not heard.'
'To Jack Carbery,' said he. Really, Mrs. Arnold, I am
proud this moment. I have told you news you did not know.
I don't think that ever happened to me before.'
'Well, that's most exciting,' said Mrs. Arnold.
you hear? Ida Jervis engaged to Mr. Carbery.'
'Hugh, do
The talk round the table was hushed for a moment: then
it was taken up again with renewed vigour, for London
generally had much interested itself on the question as to whom
Ida would marry, and London, so it appeared, had not thought
of Jack. Then there took place a general sorting of con-
versation: Mrs. Arnold engaged herself on her left, and
Leonard found himself in talk with Lady Apsely. She was
highly coloured both in mind and body, and had that great
social gift of appearing to be immensely interested in any
topic that came up, to perfection.
How too exciting!' she said. And she has millions, has
she not? How very nice for her, and of course for him!
And retires to rest for an hour every day in a room which
nobody has ever seen, but which is quite certainly paved with
sapphires. An Arab, too: not she-how silly you are!-
but a devoted attendant, who says all sorts of prayers to
Ran-jin-pootna. I adore theosophy, prayer-gongs, and letters
from the ceiling. They must be nearly as nice as millions.'
This was all-embracing. Leonard felt that he had a
immense quantity of dishes offered to him, out of which he
could select any.
He chose the first that came to hand.
Yes, there is an Arab,' he said; ' but I don't imagine that
either he or she thinks much of theosophy. She goes into far
more subtle things. I remember, for instance, once mentioning
Christian Science to her, and hazarding a general remark
about the undoubted influence of the mind over the body. But
Miss Jervis laughed-the same laugh as we laugh when a
child is particularly childish': as if I had said b-i-g, big. And
what about the influence of the soul over the mind ?" she said.'
Here Hugh Arnold's voice was heard for the first time at
this end of the table.
'Body, mind, soul, spirit!' he said. 'It is far too long
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a catalogue. You can classify the whole of creation more
simply than that. Really, it all goes under two heads. There
are things you can understand, and things you can't under-
stand: there is no need for more. Personally, I can under-
stand a leg or an arm-I know, at any rate, what is meant by
it, and more or less what it implies. I can also understand
twice two, which, as Leonard so rightly says, make five, more
or less, but not four. But I cannot understand the influence
of thought over material, nor the materialization of what is
really an abstract conception, such as the vital principle (the
thing that has once made these legs and arms to move) of a
person who no longer lives.'
Mrs. Arnold broke off her conversation with her left-hand
neighbour in a jerk. If others gleaned at her table, she often
harvested there, and just now the harvest which all London
was trying to reap was this harvest of the occult. Though
her manners were usually excellent, she turned sharp round
in the middle of a sentence to Leonard, who was, at any rate,
the best authority immediately available on these subjects.
What limit do you place on the influence of mind over
body?' she asked.
(
The question was clearly audible all round the table: so
also was his reply.
'None whatever,' he said.
Again for a moment a dead hush fell, and Leonard, suddenly
rather nervous, went on, finding himself unmistakably in the
position of being expected to proceed.
(
There is no limit, as far as we know, to what the imagina-
tion may not picture,' he said, for the imagination is as
infinite as eternity. It is the one thing which, however far
we go, we find still working. And there is no limit on the
effect that thought may not have on material things. That,
at any rate, I suppose nobody would doubt. Take the
simplest instance: worry, an affair purely of the mind, pro-
duces headache and ill-health. Or look at the Christian
Scientists we may laugh, we may scoff, we may justly say
there is a great deal of nonsense in what they tell us, but how
they have brought home that truth! And they, I assure you,
are like children playing on the shore of the sea, who think
they know about the sea. But what of the master-mariner ?
He knows, too, that the children's sand-castles will be in-
vaded, but he knows that they are but playing with the
fringe, the edge of the great forces, and with ripples that
would not make his ship move.'
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137
Mrs. Arnold again was harvesting.
And the master-mariner ?' she asked.
ing, who is he?'
'Humanly speak-
The silence still continued round the table, but Leonard felt
nervous no longer : he was too deeply interested in his subject.
They are many,' he said; 'but I should say Miss Jervis
was one of them.'
Still a hush continued: Hugh Arnold's voice broke it.
'And their captain,' he asked-' the captain of the master-
mariners ?'
A plate clicked on the serving-table, and Leonard looked
up. There were attentive eyes all round him.
Well-God,' said he.
At that the tenseness snapped. There seemed to be a con-
sensus of opinion that these things were not quite dinner-
party subjects; they had drifted into matters altogether too
serious for a discussion conducted across the silver and
flowers, and the conversation split up as the solid mass of
cataract-water pouring through the air splits into showers of
spray as it falls on the rocks below it. Instead of the one
voice speaking through silence, everyone industriously turned
to his neighbour, and talked vigorously on the first subject
that occurred. Mrs. Arnold turned to her left again. Lady
Apsely annexed Leonard, but was unable wholly to leave
what they had been talking about.
Things that are quite incomprehensible are the only
things worth trying to understand. And I am told,' she said,
sinking her voice to a confidential whisper,' that the number
of them will soon be immensely increased. We shall all have
the opportunity, I mean, of seeing and hearing a great many
new things which are wildly mysterious.'
Indeed ?' asked Leonard.
'Yes, have you not heard? Mr. Henderson is coming to
England next week, after an extraordinary journey in search
of psychical secrets. They say his portmanteaux are full of
them! What a delightful time he will have unpacking! I
wish I was his valet:'
"Yes, I heard something about it,' said Leonard, ‘ and how
news of his coming mysteriously preceded him all down the
Nile. Sir James Denton, I remember, told us some strange
things about him the other day.'
You know what Madame Blafond said about him,' said
Lady Apsely, sinking her voice still lower. How I wish she
was here to-night!'
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'No: what ?'
<
She believes him to have got hold of some extremely
powerful and ancient Egyptian spirit, a sort of genius, a slave
now of Henderson's, like the slave of the lamp !'
Leonard laughed: this savoured somewhat of the spirit of
the Tooting séance. It was distinctly' Birdie' in character.
And on what does she base that idea?' he asked; yet even
as he laughed his own meditation of the night before, and the
forging of the last link in the chain of his thought, flashed into
his mind.
'On the fact that nothing else could have accounted for
the extraordinary excitement that prevailed in the villages
through which he passed.'
'And do you really believe that?' asked Leonard.
'I try to believe everything I can't understand,' said Lady
Apsely rather characteristically. There is really nothing else
which it is worth one's while to believe. Obvious things are
always so dull: it does not matter if one believes them or not.'
Then another link suddenly occurred to Leonard.
(
Mr. Henderson was out there last winter, was he not ?' he
said. Ah yes, of course. He was for some time with Sir
Henry Jervis, Miss Ida's father. I fancy he had just joined
them up the river somewhere when Sir Henry died.'
Mrs. Arnold here broke in.
And is Mr. Henderson a master-mariner too, Mr. Compton?'
she asked.
I believe he has gone very far in occult studies,' said he.
'Lady Apsely, at any rate, guesses that he has gone very far
indeed, right away into the regions of the incomprehensible,
in fact.'
Well, I guess when the master-mariners get together we
shall see some sailing,' she remarked.
Jack Carbery this same evening was dining with his fiancée
and Mrs. Desmond. Nothing could have been more correct
and impeccable from the lover's point of view than that
charming lady's behaviour after dinner.
'I am going straight to my sitting-room, Ida,' she was saying
as she stood by the drawing-room door, and I shall stay there
until you and Jack send for me. Good-bye, you two dears.'
And the door closed behind her, leaving behind only the
echo of her jolly laugh.
'Oh, Jack, can we ?' said Ida; oughtn't we to call her
back? But did you ever see such an old darling ?'
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139
'Five minutes,' said he. 'Just five minutes. She is an
old darling.'
He was standing on the hearthrug, and the girl came
towards him, walking softly and slowly on the thick carpet,
but making his heart beat and buffet with every step she took
towards him. She was far too sensible and womanly not to
know that, whatever a man may say, he loves that the woman
he loves be exquisite in dress as well as in person, and that
' beauty unadorned' is a mere piece of sentimental cant, and
really means nothing whatever. Consequently to-night her
beauty was far from being unadorned, and she had been as
nearly tiresome in her particularity with her maid, as she
dressed for dinner, as it was possible for her to be. But
gorgeous she certainly was: indeed, she had been afraid she
might have rather overdone things till Aunt Julia, into whose
room she went on her way down to dinner, had applauded her.
Ah, that's sensible of you, Ida,' she said. 'I was really
secretly a little afraid you might come down in brown holland
or something unbecoming, just to show what an exalted view
you took of love. You are perfectly glorious, my dear.'
From the first Ida had absolutely refused to wear mourning
for her father: and though Aunt Julia was not in any way a
slave of convention, it had rather distressed her till she saw
how vital a point this was to the girl. For the whole system
of her belief was based on the fact that there is nothing sad
about death, nor, indeed, any 'death' about it: to wear
mourning, therefore, would be to contradict her belief for the
sake of mere convention. And to-night, indeed, she was
glorious. Four greens-eau-de-nil, vert-doré, aquamarine, and
emerald-shone and shimmered together, throwing up by their
shining contrast the pale and perfect gold of her hair and the
brilliant, delicate colour of her face, and round her neck she
wore a splendid rope of pearls. It was no wonder that Jack's
heart rioted in the tumult of his love and desire.
'Ah, Ida, Ida,' he said, ' can it possibly be true?'
Deep down in the depths of her liquid violet eyes she smiled
at him her very soul smiled there.
'And I was asking myself the same,' she said. And I
know it is true. Nothing truer is in the world.'
'Nothing so true,' he said.
Ida laid her hands on his broad shoulders.
Ah, there are other things quite true also,' she said. 'We
must not forget them, Jack.'
The smile died out of her eyes.
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'Let us sit down and talk for our five minutes,' she said.
I have got something I want to say to you, and the sooner
it is said the better. That we should love each other of course
matters most, but it is, oh, so important that as far as possible
we should understand each other too.'
Jack raised her hands to his lips and kissed them intoxi-
cated with love as he was, he felt somehow that this little act of
homage expressed his feeling to her, so deep and so reverential
was it, better than any more intimate caress could have done.
'Tell me, dearest,' he said, still retaining her hands in his.
‘I am afraid you may not like it,' said she.
Ah, as long as it is about you, I shall love it,' he said.
Yet Ida found it rather hard to begin. Human love, the
passion for another, had never touched her before, and, in
spite of herself and her deep loyalty to all the ideas and ideals
in which she had been brought up, all the study of occult and
spiritual things in which her life had been passed, this new
feeling, so tumultuously sweet, seemed to alter the values of all
the rest. Nothing was truer than this, nothing was more real
or at this moment so poignant. But at length she spoke.
'There is a side of my life, Jack,' she said, "which is intensely
true to me and intensely real, and there are many people in the
world-Aunt Julia is one, you are another-to whom it means
nothing, and who think of it, when they think of it at all, with
something like shrinking and distrust. You know what I mean.'
Yes, dear, your spiritualistic side,' said Jack.
(
Yes. Let us come to an understanding about that at
once. Now, what do you personally feel about it?'
Jack was perfectly honest: also his very simplicity here
dictated the course which the most subtle wisdom would have
indicated, and he tried neither to disguise or mitigate his
feelings, nor to evade answering.
'I don't like it,' he said simply;
I think about it at all, I distrust it.
'because it is part of you.'
and, as you say, as far as
And yet I can't,' he said,
Ida leaned forward in deep earnestness.
'Oh, it is much more of me than that,' she said. 'It is the
best of me; all the best springs from that. Sometimes I think
it is my life. As I told Aunt Julia, I could no more live
without it than I could live without air.'
'I am not so stupid as to ask you to give it up,' said he.
Ida laughed.
'No, dear, I did not suppose so,' she said, ' for of course you
must know that I couldn't. But can't you come with me into
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141
it-share with me in that which is as truly and really me as is
my love for you?'
Jack was silent a moment:
No, Ida,' he said at length:
She did not look exactly disappointed, but her face grew a
shade graver.
'I supposed you would refuse at first, anyhow,' she said,
' and I was quite prepared for it. Let us understand each
other, then. Since you will not share it, it is only in common
fairness that I ask you to leave me absolute and entire liberty
with regard to it. You must not interfere in any way with
what belongs to this inner life of mine: you must have no
part whatever in anything that concerns it. If you do not
wish to enter it, you must stay outside, and the door must be
quite shut. I may have dangers and difficulties to go through :
they may be very real and very, very terrible to me. Well,
I must deal with them, should they occur, in my own way, or
rather in Abdul's.'
Jack frowned.
In Abdul's? your servant's?' he said.
'Yes; or, as father used to say, he is my servant, but my
master.
Now, Jack was what, for want of a more comprehensive term,
we may call English. He had all the typical Englishman's
horror of the fantastic and unusual, and it seemed to him very
unusual indeed for an English girl to refer to her black servant
as her master. Ida read his silence correctly.
'Am I asking you a hard thing, Jack ?' she said.
Her wonderful sweetness overpowered him like a drug.
'Yes, dear, you are,' he said ;" and I love you for it. It is
because it is rather hard, my darling, that I love to do it for
you. I give you absolute liberty; at least, as far as a
man can promise anything, I promise you that. My full,
unreserved intention is to do as you ask, and I take your words
in the fullest possible sense. I can't say more than that.'
Ida laid her hand on his knee.
‘That is sufficient for me,' she said; and it is more than
sufficient for me that you should say what you have said.
And now shall we close the question once and for all? Or is
there anything more? Think well, because I want never to
refer again to the subject.'
Jack thought for a moment.
No, I have no haggling to do,' he said. 'I consent un-
reservedly. I am quite sure what I feel about it.'
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Her hand still lay in his, and the soft pressure of her fingers
confirmed the close of this subject. Her eyes, too, were raised
to his; her face was raised also, and at that his flesh and blood
cried out for her, for the perfection of her beauty, for the
wonderful She whom his nature demanded, and, taking her
in his arms as if he would have broken her, he kissed her
again and again. And the fire of his love consumed her also,
and still sitting there, with her arm round his neck, she said
to him sweeter words than he thought could ever be uttered.
'I want you so, Jack,' she whispered. All your strength
and all your love must be utterly mine. I want it all, for
my whole weight, all that I am, even that part of me which
you do not know, may need you to lean on. And if you give
it me I shall be safe: no shadow of evil can cross our path.
But, like the promise you gave me just now, your gift of your-
self to me must be unreserved: I must know always that it
is all there ready for me.'
Suddenly a doubt, like the ghost of the memory of the
picture he had seen that day, glimmered in his mind.
And you,' he said—' you keep nothing back?'
Some faint hint of trouble crossed those eyes that burned
so near him:
Yes, I keep back from you all that of which we have
spoken,' she said. 'That inner life of mine, by your own wish,
Jack-for if you willed you might have shared it—is for ever
kept separate and apart from you. But I keep apart nothing
else, not the paring of a nail.'
'It is enough,' said he:
Presently, after Aunt Julia was allowed to come into her
own drawing-room again, a concession that she appreciated,
since she hated solitude, except in the country, as a cat
hates water. Her sense of what she called 'moral geography'
was highly developed, and it seemed to her a chilly thing to
sit alone in London, especially when she was so burning and
bubbling to see and to share the intense happiness of the
others. Alone, however, she was quite prepared to sit until
her two despots recalled her; but when recalled she came
with alacrity, bustling into the room with an enormous
quantity of things to say:
'I have been feeling like " Alone in London " and "Jessica's
First Prayer," sitting upstairs all by myself for a quite
absurdly long "five minutes, she said: 'And have
you two dears been revealing your pasts to each other?
>> >
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143
It is that which has taken you so long, is it? Such a bad
way of spending your time, too! If only one could reveal
one's future instead, for that matters so very much more.
Even if one could reveal one's present, it would be much more
helpful than revealing one's past. What really matters is
what a person is like now, not what he was like years ago.
And what had Jack to tell you, Ida? Did he in broken
accents pour into your horrified ear that he had once eaten
cheese with his knife ?'
(
Ida laughed.
Yes,' she said, 'and I have told him that it is hard to
forgive. But we have done more than that: just as you say,
we have been revealing the future to each other. It is
exactly that we have done. And I believe it will be most
satisfactory.'
Mrs. Desmond looked quickly from the one to the other.
What she saw satisfied her also, and she went on.
'Now we must make a time-table,' she said. 'I came up
to London with Ida under the distinct understanding that she
was going to manage and run the house for me for this month:
And you shan't upset my plan, Jack. You have already been
very selfish in wanting to take Ida away at all, but until I go
down to the country again she must look after certain things
for me, and be my engagement-book. I have ceased attempt-
ing to remember things since she has been with me, and if I
suddenly began again I should get a severe mental strain.
Is that understood?'
Jack laughed.
Yes, dear Mrs. Desmond,' he said;
but you will try to
recover your lost faculties soon, will you not ?'
Ida sat down by her aunt.
You are very strong, Aunt Julia,' she said. 'Do you
think a strain would really injure you ?'
'I don't mean to attempt to find out,' said Mrs. Desmond,
with dignity.
During the next few days all the plans and arrangements
which follow on the heels of an engagement began to spring
up in ever-increasing numbers. Ida's attitude towards these
things, it must be confessed, was found most unsatisfactory
to the minds of her friends. Particularly unsatisfactory was
she to Beatrice, to whom the 'whole duty of woman'-in
other words, the choosing of the trousseau-was entrusted:
Here, again, Ida's innate unconventionality and blank indiffer-
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ence as to what other people did, which Mrs. Desmond had
hoped was thoroughly conquered by her three months' visiting
at country houses, started up again like a weed in a rich soil,
and flourished with the most disconcerting luxuriance.
Surely I've got heaps of clothes,' she said. 'I don't want
any more. I shouldn't, naturally, have bought anything else
for months. And as I have made up my mind that the dear
aunt shan't provide the trousseau for me, since I am so much
better off than she, it is silly that I should have to spend
money on myself to buy myself things I don't want. For
instance, Bee, you say everything must be new, down to
tooth-brushes and sponge-bags. Really, it is too silly!'
But it occurred to her before long that it was even sillier to
make anyone unhappy for want of doing the right thing,'
however unnecessary in her own private opinion the 'right
thing' might happen to be, and, like the Government of the
day, she voted without further opposition a sum of money to
be spent by herself on herself.
Then lawyers came with wills and deeds of settlement:
These she dealt with shortly, but with the same unconven-
tionality that Mrs. Desmond so deplored.
'I leave all I have to my husband,' she said. 'I think that
comprises the whole question of my will.'
An obsequious partner in the firm of Messrs. Raven and
Maw expressed a difference of opinion.
'It is considered wiser,' he said—‘in fact, it is always done
-to make some-some sort of conditional clause.'
He looked up, and for a moment was unable to proceed with
Ida's child-like gaze on him. Then a sudden idea struck him.
Perhaps it would be better if I had your sanction to make
all arrangements with Mrs. Desmond,' he said.
(
'Oh dear no; why trouble Mrs. Desmond ?' asked Ida,
with the transparent childlikeness. Mr. Carbery's
'Mr. Carbery's settlement
is quite clear and satisfactory.'
She turned to some papers, half hiding a yawn, but seeing
it was only half hidden, apologized.
'I beg your pardon, Mr. Maw,' she said, 'but are we not
wasting time?'
She looked at the clock: it was already after six in the
evening. If this stupid and wholly unnecessary discussion
continued, her hour of concentration would be curtailed. But
she made a successful effort to appear neither bored nor im-
patient, though she felt both.
'Let me speak,' she said, ' to show you that I quite under-
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145
stand. Mr. Carbery is heir something-heir-apparent, is it
not? That is to say, if his uncle dies before him he becomes
Lord Camelot. Well, the present Lord Camelot is sixty-five
and unmarried. If I die before Mr. Carbery, I wish him to
be my heir, and his '—she paused a moment-‘our children
after him. If he dies before I do, my money, of course, con-
tinues to be mine. If I have children it will become theirs.
But in case of my dying before Mr. Carbery, he is my heir
without any reservation."
Poor Mr. Maw writhed and wriggled in his chair: he was
a most uncomfortable man, and sincerely wished he had
not done himself the honour of waiting on Miss Jervis in
person.
'But, Miss Jervis,' he said, 'I understand that you inherit
the very considerable property of Mrs. Desmond. Do you
wish, without any reservation, to leave a really immense for-
tune to Mr. Carbery? Supposing, for instance he tried to
look jocular, and did not succeed- supposing you had some
unfortunate little quarrel with Mr. Carbery? Such things
have happened. Supposing, also, the-ahem-quarrel was
one for which he was entirely to blame? Supposing-ah, had
I not better talk to Mrs. Desmond ?'
Ida looked at him for a moment in amazement, then in
amusement. She required all those three months of country
house to enable her not to laugh.
'Do you know, Mr. Maw,' she said, 'that we are really
wasting time, and that I have other things to do when this is
settled? Let me say it once more, then. On my death all I
have or shall inherit becomes my husband's. In case of his
—his predecease, is it not? my property becomes my own
again. Does that satisfy you? It quite satisfies me.'
Again poor Mr. Maw writhed.
Dear lady,' he said, 'you order a pair of boots, and the
responsibility rests with your bootmaker: if they do not fit.
you send them back, and he has, if he wishes to retain your
custom, to make them fit. But you can't send your will back
so easily, and you can't send your settlements back at all. I
want you-I would really much rather have talked to Mrs.
Desmond about it, but you would not let me-I want you to
provide for the eventuality of a total disagreement with your
husband. And also you are not even married to him yet.'
At this Ida's gravity broke down completely, and she
laughed.
'My husband's name
I will try to satisfy you,' she said.
ΙΟ
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is John Carbery; there is no doubt about it. And I refuse
altogether to make any arrangement contingent on my pos-
sible quarrel with him."'
Then her private inward knowledge swelled and burst in a
sentence which really almost shocked the lawyer-like mind of
Mr. Maw.
(
'You wish to provide for an impossibility, Mr. Maw,' she
said. Kindly draw the deed up you will be good enough
to put it all in the proper language, and I will sign it to-morrow
morning if you can have it ready. And now, if you will
excuse me, I will go. I have an-an engagement before
dinner.'
She shook hands with the little smoke-dried lawyer, whose
face reminded her rather of a kippered herring, and left the
room. Mr. Maw, still dissatisfied, but reluctantly convinced.
that further remonstrance was useless, collected his papers
after she had gone.
Ida went quickly upstairs, tapped at her aunt's room, and
in answer to her aunt's reply entered. It had been one of
Mrs. Desmond's excellently sensible suggestions that, while
they lived in the same house, each of them should be private
from the other except with consent. Therefore, though there
was no one in the world whose room Ida would have more
fearlessly entered, sure of welcome, than her aunt's, she waited
for the Come in.'
'Oh, people are so ridiculous, and poor Mr. Maw, who is
just like a very cautious little kippered herring, has been
frightfully ridiculous,' she said. Yet their ridiculousness is
so sweet. It reminds me of my happiness, and so I like it.'
She sat down on the arm of Mrs. Desmond's chair.
'Tell me how Mr. Maw has been ridiculous, dear,' said she.
Why, he talks to me as if Jack was a scheming enemy,
and I answer him back on the same lines. And all the time
I know he is-is Jack, just Jack. But nobody understands
that except me.'
She paused a moment, then gave a long happy sigh, pushing
her hair back.
They all want to provide against his marrying my money,"
she said. 'Jack-my money,' she repeated. 'I never knew
such a preposterous idea could exist. Why, it is Jack:
they none of them seem to understand that.'
Against this snow-white innocence Mrs. Desmond felt
defenceless. Nor, as she knew, was there any need for
defence, and she answered lightly:
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147
<
<
But such a thing has been known in the history of the
world, dear,' she said, and we call in lawyers and solicitors
to prevent there being further instances of it.'
'I never called them in,' said Ida.
All this trousseau
and settlements are so ridiculous in our case. What does it
matter? How can it come in? It is Jack, you see: I
can't repeat that too often.'
She kissed Mrs. Desmond on the forehead.
'I must go,' she said. 'I am already rather late. Poor
Mr. Maw would insist on arguing with me.'
Mrs. Desmond froze up just a little; she could not help it.
She had heard Ida tell a servant that she wanted Abdul at
half-past six. And it was now nearly a quarter to seven.
The most Christian effort could not avoid drawing a con-
clusion as to what she was late for. And of all Ida's uncon-
ventionalities her aunt found this one, this sitting with Abdul
in séance the hardest to preserve her equanimity under. She
knew, too, that of all it was the most ineradicable.
Abdul was squatting on the floor outside her room: he
had been an hour or more sitting there quite patiently, his
hands clasped round his knees, his eyes fixed dreamily on
the wall opposite. Patiently, indeed, would not accurately
describe the condition of his mind, since impatience was, per-
haps, no longer possible to him. But when Ida came up the
stairs his eyes brightened, and he got up and made his usual
obeisance. She had not as yet told him of her engagement-
why, she hardly knew ; but she meant to tell him to-night.
Peace be with you,' he said, and the girl returned the
greeting. Then-
'I am late, Abdul,' she said as he held her sitting-room
door open for her to enter. 'I am afraid I have kept you
waiting.'
He smiled at her.
'Will you never believe that waiting is as high a service as
any?' he said.
He closed the door softly, and a thought that had several
times crossed his mind lately deepened into certainty.
'You have something to tell me,' he said, but I know
already. Love has come to you—that Englishman who I told
you was strong.'
A sudden savage look of pain crossed his face, and Ida
stared at him in amazement.
'I am sorry, my mistress,' said he. That shall never
10-2
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cross my face or my mind again. It was the final flicker.
Jealousy-yes, mad black jealousy. But it has gone. Per-
haps, too, I wondered why you had not told me, and my heart
ached a little that you had not. It is good that you are
going to marry him. And I think then, though I am not yet
sure, that you will not need me any more. My service, per-
haps, will then be over.'
The girl looked suddenly frightened, and she clasped her
hands together quickly.
Ah, Abdul,' she said, 'you must never, never leave me
till you close my eyes for the last time, as you closed my
father's, and say the last greeting.'
'I shall never go from you while you need me,' said he.
That is quite sure. But-yes, we must talk of these things
a moment.'
Ida drew in her breath with a sudden wince as of physical
pain.
'Is it necessary ?' she asked.
Abdul looked at her with infinite pity and tenderness.
'Yes, beloved lady,' he said. 'We must just speak of it. For
to speak of a thing is better than to keep silence, if speech may
help. For what said that accursed amulet? That until love
is stronger than death, it—the Thing-will never be laid.
And we have known, you and I, that my love is stronger than
death, and so have thought that it was that which should
be near you always and protect you, as we believe it has done.
But now another love, also very strong and true, has come to
you. It is to that, perhaps, that I am meant to pass on my
work.'
F
'But he does not even know the first step of the Way,' said
Ida,' and he does not wish to know.'
Yet there are many who walk therein without knowing it,
like the children of my race who from their innocence and
purity have the open vision in the crystal. Some maintain
it all their lives, this unconscious walking in the Way.'
The girl got up, still looking very much troubled.
'You must never leave me, Abdul,' she said anxiously.
I should get frightened again, and if I get frightened it shows
I am faithless, and thus in danger.'
Abdul was silent a moment.
You sent for me this evening, beloved lady,' he said, 'to
sit with you and to speak to the effendi, if it is permitted, of
what has happened to you, of the love that has come to you.
So let us leave the other question alone. For be sure that
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149
while you need me I shall not leave you: I but wanted to say
that. Shall we sit now, and inquire ?'
Ida crossed the room and opened the door into the smaller
room beyond where she spent her silent hours.
Yes, we will see if he may tell us anything,' she said.
Abdul followed her, locking the door behind him, and with
a few quick, deft movements got the room ready. He drew
the curtain across the window, moved the small table into the
middle of the room, put the electric lamp on it, and set two
chairs. Ida meantime had fetched the crystal at which he
always looked to procure mesmeric sleep, and gave it into his
hand. Then she knelt a moment at her praying-table, praying
silently to herself, for, since she was a Christian, he could not
join her there, and then took the chair he had put for her.
Then Abdul said that Arabic prayer which Sir Henry had
heard him say for the first time at the séance at Achmet
Pasha's, Ida joining with him. Then he sat back in his chair,
arranged the crystal in a fold of his black burnous, so that the
reflections and images on it were dim and undistracting, and
there was silence, while he looked fixedly at the faint luminous-
ness of the ball.
He sat absolutely still, both hands resting on his knees, his
head a little bent forward, his breath coming very long and
steady and slow, while Ida watched his face in the shadow of
the heavily-shaded electric light. Then after a few minutes
his breathing began to quicken and still to quicken, till it
was almost like the panting of some hard-pressed hunted
thing. His eyes grew wider and brighter, till they burned
like live coals in the darkness of the room. Still quicker and
more quickly came the agonized panting of his breath, and
great drops of perspiration started out on his face; he seemed
to be struggling against some ghostly terror or enemy.
Now, all this was most strange and unusual, and Ida watched
him with anxiety, wondering if she had better rouse him. It
had happened before now, indeed, that same slight quickening
of his breath, some momentary passing excitement had pre-
ceded the state of trance, but never had she seen him so
wrestling and struggling in the grip of some apparently hostile
invisible force. But even while she hesitated whether she
should wake him or not, his breathing grew quieter again,
his eyes slowly closed, his hands fell off his knees, so that the
crystal rolled on the ground, and his head turned over till
the chin rested on his shoulder. Then Ida put out a noiseless
hand and quenched the lamp.
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For some five minutes she sat there in silence again, and in
pitch darkness, the window shut and the heavy curtain drawn
closely over it, so that no stray chance ray from the town
outside could penetrate. Then suddenly she saw that, in
spite of the pitch darkness of the room, a faint light, luminous
with the milky paleness of some remote phosphorescence, was
beginning to glow round Abdul, so that she could see his
fallen unconscious head, and the outline of one nerveless
hand that was towards her. Simultaneously a little cool
soft wind seemed to her to move round the room, and the
curtain stirred and sighed, rustling on its rings. In tense,
certain expectancy she waited, knowing well what would
follow, and almost immediately afterwards a couple of loud
taps sounded from close to her.
Father, have you come ?' she said. Are you here?'
*
*
*
*
*
Half an hour later Ida got up and, with a hand that trembled
a little, turned on the electric light. This was usually
sufficient to wake Abdul from his trance in a moment or two,
and it was always better that he should come to himself
gradually, not be startled back in any way into life. So she
moved quietly about the room, picked up the crystal from
the floor, and drew the curtain aside to open the window
and let in the fresh air. Then he stirred, opened his eyes
slowly, and eventually sat up in his chair.
I conquered, I conquered,' he said; but the struggle was
horrible.'
Ida sat down on her couch.
Yes, what was it, Abdul?' she said.
you altogether. You were in agony.
better to have called you back ?'
'I nearly stopped
Should I have done
He wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
No, no,' he said; ´ but it came between me and them. It
was a stone of stumbling on the Way. But it is gone. It was
that jealousy of which I spoke to you. And the effendi
came, beloved lady ?'
Yes; I spoke with him a long time. And he said, Abdul,
he said to me: "The evil is not dead yet: it is approaching
again it is coming quickly."
") )
She covered her face in her hands a moment, while a shudder,
overwhelming and mastering, ran through her limbs: then
she sat up, her eyes bright and radiant again.
((
'But then he said, Be not afraid." And, oh, Abdul, I
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151
won't, I won't. I will be trustful: I know it is the truth he
has told me. I must not be afraid, because he has told me
not to be; and it was no false voice that spoke, but his own
voice, the voice I know so well.'
She paused a moment.
We talked a great deal about what has happened to me
to-day,' she said, ' and then I asked him if you would remain
with me always. And you were right, for he said that I
should not need you after I was married, but that there was
work for you to do before that. He could not, he was not
allowed to explain more to me. He wanted to, so I under-
stood, but it was not permitted.'
Abdul rose and took her hand.
'Be it so then, beloved lady,' he said, ' and we will march
forward, not looking back, and whatever is to be, we will keep
the Way, and, as the effendi said, we will not be afraid.'
Again Ida had to check a sudden dreadful shudder, but the
effort made, she looked up at him smiling.
Amen to that,' she said.
CHAPTER X
A FORTNIGHT later Leonard Compton's prognostications with
regard to Henderson and the English public began to endorse
his accuracy of foresight with a completeness that Zadkiel
might have envied. Even as down the Nile Henderson's coming
had been awaited with almost apprehensive excitement and
heralded by whispered, unintelligible expectation, so here in
England the daily press began to roar incomprehensibly
though loudly about him long before he set foot on English
soil. And, indeed, if half of what was stated as fact in the
press was not unadulterated fiction, he had been on a remark-
able journey, setting foot where no European had penetrated
before, and seeing some extraordinary things-things which
strangely confirmed theories and rumours which were already
existent. Geographers, for instance, awaited, with an excite-
ment that these hints only whetted to suspense, his account
of the great Zaffiri oasis, lying five hundred miles to the west
of Wady-Halfa, where, so said the daily press, he had spent
nearly a month. Hitherto the very existence of the oasis had
been more than half supposed to be a myth, though certainly
a strangely persistent one, for throughout the length and
breadth of Egypt there was scarcely a fellah who did not
secretly believe in it. Some strange air of mystery, however,
hung over the place: it was hard to get a native to talk of it,
and even if he would, rolling his eyes mysteriously the while,
it was with bated breath that he spoke of the race nearly white
who had lived there from time immemorial. Again, at this
point the ethnologist was all agog to hear more, for equally
persistent was the rumour of the existence of a nearly white
tribe, one, too, that was surrounded with a strange atmosphere
of awe and terror, that inhabited this remote oasis: Rumour,
too, had it that gold was abundant there, and Henderson
apparently, in certain interviews granted before he arrived in
England, confirmed this, whereat the Stock Exchange pricked
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153
up its ears and company-promoters dreamed dreams and saw
visions, which they duly reduced to somewhat unreliable
statistics:
Again, the whole exploring and travelling instinct of the
English-that Anglo-Saxon passion which perhaps is the most
marked characteristic of our race-found food for its
delight in those fragmentary accounts of his journey, which
were all that was at present available. Tribes hostile to any
intruder barred the way in fifty places, and the English
Government, it was known, had at one time contemplated a
mission of exploration there, but without a very large body of
men it would have been sheer madness to attempt to force a
passage, while the difficulty of obtaining water and commis-
sariat had at present been considered insuperable. Yet an
Englishman dressed as an Arab doctor merely, with two
servants only, had accomplished the journey, which the
Government had been itself unable to make, or to protect
when he made it; and, so said one paper (basing its facts on
a personal interview with Henderson at Taormina, whither it
had been sufficiently enterprising to send out a representative
to get the very earliest news), two stages out of Wady-Halfa,
he had discarded Arab dress, finding it unnecessary, and had
appeared as one of the hated Feringhi. But geographers,
ethnologists, company-promoters, and the public at large, all
shied at the explorer's explanation of the absolute ease with
which he had passed on his journey.
'I had a secret,' Henderson was represented as saying, 'a
master-word, which I will excuse myself from telling you, but
which, anyhow, was an "open sesame. Oh yes, very fantastic,
if you like, and as ridiculous as you please. But it seemed to
answer: I got on, in any case. There ought to be a psychical
department in the Government. I told them so before. If
there had been, they might have done it all themselves.'
But however revolting to common-sense his explanation was,
there seemed to be no doubt whatever that he had been where
he said he had been. At any rate, to the furthest limits of
known exploration his diaries and the maps he had drawn, his
notes about different tribes, his natural history observations,
were all pedantically correct, and beyond that either hopelessly
fantastic or uncompromisingly convincing. For the mer
material evidence he brought back with him was suffici
to stagger the unbelief of Satan. He had photograph
abundance of the strange white race, he had lumps of r
which he showed the visible gold: he had two or thr

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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
ornaments given him by certain chiefs of the tribe of strange
and exquisite workmanship, resembling very closely the finest
productions of the fourth dynasty; he had specimens of their
earthenware; he had bits of writing in a tongue akin to that of
the pre-Egyptian Libyan tribes, who had been driven west-
ward out of Egypt, leaving, however, certain remains on the
west bank of the Nile. At this antiquarians sprang to their
feet: the photographs of the pottery which had been taken
by the representative of the enterprising paper were pro-
nounced by experts to be of undubitably Libyan type, and
the few fragments of writing added four or five characters
more to the known Libyan alphabet; while on the other hand
the gold-work seemed to show that commerce had existed
between the inhabitants of this oasis and the later conquerors
of Egypt.
All these things were open for all the world to read, and the
drama of his journey, however fragmentary, appealed enor-
mously to the popular imagination. Henderson, still lingering
in the south, was besieged by requests to lecture for learned
societies, and by the most tempting offers to appear serially in
the more prominent magazines. But to these at present he
returned but ambiguous replies: he courteously refused to
entertain any business proposals till he arrived in England.
He was busy at present over the arrangement and classifica-
tion of his collections: when he knew more about them him-
self, it would be time enough to think of lecturing.
Now, Ida, with the rest of London, had read the accounts of
this wonderful journey, and though from her long sojourns in
Egypt she might have been expected to take great interest in
the geographical, ethnological, or antiquarian aspects of it, that
one little point at which the various learned gentlemen snorted
was to her of so engrossing an interest that all questions of race
and place became like a mere fragment of last week's paper
compared to it. He had a spell, a master-word, something,
anyhow, that had made his journey easy, when to others-
even to the English Government itself, which can usually get
where it wants—the same road had been impossible. What
was it? A master-word, a spell, something to conjure by ?
It was about a week after the excitement had begun to rise
really frothy ferment that Henderson arrived himself one
day night, as duly recorded in the late news of extra-
1 editions. Mrs. Desmond had originally intended to
ondon next day for a fortnight of Christmas at Ryssop,

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155
but Ida had persuaded her into allowing a note to be sent to
the explorer at the Carlton asking him to dine either on the
Tuesday or Wednesday. Aunt Julia herself was perfectly
willing to wait longer than this if there was a chance of seeing
him, for she, like everyone else, was immensely interested,
since she was at present in London, and people, not gardens,
were her concern; but she had warned Ida of the futility of
hoping to secure him. The note, however, went off by hand on
Monday evening, and half an hour later the answer arrived by
the same hand. The note of invitation had been written by Ida.
'DEAR MISS JERVIS,
I shall be most delighted to accept Mrs. Desmond's
very kind invitation for to-morrow evening. It is too good of
her to ask me. I have several things to say to you which will,
I am sure, interest you. Some of them, however, are of rather
a private nature. In the chance, then, of your caring to hear
them, I will venture to call at 11.30 to-morrow morning. Of
course, if you wish, you will say that you are not in. I shall
quite understand.
'In any case, I look forward very much to seeing you again.
Most sincerely yours,
'JAMES HENDERSON.'
Ida's face flushed suddenly as she read this, and she winced
as if something had hurt her. Then she crumpled the note up
and threw it into the very centre and core of the fire that
burned busily, talking to itself, in the grate.
Ah, Aunt Julia,' she said, 'I was right and you were wrong.
I am so glad, because you are almost always right. He will
come to-morrow night.
'And you have thrown away the note ?' asked Mrs. Des-
mond. Ida, you are sufficient to break the heart of an auto-
graph collector.'

Ida laughed.
'I will get you another,' she said. 'I will get him to write
something more interesting than an amiable "Yes." Now,
what will you do? Will you ask people to meet him?'
Mrs. Desmond got up.
'Really I am rather nervous,' she said. 'Explorers are
very unexpected, and they may want strange food. Doe
behave strangely at all?'
'Not in the least. He is perfectly tame and well-bre
would think he had never been on the Surrey sid
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Thames, far less the Surrey side of the Nile. Oh, by the way,
Jack was to come down to-morrow night to Ryssop. We must
put him off till Wednesday.'
'Ask him to dinner, then,' said Mrs. Desmond, without a
pause.
Ida considered this a moment. Somehow she had an idea
that he and Henderson would not get on in a partie carrée.
Yet in the evening everything would be above-board: she
would have had her private talk, for she had already made
up her mind to see him in the morning.
'By all means,' she said; 'but had you not better ask two
or three other people? He is such a big lion-Mr. Henderson,
I mean that it really would be selfish to put him in so private
a cage, and not get anybody to hear him roar.'
My dear, you can't get people at twelve hours' notice:
Besides, everyone is leaving town for Christmas.'
Ida laughed.
'We've got the lion, anyhow,' she said. 'I expect the jackals
will come too. Ah, that sounds rather nasty. It was not
meant, but you told me the other day not to mix metaphors.
The two were alone, and Mrs. Desmond retired again into the
treatise on chemical stimulants for plants, which was so
absorbing, for the literature of the garden was still an occupa-
tion in town.
'Pray manage it all, dear,' she said. 'I leave it entirely
to you. But be sure to ask Sir James Denton, who refused him
the protection of the Government. Dear Sir James! I still
owe him one over South Africa!'
It must be supposed, therefore, that half a dozen notes
represented the management required; these Ida wrote as
her aunt read her horticultural journal, and having finished
them rang the bell.
'All to wait for answers,' she said:
This roused Mrs. Desmond, who was as kind to her servants
as she was to her flowers, and read curious little books about
the right relation of the mistress to her domestics with almost
as much zest as she read about chemical manures.

'So late, Ida,' she said.
But a sort of quiet and determined mutiny dominated the
l's voice.
'I
Oh, I will wait up till the answers come,' she said.
it up as late as anybody. And I will put out the lights.'
Desmond felt as if the atmosphere had become sud-
ctric, and she dealt with imminent moral disturbances
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
157
with great common-sense, even as in a thunderstorm she dis-
tracted the nervous mind from considerations of lightning to
the normal interests of life. In fact, whether the tension
was moral or electric, she directed all thoughts to anything
that both soothed and absorbed. She did so here, shutting
her book with decision, though with inward reluctance.
Halma!' she exclaimed. Dear Ida, do bring me the
halma-board. Simple burglary was what you committed last
night. I will not permit it again, and I shall use all your
ladders, and be a burglar myself.'
And in the pursuit of these puerilities the sudden distur-
bance in the moral atmosphere was calmed down.
Ida's instantaneous decision to give Henderson his private
interview was one of those choices in life that sometimes seem
to be thrust upon us altogether independently of our own
wish or will. It seemed to her, indeed, that she had no
choice in the matter; she was blown like thistledown in this
particular direction, just because the wind set that way. She
had to see him, and she did not even pause to consider whether
this compulsion was dictated by her own intense desire to
know more of that black speck-it hardly seemed bigger than
that—which had once drifted across the pure white of her
life, leaving there a smear that was still not effaced, or whether
some exterior force, the will of another-of him, perhaps—
forced it on her. Yet, in spite of the fact that she could no
more resist the necessity that made her see him again than
she could resist the pulling-in of herself, so to speak, by the
revolving wheels of some engine in which her hand or even
an outlying fringe of her clothing only had been caught, she
felt as if other influences were exerting their utmost force,
though ineffectually, to pull her back. The will of Abdul,
she knew, was among these: and though Ida did not intend
to tell him that she was going to see Henderson again, she
felt sure that his will was against her action, exerting its
utmost force to drag her away; she felt sure also that it was
powerless at present against the stronger compulsion that
made it necessary that she should see him. Henderson had
told her that he had things of interest to say to her : that
was all, but enough. She knew what that meant, and one of
two things was in store for her: either by the merciful good-
ness of God that black speck was to vanish for ever from her
life, smitten like night-mist by the sun, or there was a struggle,
a horror, in front of her, something ghastly and undetermined,
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
like the vague shape and clamour of a nightmare. And as she
thought of this she remembered the communication that had
been made to her by her father in the séance with Abdul-
'Evil is approaching.'
Mrs. Desmond had several shopping errands, chiefly of a
chemical manure nature (the result of her reading), to be done
next morning, and as the day was one of crystal winter bril-
liance, she proposed to Ida to come out with her. But the
girl had some natural and legitimate excuse ready, though the
real one almost rose in her throat, and before eleven she was left
to herself in the house, waiting for her visitor's arrival. She had
arranged to see him downstairs, risking her aunt's unexpected
return rather than the chance of Abdul meeting him on the
stairs on the way up to the third story, but at present she
was in her own room, finishing the few letters which had been
her perfectly valid excuse for not going out with Mrs. Desmond.
Among them was a note or two which she wanted taken by
hand, and having written them she rang the bell.
Abdul presented himself instantly, and Ida started a little
and changed colour when she saw him, for she had expected, not
him, but a footman. But she recovered herself without pause.
Would you see that these are sent at once, Abdul ?' she said.
She looked at him curiously a moment.
What is the matter?' she said at length, wondering if by
some strange clairvoyance he had guessed who was soon to
come in.
Abdul's eyes were fixed on her in a sort of agony of terror
and pity: he looked frightened, tired.
They shall go,' he said.
'But what is the matter?' asked Ida again, feeling guilty.
Abdul shook his head, and gesticulated negatively with his
hand.
Ah, do you remember that evening of Sirocco in the Luxor
garden,' he said, and how you were causelessly afraid of
the wind? Perhaps it is so with me now. Perhaps I am
causelessly afraid of nothing. Yet I am not given to be cause-
lessly afraid. But evil is approaching. He said it—he said it.'
The girl got up.
Ah, that is not all,' she said. 'Be not afraid! Have you
forgotten that ?’
Then he straightened up his bent, tired-looking figure, but
with an effort, like a weary man beaten on by a strong wind.
'I will not forget, beloved lady,' he said.
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
159
Presently after Ida went downstairs to await her visitor.
Any nervousness that had been with her earlier in the morning
had vanished entirely, and eager, hopeful desire to know,
overwhelming all else, took its place. Here in this ordinary
London drawing-room, looking out into the familiar hansom-
paced square, with its plane-trees, its garden, its utter common-
placeness and remoteness from anything occult or mysterious,
where folk passed to and fro on their harmless superficial
errands, here in this room she was awaiting the man who held
and would communicate to her that which was as momentous
to her as life and death-more momentous, indeed, for the
life or death of the body was nothing in the scales compared
to the news she was awaiting. It was indeed life or death
who should presently be announced: he would be shown in
like any other visitor, and would, no doubt, remark on the
beauty of the morning, and she would answer saying that it
had been fine also yesterday, or wet.
The jingling of cabs outside passed and repassed the door,
and an occasional motor throbbed by. Then one hansom
stopped at the door, for the jingling did not die away again,
but was cut off when it was loudest. A minute later the
door opened and the butler said her visitor's name. Then
the door shut again and Ida rose.
But no words of common-
place greeting passed. She advanced to meet him, and they
approached each other in the centre of the room. She did
not even hold out her hand. Then Henderson spoke.
6
It is all right, Miss Jervis,' he said.
Ida gave one sigh, almost a sob, of relief that welled up-
wards from the very core and centre of her being, and Hender-
son turned away to put down his hat, which he had brought
into the room with him: a certain delicacy of feeling told him
that there was something private, something on which other
eyes should not look before him. For Ida's soul, he felt,
stood naked in front of him, pure and white, and it was not
fit for him to look on it.
But she recovered herself very quickly, and then the com-
monplace greetings began, she leading the way.
It was very good of you to come, Mr. Henderson,' she said
You got back to London only last night, so the papers sai
I was very audacious to write to you at all.'
Not till then had she been really conscious of his preser
it had been almost an impersonal messenger, it was jus
mouthpiece of life or death, who had been there before,
incorporeal, just a telegram, a piece of news. Bu

160
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
was the man she looked at, and certainly the sight was a very
striking one. He was very dark from these months abroad,
but about his face there was something wonderfully alert and
commanding. His thin, hawk-like face was, if anything, a
little thinner than she remembered it, nor did she remember
how very powerful it was. He looked younger, too; there
was surely a vigour and youthfulness about him that had not
been there before. His travels had not aged, but rejuvenated
him.
Yes, last night only,' he said, 'and, do you know, if you
had not asked me to come, I think I should have suggested
it myself. I wanted '-and his black eyes looked very kindly,
very directly at her- I wanted at the very earliest possible
moment to give you the news, the news that I have just given
you.'
She held out her hand: this was the first ordinary sign of
greeting that had passed between them.
It is very kind of you,' she said. Now, can you tell me
more? Of course I want to know all you can tell me.'
Yes, up to the point where I lose myself, too,' he said, ' I
will tell you everything.'
He sat down, with a laugh.
But you will find that point comes very soon,' he said.
'Also you may be disappointed, for I can explain nothing-
absolutely nothing.'
'Just tell me, then,' said she.
Well, we don't want an introduction,' said he gravely.
We both know what we want to talk about. It is this: I
went back to the temple of Mut night after night. Night
after night I raised the same presence, and found that by
means of hieroglyphics I could communicate with it, writing
them in the sand. Gradually I learned the terms, so to
speak, that we were on. Now tell me have you, since
March last, been conscious of any abnormality, or does your
life, your inward life, go on quite smoothly?'
Ida did not reply immediately.
'I believe it goes on smoothly,' she said. 'I believe that
certain sudden accesses of fear, of horror, that I have had
ccasionally were psychical. Why I think that, is because I
ve no difficulty in approaching and being approached by
d spirits-by my father, for instance-and there is nothing
stands in my way in concentration or meditation. When
my room for that, I feel safer than ever. But I have
asionally moments of awful blackness, a blackness

THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
161
that I can hardly describe to you, that does not seem really
to belong to me. It is just that which is terrifying.'
6
'But that is all ?' he asked.
'Yes.'
And do other people know when these blacknesses are
with you?' he said.
It is a question I have never asked anyone,' said she;
but I feel sure they do. They cannot help it. For instance
--she flushed a little-' I know that I squint horribly when
they are on me. They are rare, you understand, but I can
remember two or three.'
But they never came between you and prayer,' he said.
'No, never!'
He paused a moment.
'I am sure you are safe,' he said.
what I can.'
'Now I will tell you
He drew his chair rather closer to the girl.
(
'On that night,' he said, you know the night I mean,
you were in the direst and most imminent peril. It, Set-nekht,
had actually entered, had begun to take possession of you.
Luckily, however, if you remember, I awoke the medium
almost immediately: the possession was not complete. About
that the phenomenon of incomplete possession-I learned
in my travels last autumn; it is a long story, and does not
concern us now
us now; that the possession was incomplete is
enough. Well, as I said, I got into communication with
Set-nekht, and learned this, that though he is, so to speak,
loosed again, and is a control of the most powerful and evil
kind, yet I, by the fact of my having loosed him, can in a
certain way control him. He cannot, through my command,
advance except I bid him. He may roam, I suppose, in the
places of his previous haunting-no Arab, for instance, will
now go near the precinct of that temple after dark-but outside
those, so I am sure, I can control him. So with regard to
you, I hold him bound: he cannot advance an inch except I
bid him. Therefore, my dear Miss Ida, you are safe—abso-
lutely safe. It is all as if it had never happened: you may
for ever from this moment dismiss from your head all thought
of what has been, or what may be, like a year-old dream that
seemed at the time of dreadful import, since, in the merciful
decrees of God, the fulfilment of it is no longer possible.'
He laid great stress on the last word,
a mere whisper charged with emotion.
his voice sinking to
Yet Ida did not at
once respond like a millrace a hundred impossible sequels
II
162
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
flashed through her mind.
and what if the other :
What if this, and what if that,
But her pause, though full, was
but short, and she put out her hand.
I owe you more than my life,' she said. My mere life
is but a tiny stake to what I have feared was on the board.'
Then, even while her hand was in his, she drew back a
little, for in those dark eyes that met hers she saw that look
which she saw every day and every hour in the eyes of her
lover; but he was fair and blue-eyed, and this one was
dark as the pit, yet the same voice spoke from the eyes
of each.
'Your debt, then, is cancelled,' said Henderson, and you
owe me nothing. I, on the contrary, owe you very much,
the privilege to have been able to help you-and to help is
a vastly greater privilege than to harm. Let us make a
compact, Miss Ida: let us never refer to the matter again,
and banish it utterly from our thoughts. It is better so.
Ah, with all my heart,' she said. 'Yet you cannot cancel
my debt to you. That must endure beyond the end of time.'
He shook his head.
'It is done,' he said; it is all quite finished with.'
In dumb-show he made the movement as of tearing a paper
in half and throwing it away. Then, for the avoidance of
embarrassment, he went on at once:
'I have so much to tell you,' he said, 'so much, too, that
seems to students like you and me to be of absolutely vital
import. Here in England even those who are most advanced
are but babies in knowledge. They keep thinking that they
may be meddling with things that are evil and had better not
be meddled with, for fear of dire, impossible consequences.'
He paused a moment:
'Now, what I have learned which is most important of all
is this, that the only evil which exists is evil of our own inten-
tion: You cannot step into casual evil as you can step on a
piece of orange-peel, which somebody else has left there, and
thus fall. That is not allowed. It is also inconceivable.'
But last March It . . . ?' asked Ida.
That is an admirable instance of what I am saying. I
approached it in the spirit of pure inquiry. Therefore it
has no evil power over me. All its strength, which is great,
is my slave. I can turn it, so I believe, on and off, as the
driver of an engine turns the regulator.'
'But the whole thing-the tragedy, father's death,' said
she, stumbling a little over the words.
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
163
Ah, one must go lightly there, yet he knows now,' said
Henderson. For he approached it not in the spirit of
inquiry only he had been warned, by what he believed to
be a good influence, not to make the attempt. He believed
that, you see-it is that which makes the difference. There-
fore for him it was evil. All magic is white to the white:
You will pardon my speaking thus.'
Instinctively Ida had drawn back from him; he saw it,
and his rebuke was admirably gentle.
´ You should never be afraid of the truth,' he said.
'Truth
is the one thing in the world in which fear is dissolved. It is
only lies and ignorance which can harm one.'
That was sufficiently arresting.
Sup-
But are there not terrible truths ?' she asked.
posing, for instance, you had found out that It had power
over me. That would have been a terrible truth.'
He waved this aside, with a show, anyhow, of reason:
'Ah, but I could not find that out, because it was not so,'
he said. And it was not so, because it could not be so.'
Then, all these things which have been made known to
you, and which you must tell me of,' said she, 'all this new
occult lore into which you have penetrated, is there nothing
in it all that you shun-is there no evil path indicated which
is not the true way? Is there no such thing as Black Magic ?'
Henderson shook his head.
We are like savages,' he said. 'We call evil that which
we do not understand. It is only our own blindness, our own
fear, that makes evil.'
Then the man's face glowed with a sudden strength and
earnestness:
<
Ah, root out fear from the world,' he said, and I will
show you the kingdom of heaven.'
The coincidence was too extraordinary not to strike her.
'How wonderful that you should say that!' said she, for
not long ago I received practically the same message from my
father. He said, "Evil is approaching, but be not afraid.'
And that strikes you as a coincidence?' asked he. Surely
not: you might as well say that it was a coincidence that two
clocks struck twelve at the same moment. It is not a coinci-
dence at all it is only that they both tell the time correctly.'
There was a moment's silence.
'You are in communication with him?' asked Henderson.
'Yes, but not very frequently. Abdul rather discourages
it. He urges me instead to closer and more constant con-
II-2
164
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
own
centration. He says and I think rightly-that no com-
munion with other spirits can be closer than our
meditative communion with them, if only we are concen-
trated enough. He regards all communication through
mediums really as an access given to those whose faith is
not sufficiently strong.'
he asked.
Henderson made no comment to this. Then, 'Abdul?'
Ah, I remember him. You have him with
you still? He is a medium, if I remember right? I think
Sir Henry told me about him. A very remarkable story.'
Ida got up and walked softly up and down the room once
or twice.
'What you say interests me indescribably, Mr. Henderson,'
she said. 'I, too, have so often felt that nothing which one
approaches in a right spirit, a spirit of which one's conscience
does not disapprove, can bring one to harm. Yet last March
think of the awful power to which I was exposed-
Which was averted, however,' said Henderson; 'it could
not really hurt you. The fact that you were then in the right
spirit—with the design, that is to say, to save your father-
was the arm stretched out to save you. Ah, it is the old
story which is always new, so everlastingly true power is
given over devils, to those that believe, to cast them out, and
if they eat any deadly thing it shall not hurt them.'
She looked up at him quickly.
'Yes, yes,' she said.
•
'How can it be otherwise?' said he. 'The vital principle
of good is for ever stronger than and predominant over the
lethal principle of evil. Life is stronger than death, and
light than darkness. Otherwise this moment the world would
sink back into original chaos.'
'I believe that,' said she softly.
'No, dear Miss Ida,' said he, you only believe in these
things in the abstract, which is not belief at all. You will
excuse me, but though you believe in them as a principle, you
do not believe in the principle being proved true in individual
instances. For if you once set your house in order, turn your
face resolutely, as you have always done, towards the light,
there is nothing in the world that can make you afraid :
no risk or danger exists for you. Yet all this summer you
have been afraid. I don't say you have been afraid every
hour, every day, but fear has been of the household of your
soul. Fear crouched in your face, ready to spring and tear
you when I came in half an hour ago.'
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
165
He paused a moment:
Others, too, desire so much to convince you of that truth,'
he said- to see you afraid of nothing, calling nothing black,
nothing evil.'
Abdul, his devotion and his warnings, came into her mind.
My father, you mean,' she said. 'But I communicate often
with him. I am satisfied: I do not want more. I would not
get a more material vision of him even if I could.'
Again Henderson paused, and as he paused an idea leaped
into his mind.
But what of him ?' he asked. Is it not possible that he
wants more? Are you sure that he is satisfied too?'
This, again, was arresting; it was a possibility of which
never the faintest adumbration had come into her mind ;
and Ida stopped opposite him in her walk, with questioning
eyes fixed on his, and poised on her step like some beautiful
slim Greek statue, head erect, with an incomparable ease and
grace of carriage. And even while she paused, the door
opened and Abdul entered. He had come merely to give
her the answers to the two notes she had entrusted him with.
He had taken only two steps inside the room, but stopped
there, looking with long, fascinated gaze at Henderson, as if
his eyes were glued to him.
The latter nodded to him.
'You remember me, I see,' he said quite coolly. 'And
you will be rejoiced to hear that I have been the bearer of
good tidings. Your mistress is safe.'
Then the terror and tension of Abdul's face relaxed:
neither fear nor hatred could be so strong as the immensity
of that relief, and in this first moment he could not pause to
consider on what the assertion rested, what were the terms of
it; but instinctively knowing that he heard the truth, with
hands outstretched he advanced to Henderson.
(
Blessed are they that bear good tidings,' he cried,' that
bring peace to the house that has been troubled.'
6
And to the house of trouble comes peace also,' said the
other.
Abdul said no more, but gave the notes to Ida and with-
drew. Henderson looked after his retreating figure.
6
How he hates me !' he remarked as the door closed behind
him. Just at this moment, perhaps, relief and gratitude to him
who has brought good news is uppermost in his mind, but it
is only like a bird perched there on some huge tree of hatred.
He fears me, too: hatred and fear are always much akin.'
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Ida felt bound to champion the man who had removed the
weight of the earth and the things under the earth from her.
He shall not,' she cried; he cannot now. I will see to
that.'
A French clock chimed low and silvery from the mantel-
piece, and Henderson turned to it.
Good gracious!' he said. 'I must go at once. I am
later for my next appointment than is really decent. Yes,
I am a man of appointments now,' he said, laughing, ' and all
sorts of great folk want me to give them five minutes. And
I find those sets of five minutes add up to a dreadful figure.
To-night at eight, then. And, Miss Ida, I cannot possibly give
you any idea of what an extraordinary happiness it has been
to me to see you again, and tell you what I have told you.'
Ida shook hands.
You must tell me more,' she said—' you must tell me much
more.'
She hesitated a moment.
And I am being selfish?' she asked. 'You think that
others—that my father-is not satisfied.'
'I will tell you more,' said Henderson, with a secret pleasure
in seeing that the little seed he had sown was already sprouting
in her mind.
Ida threw herself down in a chair when he had gone, and,
without conscious or definite train of thought, just opened
the door and windows of her mind to what had happened,
feeling only that it was pure bliss just to let her mind sit and
bask in the sunlight that had dawned on her. How black, how
terrible, had been that little hidden spot in her mind she had
not known until it had been removed. It had been to her
like a little box with a spring lid labelled ' Death,' containing
unimaginable ghastliness; and though again and again her
conscious self had quite forgotten it, yet she knew now that
from some unconscious hidden vital part of herself there had
never been absent the fear of the terrible groping fingers of
some hidden agency, which, whether from mere idle meddling
or from set and malicious purpose, might touch the spring and
let free what lurked within the box. Fear, as Henderson had
said, had been of the household of her soul. But now she knew
that that box was no longer lying out in the vast deeps of the
spirit-world; it was in the custody of a man, human like
herself, not of the enchanted and wandering spirits of evil.
No human being could ever play false in a matter like this
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
167
to even his most abhorred enemy. And that she knew she
was not to Henderson.
Peace! When he told her first, peace had not come at
once. Some deep unconscious fibres of her inner self had too
long been vibrating with a thousand menaces of danger to
be stilled and quiescent at once, even as, at the moment when
mere physical danger is definitely over, the heart still thumps
as loudly or even more loudly than when the danger was
imminent, and the knees are still weak and wavering. But
as she sat inert, at rest in her big chair after Henderson had
gone, slowly there stole through all the channels and passages
of her soul, like some cool incoming tide, the sense of security,
of freedom from gnawing, scratching doubt. Often during
this last summer some perfectly simple little domestic scene
had, without her knowing any reason for it, sent her sick with
sheer envy and knowledge of how far security was distant
from herself. Once it had been the sight of Tom's wife (the
gardener to whom Mrs. Desmond had spoken such winged
words on the subject of open windows), looking at the first
efforts towards locomotive progress on the part of her baby.
The young mother had sat at her cottage door while this brave
inheritor of the ages essayed to cross a two-yard space of
grass; tenderness, love, watchfulness, all stood sentinel in
her eyes as, completely absorbed, she watched the tiny
random staggering of infant footsteps. On another occasion
Ida had found herself looking with the same unfathomable
sense of envy at a bed of mignonette in a sheltered corner.
It was lowly of growth, but fragrant; like the lilies of the
field, it neither toiled nor span, yet Solomon-less glorious-
was uneasy on his throne; and, ah, how vastly more uneasy
was she, a girl who to all the world appeared so favoured by
fortune, and by the adorning hand of youth and Nature!
Instance after instance flashed into her mind: the emotion
had been inexplicable then, but now she had the key to
it. She, too, at last had inward peace-peace that at last
pervaded her, and did not touch only the surfaces of life,
leaving the depths below in hidden turmoil of foam and
surges, but in the depths there was peace also.

CHAPTER XI
As Ida had anticipated, it was only natural that, if the lion
could be secured at so short a notice, the jackals—a word not
invidiously used-would be able to attend also, even though
they had to perjure themselves in the matter of previous
engagements. And though the roaring of the lion was not
that of a sucking dove, it was roaring of the most intelligent
and interesting description. Henderson was always a clear
and apt conversationalist, and he was quite a stranger to
that offensive form of modesty which refuses to wear its
honours at all, when it has been especially asked, so to speak,
to its own coronation. With more becoming attitude he
wore them-modestly indeed, in that he did not brag, but
quite openly and sincerely; he was not that most embarrass-
ing phenomenon, a great man ashamed of greatness. And
since this party was quite clearly assembled to hear him, if
he would be so kind, tell them something about his wonderful
adventures, he proceeded to do so, talking at first only to
Mrs. Desmond, whom he took in to dinner, but soon, since
conversation languished all round the table—if, indeed, the
word can be applied to the breathless interest which followed
his sentences-speaking to the guests at large. Yet even at
the end of some period, punctuated by the proper desire for
food, his eyes sought, not directly, but by oblique methods,
stopping, so to speak, at wayside eyes, the eyes of Ida, and
as often found hers resting on his.
'I was telling Mrs. Desmond,' he said, raising his voice
a little when it was foolish to pretend that the dozen other
guests were not engaging in conversation of their own, but
eagerly listening to hear what he said, 'a few details about
ather interesting journey I took a month or two ago, to an
is west of Wady-Halfa. I applied to the British Govern-
-and he looked across to Sir James Denton a moment
smile-' which quite properly refused me the Imperial
on.'

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169
Sir James swelled a little with official self-consciousness.
It was barely necessary to touch Sir James in order to find
the official: the official, indeed, was always on as well as
under the surface.
'We can't protect spirit-rapping, Mr. Henderson,' said he ;
'to complicate the fiscal problem with the psychical would
really tax us too much.'
And the working man,' remarked Hugh Arnold, who had
that sort of intelligence which cannot resist playing into an
opening for quasi-repartee.
Sir James beamed, rather ponderously, like the sun through
a sea-mist. It was quite evident he was going to make a joke.
The tax on spirits is unpopular enough in their restricted
sense,' he said: "We must not add Mr. Henderson's.'
This would not do at all for Mrs. Desmond. On ordinary
occasions she delighted in this sort of pea-shooting round the
table, but to pea-shoot when really the biggest lion of the
year was present was waste of time.
West from Wady-Halfa,' she said to Henderson in the
manner of a theatrical prompter suggesting his lines to a
forgetful actor.
Henderson laughed.
'I despair of converting Sir James,' he said. 'But he
must do me the justice to admit I never really tried. I
went just the same without further argument.'
He paused a moment and took some entrée.
'Now, the man who finds it most easy to get about in rather
strange places in the East,' he said, ' is a doctor. He travels
really much more unchallenged than the British Grenadier,
partly, perhaps, because he himself challenges less. My pro-
gress at first, therefore, I confess, was charlatan in character,
for I am sure I know less about doctoring than anybody
present. But I do know that vaccination is a probable pre-
ventive against small-pox, and also a palliative even when the
disease is declared. So I bought a lancet from an army
doctor at Halfa, and stole, I am sorry to say, though I had
offered to buy it, only my offer was rejected with incredulous
scorn, some Government lymph. I did this because I knew
that Abou Rasch, some three days' journey from Halfa, was
being decimated by small-pox. So I went straight to Abou
Rasch, giving out that I was a wonderful doctor who could
cure by means of a little knife and a drop of water.'
He paused a moment.
"Vaccination is a most simple operation,' he said. 'You
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
·
cut a little hole, and fill it up with Government lymph, getting
it thoroughly in. It is a good thing then to murmur an
Arabic blessing. Personally I think my Arabic blessings-
because I let them have it strong, for whether you bless or
curse, it is no use doing it in any half-hearted manner, so I
blessed a man's great-grandfather and all collateral branches,
upwards and downwards, that I could remember-had a pro-
digious effect. At Abou Rasch, then, I stopped three weeks.
By that time the small-pox had stopped: and I had got
how shall I say it ?—a certain position already, and went
But there I made a most important discovery: it was
that if you can go three days' journey on a lancet, you can go
thirty days on occultism, if-if you know the right sort. But,
like the blessings, it, too, has to be strong. It can't be too
strong.'
on.
He looked round the table, and again his eye caught Ida's:
This time he did not at once look away, but faced her steadily
a moment with intention, and the look that passed between
them was understood by them both, though by no other
present.
'Now I am going to say things which will seem to almost
all of you, almost all of you,' he repeated,' absolute nonsense,
sheer meaningless fantastic nonsense. All the same, I make
this offer, that if anyone else tries to go where I have been,
except by force of arms or in possession of the power of some
master-word like mine, I will give him a thousand pounds for
every Arab he passes in desert or oasis west of Abou Rasch
without being attacked. The facts, anyhow, are these, and
anybody is, of course, perfectly at liberty to laugh or to say
"Pshaw!" I shall, however, repeat them at greater length and
in greater detail to the Royal Society.
"
There are two classes in Egypt, though the two classes,
so to speak, exist in almost every individual in the land: it
would, in fact, be more correct to say that every Arab is of
dual nature. The classes are Obvious Egypt," which in-
cludes high-minded politicians, soldiers, and swindling donkey-
boys; and the other is "Occult Egypt," which includes exactly
the same persons. I can whisper something into the ears of
any donkey-boy, and he will go pale with fright: I whisper
the same thing into the ear of an influential member of the
Supreme Government, and he will say well, he will say,
My house is your house. They are a nation, in fact, who
believe really believe, I mean-in magic. No wonder.
""
'Now, in the evenings at Abou Rasch I used to sit at the
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171
cafés and talk magic. At least, for a certain time I listened,
and when I was sure of my ground I began to talk, for really
I knew much more than they. As a doctor, however, I was
safe enough, and it amused me for a time, with a miser-like
kind of delight, to hoard my knowledge and my master-word:
My attendant there, whom I have brought with me to Eng-
land, was a boy from Luxor, called Mohammed, the most
sensitive medium, by the way, I have ever seen.'
Ida suddenly shuddered, and her hand, that was on the
stem of her wine-glass, trembled violently, so that the wine
was spilled. But she was many places distant from Hender-
son: he did not see what had happened.
'Now, the Egyptians revere, as hidden and immensely
powerful masters of magic,' he went on, the people of old,
whose temples we enlightened Englishmen dig up, whose
tombs we desecrate, and whose mummies we place in the
British Museum and other public places where the public
does not come. They believe that the spirits of many of
them still haunt the land, but hitherto the modern masters
in occult science have not been able to raise or control them.
But I produced before them an experiment '-again his eyes
strayed round the table, and in their circuit rested for a
moment on Ida-' which made them think, and with, I believe,
perfect justice, that one of these spirits of the ancient Egyptians
was, so to speak, going about and under my control. How-
ever, I will not bore you with the unconvincing details of this,
for I am sure you would not believe them. I need only tell
you that, after a séance I held there at Abou Rasch, I had no
need to pretend to be a doctor any more, or even an Arab,
and I went forward alone with Mohammed and a couple of
horse-boys, as safe as if I was in the inside of a British square.
Instantly also every source of information was at my dis-
posal. Instead of being hated and feared, as an Englishman
would be, I was anyhow welcomed, though perhaps feared as
well.
'Now, anyone who knows Egypt well-that is to say,
knows the inwardness of Egypt, not the obvious Egypt
which a dozen books will give you the bones of-will have
heard, though only as a fable or a myth, of the great Zaffiri
oasis. Mothers tell their children stories of it, how it lies in a
desert of golden sand, and how the people who live there live to
an immense age, and are the wisest of all men, and are whiter
of skin than the English. Well, all that is perfectly true.
The sands round the oasis are literally golden. A man with
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
a couple of camels can bring home a load of sand which will
yield enough gold for him to make a circlet for his wife's
neck. And the folk are white, and never have I come across
such wise ones. I know all this because I have been there.'
'Too exciting! Pray go on, dear Mr. Henderson,' said
Mrs. Desmond.
Well, I set out from Abou Rasch, and travelled straight
on for three weeks, or, to be more accurate, twenty-three days.
As I approached any oasis the village came out to meet me,
and gave me all I required, and besought my protection.
The news, in fact, of what had happened at Abou Rasch had
preceded me, and they believed I was the master of an old
Egyptian spirit.'
Then Ida looked up, and as she spoke her voice shook a
little.
Set-nekht?' she asked.
For the moment Henderson was a little disconcerted;
somehow, it seemed to him scarcely right that even that
name should be on those beautiful lips.
'Yes, Set-nekht,' he said; then, feeling that so brusque
an assent might be construed into rudeness, 'Our Luxor
friend,' he added lightly—' the man, perhaps, you remember
to have built the temple of Mut, and to have had a memorial
chamber in the temple of Deir-el-Bahari across the river.'
Certainly the lion roared most satisfactorily, roared too with
the right graphic tone of the true traveller, the man, that is,
who not only visits places, but sees them with a vision that,
though true, is romantic, and invests what he has visited
with something of his own vividness. And in this manner
he went on to tell them of this extraordinary oasis, cut off
from everything but itself, and to the mind of the fellahin
the Mecca of occult lore, and the very fountain-head of the
powers that are unfathomable. Of his spiritualistic experi-
ences there he said little, but described with wonderful vivid-
ness the strangeness of the spot, as large as Yorkshire, and of
illimitable fertility. He spoke and with his kindled eye, his
half-Southern brightness of face and phrase, his low persua-
sive voice, he was like some Pied Piper of Hamelin,
charming his unresisting circle-he spoke of this fairyland
which he had visited, spoke of it, too, as a fairyland, yet
as of a definite spot on this round unromantic earth, a
fairyland which had its prosaic latitude and longitude.
He wiled them with his tale, and at his wiling the honey-
bee would have left the flower, and the moth have fluttered
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173
round him as at a candle. Of what to them was at the
most vague hearsay, he made sober, travelled truth. He
had visited this sand-girt isle of Atlantis; fruits grew there
which no other man had eaten of, which no botanist had
crucified with unpronounceable names: he flung a gold
bracelet on the table which passed from hand to hand, ex-
quisite in workmanship, and of pattern unknown to any.
Two crossing spirals composed it; it was either the work of
a novice or of a jeweller returning to simplicity by way of
knowledge. Other gems were shown also-an enormous
uncut cat's-eye, a peridot cut and faceted, but as large as a
pigeon's egg: these were tossed out as evidence where evidence
was not needed, for the whole story bore truth stamped on it :
it was its own evidence; anything material in confirmation of
it was immaterial.
Then, orator-like, he saw in all faces that his fairy-tale, for
such it appeared, had gone home, and, with transition so swift
that one would have sworn that no transition was there, he
suddenly turned to psychical matters.
'All that I have told you is nothing,' he said. 'I have
just been talking of the externals of what I saw. That peridot
-thanks, very much, if everyone has finished looking at it—
and the cat's-eye-I beg your pardon, Mrs. Desmond! pray
keep it really, I brought it to give you, and if you cut it
down it will make a nice gem. Yes. For I did not go there
for peridots or cat's-eyes, nor yet the sands of gold. I went
there for knowledge. I have got '—and he paused—' I have
got a little.'
True or not, the thing was brilliantly done. Mrs. Desmond
made a hurried disclaimer, and laid the lump of cat's-eye
down by his plate, for, fond as she was of jewels, she was just
now more enraptured by his tale. Dinner was over: cigar-
ettes had already been handed, but Sir James, at any rate,
though a confirmed and deep-breathing smoker, put his down
uninhaled by his plate when Henderson spoke again. He
himself had paused to light one, and drew a long breath of it
before he leaned forward over the table, while the crisp smell
of it spread slowly over the room.
There was dead silence: those who, like Ida, had cause to
be most interested in what he was going to say were not
more breathless than Sir James. For a man who can take
his audience over the map of the desert westward from
Wady-Halfa for five hundred miles, and that in the most
prosaic geographical manner, reserving all the romance for
DorM
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
what he saw there, could not help being interesting to a
Government official.
'I got a little,' he repeated. I got to see that all know-
ledge is right. Nothing that one can learn or know can hurt
one, provided only that one wishes to know and learn. I
stayed in the Zaffiri oasis for two months. I talked with
white people about the mysteries of life and death, and chiefly
I talked on the extreme falsity of that line which alludes to
the bourne from which no traveller returns. That traveller
returns every day. As we all know, the spirit set free at the
hour of death often revisits those who are tied to it by friend-
ship and blood. But spirits much more remote can be made
to return. I learned a great deal about the laws that govern
such things in my long stay among the Zaffiris.'
A sound which is usually represented by the word 'pshaw'
escaped Sir James: he really could not stand any more of
this. But Henderson had allowed anyone either to laugh or
to say 'pshaw !'-the breach of manners was authorized.
'My dear Mr. Henderson,' he said, 'you are indescribably
interesting. Pray give us some account of the legal system
of this wonderful people.
Henderson again caught Ida's glance, as if to ask her what
he should do. He wished to take his cue from her, for she
more than all present had the right to know more if she
wished, or if she wished to stop him.
'Yes, do, Mr. Henderson," she said. 'I am sure their
institutions must be as engrossing as themselves.'
Then she turned to her neighbour.
'Little prosaic details help one to realize a person or a
people so much better than accounts of their beliefs and
ideas,' she said. One learns more about the Duke of Welling-
ton by seeing his little camp bed than by reading his
despatches.
Hugh Arnold laughed.
-
That is quite true,' he said. 'I have always held that
view. In fact, I am writing a short essay on the value of hats
as a key to character. Let us hear about the Zaffiris' hats.
Or don't they wear any? If that is the case, we learn more
not only about them, but about their climate.'
CHAPTER XII
THE hats of the Zaffiris, to use Hugh Arnold's phrase as a
compendious expression to signify the geographical, ethno-
logical, historical, and exploratory interests in Henderson's
journey, certainly had an enormous success in London, and he
lectured before various learned societies to their great edifica-
tion. But even more marked was the social success of Zaffiri
hats, when the hats, so to speak, were rather differently
trimmed, being on these other occasions abundantly adorned
with ribands and bows of occultism. All London just now
was agog about matters spiritualistic, and Henderson's
experiences of Zaffiri magic were even more exciting than the
more material aspect of the hats. He had with him, too, this
extraordinary Arab medium, Mohammed, who produced the
most astounding phenomena, and there was a regular invasion
in spiritualistic circles of the deceased mothers and grand-
mothers, uncles and aunts, fathers and grandfathers, of the fre-
quenters of séances. Indeed, in a week or two from Henderson's
arrival in London, when he had stated publicly more than once
the superficial results, so to speak, of his journey, the interest
excited by that which was not superficial far transcended the
other, and ethnologists, geographers, historians, and explorers
rather shook their heads over a man who, with so much of
solid interest to impart, devoted himself to mere charlatanism.
But the so-called charlatans were delighted with him.
Now, the epithet which, perhaps, out of the whole English
language was least applicable to Henderson was 'foolish.'
There was really nothing whatever in common between his
mind and the mind of a fool, and it took him a very short time
to see that it was as a spiritualist, a mesmerist, as the controller
of this extraordinary medium whom he had brought with him,
that his great success might be achieved. Zaffiri was all very
well in its way: it had served its purpose admirably in making
him a man of mark, and, indeed, Sir James had already
175
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
offered him a small Government post' of a Secret Service
type, which he had decided to decline with thanks. And
here again the conspicuous absence of foolishness was evident.
For to decline a thing leads to one of two results: either the
matter is closed, which, if that was all they proposed to offer
him, Henderson was quite willing that it should be; or the
refusal may give rise to a larger offer. Henderson himself
inclined to think that a larger offer was already in contempla-
tion, and in the meantime he saw his way to establishing him-
self in a very important position among that enormous mass
of people in England who were interested in occult matters.
How big that mass was he was frankly surprised to find: he
was suddenly the centre of a really large and important body
of inquirers.
Here again he showed his good sense, and gave himself out
openly as a professional spiritualist. He had no patience with
the doctrine that because the profession in question is one
concerning spiritual and not carnal things, therefore the
professor should be too lofty of soul to accept emoluments for
his skill, instancing the endowment for Chairs of Divinity at
the Universities and the comfortable incomes enjoyed by
Bishops. Instead he projected a set of lectures on spiritualistic
subjects at rather high fees, and of séances, which, being prac-
tical and also quite distinctly sensational, appealed on the
whole to a much wider audience than theory, however solidly
founded. One or two of these he gave almost immediately
on his return to England, with results that startled psychicists
in this country and really slightly alarmed them. There were
no concertinas, no vague messages from another world, no
ringing of bells, but materializations which were quite of a
different character to the Tooting type of Birdie. Mohammed,
moreover, who apparently shared the general fearful attitude
of his countrymen with regard to his master, absolutely refused
to exercise his mediumistic powers for anybody else, and when
the president of a certain psychical society approached him
with an offer that for the moment made him gasp, he got,
when the gasp-it was a mere momentary bedazzlement-was
over, a stream of mingled Arabic and English which he rightly
interpreted, though only understanding some third of it, to
mean that Mohammed declined it, as far as could be gathered
from his tone, without thanks.
It was about a fortnight after Henderson's dinner with
Mrs. Desmond: she and Ida had gone next day down into the
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
177'
country, and had left with him an open invitation to invite
himself for a few days whenever he could. This at present
was impossible, for he was busy from morning till night still
exploding,' as he put it, in all possible directions, and in a
thoroughly loud and businesslike manner. He had also to
prepare the set of lectures he was going to give in London
during February, and until he had broken the back of the
work of these he could not think of accepting the invitation.
At the same time, he longed with extraordinary intensity to
see Ida again, but since he had determined not to move till
he had made real way with his work, he adopted the very
sensible plan of attending very strictly to the latter, instead
of allowing thoughts of the former to interfere with it, retard
his progress, and thus postpone the hour he longed for.
It was a gloomy winter morning, with a heavy, dripping sky
sitting low and yellow above the house-roofs, and, rising early
by electric light, he found that the same artificial illumination
was necessary as he worked after breakfast, so ineffectual was
the mere celestial beam. To him, fresh from the brilliant skies
and flooding suns of the South, London seemed an inferno of
the lowest round as regards the physical conditions of air and
light and climate under which life had to be pursued. But
he never wasted regret on the irremediable, holding that regret
but emphasizes the effect and depression of conditions which
one would like to change but cannot, and he let neither the
face of Ida nor the desire for sun get between him and his page
to dull or obscure it. On the table by him were several books
of reference, a couple of note-books of his own jottings, and an
open Bible. He referred very constantly to this.
-
Now, it was not on religious or doctrinal points that he
consulted the Bible. It bore, however, very directly on
his work, and he believed that his audience would agree
with him. For the scope of part of his first lecture was
to trace rapidly the data we have on the world wide
phenomena which may be called occult, and the Bible
seemed to him to be full of such allusions; and coming from
this book, he justly judged that his audience would find them
weightier than instances from obscure and recondite works.
Henderson fully believed that occult power came from where
all other power came from-namely, from the Spirit of Life
which controls all spirits and all material things--and when
Balak sent to Balaam messengers with the rewards of divina-
tion,' this seemed to show that he was, in modern phrase, paying
a medium who was possessed of second-sight, and whose pro-
12
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
fession was clairvoyance. Again, Peter's friends, hearing a
knocking at the door, when they believed him to be dead,
supposed the knocking to be produced by his angel, his spirit.
Again, a man's hand, visibly seen, wrote on the wall of the
banquet-chamber the doom of Belshazzar: to Daniel there
came and touched him one like the appearance of a man.'
Uriel, the angel, caused Esdras to fall into many trances-Uriel
was his 'control,' as we should say now, so Henderson noted :
a spirit passed before Job's face: Elisha was a clairaudient,
and told the King of Israel the words spoken in bedchambers :
a voice came to Peter bidding him kill and eat: to Elisha,
again, there came a writing from Elijah the prophet after he
had passed from the earth. Instances might be multiplied
indefinitely.
Now, it was this theme, the reconciliation of spiritualism with
Christianity, that occupied him this morning. He knew well
that there were certain to be many in his audience who had a
feeling, lurking or apparent, that spiritualism was not quite
right,' not quite consistent with the Christian habit of mind,
and it was this view which it was his object, in taking from the
Bible phenomena that seemed to him in all points similar to
those of modern spiritualism, to combat and, if possible, over-
throw. Whether he himself would have given up spiritualism
if it had been his opinion that it was contrary to the spirit of
Christianity is a situation which need not be considered, since
it did not arise: he found, on the other hand, that instances
of clairvoyance, of clairaudience, of spirit-rapping, of material-
ization, occurred in both Old and New Testament, not branded,
as it were, with the verdict of witchcraft, but spoken of as
right and proper communications with the unseen world, that
cloud of witnesses' that encompasses us, often if not always
ready, did we but know the right approach, to draw near to
teach, to speak, and to be seen. In all times and in all
countries, so he held, certain individuals were endowed with
this particular gift of being able to be the wire, so to speak,
through which the message from one world passed to another.
In the Bible they were called seers, nowadays mediums: the
two were synonymous terms for those gifted with this par-
ticular power.
Henderson was a very rapid worker: his thoughts came to
him with clear, sharp-cut edges, and it was in clear and sharp-
cut words, plucked and skinned, showing the muscles and the
bones of his argument, that he set them down. This morning,
before he ceased work, he came to the end of his first lecture,
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179
and in order to begin to familiarize himself with it, since he
preferred to learn what he was to say almost by heart before its
delivery, he reread aloud the concluding pages which he had
just written. He sat very upright in his chair, and spoke
slowly, as if he was even now before his audience, making his
points with outstretched finger or with dabs and dashes of the
manuscript he held.
'We have seen, then,' he read,' that practically every form
of spirit-communication known to us now has its counterpart
and parallel in these instances, briefly related and selected out
of a vast quantity of kindred phenomena, in the powers of
Biblical seers-seers, that is to say, who are definitely regarded
as being inspired by Jehovah, and gifted by Him with what
they called then, and we call now, the open vision. I have
laid great stress on this point, and have taken up much of your
time in discussing it, because I am aware that there are many,
some of whom may be here to-day, who at heart feel that in
investigating these matters they may be doing something
dubious and dangerous, and even evil. Many, for instance,
many, too, of those who are often called adepts, teach that the
materialization of spirits is, so to speak, an illegal operation:
they tell us that to materialize a spirit in itself may have the
effect of making that spirit earth-bound, while to wish to have
the sight, the ocular evidence, of the continued existence of one
who has passed over the narrow sea, presupposes in the
inquirer a want of faith. They will tell you also that this truth,
for so they call it, meaning by truth that which they happen
to believe, has been made known to them by spirits with whom
they were in communication. I do not for a moment question
the validity of their doubt as concerns themselves; no doubt
it is not right for such to inquire in this way. But search as
we may, we can find no authority for such a view as a general
principle, and the reluctance of such a medium to materialize
I unhesitatingly set down to his want of power; while as for
the view that to desire such a thing implies a want of faith on
the part of the inquirer, the inconsistency is almost too patent
to need pointing out. For wherein is the sight a less spiritual
gift than the hearing, or more carnal than it ? and how can
we with any show of reason assume that to hear a loved voice
is permissible, yet to see a loved face is not? Where is the
difference? A manifestation is made to a mortal sense:
eyes or ears, what matters it ?'
'So in these séances which I am going to give, you will, I
12-2
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hope, not only hear voices, but see sights, since the distinc-
tion (though I will grant that the sense of hearing is more
easily tricked, and that to materialize a form demands a
higher degree of psychical power than to make a voice audible)
appears to me purely arbitrary, and is evidence only of want
of power on the part of the medium. So come prepared and
ready for any manifestation that may be granted to us,
though what manifestation it may be I can no more tell you
than what will be the weather this day twelve-months, and,
above all, root fear out of your hearts, since unbelief itself
is not so great an enemy to progress as fear. Your disbelief
may be shattered without your will consenting, but fear puts
you into far more active opposition, since you fear that of
which you are ignorant. And remember always that down
the length of the Way shines that Light too bright to be to
us openly and fully manifested, and there is no corner, no
obscurity, which, if we will but open our eyes, it does not
wholly illuminate. And in that Light let us go forward.'
The last sheet dropped from Henderson's hand and sidled
with twists and turns on to the floor, but he sat there without
getting up, looking fixedly in front of him. There was not a
word he had read that had not been written with set and
definite purpose: each word, indeed, was a two-edged weapon;
it cut two ways, and the edges were these :
First there was the study and pursuit to which he devoted
his life, on behalf of which he would quite simply and cheer-
fully have died, had he been convinced that his death would
be more favourable to knowledge than his life—namely, the
study of occult science and the possible goal to which that
study might lead. Like a pendant from that, it is true, hung
personal ambition, but the pendant, to do him justice, was
very small; and whatever position or affluence his success
might bring him, these, too, in turn he would certainly place
at the disposal of the aim itself. Until the last year that had
been the whole object of his life: now, he was aware, there was
another, a sun of different though not less luminousness.
Ida! He thought, it could hardly be said with shame,
of the scheme which had originally filled his mind on that day
he passed alone after that first awful séance in the temple of
Mut, but with amazed wonder at the psychological change
that had come over him with regard to her. From the first,
it is true, he admired her beauty and envied her wealth;
now, so he told himself, had she been penniless he would have
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181
sought her; had she not been beautiful- - But there he
paused, for her beauty was too vital and essential a part of
her to be severed from her. Whatever his love for her was,
it included that: that was a vital part of it.
And it was by his work, that twin passion of his heart, by
his knowledge of those spiritualistic matters which were as
intense and as real a part of the girl's life as they were of his
own, that he looked for his best approach to her heart. Here
he could help her, advance her in knowledge, and he knew
well that no service that could be rendered her could be so
prized by her as that. But he must get her, so he told him-
self, from out of the shelter of the shield of the savage love
and protection that Abdul, whom from the bottom of his heart
he despised as a mere dabbler in the froth of the waves of the
great sea that stretched from now to eternity, extended over
her. For Abdul, as he knew well, distrusted and hated him,
and ignorantly labelled his investigations as a meddling with
Black Magic, simply because the matter was unintelligible
to him, outside his own power. Thus, he was a bar to Hender-
son's own approach to Ida, for it was by giving her manifesta-
tions which he was sure Abdul could not give, and would
most emphatically not approve, that his way of access, of
making himself indispensable to her, lay most clearly open.
In this matter his delay in at present speaking to her directly
had been a wise move: and in the interval he had found out
how deeply she longed, though she was at present disposed—
thanks to Abdul-to label her longing as faithlessness, to
get into closer and more constant communication with her
father. It was this that Henderson believed he could pro-
cure for her, having once convinced her that Abdul's scruples
were, as he seriously thought them, but old-wives' tales, the
fear of children on a beach at the waves that hammered on
the rocks. And the lecture which he had just finished might
prepare the way. Again he had already made a good beginning;
for he could not help knowing how deep, how heartfelt, was
Ida's gratitude to him for the good news he had brought her,
which had removed from her mind that black and secret
spot which for all these months had lurked and lived in the
dark places of her soul. Anyhow, she was deeply, sincerely
grateful to him, and though Henderson was too clear-sighted
to confuse gratitude with love, he knew that gratitude is
no bad foundation on which the airier fabric, sunlit and wind-
caressed, may some day arise.
And there his thoughts paused, but for a time the echoes
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
of that last strain lingered as music lingers in vaulting after
the keys of the organ which has bellowed out its mountainous
fugue are silent. Then, suddenly recalling himself to the
present hour, he drew a sheet of paper towards him and wrote:
E- DEAR MISS IDA,
I am sending you, as you asked me, my first lecture,
which I have just finished writing. I shall be most interested
to know whether you agree with my views and conclusions,
and should so much value any criticism you may send me.
am afraid you may find it rather dry and bony, but one must,
I think, get the skeleton right, or else one cannot hope to get
the flesh and external features correct, for they all depend on
the bones.
And I hope so much in about a week's time to announce
myself as able to accept your most kind and elastic invita-
tion, as I think that by then I should have made sufficient
progress with the set to let me leave this hermit's life which
is mine at present.
'Yours sincerely,
'JIM HENDERSON:
'P.S.-May I ask you not to show what I have sent you to
your servant Abdul? I fancy I should be more double-dyed
in his eyes than ever, and he, if I heard his comments, more
narrow and bigoted in mine.'
I
Vigorously as London in general hunted him, and lavishly
though it strove to feed him, this particular lion always kept
his mornings to himself, and it was still an hour before lunch-
time when he had sent off this package to Ida. He glanced
quickly at his engagement-book, and, having verified his
occupations for the day, went into the passage of the small
flat he had just moved into in Davies Street, and called for
Mohammed, or rather clapped his hands for him, Arab fashion.
Mohammed still retained outwardly the picturesque gar-
ments of Luxor, making the necessary additions to suit him-
self to the colder climate below the vision of the eye, and was
constantly filled with the child-like vanity of his race when
he saw, as he walked the streets, the attention he received
from the glances of passers-by. He had already constructed
in his busy brain a hundred London adventures, of which the
faintest adumbration had never actually occurred, to rouse
the envy of the donkey-boys when he should again go back to
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
183
Luxor. But of Luxor there had hitherto been no mention,
and, indeed, Mohammed was very well satisfied with London
and with the good English money which was weekly his.
Furthermore, to rebel against the dispositions of his effendi,
even to imagine or desire them different, was scarcely con-
ceivable even in thought. He came at once to Henderson's
call out of his little room close by the door of the flat, brown-
faced, white-toothed, scarlet in fez and gold-embroidered,
the best patch of colour in all London, perhaps, on this dripping,
dun-hued morning.
'I shall want you to-night, Mohammed,' said his master
in Arabic. There will be a sitting to-night, and an effendi
will be here who will come in a spirit of doubt and disbelief.
So rest this afternoon, my lad, and be-and be fresh for
to-night. I particularly want to have a good sitting.'
Mohammed came a step closer, and his smile faded from
his face; his colour also seemed to fade a little. He looked
rather frightened.
You will not raise him again?' he asked, almost in a
whisper.
We will see who comes.'
Mohammed shook his head, drawing in his breath with a
sudden hiss.
He will come,' he said. 'He is always at hand. And he
is getting angry: his fingers and his eyes starve for something,
I know not what; he smiles terribly.'
Henderson became suddenly very alert.
How do you know?' he asked. 'Have you ever seen
It clearly when you are in trance ?'
No; but I am sure he is strong and angry. I know he
smiles and wants it is in my bones, I think, that I feel it.
What if he should break loose ?'
Then his absolute dependence on Henderson reasserted itself.
4
But the effendi knows,' he said.
Henderson laughed.
'Yes, he does,' he said. And he knows that It is power-
less unless he gave the word. Which word,' he added, 'he
will not give. Besides, you are always in the circle, where
It cannot come. You have my leave to go, Mohammed.'
Henderson dined that night with Leonard Compton, whom
he had first met at Mrs. Desmond's. Though there was
nothing really approaching friendship between the two men,
each found the other absorbingly interesting. Their inter-
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
course was as if each read a new book, which neither really
approved, but which neither could put down or close, and
in a very short space of time they had formed the habit of
seeing much of each other. Leonard, on his side, had never
come across so clear-headed and acute a man, who, to his
thinking, was so childishly superstitious, so utterly convinced
of the most patently impossible phenomena, while Hender-
son, also recognising Compton's cleverness, was astounded
to find one so intuitive, so utterly unable to accept phenomena
which to himself were as patently true as sunrise or the setting
of the moon, and as natural as either. Thus, the upshot of
incessant argument and constant disagreement had been
that they were to dine quietly together at Leonard's club, and
afterwards Henderson would give the other, if all went
favourably, some example and instance of what he so un-
reasonably denied the possibility of. In other words, they
would go back to Davies Street after dinner, and Mohammed's
mediumistic powers would be tested. The discussion of this
formed the staple of their dinner-table talk.
But I premise this,' Henderson was saying, ' that the con-
ditions are not favourable. You will, of course, impose all
possible tests; Mohammed will simply laugh in your face, by
the way, if you search him and tie his hands and knees, which
I beg you will do, for my sake, if not for your own, for I want
your distrust to express itself as practically as possible. But
the spirit in which you apply these tests will certainly be
inimical to manifestations. But you can't help that, and,
anyhow, we will see.'
Leonard laughed.
'That describes my attitude of mind exactly,' he said;
I am absolutely inimical to manifestations.'
Henderson frowned.
That is an unreasonable attitude,' he said. One should
never be inimical to what one has not experienced. Besides,
if you are right, and this is all moonshine, there is nothing to
be inimical to, whereas if it is not all moonshine, but fact,
your enmity is futile. It is no good being angry with a
phenomenon. Again, the fact that you detected fraud at
Lower Tooting, or wherever it was, has nothing to do with
the whole question. I might as well condemn the practice
of surgery altogether, because I once broke my little finger
and an ignorant practitioner set it badly. That says nothing
against the principle of bone-setting, any more than, if I do
a sum wrong, that invalidates the principles of mathematics.'
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
185
Leonard considered this.
'Quite reasonable,' he said. What attitude do you want
me to adopt, then ?'
I don't want you to adopt any attitude: it is just there
that you make your mistake. If you can trust your ears and
your eyes, I want you merely to come in order to hear and see.
Just be wide-awake, just be an observer, and do not say to
yourself, "I expect fraud."
'Ah, that is beyond the mark,' remonstrated the other.
Yes, I hope it is. I should not have said that, and in any
case I do not mean it. I only ask you, then, to keep your
judgment, your conclusions, in abeyance. Look and listen.
Criticize afterwards.'
And what shall I look at ?' asked Leonard.
There you go again! I have told you that I have no idea :
I am always impressing the same thing on Mohammed. It
seems to me to largely invalidate what occurs if, when he
goes into trance, he is vividly expecting any particular mani-
festation. For instance, to-day-but that will seem to you
nonsense.'
Pray tell me,' said Leonard. 'But are you drinking no
wine ?'
'No, I never do before a séance,' said Henderson. 'Well,
if you want to know my nonsense, it is this: Mohammed has
got into his head that a certain appearance that has occurred
somewhat frequently in my sittings with him is angry. How
he has got that notion I don't quite know, because the trance
is very deep-you shall see for yourself and one would
naturally suppose he was absolutely unconscious. Perhaps,
however, one never is that quite. And it was only this
morning that I had to reassure him. We are running no
risks whatever.'
Leonard's extremely placid face was evidence that he, at
any rate, was satisfied as to this. He did not look in the
least like a man who thought he was going to run any risks
whatever. Then suddenly Henderson faced him.
Have you ever noticed, even for a moment,' he asked,
' anything queer, out of the way, in Miss Ida ?’
Here Leonard was on his own ground, but a perfectly un-
definable sense of uneasiness seized him as the question was
asked.
<
'Why do you ask me that ?' he said.
Ah, then, pray don't tell me,' said the other with admir-
able manners.
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Then with the instantaneousness of thought, to which
lightning is a laggard, his own private musings one night
passed through Leonard's mind. He remembered with
marked vividness that he had put Henderson in the 'adven-
turer' class, and a moment's honesty with himself was suffi-
cient to show him that ever since, in spite of his interest in
him, that perfectly groundless suspicion, or so it appeared
now, had coloured his view of him. He had always viewed.
him, so to speak, through rather jaundiced spectacles. It
was time, at any rate, to get rid of them.
No, I will tell you, my dear fellow,' he said. 'But first
I must make a preface of confession. I heard about your
return from the Zaffiri from that pompous ass, if I may be
allowed the expression, Sir James Denton, and I pictured you
as something of an adventurer. I believe I was utterly wrong,
and I apologize for the thought that I have never given utter-
ance to till now.'
Henderson laughed.
'I accept it,' he said. 'Our excellent Sir James gives the
tinge of charlatanism to all he touches. He is so exceedingly
unreal himself, which may account for it.'
'Unreal?' said Leonard.
obvious plain person-
Why, surely he is the most
'That is just what I mean,' said Henderson quietly. 'Surely,
to anyone who thinks, obvious phenomena like tables and
chairs or Sir James are so unimportant as to be almost phan-
tasies. One does not, I mean, devote serious thought to them
or consider them as much mattering.'
This thoroughly appealed to the other man: it was an
ingenious and a rather subtle point of view.
Absolutely true,' he said. Really, Henderson, I agree
so fundamentally with you over many things that I am only
afraid this séance may disturb the concord. And why you
asked just now what you did ask does not matter. It does
not concern me, and so I will tell you, without even wanting
to know your reason. Yes, I once saw something strange
about Miss Ida. I saw fear incarnate sitting in her face.'
Henderson did not look up, but merely raised his eyebrows
a fraction.
'Did she squint ?' he asked.
'Yes, horribly. Why do you suggest that?'
'It occurred to me as a possibility. You saw it once only?'
Yes, only once, and I don't suppose I ever shall again.
She seems to me to have entered a new life since-
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
187
He paused, remembering that Ida's engagement was not
yet absolutely public property, the prey of strangers or even
acquaintances. He had mentioned it, it is true, at the
Arnolds' table, but he believed it had not yet appeared in the
newspapers.
Since ?' suggested Henderson.
Since when I saw that look,' said Leonard rather adroitly.
All this winter she has seemed to me a radiance almost more
than a girl. She has now, at any rate, a sort of aura- -you
believe in auras, I fancy-an aura of happiness that almost
gilds her surroundings. I was conscious of that especially
the first evening I met you, when we dined with Mrs. Des-
mond. It seemed to me as if then the sun had finally dis-
persed the last ragged edges of cloud, and shone from a clear
ether.'
Henderson had taken a cigarette, and quenched the match
with which he had lit it on his dessert-plate. He knew well
enough how black a cloud had disappeared that day from
Ida's sky.
'I hope to go down there next week,' he remarked casually.
You knew them in Egypt?'
'Yes; I was there when Sir Henry died.'
Leonard played with grape- stem and cigarette - ash a
moment.
'What did he die of ?' he asked.
Syncope, following on a very bad attack of malaria,' said
Henderson, without the slightest hesitation, but with perfect.
truth.
This had led the conversation back to ordinary topics of
interest, and it was without violent transition that they rose.
Davies Street was close at hand, and the two walked there
together. A cold wind had dried up the greasiness of the
morning, and the streets were clean and gas-lit, a perfect
embodiment of prosaic modern life with its many conveni-
ences and its few mysteries.
Henderson's sitting-room, where the séance was to take
place, was a pleasant oblong room looking out close to the
corner where Davies Street is crossed by Grosvenor Street.
Mohammed, according to orders, was sitting there when they
came in, curled up in a window-seat, waiting for them, and
rose at their entrance. A couple of clusters of electric light
already illuminated the room, and Henderson turned up a
third, so that the place was brilliant and shadowless.
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
'Now, pray examine everything,' he said to Leonard, 'not.
for your own sake, but for mine.'
Leonard took him at his word, as he was meant to do. A
door communicated with Henderson's bedroom : he locked it
from the other side, putting the key in his pocket. A couple
of tables, one already cleared, at which they were going to sit,
a piano, half a dozen chairs, and a sofa, formed the principal
furniture of the room itself. Round this table there was
drawn on the carpet a white chalk line, making a circle within
which chairs were placed. Curious cabalistic symbols were
also chalked at intervals round it. Then he bolted the
windows, locked the door into the passage, and, half laughing,
peeped into the piano.
That is all,' he said.
Henderson had taken an easy-chair by the fire, and was
smoking placidly till the examination was over, scarcely even
troubling to look at what Leonard was doing. But when he
said this he spoke a few words in Arabic to Mohammed, who
came into the middle of the room, and stood there waiting.
Please examine him, too,' said his master.
'It is quite unnecessary,' said Leonard.
But at a sign from Henderson, Mohammed took off his gold-
embroidered gabardine and handed it to Leonard, standing
meantime under the full blaze of the electric light, dressed
only in a close-fitting suit of Jaeger wool. And of his own
accord he held out his arms widespread, and Leonard passed
his hands down the slim body. Then he felt the sash and the
gabardine, feeling, indeed, himself that all his precautions
were perfectly unnecessary, handed them back to their owner,
and Mohammed, with the same quiet air of dignified amuse-
ment, put them on again.
Sit by the table, Mohammed,' said Henderson.
Then, already feeling rather ashamed of himself, yet
knowing that to act as if he was suspicious was, on the whole,
fairest play to his host, Leonard took the bale of tape that
Henderson gave him, tied Mohammed's knees together, tied
his wrists together also, and tied him below the shoulders to
the chair, making his knots with care, since, if the thing was to
be done, it had better be done well. Henderson meantime
looked on, still quietly smiling.
Make certain,' he said.
We shall have no light except the
flicker of the fire. And when you are certain, please examine
me also. Shall I strip ?'
'My dear fellow,' said Leonard, 'just come and sit at the
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
189
table. You are laughing at me, and, indeed, I am half
laughing at myself.'
But this Henderson refused to do, and, taking off his coat,
stood with arms wide just as Mohammed had done. There
was a watch in his waistcoat pocket, the bulge of a latchkey
in one trouser pocket, and a few coins in the other. Then,
when he had satisfied himself that Leonard was satisfied, he
sat down by Mohammed, after turning out two of the three
clusters of electric light. The third was controlled by a
movable switch on the table, so that it could be manipulated
without anybody moving. Leonard sat down in the third
chair. Then Henderson said something in Arabic, and
Mohammed fixed his eyes on him. Wider and blacker they
grew, and a little shiver after a few moments passed through
him, and his breathing quickened. Then the eyes grew dull
again, half closed, and with a tremor of eyelids shut altogether.
His head fell on to his shoulder, and his breathing became
normal again. A minute or two passed thus, and every
moment his sleep and quiescence seemed to grow deeper.
'May I touch him ?' asked Leonard.
<
By all means.'
Then the doctor was alert. He raised a closed eyelid, and
saw that the signs of unsensitiveness were there; he held the
pulse for a minute, and found that it beat only at forty-six ;
his breathing was so gradual and slow that any but a prac-
titioner might have thought it had stopped altogether.
Henderson waited till he had finished his examination.
If you are satisfied, put out the lights,' he said. 'The
switch is by you.'
The switch clicked, and only the faintest gleam of firelight
cast irregular and winking patches of illumination on the
room. The windows had been closed, and the hum of London
was faint and distant. Then suddenly, after but a minute's
pause, a violent tapping sounded, and the table rocked under-
neath their hands which were laid on it.
Half an hour later the room was light again, Mohammed
moved wearily in his chair, still confined by the tapes, and at
Henderson's request Leonard first examined and then cut
them. Then Henderson hit the boy lightly on the back of the
hands, and Mohammed started up.
Good-night, Mohammed,' said his master; 'you have leave
to go;' and sleepily the boy stumbled from the room.
door, however, he paused.
At the
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
He is angry still,' he said-'angry and smiling terribly.
Good-night, effendi both.'
For a space the two sat silent. Then Leonard leaned over
the table, starting violently for a moment as it creaked with
his weight.
What does it all mean?' he rapped out.
Henderson lit a cigarette before replying, blew out the
match, and threw it into the grate.
'Have you got no explanation?' he asked. 'It is for you to
explain.'
Leonard got up in great agitation, and though it was a cold
night, he wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.
You know I have none,' he said. And I don't like it.
There is something quite horrible about it, not the least like
Birdie.'
Henderson spoke to him gently and soothingly.
Yes, yes, just this moment you are like a child in the dark,'
he said. You will get accustomed to it. There is nothing
to fear in the dark really. There are just the same things in
the dark as in the light, only sometimes one sees them better
in the dark.'
Leonard did not answer at once. Then he came and stood
in front of Henderson.
And the fear that sat on Miss Ida's face,' he said. Am I
right in connecting it, though I don't know how, with what I
have seen? Is it that—that Presence she was afraid of? I
don't know why that occurs to me, though.'
"Yes, you are quite right, but you will never see that fear
on her face again," said Henderson. By the way, there was
a very interesting thing that occurred. I wonder if you
noticed it. I was told I had a deadly and powerful enemy at
Ryssop.'
Yes; what did that mean? I remember your translating
that to me at least.'
Henderson laughed.
It meant Abdul,' he said. 'That man sees red when he
sees me. I am sure he thinks me the very worst kind of devil.'
Why?'
'Because he is an ignorant amateur,' said Henderson, with
rather unusual heat, and calls those manifestations which
are beyond him Black Magic. Set-nekht, for instance, the
gentleman we have just seen, is completely beyond him.'
Leonard was silent a moment.
'He is beyond me, too,' he said.
4.
ני
CHAPTER XIII
THE same day that had been so gloomy and bitterly fog-ridden
in London was a bath of windless winter sun in the country,
and the small but very intimate party down at Ryssop spent
it in various outdoor ways, in accordance with their individual
tastes. Jack Carbery had been absent all day since an early
and solitary breakfast-he perhaps had not quite followed his
real inclinations-for he had been shooting with a friend a
mile or two from Mrs. Desmond's, and when he got back about
half-past five he found that the others-Ida particularly-
were at tea. He himself, however, went straight to his room
to change and have a bath, meaning not to go to the drawing-
room, but to seek Ida afterwards in her own rooms. These
operations he accomplished with the perfect acme of punctu-
ality, and in point of fact met her on her way upstairs. She
had missed him a good deal all day, and though it was she who
had urged him to take the day's shooting which had offered
itself, with truly feminine inconsistency she had felt rather
hurt when he had done so. Such an attitude may be un-
reasonable, but it is so common that it has to be reckoned with.
Also this was his last day here, another cause for discontent.
'Ah, you are back,' she said, a little hint of this appearing in
her tone. What did you kill?'
' Very little, you will be glad to learn,' said he. 'I was just
coming to your room.'
Ida looked up at the clock.
Well, for ten minutes,' she said. 'I have things to do
to-night.'
He followed her, the deep content of his face a little dimin-
ished, and closed the door.
But I haven't seen you all day,' he said. 'Literally, I have
not set eyes on you since yesterday evening.'
It seemed to Ida quite impossible to let this pass un-
challenged. Men were so dreadfully unfair.
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'Dear Jack,' she said, it really is not my fault if you
prefer to absent yourself all day. At least, you can hardly
complain of not having seen me.
Jack did not regard this as the least serious.
Oh, but I do complain,' he said. 'You wanted me to
go and shoot: I really would much sooner have not. So do
let me stop this evening, and not turn me out at six. I
hate six": it is always associated in my mind with going
away.'
Ah, I am afraid I must,' said Ida.
Jack made an appeal.
(
'I go away to-morrow,' he said. Can't you wait till I've
gone? Only just this one day, dear.'
Now, Ida was a perfectly charming girl, and therefore it
was necessary that she had certain human failings. In her
present mood, what she would have called the mere desire for
fair-play was one of them. To desire fair-play for others is
probably always admirable: it is perhaps a little less admir-
able when one claims it one's self.
'No, dear, I can't,' she said with remarkable decision, ´ and
really, Jack, I thought we settled all that long ago. I told you
that I always must have this hour to myself. I offered to
admit you, you know, to teach you, but you refused. And
surely you said you would give me absolute freedom in this.
Just now I claim the fulfilment of your promise.'
Jack was still unalarmed: he did not in the least realize how
much in earnest Ida was.
'I know, but do make an exception this once, Ida,' he said.
'It is my last night, and I've got so much to say.'
Ida's sense of the absence of fair-play grew more acute.
Ah, you are not at all fair,' she said. 'I always-
Come in,' she broke off to say, as a tap came at the door.
Abdul entered and stood at the door.
'It is six,' he said.
Ida looked from one to the other. Then, In ten minutes,
Abdul,' she said.
The Arab went out without a word, closing the door behind
him, and the others were for the first time a little ill at ease
with each other.
So that is your engagement,' said Jack very unwisely:
Ida's eyes flashed at this.
'I don't like reminding you of your promise, Jack,' she said;
' which I have already done once.
And I like less that it
should be necessary.'
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193
Then suddenly, woman-like, she melted altogether, sprang
up out of her chair, and encircled his arm with hers.
Ah, Jack, you very tiresome boy,' she said. 'Why don't
you box my ears for saying such a thing? Dear, don't let
us ever make-believe that the faintest shadow can come
between us. For it can't: we both know that. So why
should we pretend anything so silly? It is the merest waste
of time and of joy. Šo shall we beg each other's pardons, or
dismiss the whole thing?'
He was far too deeply in love with her, far too generous
in himself, to resist this or harbour the slightest reservation.
I am a filthy pig,' he said. 'That is the end of it, just
as it was the beginning of it and the middle.'
He looked at her a moment in silence, as she still clung to
him.
And I'm not going to keep Abdul waiting even ten minutes,'
he said. 'I am going at once.'
Ida gave him a quick little trembling kiss.
Ah, the man I love spoke there,' she said, ' and I won't
spoil it by asking you to stop. It was perfect. Oh, Jack,
you are so-so me,' she cried.
So their reconciliation for a difference that had scarcely
really arisen was effected, and each thought that, small though
it was, it would but prove to bring them even closer together.
But it is questionable whether such a poetical result is ever
practically possible. A misunderstanding, though ever so
small, must hurt, and though the subsequent reconciliation
may assuage the pain altogether, yet the hurt has been there,
and the place may be touched again, and be more sensitive,
wincing instinctively since it has been hurt before. In his
heart of hearts Jack Carbery knew that, had it been possible,
he would have wished Ida never again to touch even with the
tip of the most outlying tentacle of thought that land of
things occult where so much of her life was passed. Frankly,
he did not like it, and though his avowal that their disagree-
ment was all over was a statement as essentially true as he
could make it, it was beyond human power not to be aware
that for this next hour, not he, but Abdul, was closeted with
the beloved, and it was beyond human power not to wish
that things had been otherwise. In fact, as he sat in the
smoking-room ruminating over the fire, he wished that they
had been otherwise very much indeed.
Jack was leaving early the next morning, and, as he
had hoped, Ida stole downstairs before the general break-
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fast-hour to sit with him and pour out his tea. All the
shadow of the evening before had passed from her; she was,
as Leonard had said, more a radiance than a girl.
'Men are so stupid,' she said, 'that I felt sure you would
not be able even to make tea fit to drink by yourself.
That was why I came down, not to see you, so don't flatter
yourself. O Jack, let's pretend it is yesterday, and so you
needn't go till to-morrow. Isn't that possible? No? When
will you be down again? Let me think of that instead.'
'Next Saturday, please,' said he, with great promptitude.
'But I thought you were going to your mother's next
Saturday? Surely you told her so, did you not?'
'I would sooner come here,' said he.
Ida poured out his tea and handed it to him.
No, go as you have planned,' she said. 'You see, she is
so fond of you. And a mother is a most excellent relation.'
'She will understand,' said Jack.
(
Yes, because she is such a darling. But she will be dis-
appointed, and, oh, Jack, it is such a dreadful thing to dis-
appoint people. I hate seeing smiles fade, when one might
have let them not fade. They are like flowers. One ought
to water them always very carefully, and keep slugs from
them. It is a sort of murder, and a mean sort, to kill a smile.'
A brilliant idea struck Jack.
Come with me,' he said.
Ida looked up.
Ah, perhaps I might. I should love it. Jack, how bril-
liant of you! and why on earth didn't you think of it before?
How stupid of you!'
A servant came in with letters. For Jack there was nothing,
for Ida a big blue envelope containing some thick package,
registered. Now, no one can resist opening a registered letter
immediately there is no situation in the world which would
possibly justify delay in so doing. Consequently, when Jack
said, 'Ah, do come!' she returned no answer, because the
registered letter was being opened.
What can it be ?' she said, half to herself. Oh-
She drew out the manuscript of Henderson's lecture, and
the note which accompanied it.
'You never attend to me for two minutes together,' re-
marked Jack.
Ida was turning over the pages, written in an exquisitely
neat hand, so that whole sentences could be read with a single
glance.
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195
'Ah, that is good of him,' she exclaimed.
Who? what?' asked Jack.
She had opened at random the sheets, which were clipped
together at the top left-hand corner, towards the end of the
lecture, and sentence after sentence arrested her. She pushed
away the plate that was in front of her, still without answering
Jack's monosyllabic questions, laid the manuscript down, and
in a moment got completely absorbed in it. For a couple of
minutes, perhaps, she remained thus, riveted by each sen-
tence, until she reached the end. The note that accompanied
the manuscript was disclosed by this turning of the last page.
She broke it open, for it was in a separate envelope, and
glanced through it.
Oh, Jack, I can't come next Saturday,' she said. 'You
see, we asked Mr. Henderson to come here any time before
the end of the month, and he thinks he can come at the end
of this week. Well, having said that any time would do, we
can't put him off. It wouldn't be polite, and'—she paused a
moment—' I know him so little, you see.'
'Is that from him?' asked Jack.
'Yes, and he has sent me his first lecture in manuscript.
That is so kind of him. Have I been rude reading it, and not
attending? I am so sorry, but it really interested me. You
know, the other day you opened a wedding-present, and did
not answer six consecutive questions from me.
Jack continued his breakfast in silence for a minute or two,
seeing out of the corner of his eye that Ida was furtively
turning over the pages again. What she had just said was
true he remembered the incident perfectly, and changed the
subject.
Well, I shall go to my mother's the week after next,' he
said, and come here for next Saturday till Monday, if I may.'
Ida dropped the sheets: she dropped them somewhat
obviously, as if with an effort.
No, don't do that,' she said quickly. 'It really will be
better to stick to your original plan. Besides, we are up in
London for two nights this week: you will see plenty of me,'
she added, half laughing.
Now, Jack was neither exacting nor suspicious, but it
seemed to him quite clear that the grounds on which Ida
wished him to keep to his original arrangement had shifted.
Nor was it unreasonable that he should determine whether
this was so.
Why don't you want me to come next Sunday,?' he asked.
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Ida looked up again from the manuscript she was still
glancing at. She knew she was not a good hand at telling
lies she told the truth much better, and so told it.
(
'Because Mr. Henderson is coming,' she said frankly. He
is intimately connected with that part of my life with which
you have decided to have nothing to do. I don't think you
would get on well together. It would be rather difficult.
That is why. There are evidently '-and she just touched
with her finger the manuscript he had sent her- there are
evidently a good many things which I wish to talk over with
him. So come when he is not here, Jack. I think it will
be better so. I am sure it will.'
Once again, as last night, the smarting place was touched;
yesterday's reconciliation, though complete in itself, had not
wholly healed it, for this time it hurt rather more. Yet the
great sweetness of his nature and his absolute devotion to her
made it easy for him to prevent any hint of that being reflected
in his answer, and he forebore to go back on the subject.
'All right, then,' he said cheerfully, and you will be up
in town for two nights this week. Thursday I dine at Berkeley
Square, Friday you and Mrs. Desmond dine with me and we
go to the play. That is splendid, Ida. And there's my
carriage; I must go.'
She got up also. But as she got up she gathered Henderson's
manuscript to her with a careful hand. Yet only Jack was for
the moment in her mind: her hand's action had been automatic.
Ah, my dearest,' she said, ' I hate your going. But after
March there will be no more going for either of us.
Thursday,
then, is it not? And it's good-bye till then. Oh, Jack!'
She put her face up to his: the radiance had returned to it.
'I feel such a brute,' said he, 'when I ask you
Why ?"
and again "Why?" But my excuse is such a good one, Ida.”
'What is it?" she asked, knowing well.
'Because you are you,' he said, kissing her.
She came with him to the door; the sun was still a golden
ball not far above the horizon, shining through the dispersing
mists. There had been frost in the night, and all the grass
was a network of white fairy-like spikes infinitely delicate.
The morning smelled cool and clean, as if all the world had
had a cold bath during the night, and the sun, now risen, was
the brisk rough towel that followed. Then at the door a
more public hand-shake passed between them, and he drove off.
Where the drive turned before passing out of sight, he
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197
looked back as the motor crunched the half-frozen gravel.
She was still at the door, waiting for the final sight of him,
and in answer to his waved hand she waved back with the
sheaf of manuscript. Then the carriage, still sounding
crisply on the frozen gravel, passed out of sight.
Ida turned into the house again with a sigh: the line she
had taken both the evening before with regard to her hour of
meditation, and this morning with regard to Henderson's
visit, was perfectly deliberate on her part, and dictated to
her by a voice as clear and inflexible as that of duty. Deeply
and unreservedly as she loved Jack, so that he seemed to her
to be the summing-up of all earthly love, she had no inten-
tion, nor even, indeed, any temptation to give up that
separate life, which was to be secret by his own choice from
him. Indeed, there was no possibility of it: she might as
well, for his sake, have said she would give up the air she
breathed, without which she would have been stifled, how-
ever genuine her sacrifice. But it troubled her that there
should have been ever so little a ruffling of the peace-pool,
which she knew had happened. Yet in that it was better
that there should be a little ruffling now than a storm here-
after, she was willing to accept the present little evil in order
to be secure from a future greater one. Jack saw now, which
perhaps he had not seen before, not fully grasped at least,
how serious and vital to her own life was this life into which
he had refused to penetrate, how utterly impossible it was
that her rights, her own course of action on this plane, could
be infringed or interfered with. And certainly he had re-
sponded with the most absolute generosity; friction on such
things was impossible in the future; they understood one
another: the mere words of agreement had become pledges.
She had taken a cup of tea and a piece of toast as she minis-
tered to his breakfasting, and, not wanting more, she deter-
mined not to appear at the table when the rest of the party
came down. And though she quite sufficiently accounted to
herself for her prospective absence by this fact of her fast
already broken, she knew that a more potent reason lurked
in her mind, for she was longing for an hour to herself in
which to read through the lecture Henderson had sent her.
The glances she had cast between half-turned 'leaves at any
rate had convinced her that she was very much concerned in
what he had to say. So she went up to her room again,
telling her maid that she was not to be disturbed for an hour.
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The fire had been already lit in her sitting-room, and she
drew a chair up close to it, feeling suddenly rather languid and
rather cold. She had got up earlier than usual, and had been
awakened, as she now remembered, from a very deep sleep by
her maid for the early breakfast she had already eaten : also
Jack had gone, and these were all causes that might tend to
dispiritedness. True, when she woke she had found herself
in the very highlands of serenity and joie de vivre, but these,
as if they had been cloud only, not warm sunny earth, had
dispersed and vanished, just as the tracery of hoar-frost was
vanishing now outside under the genial heat of the broad
winter sun; and while she sat warming her hands before
beginning her reading, she groped backwards through her
memory to find any reasonable cause for this sudden sinking
of the spiritual barometer. She had slept very heavily without
dreaming, but before that, before that, just as she went to
sleep: Surely there was something, something that had
mingled with sleep, but was previous to her deep dreamless-
ness, something that must have been coincident with the
séance-though she knew not of its existence-in Davies Street
last night. There had been some sense that, though danger
did not threaten her, yet danger, angry danger, poised and
evilly smiling, and seeking to strike, had been abroad during
the earlier hours of the night. What was it?
There were unprofitable musings, and, drawing her chair so
that the light of this lusty sun fell on the pages, she began
to read Henderson's lecture very carefully and attentively.
The exquisite neat handwriting was as authoritative as print,
and the arguments were as clear and as neat as the hand-
writing. The writer, she felt, was no stumbler through mists; he
made no surmises as to the way to follow; as long as the tracks
were there he traced them; when they ceased he said, 'They
have ceased; let us see if there is another way. There must be
a way, because there must be a way: we have got to find it.'
Long before she got to the end she was entirely absorbed :
t seemed to her as if a new day was breaking. Step by step
he climbed up a stair as secure as a rock-hewn fortress, basing
his conclusions, not on possibilities, but on data that were
incontrovertible. He never hazarded a guess he eliminated
all the false, and what was left had to be the true; it could not
be anything else. And when the last page was turned, she sat
with a kindled eye gazing into the fire. The new day dazzled
her, and it disclosed horizon after horizon hitherto unseen and
unconjectured.
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199
Again she turned to the manuscript.
'It is in our fear that danger lies; to be afraid of anything
invests that thing with a danger that does not of itself belong
to it and gives stability to a baseless fabric, or, anyhow, a
fabric that is based only on our fear. . . . It is not possible
that evil should touch any who inquires, seeking good, else
we must assert that evil is the stronger and will conquer
good, which is unthinkable. By what semblance of
reason can we say that to render the spirit of one who has gone
before audible, is right; to wish to render it visible implies a
want of faith? It is only to the evil generation that no
sign is given; to the faithful the signs are manifest, the
cloud of witnesses is waiting for communion. They leap for
it like starving men.'
Ida let the manuscript fall forward again on her knee, and
waited, her hands on her lap, in that intense expectant state
of silence (but ready to receive any guidance), that she practised
every day of her life. In these protracted alienations from the
material world she remained very still, for the awakening of the
inner sense seemed to demand utter quiescence of the body, and
she only, as far as intention went, laid her soul open, as one may
lay a book open and let the wind turn to any page it wills.
She quenched, too, all conscious thought, making of herself a
pool that should just reflect the sky. This she did now: as
she read she had thought her fill,' the harvest of thought was
gathered and garnered, the work of the mind was over; it
was for the Spirit of God, if He so inscrutably willed it, to
move over the face of the waters, to breathe life into the image
of clay that the mind had made.
:
But this morning quiescence of brain seemed to be denied
her like a telegraph-needle in a thunderstorm, she was
twitched backwards and forwards by words and images outside
her own control. At one moment there would flash across her
eye, like the flight of a rocket, the horseshoe lake at Karnak,
with the walls of the temple of Mut half disinterred, and
waiting for some hand to restore life to the mutilated and
time-worn statues that stood therein, to the hideous apes and
the expectant cats: again her ear was quickened, and she
heard the sobbing h-sh-sh of the palm-trees in the garden at
Luxor, when Sirocco began to make trouble in them. Then
again the vivid brown face of Henderson was before her, saying,
so that she almost heard the words, You are safe,' but even
while he spoke another voice more familiar said, 'Evil is
approaching,' and as it spoke the stirring of the palm-leaves
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waxed louder; they sighed and moaned and waved their fan-
like fronds. Again Abdul's face seemed to watch her, full of
love, full of helpless pity, full of the agony caused by something
that, though not yet here, was surely coming.
Here the vague inward pictures paused in their self-presenta-
tion, and that state of half-trance with which she was so
familiar in her meditations began to glow like sunset or sunrise
within her. Bodily sensation faded, and was almost gone,
when suddenly close to her, so she thought-so close that she
almost felt the breath of the speaker on her cheek-there came
a voice, whether really audible to her ear or only to her brain
she could not tell. It was there, anyhow: she had full con-
sciousness of it.
Be not afraid,' it said.
But the voice was not her father's, but Henderson's, and
with a sudden start her mind went back to a previous
thought. What had preceded her deep and dreamless sleep?
She sprang out of her chair, and the manuscript fell rustling
to the ground. On the mantelpiece stood a photograph of her
lover, and she took it up and kissed it. A sudden terrible
sense of being unprotected, at the mercy of dreadful forces,
for the moment seized her.
'Oh, Jack, keep me safe!' she said to herself.
But the panic was but momentary, and she picked Hender-
son's lecture up, smoothed its crumpled edges, laid it carefully
in a drawer of which she turned the key, and sat down to write
an answer to his letter.
(
Henderson duly appeared at Ryssop for the week-end. He
had been warned by Ida that they were alone, she and Mrs.
Desmond, but he did not appear to think that sort of solitude
a reason for excusing himself, though a choice of dates had
been offered him. He had, in fact, chosen the days on which
they would be alone in preference to those on which
a few
people' would be with them. And certainly at dinner on
Saturday night he made himself charming, talking of multi-
tudinous subjects, without a hint of the overfed lion suggesting
itself he was perfectly modest and natural and brief. He
spoke even with a certain shrewd amusement of the lionizing
to which he was being subjected, and a lion who can laugh at
lionizing is probably a far from objectionable animal.
'It is very odd,' he said, ' but whenever anybody does any-
thing that stirs, however slightly, the popular imagination,
everyone always wants him to eat and drink too much. I
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201
assure you enormous luncheons and dinners have been pro-
vided for me. But I really did not go to the Zaffiri oasis with
that object.'
This was a subject on which Mrs. Desmond had before now
spoken to Ida.
(6
Ah, hospitality may be a savage virtue,' she said, 'but I
think it is quite certainly a virtue. I like the instinct that
says Come to dinner," and gives you a good one; the words
are symbolic of the good-fellowship, the kindliness, that
prompts them, and so is the dinner. Besides, however much
you are interested in a man's achievements, you cannot ask
him to come in the middle of the afternoon and talk. He is
going to provide you with mental food: the least you can do
is to sustain his corporeal energies.'
'The jolly roast beef of old England,' remarked Ida in
rather a detached voice. She, too, remembered the arguments
that had passed between herself and her aunt.
Yes, dear, and potatoes, and every delicacy of the season,'
said Mrs. Desmond, with a tinge of acerbity.
(
Ida laughed.
Dear aunt,' she said, 'I believe you would feel a touch
of pleasure in seeing a drunken man reel about, if you knew he
had got drunk at your expense. You would say, "Anyhow,
it was my whisky.
Mrs. Desmond did not deny this, but went on:
I love all the good-fellowship implied in giving people food
and drink, things they assuredly want, and would have to get
for themselves if they were not given to them. I like the little
holiday, though it is only an hour long, which one gets if one
dines out; it all predisposes to friendliness, to taking an
interest in the interests of other people, to jollity, to talking
instead of thinking, to smiling instead of frowning, to being
gregarious, not solitary.'
Yes, that is all true,' said Henderson, and your view is
kind and human. But it strikes a man, who has been all his
life a good deal alone, as odd that just because he has been to
the Zaffiri oasis people should quite suddenly open all their
champagne for him.
There was some slight pathos in this, unmeant probably, as
all true pathos is, which touched Mrs. Desmond.
'Ah, don't be alone, Mr. Henderson,' she said.
'Loneliness
is a very bad habit. You should break yourself of it, or,
rather, get somebody to break you of it. I assure you I am
right.'
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Henderson looked up, and saw that Ida was waiting for
his reply.
'I don't know about that,' he said. 'Unless I could be
alone a good deal, I feel as if I should shrivel up below, till
I was like a dry orange, peel only, with nothing inside.'
Ida beat the tips of her fingers gently together, in dumb
show of applause. She, too, was an apostle of loneliness.
'An ally!' she said. 'Assault the position, Mr. Henderson.
My corpses and Aunt Julia's lie thick on the field.'
No corpse of mine lies thick anywhere,' said Mrs. Des-
mond genially. That is only Ida's way of saying that we
often argue on this point, and that I invariably rout her. I
assure you I am not a corpse. Look at me: am I?'
Ida looked up again and nodded to her ally. The talk
had somehow deepened, and Mrs. Desmond, since no one said
she was a corpse, spoke again, and quite seriously.
I do not believe solitude is healthy,' she said, ´ and as
for your simile of the dry orange, Mr. Henderson, why, lone-
liness is exactly what produces that dryness within; it is the
converse, the association, the fellowship with others, that
makes one's fruit ripe to the core and full of juice; one ripens
inwards, not outwards. I don't say that in certain natures
other things-music, nature, art-may not to a large extent
take the place of people; my point is that one should con-
stantly be absorbed in things external to one. One's soul has
to go out of doors to get the sun, to get the rain, to get any-
thing that happens to be going, and all that is going is good.
What do you say to that?'
Dinner was over, but Mrs. Desmond showed no sign of
moving: Ida, too, as if she had been planted like a tree by the
water-side, was leaning forward with both arms on the table
in an attitude of complete permanence.
'I say this: that if one is to take life seriously,' said he,
'all external things are distractions. The well of truth,
of reality, is within one. One has to search for the living
water there, not outside one's self.'
Again the talk deepened.
'He went about doing good,' said Mrs. Desmond.
'But in preparation He went for forty days into the
wilderness,' replied the other.
'Ah, yes, yes,' said Ida softly. It is that-it is just that.'
Again Henderson looked up across the table at the girl, as
she sat there intent and exquisite. And at the sight the
subject they were discussing suddenly sounded hollow and
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203
unreal to him; it was a mere mouthing of words, and she, her
beauty, the flame of his longing for her, was the only reality,
the only thing that burned. Surely that must kindle her,
too the whole force and will and strength of his nature
dragged her to him: power like this could not be ineffectual
nor miss its aim; force like his could not be expended in
nothing, in a mere beating of the air. And Mrs. Desmond
saw the appeal in his face, and was sorry for him. She felt
sure that before long he would speak to Ida, and the know-
ledge that all this love must go hungry and unsatisfied seemed
to her very sad. It was likely to make him more lonely than
before, and loneliness she would always pity; even the wander-
ing Cain seemed to her worthy of commiseration. But in
spite of her pity she was extremely glad that Ida's affections
were already so devotedly engaged. Henderson interested
her: she found him quick, clever, pleasant, interesting. But
deep down she was not quite sure if she liked him; deeper
down yet, and quite incomprehensibly, she was quite sure
she did not trust him. Why, she did not quite know; the
reason lay deeper than the workaday plane of thought and
motive. Consequently, as often as her distrust of him was
present to her mind she banished it, since she could not
justify it, and called it a baseless suspicion. And this she
did now.
He had been in the house nearly twenty-four hours before
Ida had an opportunity of speaking in private to him, for the
next morning they had all gone to church, and after lunch
strolled together in the bright brief afternoon sunshine. After
that, however, Mrs. Desmond had gone to her room to write
letters, and Ida, lingering behind her a moment, asked him
if he was at leisure.
He, too, had been waiting with more impatience than she
for the opportunity, and in answer to her invitation he fol-
lowed her upstairs to her sitting-room. She took his manu-
script from the locked drawer where she had deposited it for
safe-keeping, and gave it to him.
I think it is wonderful,' she said; ' it has cleared up many
doubts for me. And you are so right in what you say about
fear. It is that which above all stands between one and the
clear vision. But how is one to get rid of it?'
By acting as if one was not afraid,' said he,' by doing the
thing one fears until fear vanishes. Besides, whatever it is
you want, you are the person in the world who should be
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least afraid. Surely you, above all others, have seen in your
own person a most striking demonstration of the baselessness
of fear. Who for the last six months and more could have
had more awful, more valid reasons for terror? Yet what
is left now? Not the shadow of a shadow.'
Ida's hands trembled a little as she sat down again.
Yes, there is still the shadow of a shadow,' she said ;
'for the evil, from which at present I am safe, exists still; it
has been loosed. It is in the world again: one cannot get
over that. There is an evil influence the more, potent again
for evil. And also—also my father talked to me the other
day, and said that evil was approaching.'
Henderson nodded.
(
}
'Yes, you told me,' he said, and paused. And have you
thought over what I suggested to you then?' he asked.
That he wants to be in closer communication with me?'
she asked. 'Yes, I have thought of it constantly.'
She got up and came a step towards him, and her mind,
which had so long been wavering, was suddenly made up.
Will you help me in that, too?' she asked.
His moment had come, not for the wealth of the world
could he have held back the question now. He rose, too, and
stood opposite her.
Give me the right to help you now and always,' he said
very low-the right to shield you from all evil, to love
you-
She suddenly put her hand out, as if to defend herself from
a blow.
'Oh, it is impossible,' she said—'it is quite impossible.
I am sorry.'
But the whole man was on fire. Even this for the moment
was nothing to him.
There is nothing impossible!' he cried. Even from you
I will not take that answer. I love you so that you must
love me: I exercise the conquering right of love, which is
stronger than death. Don't you remember the amulet?
Why, Ida, it is this that it meant. This is the laying of the
ghost again. Until love is stronger than death, so it said,
it will never be laid. But now it ceases.'
The girl looked up at him with wide pitying eyes.
Ah, that cannot be it,' she said. 'What the amulet meant
I cannot tell you, but I know for certain that it did not mean
that. That is quite, quite impossible.'
1
But her voice faltered: there had been hideous confirmation
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205
of the truth of the amulet already; its breakage had set free
a spirit, there was a dreadful fitness in the laying of that same
spirit by the love of the man who had burst its cerements.
Your voice quivered when you said that,' said Henderson,
with a sudden relentlessness, pointing his finger at her. 'I
tell you, this must be true. Impossible? Everything else
is impossible. I who freed that dark soul bind it again. It
is loose my love is stronger than death, and bids death take
back its dead.'
Ida had grown suddenly very pale: his force terrified and
appalled her. It was as if some great engine of frightful power
was whirling its wheels within an inch of her.
It cannot mean that,' she said again. Then she pulled
herself together, recognising his right to know.
'I am engaged to be married,' she said. 'I am going to
be married in April to Mr. Carbery.'
Then the essential man showed himself, brutal and master-
ful, and cruel in his love.
'You can't, you daren't,' he said. 'You simply daren't!'
Ida saw how utterly his passion had mastered him, and
the resentment that rose in her at this threat, this unparalleled
impertinence, was quenched by pity. Also she owed him a
deep debt of gratitude, and she held out her hand to him.
Ah, that is unsaid. You did not mean that,' she said to
him. You did not say it.'
That gentleness, that instant forgetting and forgiving of
his intolerable speech, with its awful veiled threat, could not
but appeal to all that was best in him, and there was in him
something which was better and finer than the spirit which
had shown itself in his last words.
'I beg your pardon,' he said simply. I do not think I
knew what I was saying. It is generous of you to wipe that
out.'
Then he made a great effort with himself.
'I hope you will be very happy,' he said.
She looked at him, with her hand still in his.
Thank you very much,' she said simply.
more, I am very sorry.'
'And once
Henderson turned away, and fingered the_ornaments on
the mantelpiece a moment.
I have a great favour to ask,' he said at length.
'Yes ?'
· All I have said is true,' he said.
help you where I can help you?'
(
Will you still let me
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'But how willingly and how gratefully!' said she.
He looked at her with a certain pathos.
And you won't be afraid of me?' he asked. 'I don't
think I could bear that.'
'No, I won't be afraid of you,' she said.
It said worlds for Henderson's tact and self-control that
half an hour later, when the three met at tea, his manner was
absolutely natural, and it never entered, however remotely,
into Mrs. Desmond's mind-though she was naturally quick
to perceive such things-that the scene between him and Ida,
which she had put down as being inevitable, had already taken
place. Ida herself was also equally inscrutable to her aunt's
eye: she was, it is true, rather silent, but that was not un-
common with her; also, she did not stay very long at tea, but
left them. That, again, was more than natural, for she
always retired to her own room at this time for her hour of
concentration. And used as she was to the occurrence of
this phenomenon-for it happened daily with a punctuality
that was not particularly observable in the rest of Ida's
performance of the little events of the social round-Mrs.
Desmond never quite succeeded in not being irritated at it,
or at any rate in not having to suppress irritation when it
occurred. It was so utterly opposed to her gospel of the
sociability of the human race. To-day, however, she did not
quarrel with it, for she was not averse to having a talk to
Mr. Henderson alone, and did not let Ida's exit cause a pause
in her conversation, which, in a few well-chosen sentences,
she whistled home from gardening to the subject she wanted
to talk about.
•
Yes, I find that Mrs. Caroline Maguire requires so much
cutting back,' she said the rose-talk was getting really
advanced, for Henderson seemed to understand roses, just as
he seemed to understand most things—' and when you do get
it to bloom, I don't know that it is so much better than Beauté
inconstante. One often spends an absurd amount of time over
a mere curiosity. Curiosity is almost always unremunerative.
But I suppose we are all curious. We all want to know about
things that we cannot positively find out.'
This separated their talk from garden affairs with some
completeness: it amounted to a divorce. As such, anyhow
Henderson took it.
'Yet, after all,' said he, 'everyone who is worth his salt
spends his whole energies on what is difficult of attainment.
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207
Your cultivation of Mrs.-Mrs. Caroline Maguire is a case in
point. As a gardener, you wanted to grow what was difficult.
And whatever our line is, we want to attain, not the obvious,
but the obscure. We can leave the obvious alone: it attains
itself. It is only to the obscure that we devote our attention.'
We do,' said she, and we make a mistake. Now let us
dismiss the subject of roses. Take our lives—the actions that
make our lives and the motives that make our actions. Can
anything be finer than the life of a man who is honest, who
does his work, and tries generally to be good in all perfectly
obvious ways?'
Henderson sat silent a moment.
'Mrs. Desmond,' he said at length, 'you don't really think
that, or else you must give a very wide interpretation to the
phrase "his work.” I imagine you don't approve of my work,
which is the study of occult things. I don't suppose you even
approve of Miss Ida's solitary hours. But what if that is her
work? Supposing her mission, the design of her life, is to do
just that.'
Here was the point.
I hate those solitary hours,' she said.
life of a girl and of a woman in the world.
quite certain. She is
'Ida has to live the
That, anyhow, is
Henderson interrupted here: this bore so directly on the
scene he had just had with Ida that he felt he must tell
Mrs. Desmond. She must know soon, and it was a thing
better not put off.
She is engaged to be married,' said Henderson.
Mrs. Desmond looked at him in surprise.
How did you know?' she asked.
She told me this afternoon.'
de' she asked.
A propos de-
À propos
of me.
me, and said why.'
I asked her to marry me. She refused
Now, Mrs. Desmond did not like him, she did not even trust
him, but she was sorry. Love gone wrong was always a waste.
You are behaving very well,' she said. 'I had not the
slightest idea that this had happened.'
It is always a mistake to behave badly,' he said. 'And
the merest worm can always behave passably. It is a con-
spicuous worm if it does not,' he added.
Mrs. Desmond had been taken completely by surprise: she
had been on the look-out for it, too, yet in no detail had his
subsequent behaviour strayed from the normal.
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;
'I never guessed what had happened,' she repeated.
'No, why should you? Nothing that can happen to one
can touch one's self-control,' he said. That, anyhow, we
must keep impervious to the rains of circumstance.'
For the moment Mrs. Desmond entirely forgot her instinc-
tive dislike of him. He was so very interesting, a large merit
in her eyes.
'That is a very big saying,' she said. 'Most people have
not that self-control. Where did you find it ?'
(
In being alone,' said he, in getting away from distraction.'
In what Ida is doing?' she asked.
In what she is capable of doing,' he said.
But even in
delving into one's self, which sounds a simple process, one
sometimes wants help. You may dig, but you want some sort
of person with a wheelbarrow to take away what you excavate.
At least, the work goes quicker so.'
'Abdul, you mean,' said Mrs. Desmond:
'No; I don't think Abdul can help her,' said Henderson:
I believe, in fact, that he hinders her.'
'I wish you would tell her that!'
I will,' said he. That seems to me a very good sugges-
tion.'
CHAPTER XIV
MRS. DESMOND and Ida left Ryssop about a fortnight after
Henderson's visit, and before the end of January were radically
installed again in the house in Berkeley Square. It was not
Mrs. Desmond's general custom to move up to town so soon,
but, as usual, she could have supplied you with thoroughly
excellent reasons for anything that she did, and this cold and
foggy weather, in which for days together the birches and
larches of the forest were a shower-bath of wet ready to be
discharged at any moment by a puff of wind-in which, too,
outdoor life in the country was frankly impossible-made this
early move to London a most rational manœuvre. It was, in
fact, a cold, leaden January, a succession of days in which it
is wise to give up Nature as a bad job, and use to the full the
aids and artifices of civilization. Again, as often happened,
solid grounds, though secret, backed her ostensible and valid
reasons, since, for various causes, she was anxious to get Ida
again into a milieu which was fuller of distraction and external
avocations than was the country in this abominable season. For
Ida was, as she would have phrased it with regard to one of the
beloved roses, not doing very well. She was not budding; she
did show the rightful promise of spring that was certainly hers.
Here Mrs. Desmond, if she followed, as she had many times
done, the track of her thoughts, which was well beaten and
distinct up to this point, strayed as in a country of sand-dunes
and dubious paths in various directions. Sometimes a very
simple explanation of the girl's dispiritedness occurred to her.
Ida, accustomed as she was to the bright winters of the
South, missed the sun and all his golden benefits, but as she
showed an obvious reluctance to go to the Riviera or to Egypt
for February, a plan that Mrs. Desmond had more than once
proposed, it seemed to her aunt only right to try the effect of
mental sunshine in the form of that stimulus which London
so invariably gives to those who are drooping a little in the
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country. Yet the explanation that she missed the sun did
not altogether satisfy Mrs. Desmond, and here she tried another
route in this shifting sand of uncertainty. But it was difficult
to know which way to go: Jack Carbery had been down again,
and Ida seemed to be as completely satisfied about the future
she had chosen as ever. They were quite clearly very much in
love with each other; there was no cloud there: no man's
hand came out of the remote horizon of the sea. Then, per-
haps, for a little, she would wonder whether the simplest
explanation of all-namely, that Ida was physically a little
out of sorts-was not the true cause. Yet it was impossible
to imagine a picture of more perfect health, and there was no
way out here. So again she tried a new route: were these
inexplicable and uncomfortable hours of meditation in any
way responsible for the girl's listlessness and want of spirit?
This, too, ended in an impasse, for Mrs: Desmond was bound to
confess that it was only after her solitary hour that Ida
returned to anything like her autumn serenity. So, the girl
hailing the idea of London with alacrity, to London they went,
without further delay, leaving the cold gloom of the country
for the cheery, gas-lit streets, full of the tonic of people and
close human companionship. No more occult trouble here,'
thought Mrs. Desmond to herself, as she pulled up the window
of the brougham that met them at Victoria.
Henderson's first lecture, the one which Ida had had the privi-
lege of reading in manuscript, took place some two or three
afternoons after they had installed themselves, and the effect
of it on that set in London among whom Ida chiefly lived—a
set who were in the worldly sense exteriorly smart, but beneath
whose fashionable hats there were busy, inquiring brains-
was extraordinary. It seemed, indeed, as they met at lunch
and tea and dinner next day that Henderson was just the
prophet for whom they waited, and he came as punctually to
their needs as the sun when night is over. He was not clerical
-he proposed to them no giving up of the world to which they
all indubitably belonged; he had no difficult and imprac-
ticable doctrines to urge on them about the universal brother-
hood of man, or the duty of clasping by the hand perfectly
impossible specimens of brothers. The intellectual, the
artistic tastes, indeed, which most of them possessed, or at
any rate professed or sympathized with, he urged them to
cultivate to the full; but he spoke of other powers which they
certainly all had, limitless tracts of their souls which were not
yet brought under cultivation, where the soil would bear
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211
flowers strange and beautiful beyond all imagining. Above
all, he urged them to root out fear from their minds-both
fear of inquiry and investigation and fear of consequences.
No doubt his personality, the force which quite certainly
emanated from him with a strength which even the dullest
could perceive, the magnetic power that he gave to what he
said, had much to do with the impression he made. Also he
had real eloquence: his delivery was the delivery of an orator,
a man in whose brain thought is clear and definite, and in
whose mouth those thoughts are made clear and definite also ;
his sentences were sharp-edged and transparent-thought
crystallized. His address lasted something over an hour, and
during the whole of it he had not once looked at his sheaf of
manuscript, which he held in his right hand tightly rolled up.
A long pause succeeded his final words about fear, but none
moved, for all felt that there was just one word more coming.
Then it came.
'For fear, such fear as that of which I have been speaking,
is the darkness within us that we need to be enlightened,' he
said, looking straight at Ida, who with Mrs. Desmond was
sitting a row or two from him. That is the fog of our own
making, through which, as long as our will does not banish it,
the sun cannot shine. It is we who have to will it away and
we have to see to it that our mind never again gives off these
damp exhalations, as it were, of cowardice. So be not afraid.
That is my final word to you.'
Again he paused, and his voice changed from low, vibrating
tones, which were yet audible to the most distant of his
listeners, to the timbre of ordinary speech.
'I shall hope to address you next week,' he said, ‘on a
few further points connected with my subject to-day, and we
will then pass on to the various modes of communication
with those who have passed over, by means of mediums. The
books which you may find it useful to read, if you have leisure
between now and then, I have made a list of, and have pinned
up on the door for any who may care to copy them.'
He bowed and left the platform, and in the closely-filled
hall began the rustling of his moving audience. There was
no attempt at applause the clapping of hands would have
been a discordant note-and hardly the sound even of con-
versation. In silence certainly Mrs. Desmond went out,
followed by Ida, and not until they had both got into the
electric brougham which waited for them did she speak.
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'Well, my dear,' she said at length, I think your Mr.
Henderson is a very remarkable man, and I don't mind
confessing that what he said about solitary meditation moved
me very much. It sounded true: one felt it must be true.
Fear, too. Yes, he is quite right there-a fog of our own
making. Fear is just that-what was it? a damp exhala-
tion from our own minds.'
Ida looked at her aunt almost imploringly. Her soul had
come to a parting of the ways, and was in an agony of doubt.
Ah, is he right ?' she said. May I take it as quite,
quite certain he is right? Is it not possible that our fear
is a sort of warning, a danger-signal put up by God? It
seems to me he may have overlooked that possibility. What
if it is the signpost to warn us off dangerous places ?'
Mrs. Desmond was really too much absorbed in the memory
of the address to notice the strange entreaty in the girl's
voice.
6
No. I felt he could not be wrong about that,' she said ;
'it was convincingly true. Given that our whole purpose, as
far as we know, is good, given our purpose is in harmony with
our best self-that is what he said no fear respecting it
can be anything but childish and cowardly. And I hate
cowards,' she added on her own account; there is no ten-
dency so inexcusable, no crime so unpardonable. I respect
a murderer far more than a coward, and as for a burglar, he
is really a romantic and splendid character in comparison.'
Ida took one of the two roads, took it with a wrench and
an effort.
Then, I will be a coward no longer,' said she to herself;
'I won't be afraid.'
But Mrs. Desmond heard.
Ah, my dear, that is a good resolve,' said she, 'whether
your cowardice concerns that life of yours which I know or
that of which I know nothing. Banish it in any case from
both it can do you nothing but good if you manage that.
It was worth our while to go to hear Mr. Henderson, if he has
done that for you.'
Ida gave a long sigh.
Yes, he has done that,' she said.
It so happened that next day Jack Carbery came at a
rather late tea-time to Mrs. Desmond's house.
It was
already, he knew, after half-past five, and at six Ida would
be sure to go upstairs to her own room, where Abdul was
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213
alone admitted. The thought of this still put out thorns in
his mind-a growth which he felt himself unable to check,
though, to do him only the barest justice, he always, so to
speak, picked off those thorns as soon as he felt their prick-
ing; in other words, he never let himself consciously dwell on
the thought. In any case, however, he had still twenty
minutes in which to see Ida-he had only seen her once before
that day, which was really dreadful-and tell her the arrange-
ments he had made for the evening, when they were going to
the play together.
As he hoped, he found that when he arrived she had
already left the drawing-room, and he went straight up,
according to custom, if she was not downstairs, into the outer
sitting-room next the sanctum, which, like Aunt Julia, he
had never entered. She was sitting with her foot on the
fender, for the evening was chilly, and sprang up with a
delicious cry of welcome when he entered.
'Ah, Jack, how charming!' she said; I was vaguely
hoping you might possibly come in for a few minutes. But
it was getting so-so near six that I was almost giving you up.'
He sat down on the arm of her chair.
Vaguely?' he said. 'I don't quite like that. Besides,
you must never give me up.'
'Only vaguely, because the possibility was so remote. And
the rest of what you said is even more absurd. How silly
you are!'
'I
I know I am,' said he. 'You must teach me to be wise.'
Ah, if only anyone could teach anyone else that ! Wisdom
is priced above rubies, and I don't wonder. Not that rubies
are not dears,' she added, touching a little ruby charm he
had sent her only the day before.
Do you really like it ?' he asked.
Oh, Jack, you are silly again! If I am to teach you to
be wise, I see I must begin at the very beginning: you don't
know even the alphabet yet. Why, if you had sent me just
a heart-shaped piece of paper I should have loved it. And
that reminds me,' she said, laying her hand on his- you
won't mind me saying it, will you? But, Jack, I have so
much, I am so rich in-in that which you have to spend—
stupid gold, I mean-when you give me dear things like this.
So remember, won't you? that it is the fact that you think
of me which is to me above price, like wisdom, the best
wisdom.'
She stroked his knee gently a moment.
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(
'So if you send me,' she went on, 'just a line saying,
"I saw a diamond tiara at Streeter's this morning, and
wanted to give it you," that is just the same to me as if you
had given it me. Your thought has given it me. It is the
thought I value: the thing itself is only a symbol of the
thought.'
There was something exquisitely delicate to his mind about
this, for though the subject had never been remotely mentioned
between them, yet their disparity in the point of this world's
wealth had often been in his mind, and she had divined and
healed this. He took the hand that caressed his knee and
kissed it.
'I want to give you the earth and the heavens,' he said,
and I can only give you love.'
Again she fulfilled his thought, flying to it like steel filings
to a magnet.
And that is the best of all,' she said; 'for, indeed, Jack,
there is nothing else that I want.'
She clung close to him a moment, more intimately than
ever before.
To think that your love has come to me !' she said. 'Why?
why ?'
Could it possibly have been otherwise ?' he asked.
A smile of extraordinary happiness lengthened and uncurled
the beautiful curve of her lips.
What nonsense!'
'No, not possibly,' she said.
Faint and far-away to her at that moment was all else,
that life in which he had no part, all that was symbolized
to her in her solitary meditations. Could this moment have
been lengthened out, just as it was, to the end of her life, she
would never have tired of it. Never before had the human
relationship, the absorption of self in another, been so con-
summate to her. And had he at this moment asked her to
give up all her life that was secret from him, to lead with him
but the simple, human, loving life, free from all that was to
him fantastic and even dangerous, yet that was to her so
intensely real, it is probable she would have consented, and
perhaps might never have regretted her yielding or wished
to recall her consent. But he was in honour bound not
to interfere with that, not to raise a meddling finger in its
direction, and was silent.
Then this perfect chord of passion, certain but unfulfilled,
resolved itself, and by gradations they descended to the
affairs of the day. Henderson's lecture was mentioned; their
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215
plans for the evening were on the tapis when the clock on her
mantelpiece chimed six. At that he rose.
'I must go now,' he said, taking the initiative on himself.
'I have- and his voice faltered almost into a laugh—' I
have things to do. I am always very busy at six in the
evening, Ida, and you must not ask me to wait.'
She appreciated that, and laughed also.
You absolute angel!' she said.
And it is quite true: I
know you have, and I will not even wish to keep you. Is not
that generous of me? So go away.'
A footman at this moment entered.
Mr. Henderson wants to know if you will see him, miss,'
he said.
Ida's smile faded; a look of intense and concentrated
thought took its place.
Yes; ask him to come up,' she said.
Then she turned to her lover.
'I trust you, dear, as utterly as that,' she said.
It was a moment before her meaning dawned on him,
before he understood that, while he was being sent away and
Henderson received in his stead, she knew that the absolute
liberty which he had given her with regard to her inner life
would not now be infringed by him even in thought. This
was her secret hour, and whether she passed it alone, or with
Abdul, or with Henderson, or with whomsoever she chose,
it was as little his affair as what was going on in the house
opposite. Yet, generous as he was, and utterly as he had
intended, and intended still, that she should take him at his
word in this, it was scarcely humanly possible that he should
not be conscious of a taste of bitterness. But as far as was
humanly possible he let no hint of this appear.
'Thank you, dear,' he said simply. I will not abuse your
trust. I will go, then, and I shall be back at a quarter to
eight for dinner."
At this moment Henderson's step sounded on the threshold,
and the two men-the one coming in, the other going out-met
at the door. And Jack did not fail in completeness even
when he was to leave them together, but held out his hand to
the other with perfect frankness. He did not think he could
quite manage a smile, and so did not attempt to nail one un-
willingly to his face.
'Good-evening,' he said. 'I am just off. May I congratulate
you on the great success of your lecture? Ida can talk of nothing
else, nor Mrs. Desmond. At a quarter to eight, then, Ida !'
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It was not until he had got out into the square again that
he knew what an immense effort that moment of decent
behaviour had been to him, yet even then he was more than
half disposed to blame himself for finding that any effort at
all had been necessary. But as he crossed the square he
looked back at the house, and saw at this moment the curtain
being drawn in Ida's room, where she was alone with Hender-
son. And at that his effort to be decent, as he would have
put it, was no longer of any avail; he raged inwardly, and
something as bitter and black as jealousy shot up in his heart.
It had been bad enough before to know that he himself was
sent away, while Abdul was admitted to be alone with her in
that little inner room in which he himself had never set foot;
but Jack could scarcely have loved her as hungrily and wholly
as he did if he had not stormed within himself at the thought
of Henderson also sharing her consecrated hour. What on
earth did it all mean, this shutting of herself up, not alone,
for that would have seemed to him, somehow, a beautiful and
a suitable thing, but now with a mysterious Arab, now with
a scarcely less mysterious traveller, who took her voyaging in
regions more dark than the heart of the desert from which he
had just returned? Then, with a renewed effort, he pulled his
runaway thoughts up on their haunches, for he saw suddenly
the signpost, so to speak, past which they were bolting, and
on it was written 'Jealousy.' And to allow himself to pursue
that road implied uglier things than he cared to think about.
But to turn and whip them back again was no easy thing.
Ida meantime had established Henderson in a chair. The
meeting of him and Jack at the door had a little disconcerted
her, for she had not expected he would be so terribly punctual.
But she did not in the least blame herself for not having told
her lover whom she had asked to come and see her. By his
consent this was her own hour.
And first of all I want to thank you for yesterday,' she
said. 'You helped me immensely. You gave me help of
which I stood terribly in need: I did not know how much I
needed it till you pointed it out to us all.'
He did not affect not to know what she meant, for he had
spoken very directly to her out of all the audience, using, too,
the words she had told him she had just heard in séance from
her father's spirit.
'I am more glad that I can tell you,' he said. 'And you
have determined to be afraid no longer ?'
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
217
'Yes; I have been afraid too long,' she said. Indeed, a
minute is too long to be afraid.'
She sat down opposite him.
So I ask you to help me not to be afraid,' she said, 'and
to help me to go further-further than Abdul would wish me
to go. I feel that I have stuck, if you know what I mean
I am not progressing.'
Ah, there is a difficulty, then, about Abdul ?' said Hen-
derson.
There would be if he knew; but I do not intend he shall
know, until I can prove to him that his fears about certain
things—all that he classes, in fact, as being Black Magic-
are groundless."
She shivered for a moment, drawing a little closer to the
fire.
When I think of all I have needlessly suffered since last
March,' she said, 'I am ashamed. I was afraid where no
fear was.
A dreadful spirit was loose, but as you tell me,
and as I believe, it is powerless; it cannot conceivably hurt
me.'
'Not conceivably.'
Ida got up and began walking quietly to and fro.
Now, I owe a great deal to Abdul,' she said. I owe him
a debt for his love and his care and his teaching which I can
never repay. But I must go further: I must get into closer
relations with my father. As you once said, perhaps he
needs me, perhaps he is longing for a closer intercourse.
And I long for it, too, and you have convinced me that,
since there is nothing wrong, as I used to think, in the
longing, there can be nothing wrong in the fulfilment of it.
I ask you to help me to get it.'
Henderson suddenly felt a secret pang of intimate delight
at the way things were going. To say that he wrote his
lecture with the sole object of bringing himself into closer
relations with Ida would be beyond the mark, but it is not
overstating the case to say that this purpose lay behind every
line he wrote. She was truly sorry for him at the answer
she had been obliged to make when he offered her his love,
but she was deeply grateful to him for what he had already
done for her, and in this pursuit of occult things she now
asked him to help her further. She treated him as a friend,
for a girl like her could never ask a favour from one she did
not regard in this light. He knew, also, how vital a part of
her life was the study of things unseen, and that her lover
218
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
had no part in that, and therefore could fill at the most only
half her life. And into the other half she already beckoned
himself it would be strange if he could not make himself as
essential to her there as was the need of water or air to her
corporeal existence. Already, too, as he had seen, his words
and his thoughts had weight with her: he inspired her, in-
spired, too, the more spiritual part of her nature, and she
asked him to minister to her spiritual needs. And at these
thoughts his eye kindled as he looked at her, and his love for
her for love it was, though springing originally from the
mere desire of annexation-suddenly thrilled and sang aloud
in him.
She saw that, and took a step back from him, and with
the quickness and intuition that was his, he read that in-
voluntary recoil, slight as it was, aright, and almost by a
stroke of genius, bold, hazardous even, but supreme in its
success, turned the dry rock of her shrinking into a fresh
spring of pity.
And you must not be afraid of me, either,' he said, 'for
I will do my best always, and I assure you I have a certain
amount of self-control to serve you-how shall I say it?—
quite impersonally. Only if, as just now, you see that to
serve you is the greatest happiness that can now befall me,
if for a moment I cannot help letting you see that, you must
bear with it, and try not to mind it. I know myself pretty
well, and you need not fear that you will often have to bear
that it will never come to words even. I shall never make
any appeal.'
Ida was a great deal moved; his behaviour was so ex-
quisitely thought out that it had the authentic ring of spon-
taneousness; the art was so flawless that it appeared to be
perfectly natural.
Ah, Mr. Henderson,' she said, 'I am so sorry—I am so
truly sorry.'
Thank you,' said he.
He paused a moment, and decided quickly and rightly not
to thrum the string of pity any more.
'And now about Abdul,' he said. 'It will, I suppose, be
difficult for me to give you séances here, since you wish, and
I think quite rightly, to keep him ignorant of what you are
going to do.'
Ida suddenly clasped her hands. Though for the last four-
and-twenty hours her decision had really been made, still,
it was momentous, and she was now taking the plunge.
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
219
'I wonder if I am doing right,' she exclaimed:
Again Henderson took his cue with absolute precision. It
would never do to urge ber.
(
That you must decide entirely for yourself,' he said.
Shall I tell him that I am going farther than he cares to
lead me ?' she asked.
Going," he will say, "in another
direction ?" ·
Henderson considered, this.
'I will tell you exactly what I think,' he said. 'It is this:
I do not think we ought ever to put obstacles in the way of
our convictions. You conviction is that it is right for you
to go forward. Pers ally, then, I should not tell him: he
will, no doubt, try + dissuade you; he may even unsettle
the conviction which you solemnly believe to be right. You
tell me so, at least.
Ida was silent a roment.
'Yes, I do,' she id. Well?'
'As you know,' said he, I am going to give a series of
séances. Will you come to them? You will see things
there, I hope, that go further than Abdul cares to lead you.'
She shook her head.
'I can't,' she said. 'It seems to me so dreadful, when my
father is what he is to me, to sit round with other people who
could hear what we said to each other. Or if he appeared,
that others, strangers, should see him. I could not talk to
him with a room full of people.'
She paused, but Henderson made no answer, for from the
tactical point of view it was so infinitely better that the
suggestion which might be made should be made by her, not
him. Then she raised her eyes and looked at him.
Is it too m ich to ask you if you would give me a private
séance now an then?' she said. 'No foolish ideas about what
is conventiona y possible or what is not seem to me to matter
in the least ven we are both seekers, both in earnest, and
when we both iesire nothing but to go further in these things.'
Hendersor could hardly help giving a little sigh of satisfac-
He h scarcely dared to hope that things would go
as smoothly_s this.
tion:
'That is the plan I should have proposed myself if I had
ventured to do so,' he said; I am very glad you suggested
it. I quite agree with you about the well, almost the
indecency of seeing those whom one has loved, or even hearing
them, in the presence of strangers. And, as you say, what
does convention matter ?'
220
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
His tone was completely frank; there was absolutely no
au-dessous that could be detected, nor, even had there been,
was Ida inclined to be on a detective errand. And she went
on quite simply, but her simplicity, had Mrs. Desmond heard
it, would have made her think that those long autumn visits
had been, as far as effect went, thrown into the sea. She
might as well have taken a cottage in the country and lived
there alone with Abdul. All the natural unconventionality
of woman and man before the spoiled life of cities and com-
munities had interfered with it was there. In front of her
real needs, her real life, all considerat. ns of other kinds, all
sidelights, all the unimportant things hich are nevertheless
necessary to life as it has to be lived, va ished. And Hender-
son knew that; no one was quicker at e exigences and pro-
prieties than he, yet he, to further his vn case, allowed her
to propose what he knew he had no busi ess to permit. But
he was not the sort of man who lets sc iples on account of
others interfere with his own designs.
t
'So I will come to your flat,' she said, 'for that is the
simplest plan, if you will be so kind as to give me some séances
there, just you and your medium-Mohanimed, is he not ?-
who was there in the temple.'
She stopped a moment, some sudden back-wash of recol-
lected horror just touching her. Then for a second Mrs.
Desmond would have not wholly despaired:
'Perhaps my aunt had better come with me,' she said.
'Yet I am doubtful, even after your lecture, if I could per-
suade her to. May I bring Beatrice Montague? Have you
met her? She is a great friend of mine.'
Again the very archfiend of ingenuity whispered in Hender-
son's ear.
Brig
'By all means,' he said cordially. Bri g her, by all
means. Is she in sympathy with you? I onl ask for infor-
mation. I don't think I have had the pleas e of meeting
Miss Miss Montague.'
This had exactly the effect he anticipated.
in fact, do other than reply in the way he wishe
ne could not,
'You mean that the presence of anybody no sympathetic
is likely to interfere with the completeness of what we attain ?'
asked Ida.
Henderson laughed, perfectly naturally.
'You know the séance as well as I,' he said, 'and how the
presence of unsympathetic people always interferes with its
success. I'm afraid I can't remedy that. But we will do
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
221
our best. Pray come, then, with Miss Montague. When
may I expect you?'
Ida's mind had already changed; and though there was
no hint in Henderson's tone that he thought her scruple weak
or unworthy, she looked her own concession to convention-
ality in the face and condemned it. She and he, as he had
said, were both seekers after truth; their private position
had been explained between them, and did not enter at all
into the question of the séance. Furthermore, she trusted
him.
'I am stupid,' she said.
'I will come alone. Let it be
I know you are very much occupied, but whenever
you are free for an hour that will suit me.
soon.
Again a perfectly matter-of-fact manner served him best.
To-morrow, then,' he said. 'I shall be free, since you
consult my convenience, which I really do not want you to
do, at four.'
Four, then,' she said. And, Mr. Henderson, one thing
more. You have brought Mohammed over here—it is an
expense. Pray let me share it. In fact, I must.
In fact, I must. I am going
to take advantage, thanks to your kindness, of your outlay.
Please promise me to charge me the fair amount. You must
let me pay, in fact, what you would naturally receive from a
séance at which four or six, or whatever your usual number
is, were present.'
He hesitated a moment, quite honestly, and his answer was
honest.
'I don't think I can,' he said.
'Please. For indeed I can take advantage of your kind-
ness on no other terms. Besides, it is only reasonable.'
Yes, then,' he said. 'And, do you know, it cost me some-
thing to promise you that. I don't like taking money from
you.
'I am sorry. But I feel sure about it.
I should be receiving yours if I did not pay.'
Henderson got up.
For on my side
You want now to be alone,' he said, and I will go. I
shall expect you to-morrow at four, with Mrs. Desmond or
with Miss Montague, or with anyone you choose to bring, or
alone. In any case, you will come, and give me the very great
pleasure of being of some service to you. Good-bye.'
Henderson walked quickly back the two or three hundred
yards that lay between this house and his flat in Davies
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Street, paused for a moment at a telegraph-office to excuse
himself on the plea of ill-health from a dinner invitation that
evening, and then, shutting himself into his bedroom, lay
down on his bed and thought. He felt he could not possibly
go and chatter at a crowd, for, though he had very fair control
over himself, he felt it altogether beyond him to make his
mind go scouring over the topics of a dinner-table when it
was filled to overflowing with just one thing, which he must
think solely about. Thought with him was no vague and
dreamy musing over the past, nor as regards the future any
fabricless cloud-building, which a puff of air might shatter
or upset; his thought was firm in construction, and his plans
and projections for the future were based solidly on the foun-
dation of the past and the data of the present. He did not
believe in accident or coincidences, scarcely even in luck.
What happened in this world, he put it, was due to definite
causes which might or might not be in his control. With
those that were not in his control he had nothing to do, and
he did not waste a moment's thought over them with those
that were in his control, however, he had everything to do:
the responsibility for the effects that could be produced with
them was his-they were reliable tools if only he used them
properly. And his thoughts now were very busy with the
uses to which he could put them. But these uses seemed to
require a great deal of contemplation.
But lying there with hands clasped behind his head and
eyes fixed unseeingly on the ceiling, his firm, well-constructed
building rose with surprising speed. Firm was the foundation
of it—namely, his knowledge of the tremendous reality to
Ida of the spiritual, the occult part of her life: on that he
felt he could safely build, and no superstructure based on
that could totter or tumble. She stifled without it ; even the
dim shade in which, according to his view, she was still groping,
led by the purblind Abdul, was to her the sun and air and
wine of her existence. That there were perhaps brightnesses
and glories transcending these twilights, even as the noonday
outshines the faint filtering of stars through night-mists, she
had begun to guess, and she had come to him to lead her out
into the clearer light, to be the disperser of shadows and her
guide into the day. And if her twilight was so real and
essential to her, how vital, how commensurate with life
itself, would be the brighter places into which he believed he
could take her! And-here he began to build-just as
nothing in life could be so real to her as that which he would
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
223
show her, so no one in life could be more real to her than
himself.
So far he was building firmly then for a moment, since
his whole being and all that he knew of love desired her so
passionately-for a moment he let his thoughts flame high.
However real her love for Jack Carbery was, she must know
soon how he missed completeness, how he missed everything
that her soul really valued. It was less than half a life that
was the most she could share with him: it was hollow-with-
out inwardness, just the ordinary human intercourse with the
fine, simple fellow whom everybody liked. That could not be
her future. It was for him, Henderson, to teach her that, not
showing that he taught her, but making her draw the lesson
for herself. Indeed, she could not help drawing it; the
fact would grow gradually closer and closer to her till she
could not avoid seeing it.
Then his thoughts dropped down again; dropped, indeed,
to a very low level-one, in fact, that is only justified by that
mean and grovelling proverb that says that in love all is
fair. He would detach her, then, from Carbery by making
himself essential to herself; and he would also detach Carbery
from her. That was easy; it was as easy as lying—indeed, it
rather resembled lying and other things of that nature. Ida
would come here to-morrow, and he thought the chances
were that she would come alone. It would be his fault if
she did not come again and again. It would be his fault, too,
if Jack, gradually, but with ever-deepening certainty, did
not ponder conclusions about this. Already this afternoon
he had been sent out, while Henderson was admitted, and
the latter had seen very clearly that his parting cordiality
was an effort to him. Next time it would be harder; the
time after that it, perhaps, would be no longer possible. And
here the very guilelessness of Ida helped him : she would see
her lover's uneasiness, she would certainly guess its cause,
and there was nothing in the world so likely to make righteous
indignation red-hot as that. He himself meantime would
have been making himself necessary, he might almost say, to
Ida's life, so that she could no longer give up the solitary
séances with him, to which Jack Carbery would so justly
object. And at that moment, long delayed it might be, but
certainly coming, he would offer himself to her again.
He shifted his position slightly on his bed at the conclusion
of this piece of reasoning, and turned, so to speak, to ways
and means.
His head had got hot with thought, the blood
224
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
throbbed and beat through the arteries of his temples, and
his hands and feet felt cold. But to resume.
The great
point for him now was to make himself essential to Ida, to
establish a strong influence over her. Here his science was
again ready to help him; she was going to sit with him in
séance. There were a hundred ways of establishing this
influence; but of all, if he could persuade her to let him
hypnotize her. .
Henderson sat up suddenly; the idea was so simple, though
till that moment it had not occurred to him, so much the
readiest method of gaining the influence he sought. He knew
that she trusted him-her suggestion that she should come to
the séances at his flat showed that; and, as both he and she
knew, communications from the spirit-world of a very inti-
mate kind are sometimes conveyed by the medium to another
in hypnotic sleep. At the same time, and most conveniently, it
was by inducing the hypnotic state in her that his influence over
her would be most quickly and predominatingly established.
He got up and went into his sitting-room, where, with
head bent and slow, silent steps, he walked up and down, still
thinking intently. His policy seemed simple, and promised
success, and for that reason he went over it again minutely,
considering at each step what possible failure there might be,
what possible danger threatened it. True, she might refuse
to be hypnotized; true, also, the whole thing might fail: he
might simply not succeed in detaching her from her lover or
in attaching her to himself. But it was not for this, the
possible total failure, that he looked, it was for points where
other agencies might intervene and rob him of what, in this
fierce, savage mood that was now on him, he felt that he re-
garded as his prey. One such immediately occurred to him-
namely, Abdul. At present, as far as he knew, Abdul shared
his mistress's gratitude to him, but how would it be when
Abdul found out that Ida came to him no more for instruc-
tion and for help in communicating with the beloved dead?
Yes, he had to reckon with the possible enmity of Abdul.
Yet how could Abdul touch him or interfere with him?
By preventing Ida from coming to him? It was his business,
then, to make such attempted prevention fruitless. In any
case, however, it would probably be some little time before
Abdul found out what was going on: it was important, there-
fore, that he should establish his influence over Ida as soon
as possible.
But what, again, if the whole plan failed, if he simply did
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
225
not succeed in establishing an influence over her, if she did
not let him hypnotize her, and while grateful for his help, yet
kept him at arm's length? Was there not, then, something
else, some further power to evoke, something dark and smiling
and angry, as Mohammed said, which he could call to help
him, and which already had established itself in the secret
place of her soul? But that thought, to do him justice, but
crossed his mind to be dismissed again, and he did not seriously
contemplate this further possibility. Still, it had crossed his
mind; he had consciously wondered, before he put it away
again, if it would come to that. But his rejection of it was
at present instantaneous, for in his way, according to the law
and habit of his nature, he loved her, hungrily, savagely, it
might be, but still he loved her. And how savage and im-
perious his love, if disappointed, might become he did not at
present consider or calculate. He only knew that it was as
strong as life, and therefore stronger than death.
15
CHAPTER XV
ABOUT four days after this Beatrice Montague was walking
down Oxford Street with her cousin Leonard. They had
met by accident at the corner by the Marble Arch, and found
that they both were bound for the same destination—namely,
Mrs. Desmond's house in Berkeley Square. It was a day of
brilliant primrose-coloured sunshine; both evidently were
intending to walk, but Leonard looked nervously round as
they directed their steps eastwards.
'I hope nobody will see me,' he said, ' and that those who
do will know I am your cousin. It is dreadfully compromising
for me to be seen dangling about Oxford Street with youth and
beauty instead of being glued to a microscope in a laboratory,
or sitting by the bedside of suffering. So tell me if you see
anyone I know, Beatrice, and kindly drop behind.'
Beatrice was apparently in a not very serene temper, for
she did not even smile.
'Go the other side of the street, then,' she said.
Leonard looked at her quickly; it was his business to
detect symptoms, and something in her tone told him that
she was worried. So he dropped his little joke and spoke
seriously.
'I will when you have told me what is the matter,' he said.
He had apparently guessed right.
I can't shout secrets in Oxford Street,' said she.
No, my dear cousin, don't shout them. Tell me them
quietly, if you think I can be of any use. Of course if it is
private, or I can't help, we'll talk about something else.'
Beatrice, as a matter of fact, had for the last two days
been longing for a confidant, but had felt unable to make a
start. Leonard, however, had now given her the impetus
required. Things had occurred that had really rather upset
her, and the feminine joy of ordering Ida's trousseau had
been quite unable to cheer her up: she had gone about that
226
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227
entrancing business with a heavy heart which the most
delicious things in silk had been powerless to lighten.
(
'Leonard, you are intelligent, aren't you?' she asked.
Yes, almost oppressively so,' said he.
Well, then, exercise your intelligence. I don't know what
to do, and I don't know whom to tell, or really even what to
tell. I don't want to tell Mrs. Desmond, you see, because
I am her friend. And yet I must tell somebody.'
Leonard's oppressive intelligence easily pierced through this
grammatical slip.
(
Miss Ida's friend, you mean ?' he asked.
Yes, of course, I said so. But Ida really has been so
odd the last few days. She has been taking the brougham
and going on mysterious errands. Twice yesterday and the
day before I went to see her on really important matters-
dress, you understand and both times she suddenly inter-
rupted the most crucial conversations and said she had to go
out. Naturally, I asked her where she was going. She would
not tell me!'
Is that all?' asked Leonard.
Is that not enough ? Men are different: they go to clubs
or anything, and even the most secretive men will tell their
friends-their intimate friends-where they are going. But
with a girl! Girls don't go out on mysterious errands. They
haven't got any.'
Leonard had nothing at this moment to suggest, and they
walked on a little way in silence.
'There is something queer about it all,' continued Beatrice,
finding it a relief to talk; ' and I can't bear the atmosphere
of queerness. It makes me jumpy and injures my digestion.
Ida, too! And Abdul knows there is something queer; I can
see that. Yesterday as Ida went out he was, as usual, sitting in
the passage by her room, and he gave her a long look that
was the most dreadful mixture of pity and entreaty and fear.'
'Ask Abdul, then,' said Leonard, feeling rather serious in
spite of himself, for the atmosphere of 'queerness' spreads
in the most rapid manner.
'Ah, but he doesn't know, for he asked me this morning
where she was going every day. He wants to know himself.'
And Miss Ida ?" asked Leonard. 'Does she look as if
she had some-some secret ?'
(
'She is perfectly radiant,' said Beatrice. Whatever it is,
it makes her extraordinarily happy. Yet somehow, though I
suppose that ought to reassure me, it doesn't.'
15-2
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Leonard was siezed with a sudden thought.
'She is very unconventional, you know,' he said, and I
hazard a guess. She meets Jack somewhere, and they have
nice little times. But Jack has no business to do that,' he
added. 'All the same, I sympathize with him.'
Beatrice directed a pitying gaze at her intelligent cousin.
No wonder he found his intelligence oppressive, if this was a
fair specimen of the fruit it bore.
'I think that is the worst guess I ever heard,' she said.
Have you seen Mr. Carbery lately?'
'No, not for a week. Why?'
'Because I am sure he knows something, and won't say.
He's too loyal for that. But the knowledge does not make
him very happy. No, you must think of something better
than that. Besides, what you suggest is so utterly uncharac-
teristic of Ida.'
The two had passed out of Oxford Street into Davies Street.
They walked quickly, for, despite the enchantment of the sun,
there was still a nip in the air, reminding loiterers that summer
was not yet. This street was rather empty of passengers,
and the houses were sunning themselves indolently under
these primrose beams of spring. Close to the corner where
Grosvenor Street crosses Davies Street there was drawn up an
electric brougham, which for some reason rather attracted
Beatrice's attention; for though one electric brougham is very
like another when seen at the distance of twenty yards, this
one had something vaguely familiar about it, though exactly
what suggested familiarity to her she would have found it
impossible to say. But while still she idly wondered about it
the door of the house opposite to where it was drawn up was
opened, and a girl came quickly across the pavement, said
one word to the chauffeur, and stepped in without seeing
them. She, at any rate, was unmistakable to both of them.
They both stopped and looked at each other. Then, still
in silence, Beatrice moved on. As they passed the house she
looked up at it: there was a saddlery shop below; the windows
above were large, with plate-glass in them, and without ques-
tion she dismissed the saddlery shop from her thoughts,
feeling certain that this meeting was the clue to her own
uneasiness. Once she opened her lips to speak to her com-
panion, but no words came. The second attempt was more
successful, and the words got blurted out.
'Do you happen to know who lives there?' she asked,
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
229
Leonard struck the pavement for a stride or two with the
end of his stick. It seemed to him also that the mystery of
Ida's secret errands was solved beyond any question.
'Yes, it so happens that I do,' he said.
Not till that moment did Beatrice know how very definite
her suspicions had been.
'Tell me who it is,' she said, feeling certain what the
answer would be.
And the answer was exactly what she knew it must be.
They walked on again in silence. Then Beatrice spoke
again with singular conviction.
I can't bear that man,' she said.
Then her voice changed. She spoke in a tone of dreadful
alarm.
And what is Ida doing there ?' she asked. Oh, I know
there is something terrible coming. And it is her guileless-
ness, her utter trustfulness, which is so dangerous. She
cannot believe that there is a heart in the world that is less
white than hers. And if she knew more she would know
there is not one so white.'
Yet I have seen fear in her face,' said Leonard. 'Now,
tell me what on earth has she to fear?'
:
'Mr. Henderson,' said Beatrice shortly.
Then she broke out.
It is all this dreadful spiritualistic business,' she said.
I hate the very name of it. She leads an inward life of which
we have no conception. Abdul shares it with her; him I
trust. I hate black men, but somehow I trust him. Mr.
Henderson shares it with her. Him I don't trust one inch,
and I detest him. I think I have always detested him,
though perhaps without knowing it. Now I know it, and Í
know why, too. Ida there alone! Oh, there is some dreadful
wickedness astir !'
They had come to the north end of Berkeley Square, and the
well-established, prosperous-looking house, with its whitened
doorstep, its shining windows, the polished brass of its knocker
and door-handle, its whole air of comfortable, rather material-
istic serenity, was close to them. Here Leonard paused.
'It concerns one person more than the whole of the rest
of the world,' he said. 'She has been there alone: there
is no doubt of that.'
You don't mean that you are going to tell Jack Carbery?'
she asked.
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Leonard's intelligent face was dark with thought.
'I think I must,' he said. As you and I know, Miss Ida
is whiter than the driven snow; no man or woman could look
in her face and doubt that. And the last person who could
doubt it is he. But she is doing, from her very whiteness,
dangerous things. To play with fire burns a baby at the
breast, just as it may burn anybody else. He must see to
that: he must take the baby away or take the fire away.
You must see that this cannot possibly go on. Yes, I must
tell him.'
6
Beatrice turned to him quickly.
No, you must not do that,' she said.
How not? How can I call himself my friend and not tell
him ?'
There was an inexorable logic about this which forced itself
on her.
'Let me see Ida, then, first,' said she; 'let me tell her what
we have seen. Perhaps perhaps there is something we
don't know.'
(
(
That, of course, is so,' said he. There must be some-
thing we don't know, some-some astounding piece of inno-
cence on her part that allows her to go there. But I, too,
have been to that house: I have seen and heard things there
that I believe to be of the devil.'
Beatrice looked round as if for reassurance on the roomy
windy square, the utterly prosaic houses, the commonplace
English ugliness of the street up which they had passed.
Davies Street, Berkeley Square, London,' she said, half
to herself.
'Yes. But you are right.
See Miss Ida first: tell her you
think Jack ought to know. Most likely she will want to tell
him herself. I am sure she will,' he added.
They walked on again towards the house.
'Tell her this afternoon if you get an opportunity,' he said
as he rang the bell.
(
Are you coming in ?' she asked.
Yes; I want to see her. That will drive the conviction
home of how utterly innocent she is.'
Beatrice turned from him with a gesture almost of disgust.
Fancy wanting that!' she exclaimed.
'I don't really want it,' said he. But it would be a little
more comfortable.'
Certainly, whatever the cause might be, Ida this afternoon
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
231
was radiant. Usually she was not very talkative, but to-day,
as she welcomed her two friends, she was full of happy talk
that bubbled from her lips as naturally as cool, wholesome
water bubbles out of some fern-fringed hollow in rocks; and
if Leonard wanted a little reassuring, the sight of her alone
would have reassured the most gloomy sceptic. She had got
in but a few minutes before them, and she still had on a hat
that even Beatrice, who as a rule thought nothing was good
enough for her, honoured with approval.
Ah, you dears!' she said impartially, holding out a hand
to each; ' and have you come here together? Bee, I have
done none of those things I ought to have done, because I
haven't been near a dressmaker all day, when I had faithfully
promised you to spend my entire time there. And I don't
think I am even penitent, because I couldn't help myself.
Why, there was sunshine! Who could spend a morning at
a dressmaker's when the whole park was a yellow bath of it?
And the snowdrops are coming up, weak little white things
streaked with green. But each said that spring was coming.
I listened to them for an hour, and they talked to me quite
confidentially. Tea?'
'But I really don't think I have done much to-day that I
ought not to have done,' she went on. 'That is a dangerous
thing to say, is it not? My astral body may have been eating
peas with a knife. But you don't believe in astral bodies,
do you, Mr. Compton? How foolish of you! The more
you believe in, the more anchors you have, in case one drags.'
Beatrice drew her friend a little aside, interrupting this
surprising nonsense.
Ida, you are a beast!' she said. 'Here am I burning
midnight oil, so to speak, on your gowns, and you don't even
go to try them on!'
Ah, that spoils them,' said Ida. 'I can't try on an oily
gown. You must order me some new ones.
So I shall get
a few more holidays while they are being cut out.'
Anyhow, you shan't defend yourself by a quibble like
that,' said Beatrice. The looms of London wait for you. I
grant the morning to the snowdrops, but the afternoon, Ida ?'
Ida's face suddenly congealed: the happiness that bubbled
and overflowed from it was suddenly stricken to ice.
'I was busy this afternoon, too,' she said.
Horrors?' asked Beatrice, this being the accepted word
between them for the inclusion of all that was occult.
Yes, to be frank, horrors.'
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
But it must be supposed that the memory of these same
'horrors' was not so horrible, for again, like the sun coming
out of a cloud, the former radiance was hers.
'Or you may call them happiness: they both begin with
“h”
she said. By the way, has not Jack come yet? I
haven't seen him since-since-
'Since this morning ?' suggested Beatrice.
'No, before that-since yesterday. Oh, Bee, I know Jack
has something on his mind. I wonder what it is. I feel such
a brute to be so happy when there is the least cloud about.
But I know he has a cloud somewhere.'
Perhaps he hasn't seen enough of you lately,' suggested
Beatrice. Perhaps you have been too occupied to satisfy
him.'
Again there was a congelation.
What do you mean ?' asked Ida.
shut the door, Mr. Leonard ?'
Yes, would you kindly
Here was the opportunity, and as Leonard crossed the
room, 'I want to talk to you,' said Beatrice.
'I really
have something to say-not clothes. It concerns you.'
This passed almost in a whisper.
'Me-me myself?' asked Ida.
'Yes.'
Ida rose; there was a fresh arrival or two to greet, for tea-
time was generally populous with chance guests at Mrs. Des-
mond's house; but as she rose she spoke quickly over her
shoulder.
'Yes, if you can wait half an hour, I will come upstairs
and talk to you,' she said.
Music, though of no very formal kind, was the sequel of
this tea-party, and after the guests had refreshed their
bodily needs in the smaller drawing-room, Mrs. Desmond, who
appeared rather late, manœuvred them out into the larger to
hear a pianist who happened to be among the guests. This
was a suitable opportunity for Ida to make her exit with
Beatrice, and as the tea-room grew clear they slipped quietly
away upstairs. Ida said nothing on the way up, nor did she
speak until the door of the sitting-room had closed behind
them.
'Now, dear Bee, what is it?' she asked, smiling.
Beatrice hesitated a moment: before that radiant white
beauty she felt as if there was something coarse even in the
mere suggestion that Ida's interviews with Henderson were
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233
not, to say the least of it, wise. Yet it had to be said: it
was not fair to Ida herself that she should remain ignorant of,
or, if not ignorant, should without reflection disregard, so
elementary a convention as that which ordains that a girl
should not pay unaccompanied calls to the flat of a bachelor.
Yet she hesitated.
Oh, Ida,' she said, 'it is only because I am so fond of
you, and because you are so unspotted by the world, that I
speak to you. I hate doing it, and yet I can't help doing it :
I should be wrong not to. But to-day Leonard and I saw
you coming out of Mr. Henderson's flat alone; others may see
you-others, perhaps, have seen you. It is impossible, that
sort of thing-quite impossible.'
Ida looked at her gravely for a moment; then an amused
smile dawned on her face.
!
Dear me is it as bad as that?' she asked. 'Have I been
doing something quite awful?'
Yes, quite,' said Beatrice earnestly; ' and Jack, too—'
Ida's smile of amusement died away.
Ah, now you are talking seriously,' she said. 'Does
Jack know, do you think, that I go there alone ?'
This time it was Beatrice's turn to smile.
How on earth could he, and not remonstrate with you?'
she said. 'Oh, you are such a child!'
Ida did not attend to this involuntary criticism.
'I shall certainly tell him, then,' she said, though it never
occurred to me before. You see, I go to see Mr. Henderson
on certain subjects which concern me very deeply, with which
Jack, by his own choice, has nothing to do. But with regard
to them he gave me perfect liberty of action, and he gave it,
I know, with no reservation: it would be an insult to him if
I supposed that.'
She paused a moment.
I am perfectly willing to tell everybody,' she said. 'I
am not ashamed of what I am doing in the least, but to have
tried to keep it secret like this ineffectually, too-was
foolish. It was stupid of me to imagine I could keep it secret.
So I will tell everybody-ah, everybody but Abdul,' she added.
Here was that beautiful innocence of Ida's rushing into
the other impossible extreme. To tell everybody' was as
bad as doing it at all. Jack Carbery, Beatrice argued, ought
to know, but it concerned nobody else in at all the same way
as it concerned him. For the moment, however, she picked
up the last thread.
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<
Why not Abdul?' she asked.
Because I think Abdul would kill Mr. Henderson if he
knew what has happened. Whatever happens, he must not
know.'
Ida's eyes brightened. The old radiance dawned again in
them.
'I see my father now when I wish,' she said. 'I feel the
touch of his hand and of his kiss. It is so real to me that the
rest of the world, all but one thing, Jack's love, is dim and
dream-like in comparison. And Abdul thinks that all that
is Black Magic. He is wrong, I feel sure, but I feel equally
sure that I could never convince him.'
But how? What do you mean ?' asked Beatrice, with a
feeling of fascinated abhorrence.
'I mean exactly what I say. Mr. Henderson hypnotizes
me, and though to all appearance I look as if I was asleep, yet
it seems to me that in that state alone I am really awake.
The falling asleep comes afterwards, when you would say that
I awoke.'
Beatrice wrung her hands in a sort of despair.
'I don't understand about these things,' she said, 'and
you do. But do you not put yourself into his power, Ida,
when you do this? That is horrible. It is out of the ques-
tion you must not.'
Ida shook her head.
'Yes, I put myself in his power. Why not? He is my
friend, and I owe him a debt so great that to the end of eternity
I can never pay it. And never in my life have I been so happy,
so near to the unseen presences.'
(
Ah, I don't trust him,' cried Beatrice. 'He must know
how utterly out of the question it is that you should go to his
rooms like this. Yet he permits it. That is not a manly
thing to do; it is an abuse of his power. How can you trust
a man who does that, or say that he is your friend?'
'Ah, that is not so,' said Ida quietly, but looking very
grave. I suggested, before he ever hypnotized me, that I
should go to his rooms. That was entirely my own doing.'
He should not have consented to that, either,' said
Beatrice. 'To your innocence there was nothing wrong.
But he knew—
Ida was silent a moment.
I must remind you that Mr. Henderson is my friend, dear
Bee,' she said. 'He is, perhaps, the most unselfish, self-
sinking friend I have ever had. You must not speak of him
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235
to me like that. And you must not again say, as you said
just now, that he cannot be my friend. You do not know.'
There was a short pause, and Beatrice felt that it was
vain to rage against this firm, quiet gentleness of Ida's.
After a moment the latter spoke again.
'I will certainly tell Jack,' she said; and I gather that
you don't recommend my telling anybody else. That is
the right thing to do, you think? I will send for Jack and
tell him now. Or perhaps, Beatrice, if you are going down-
stairs, you would ask him to come up and speak to me.
want to put this right as quickly as possible.'
Beatrice got up and clung to Ida a moment.
I
Ah, do remember how I love you,' she said—' how we all
love you.'
Neither Ida's smile nor her serenity deserted her as, after
kissing Beatrice and seeing her go downstairs, she waited in her
room for her lover. She did not in the least fear or dislike
telling him : now that it had been pointed out to her that she
ought to do it, it seemed to her clearly the natural thing to
do. It was not long before he came, but, even as Ida had
said, there was a cloud on him.
Jack dear,' she said, without introduction of any kind,
'I have sent for you in order to confess to you.
Beatrice tells me I have a confession to make.
taken her word for it.'
At least,
So I have
He smiled, but the smile certainly came from behind the
cloud.
How terrible!' he said. 'Well?'
But suddenly Ida, who had thought this would all be so
easy, so straightforward, found it hard to get on. She
paused, fingering the buttons of his coat: it needed that she
made a call on her courage.
But of that she had plenty.
I have to tell you that I constantly go to see Mr. Hender-
son,' she began.
Jack withdrew a step, quite without violence, but quite
unmistakably, and Ida's hand was left in mid-air.
He comes here, I know,' he said. Do you mean that ?'
Ida looked at him steadily.
No; I go to see him, to sit with him in séance at his flat,'
she said. I go alone. That is my confession.'
'Then, it was you, perhaps, I saw going there two days ago,'
he said, 'just after I had left you after lunch. I caught a
glimpse of you only. I was not certain it was you, even.
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
He paused a moment.
And for the last two days I have done nothing but try
to persuade myself that it was not you,' he said.
Is that why you have been cloudy, gloomy, distrait ?'
she asked.
I am sorry if I have appeared so. But probably that was
why. Yes, certainly that was why.'
Then quite suddenly each of them saw that a real disagree-
ment was in existence between them of no ordinary lovers'-
quarrel texture, but something solid, something that their
talk here and now had either to demolish or to make, so
to speak, into a real barricade. And at the first moment of
seeing that, Ida, as a woman, had the woman's impulse-
the impulse to give way, to throw herself into his arms, to
lean on his comfort and his strength. Yet in this matter
there was already a compact between them: she felt that she
must remind him of an existing treaty. Her liberty in these
matters had been promised her, and she had no intention of
giving it up. She could not, indeed, give it up: it was half
her life that it implied.
'Yes, I go there,' she said; and I go there for purely
psychical reasons, for reasons which entirely concern my
inner life, with which you have nothing to do.'
Jack shook his head.
It is impossible to put an action like that into a box, tie
it up, and label it "Psychical," ' he said with a certain quiet
sternness that Ida had never seen before in him. You are
doing the most indiscreet, the most unheard-of thing, in going
to his rooms. Oh, Ida, you must see that ! If you must
see him, you must let him come here, and there must
be somebody with you. It is impossible that this should
go on.'
At this the first womanly impulse altogether vanished.
'I cannot be dictated to like that,' she said, her hands
trembling a little. 'When I, as I have just told you, am
dealing with affairs of mine which you do not even wish to
know about, they are my concerns, and no one else's, not even
yours. You wished to know nothing about them.'
'I know enough about Henderson,' said Jack. He could
not have loved her more, but there are things which a man,
especially when he is in love, cannot stand. Not reasoning,
but instinct, dictated to him.
'Pray, then, what do you know about him ?' asked Ida.
'I know he has acted like a cad in allowing you to go
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237
alone to his rooms,' said Jack, still quietly. 'Ask anybody—
Mrs. Desmond, Miss Montague, Leonard. Ask Abdul, even.
Even he, though he does not know what the word "conven-
tion" means, would tell you that you mustn't do it.'
Ida was unpinning her hat. At this she paused, with her
hands to her head.
'Why do you say that?' she said, with a sudden ring of
unfathomable suspicion in her tone. Then her voice rose a
little. You shall not ask Abdul !' she exclaimed.
This, for the moment, was utterly mysterious to Jack.
Then, like the reflection of far-off lightning, remote yet
luminous, a possible explanation occurred. To do him justice,
he rejected it, yet for one vivid second it had been there:
Abdul arranged these things.
'I have no intention of asking Abdul,' he said. 'I don't
know what you mean. Ask anybody that is my point :
take the opinion of any man or woman in the world whose
judgment you trust. Ask Aunt Julia. You will see what
she will say.'
Then the woman in her rose to the surface uncontrollable.
She could not bear that there should be this difference between
them yet her case was so clear to herself: the liberty he had
given her with regard to these matters was so inalienably
hers. Yet, in that she had given him herself, she could not
for the moment weigh claim with claim, and instead she held
out both hands to him.
'Jack' she cried.
Oh, Jack!'
So far, also, the man could not resist. The two white
hands he clasped in a great brown paw and kissed them.
So that is all right, then,' he said. 'I knew it could not
last. And oh, Ida, what an infernal thing jealousy is! And
it grows so near to love, like the wheat and the tares: you can
hardly touch one without pulling up the other.
Yet one
dare not wait for the harvest.'
She paused at that, and her hands no longer returned the
pressure of his. His words were meant as a confession, as
an acknowledgment of the weakness that is inherent in the
strength of love. But it struck her like a blow.
Jealousy?' she said, as if scarcely understanding him.
Yes I saw you go there alone: I have been turned out
of this room for you to receive him alone. Is not that
enough?'
It seemed as if this sudden warmth that had inflamed
him had been borrowed from her, for there was ice in her
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
answer. She felt as if she hardly believed the evidence of
her own ears, for the possibility of this had never peered
over her most remote horizons.
Do you mean that you have been-are jealous of Mr.
Henderson?' she asked. Do I really understand you to
mean that ?'
Then in turn the man in him came to the surface. He
spoke his thought, and it was tender, manly, yet domineering,
as a man's love is. He raised his head, with a gesture full of
the feeling that possessed him.
<
No, I wronged myself,' he said. 'I have never yet been
quite jealous of him. I have never, at least, welcomed or
entertained that thought, for it implies that I should have
mistrusted you, which I am not capable of. But you are
rather hard on me, Ida. It is not easy for a man, when he
loves as I do, to know that she who is the only woman in the
world for him goes day after day alone to see a
'Yes?' said Ida, with the same iciness.
>
To see a man who permits her to do so,' said Jack bravely.
Oh, if you don't see that, it is hopeless for me to try to
explain.'
Do you remember promising me absolute liberty in this
life of mine which you refused to enter ?' asked Ida.
'Perfectly well.'
'I remind you, for the second time, of that promise.'
And I tell you that in this case you cannot separate your
normal everyday life from the other,' he said. To fulfil
the one you transgress the common, sensible rules of conduct,
which, whatever we think of them, must be binding on us
all. No one can make an exception of himself in such things.
Besides, Ida, you do not know, even you, what power may
not lurk behind. He is an edged tool, if ever I saw one.'
Ida had grown suddenly pale.
What power may lurk behind ?' she said below her breath.
What are you talking about?'
At that his absolute ignorance of what she had in the very
back of her mind was consolatory.
No power that I know,' he said. 'But it is my right to
keep not only known dangers, but possible and impossible
ones, away from you.'
Then again his anxious human love rose to the surface.
( What you do I don't know,' he said. 'There are visions,
messages, communings, that come to you, I suppose. What
they are I don't know, for, as you are perfectly aware, I am
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
239
quite ignorant of all these things. But, Ida, Ida, he has
got—he has got no damnable incantations, has he, to bring
you into what you believe to be his control ? Is that the
word? But you know what I mean. You are not, in that
life of which I know nothing, dependent on him in any way, or
beholden to him ?'
The friction of their disagreement had died down : at last
they rested on bed-rock.
"I am more beholden to Mr. Henderson than to anyone in
the world,' she said. 'He saved me from an edge that went
down more steeply than the brink of death, and led to what
was darker than death.'
Again his human love drove him forward: the whole man
spoke.
Ah, show me the death I will not save you from,' he
cried; and let me face it instead for you. Tortured and slow,
or quick and rending as the lightning flash, it is all one-
because I love you, and death matters not at all.'
Some faint, far-off note twanged in her brain, some reminis-
cence, perhaps, of a day of Sirocco in the South, when the
palm-trees began to whisper together, and wave their arms,
while vague, foreboding terror crept like the dark wing of
night over the clearness of the heavens. It seemed to her
that a distant trouble was stirring in some remote cavern of
memory, from the darkness of which came cries and the sound
of struggle. Love and death, as on the accursed amulet, were
mysteriously mentioned together, but they were spoken of
now on no long-buried amulet, but were on the lips of the
man she loved. And at the thought of that dreadful thing,
of that loosened spirit of evil, to lay which again love some
day had to prove itself stronger than death, a sudden wave of
fear submerged her soul, even though rescue stood close to
her, within reach of her hand. Here was love, strong, eager
to save, with hands outstretched to her, and she, instead of
grasping those hands, throwing herself into his arms, was
standing aloof, not surrendering, fortifying herself behind her
own needs, her own rights, the promise he had given her.
Again and again that wave of terror swept over her, dark and
unbearable, hissing and hot, and she could stand apart no
longer
Oh, Jack! she cried, suddenly flinging herself into his
arms. I know that-I know that! Thank you, my darling,
for that. Your love is stronger than death; I need not be
afraid. But——'
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((
'Ah, there is no but,”' said he.
Again her soul was battered to and fro by conflicting needs.
Ah, but there is,' she said. 'You cannot guess what joy
is mine when, by no magic or evil arts, but, so I believe, by
the merciful and loving ways of God, I am allowed to be so
closely joined to the spirit of my father that his actual presence
is in every sense made real to me. You don't, you can't, ask
me to give that up? I don't think I could do it: I am not
capable of refusing that sweet communion which is offered
to me by-by him. It is Mr. Henderson who gives me that;
it is he who enables me to be with my father almost more
intimately, I think, than I was ever with him in life.'
She hid her face for a moment on his shoulder.
'But I will try,' she said. 'I will do my very utmost.
And I will promise you that Mr. Henderson's influence over
me-for he has influence-shall get no deeper. But there
is nothing harder in the world. You can't know, dear; it
is impossible that you should know what you wish me to
give up.'
I can't ask that—I don't ask that,' he said. 'But, Ida,
Ida, don't get under his influence. There, I have said it at
last. I fear that—I fear that most horribly. Why, I can't
tell you, but all these days that fear has been present to me
like a feeling of physical sickness, a vague, awful dread that
gets nearer every day. Even now, when my arms are round
you, so that you must be safe, so that all the evil powers
below the earth could not take you from me, while one gasp
of breath remained in me, even now it is here.'
Suddenly Ida was conscious of a very curious sensation.
She felt as if inside her brain she had heard Henderson calling
to her by her Christian name, not loud, but quite audibly to
some interior sense, in that firm, quiet voice of his that was
so unmistakable and so arresting. She knew, too, that some
interior impulse of her limbs urged her to go, just as she was,
downstairs, across the square, up Davies Street, and to his
flat, without a moment's resistance or reflection. She knew,
also, that he would be there, expecting her. The sensation.
was very vivid, but it hardly lasted a second, and passed
away completely. But for the moment it was horribly un-
settling she felt insecure.
:
Jack, too, noticed that something had happened; they had
been speaking heart to heart, but for that moment it was as
if some noise had completely arrested her attention, so that
all other thought was suspended. She had raised her head
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241
from where it lay on his shoulder, and seemed for that
moment as if she was completely unconscious of his presence.
And her words confirmed this very disquieting impression.
'Did you not
hear anything? Surely somebody called "Ida!"
Did not somebody call me?' she asked.
He smiled at her.
Ah, what nonsense!' he said. Someone was crying news
in the Square. But nobody called you.'
She collected herself again, and went back to what they
had been saying when this little interruption came.
'I will do my utmost,' she said. It is true that Mr.
Henderson has influenced, and does influence, my life: not
the life of which you know anything-over that he has no
control. But I promise you this, Jack, that I will allow his
influence to go no deeper. I will-
Again she paused, for again something in her brain spoke
her name, calling to her. This second time she was frightened.
Surely someone called me,' she said.
Jack was infinite tenderness. She was overwrought with
this last half-hour, and he raged against himself for not
having somehow been more gentle with her.
'No, dear! no, dear!' he said; it was but a street noise.
You are tired, Ida. You look tired. Oh, forgive me for all
I have said that has hurt you. But you know I did not
mean it.'
She raised her eyes to his.
Dear, you could not hurt me,' she said, ' and while I have
your love nothing can.'
And to the utmost shore of eternity it is yours,' said he.
Jack Carbery left the house with a feeling of vague per-
plexity and dread that was utterly new to him. Night had
fallen, a clear night of stars; there was a hint of frost in
the air, and the world went briskly about its many businesses.
Up and down the pavements jostled the conflicting tides of
human life, at street corners was cried the news of the evening,
and he found himself wondering with a fantastic exercise of
the imagination that was foreign to him what news was
to-night cried abroad in the world of souls and spirits, and
whether there too, as on earth, there were wars and rumours
of war, and perplexities that harassed its unseen, silent
denizens. There was still an hour to be spent before he need
dress for dinner, but to-night, somehow, the thought of his
cosy comfortable flat, with its chair drawn to the fire, its
16
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evening paper ready by the elbow, was abhorrent: he did not
know what he should do with himself alone, and something
craved for the proximity of his fellow-men, even though they
were but the strangers that passed and repassed him in the
streets. It was in vain that he told himself that there was
nothing conceivable to fear, that his vague, mist-magnified
terrors were but the result of some obscure jangling of his
nerves, some infinitesimal physical disorder that had set
trembling and vibrating a piece, perhaps, of gray matter in
the brain that should have been at rest, or busy with normal
and every-day affairs. Yet, search as he would, he could not
put his finger on any tangible cause of disturbance. He hated
the thought of Ida's visits to Henderson, he deplored the fact
of her going there alone, but nothing, he felt sure, could
possibly cut at the roots of that great mutual love that made
the sunshine of his life; for his trust in her, the impossibility
of mistrust entering, was never stronger than at this moment.
Yet in some unintelligible way the cloud that was over him
cast its shadow even over that something threatened him
there, and though a hundred times he told himself of the
utter impossibility of any threat being able to harm, yet his
own self contradicted its own assertions. This was no tran-
sient physical or mental depression that beleaguered him;
it was round the very fortress and shrine of his being that
the shadows grew and gathered in dim, inimical panoply.
Out of that darkness, he felt, some blow would be struck.
He had halted a moment at the top of St. James's Street,
looking down the narrowing avenue of gas-lamps to where
the clock in the Palace showed like a moon, uncertain whether
to walk on or, taking firm hold of himself, to go home and
force himself into normal behaviour, when a dozen doors
down on the right he saw the windows of a second-floor room
suddenly spring into squares of vivid light. He knew the
house well; those illuminated squares of window belonged to
the flat of Leonard Compton, and in a second his mind was
made up. There was no brain that he knew so cool and sane
as Leonard's, no touch so reassuring, no hand so firm and yet
so kind in dealing, not only with physical surgery, but with the
much more delicate handling of the mind. He determined to
go to him at once, to tell him without reservation all the
possible causes he had for disquiet, sparing himself not the
vaguest, the silliest, the most shadowy suspicions, and see
whether Leonard would not laugh him out of half of them,
and argue him out of the rest before dinner-time. Further-
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243
more, Leonard, as he knew, had at one time dived into occult
matters, and Jack, in this present crisis of nerves and affec-
tions, would be very glad to know for certain that he was like
a child, afraid merely of what was apparently dark. Also, to
tell anybody the grounds of his disquiet was a relieving pros-
pect for the causes of depression, he knew well, breed in
solitude, and in company often become barren again.
In a couple of minutes he was seated in the comfortable,
familiar room. On the hearth burned a bright fire, the
shaded radiance of electric light gave a mellow glow to red
carpets and green walls, a bookcase full of fat medical volumes
was somehow reassuring, a cigarette was already between
his fingers, and a glass at his elbow, with the nozzle of a
siphon over it, waited his 'say when.' Leonard meantime,
delighted to see him, was still uttering welcoming words.
'I have often thought of starting a guild of mercy or a
charitable league, or something,' he was saying, 'whose work
should be to call on people who live alone in flats, like you
and me, between six and seven during the winter months. It
is the time which I have nothing for : I have already done my
work for the day—I cannot work after five, or I lie awake—it
is dark and one cannot go out, and there is still more than an
hour before dinner. An hour in which you have nothing you
must do, and no inclination to do anything you needn't, is
a very long hour. You shall be the president, Jack, because
you are the first person, I think, who ever came to see me
at this awful time. Table for your drink: there it is. Drink
for your table, you have it also. You've taken a cigarette,
that's right, so now have you got everything?'
Jack already felt slightly better: the mere human presence
of a friend, that thing more potent than the drugs of Arabia,
had on the instant done him good. Yet because he felt better,
the situation, so he reflected, as it existed apart from his
nerves, was not altered. So whether the disturbance was
subjective or objective, he determined to speak.
It is you who have to be the guild of mercy to me this
evening,' he said; 'I have come not to give, but I hope to
receive. I came to you to get rid of a dark hour myself; I
want you to throw light on it.'
Leonard turned to him quickly with a sort of bird-like
movement that was characteristic of him.
'Anything wrong?' he asked, his mind already flown back.
to the visitor they had seen leaving Henderson's door that
afternoon.
16–2
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
'I don't know whether anything is wrong or not,' said
Jack. I came to you really in order to be convinced that
it is my inside in some way which is
wrong.'
Symptoms,' said Leonard shortly. Loss of appetite,
sleeplessness—nothing of that sort, I suppose ?'
'No, not that kind of thing at all," said Jack, feeling
suddenly incapable of speech. I'm about as well, I should
think, as anybody in London.'
Leonard looked at him a moment, and saw he was struggling
with some considerable trouble-saw, too, with his doctor's
eye, that speech was difficult. The first necessity, therefore,
was to make speech easier for him.
Well, take your time, old boy,' he said. 'I'm going to
lie down on this sofa here. When you feel inclined to tell
me, why, tell me. I shan't interrupt you, and remember
that we've got lots of time—all the time there is, in fact.'
This, after a little, was efficacious: Jack smoked a fraction
of his cigarette, drank a little of his whisky-and-soda, and
spoke with frequent pauses.
I'm in an awful stew, Leonard,' he said, ' and I want you
to tell me whether there is anything to be in a stew about.
Yes, it concerns Ida and me, for, really, I don't think there is
anything in the world that could upset me as this does. It
concerns, also, all this occult muck, which I hate the name
of. You know she is very thick with Henderson, and she
goes to see him at his flat, and she goes alone.'
Leonard had taken his legs off the sofa, and was sitting
up. It was just as he had expected, then.
Yes; how did you know that?' he asked quickly.
She told me herself an hour ago. Did you know?'
Yes.'
'You ought to have told me, then.'
'I only knew this afternoon, Jack,' said he, 'because
Beatrice and I saw her leaving the flat. I said at the time
that you must be told. Beatrice said she would tell Ida so.
Otherwise I should have told you myself. I had fully deter-
mined to do so, and if you had not come in I should probably
have written to you before dinner to ask you to do so.'
'I see. Well, that's the first thing that bothers me. It's
impossible, you know. Such things don't happen. Yet I
felt such a brute for telling her so. It had never occurred
to her, I think, that people would talk if they knew, or that
girls can't do such things. She is so utterly removed from
thoughts like that; and her innocence is her danger.'
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245
Quite so,' said Leonard sharply. And what else passed
between you?'
Jack had got on to his feet again, for a horrible restlessness
made him incapable of sitting still, and chucked his half-
smoked cigarette into the fireplace.
'Nothing can be really wrong between Ida and me,' he
said nervously; 'all my life is staked on that, and there is
nothing in the world, so I keep telling myself, of which I am
so certain. And even while I say that to myself, something—
something creeps up out of the dark-I don't know what-
and the solid ground shakes under me. That is why I came
here I want you to laugh at me, to tell me I am frightening
myself with shadows. But the shadows are so thick, and they
are lengthening so frightfully.'
:
But Leonard did not do as he was asked and laugh at him :
he still looked quite grave.
I can't laugh at you yet,' he said, 'because I don't know
what has happened, and what you are merely imagining. But
I'll laugh at you as soon as I can. So tell me all that you re-
member about your talk with Miss Ida; don't leave out even
the things which most unreasonably disturb you, even if they
appear to you the most trivial details. And especially I
want to know what are her relations with Henderson-how
she regards him.'
(
Ah, it is just that-it is just that which most disturbs
me,' said Jack quickly. She says that she is more beholden
to him than anyone in the world, that he saved her from
something more terrible than death. Now, what can that
mean? What on earth can that mean? I've been turning
it over and over in my head, and I can make nothing of it.'
'I don't know,' said Leonard bluntly; at least-no, I
don't know. But I make a note of that, and we may have
to go back to that afterwards. At present go on.'
'Well, by his help somehow, she says also she is in closer
touch with the spiritual world, and in particular with her
father, than ever before, and when I ask her to give up these
séances with Henderson, she tells me I am asking her to do
the most difficult thing in the world. And I have promised,
you know, not to interfere in any way with her inner, her
spiritual life. I feel as if it is dishonourable in me even to
wish her to give them up. But I'm past that. Then-
Jack paused a moment, running over in his mind the points
of his conversation with Ida.
'Then, for some reason,' he went on, she does not want
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Abdul to know about this-the fact that she has séances with
Henderson, I mean.'
Leonard looked up quickly.
Ah, why do you think that?' he asked.
that expressly, or did you infer it only ?'
(
'Did she state
It was clear enough, because when I said, "Ask anybody
if it is right for you to go to his rooms, ask Abdul even," she
exclaimed, "You shall not ask Abdul!" She was certainly
agitated at the thought of Abdul's knowing.'
Leonard got up and walked up and down the room, frown-
ing heavily at the carpet. Suddenly he stopped and faced
Jack.
Now, did any explanation of any kind whatever,' he asked,
come into your mind to account for her not wanting him to
know ?'
Jack flushed a little.
Yes, but only to reject it at once. But for one moment
it occurred to me that Abdul arranges these meetings, is a
go-between. But I don't really believe that.'
(
The point is that she doesn't want you to refer to Abdul
in the matter, to let him know anything about it,' said
Leonard. Go on.'
(
Jack looked at him in a sort of helplessness for a moment.
Oh, Leonard,' he said, 'I feel such a brute talking over
Ida like this with anyone, even with you. But I must have
advice; I can't go on in this dreadful state of fright and sus-
pense. I fear every ring at the bell-I fear that everyone
coming into the room has bad news for me. It isn't that I
distrust one word or action of hers: I couldn't. But I can't
help feeling she is in danger.'
Go on,' said Leonard, without comment. Of course I
understand that. By the way, you may say you are well,
but your nerves are out of order. But go on.
Then I mismanaged things,' he continued, the interview
coming back to him with biting clearness. I told her how
near I was to jealousy. She hated that, and we went off
at score again. Then I attacked Henderson: I remember
calling him an edged tool: I warned her-I knew nothing of
these things-that there might be some power behind him.
And she was frightened. She asked me what power I meant,
and of course I didn't know.'
'Yes, yes,' said Leonard.
'Go on.'
'That is about all,' said Jack. She promised me that
she would allow Henderson's influence to get no deeper, for
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247
she gave me to understand quite clearly that he has influence
over her. And at the end, of course, we-well, we were
ourselves.'
Leonard was again frowning heavily.
Allow his influence to get no deeper?' he said slowly.
Yes. She acknowledges he has influence.'
Leonard still pondered this.
And that is all ?' he asked. 'You have told me all the
causes of your disquietude.'
Jack smiled rather dismally. The consolation that he had
come for had not as yet been much in evidence; as yet, too,
there had been no hint of laughter.
'I am so fearfully upset,' he said, 'that a singing bird, I
believe, would make me nervous. There was just one thing
more. They were crying the evening news in the Square, and
twice she thought that somebody was calling her. It frightened
her.'
'What?' said Leonard quickly. She heard somebody
calling her ?'
Poor Jack had come to be laughed out of his terrors, but
it seemed rather to be his office to laugh Leonard out
of his.
'My dear chap,' he said, 'you know one often thinks one
hears one's name. It has happened to me dozens of times.
What is the matter? It was absolutely nothing more than
that. What she thought was her name was just some paper-
seller in the Square. I heard him call myself just at that
moment.'
Leonard pulled himself together.
'Yes, of course, of course," he said. 'Well, Jack!'
He paused a moment.
'Sit down,' he said. 'Now, Jack, you've got to buck up,
and not let yourself be afraid. A frightened man never did
any good, any more than a bucking horse. Also you are
indefinitely frightened, which is paralyzing, because you
imagine dangers from every quarter which don't exist. You
are afraid of everything just now; that's what it comes to.'
Jack braced himself to this.
You mean danger does exist ?' he said.
It may. If it exists, it exists because Henderson has
some influence over Miss Ida. What that is I can't say ;
but I will think it over. Two points I want to ask you again.
The first is that these séances are very wonderful and precious
experiments to her. They are something more vivid and real
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
than anything she has yet known. Was it not that she told
you ?'
'I can't be certain about her exact words, but I am per-
fectly certain about her meaning.'
And twice she thought she was being called ?'
Yes.'
Leonard nodded his head.
Mind, I don't say for a moment there is danger of any
sort, he said, ‘but I know, which you do not, that occult
powers do exist, and that they may be put into play. Also
it is perfectly true that this fellow knows a great deal about
them, and can do odd things. Now I will think it all over,
and tell you when I have made up my mind, as to whether
there is anything to fear or not. But whether there is or
not, don't be afraid: hold your head up.'
He paused.
You must go now, he said. 'The league of mercy has
already made me late for dinner. Good-night, old chap;
don't ask any more questions now, because I can't answer
them.
But when Jack had gone Leonard did not at once go to
dress, though already late. He stood frowning into the fire,
and tapping with his foot uneasily on the fender.
'Already
She hears him calling to her,' he said to himself.
he can make her hear him.'
CHAPTER XVI
Ir was about a week after this last recorded conversation
between Leonard and Jack, and Ida was sitting alone one after-
noon in her little public sitting-room next the sanctum in her
suite upstairs. A book was on her knee, but she was not
reading it, and as often as a footfall sounded in the passage
outside she looked up, as if expecting someone to enter.
Though the book was unread, it was not unread from drowsi-
ness, no languor dictated her abstention from literature,
for she was almost nervously wide awake; she was waiting,
so it would seem, for something more absorbing than her
book. The window was wide open, for the February day was
full of the early languorous warmth of spring, and often, if the
jingle of a cab ceased suddenly outside, she went hastily and
looked out of the window that overlooked the street to see
whether it had stopped at her aunt's door. Her face, always
rather pale, had perhaps a little more colour than its wont,
and her eyes certainly were neither dark nor heavy, but had
in them a quite unusual sparkle; her meditation, therefore,
was of no stolid order. Yet, had a doctor seen her, he would
not, in all probability, have been quite satisfied with her looks;
a clever man would have classed under one bracket her rather
vivid colour, the alertness of her eye, and the evident ner-
vousness and restlessness which she exhibited even now when
alone. If he had been told that she was in love, indeed, and
shortly to be married, he might possibly have been more
satisfied about her, but even then he would probably have
said he would call again in a day or two and see how she was.
But there had been no question of her seeing a doctor, and
such a thing had not occurred either to Ida herself or to
Mrs. Desmond. The girl was not in the least anxious about
herself, but she was aware that one person was anxious about
her-namely, Abdul. Leonard Compton she had not seen
all this week, otherwise there might have been two people
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anxious about her. Yet, since his anxiety could not possibly
have helped matters, it was as well, perhaps, that they had
not come together. For he had nothing fresh; the data
Jack had given him a week ago were still no more than simmer-
ing in his mind.
Since her interview with Jack a week ago, Ida had lived a
life of silent, secret heroism, and no one in the world knew how
much it had cost her. She had not been to Henderson's
flat since then, and though he had called twice at Berkeley
Square, on both occasions she had sent word that she was not
in. She felt sure, too, that he knew that her 'not-at-home
was a technical phrase, for on one of these occasions she,
returning home in a cab, had passed him only a hundred yards
from the house, and it seemed to her certain that he must
have seen her enter. That, however, she could not help ;
indeed, it was better that he should understand as soon as
possible that she did not intend to see him again. During
this week, too, he had given his second lecture: it was crowded
to overflowing, even as the first had been. But Ida, to her
aunt's great surprise, had stayed away, and Mrs. Desmond
had gone there alone.
All through this week, a dozen times, perhaps, in a day,
his voice had called to her, and as often as it called there ran
through her limbs that mysterious inward impulse that she
must go to him. It was so strong that sometimes she felt
herself moving towards the door, before she could control
herself; once she found herself pulling away from the very
door-handle, as if pulling a dead weight, the hand that would
have turned it. For all her inner and spiritual life pined to
go; in five minutes, if she but yielded to this impulse, which
seemed daily to be growing more overmastering, she would
be awake from this dim dream of the exterior life of the
senses, and by a few passes of his hand, a little gazing into
those black lakes of eyes, pass out into what was the real
world. One thing only had held her back all this week, her
human love for Jack, to whom she had given her word that
she would do her utmost. She was doing her utmost: she
had not known before she was capable of so much. But day
after day she knew that her powers of resistance were getting
less something relentless and untiring pulled against her.
The struggle had gone on almost without interruption, and
it was the worse and the harder to bear because she had to
bear it all in silence, and could not go to any for sympathy
and support. Sometimes she seemed to forget about it for
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25I
the time, so that it sank like a stone into deep waters; when
Jack was with her, and when she meditated, the cords that
dragged her seemed to relax a little, though she was always
conscious that they were there, as securely tied as ever. Of
Henderson, meantime, she had heard nothing after his
second attempt to see her he had not tried again, neither
had he written to her the shortest line, alluding to the dis-
continuance of their séances, or asking, as he had every right
to do, the reason for her thus withdrawing herself. Nor
was there any need for communication of ink and pen:
every day his voice called to her. Yet the calling of her name
to her was in itself, she felt, not difficult of resistance: it was
that to which it beckoned her those extraordinary com-
munings with her father-for which her soul cried out. She
was quite well able to separate in her mind this dual nature
of the call: Henderson called to her, or the semblance of his
voice within her brain called-calling, as it were, for himself
alone, because he wanted her to come, because he loved her.
And all the sweetness and beauty of her nature was sorry for
him she had been often now to his rooms, he had hypno-
tized her four or five times, and not once had he by word
or hint ever spoken of his love for her again, or let it be ever
so lightly obtruded on her. But it was there all the time :
it was that which called to her. Yet when she was with him
it never lifted its voice; it sat very patient, content, or so it
would appear, to see her, content to serve her in these won-
derful spiritual ways. That love seemed to Ida very beautiful
in its utter self-renunciation: it was hopeless, and she thought
he knew it to be hopeless, but it was unembittered, and it
served. And if at times it could not help calling to her, that
was only pitiful; there was nothing to fear. For she still
trusted him as much as ever; not by word, or deed, or thought
had he ever done anything to shake or disturb that.
He was
still her friend, the man to whom she owed her deliverance
from that which was darker than death.
Her book was 'Cranford,' and soon-for there was some-
thing quieting in this last thought--she took it up again, and
read several pages with fair attention. Then, all of a sudden,
a sort of spasm of envy took possession of her, as had happened
once or twice before, at the thought of quiet, normal human
life, as lived by the huge majority of the world, as pictured in
these pages. Why had it not been given her, so she won-
dered, with an aching longing for security, to live in the great
green pasturages, beside pleasant waters, lifting her eyes to
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the hills indeed, but safe herself in happy valleys? Safety!
it was that for the moment which seemed to her the best of
all gifts, not to be afraid of terrors coming from the dark, of
awful blows being suddenly dealt at her. And in those
valleys where others dwelt, love walked, hearts beat high with
resolves not less noble because they were not obscure and
occult; there were kindly human eyes to look into, behind
which no hint of terror lurked; self-sacrifice, pity, duty, death,
all these great and simple things were there, and these were
surely enough to feed and refresh the soul. Instead, she
seemed to herself to be so made that it was forced on her to
be for ever climbing far away from the happy valleys, climb-
ing by herself up some precipitous and icy glacier stair. True,
glories unimaginable to those below were her reward. Sun-
rise would flood the peaks with transcendent rose; the air
blew on her from the very gates of the morning; the celestial
day was close at hand. But at other times the sun set; she
was alone at night, voices moaned in the wind, and from the
bottomless crevasses among which she pursued her hair-
breadth path came dim sounds and warnings which she did
not understand, but knew to be of fearful import. She was
tired: she longed to lay it all down and rest, her hand in
Jack's, knowing that his patient, loving eyes kept watch over
her; but that was not to be: she had to go on. But she so
longed to rest, to let her eyes close, and no longer to be
directing terrified glances this way and that, anticipating
dangers the nature of which she could not even guess.
Then her mood changed. All the girl's fine courage and
gratitude came to her aid, and she sprang up, letting Cran-
ford' fall to the ground. Was there ever, she asked herself,
a woman so weak, was there ever a soul so vilely ungrateful ?
She was wrapped warm in the shelter and the cloak of love :
love on all sides surrounded her. Jack, Henderson, Abdul,
all in their divers ways protected and encircled her, yet,
because the glory of going on was so wonderfully granted
her, she was sighing to turn back, she was saying the way
was too steep, the path too narrow for her to tread. Spiritless,
she was wishing that she was allowed to be dozing in green
meadows, a very cow, a tree, a snail among the burdocks.
Again she paused as these moods flashed one after the
other into her mind like sudden pictures projected by some
magic-lantern in the dark. There was something else-
something she could not remember. She was waiting here,
she knew that, expecting the arrival of Henderson.
But
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253
why did she expect him? She could not clearly make that
out in her own mind. All she remembered was that after
lunch to-day, now nearly an hour ago, the voice that called
her had called so loud, so insistently, that she had excused
herself from going out with her aunt, and had come up here
alone, afraid that her brain, her self-control, would play her
some dreadful trick, that she would find herself answering
him, unable any longer to control her tongue and lips. And
surely she had answered him, for she expected him. She
had answered him after a long struggle, in which-
She took two steps across the room to her writing bureau.
Beneath it stood the waste-paper basket, and with trembling
hands she pulled out a couple of crumpled sheets, still not
exactly knowing what she expected to find on them. On
one was written merely,' Dear Mr. Henderson,' and she had
then thrown it away. On the other was written, 'Dear Mr.
Henderson, I shall be in this after-
and then that
stopped, too. But she had written a third note-she re-
membered that-but though she turned out the whole of
the paper-basket there was no trace of it. Then she searched
through the blotting-book, but it was not there, nor was it
lying in the fender, nor was there any trace of her having
burned it.
At this she paused, her hand over her eyes, as her mind
whirled dizzily towards the certain conclusion.
'I must have sent it,' she said to herself, and she shuddered
and despaired, for she felt that her very will was no longer
her own.
At this moment the sharp trotting of horse's hoofs, the
jingling of a hansom bell, was cut suddenly off. Then the
front-door bell rang.
For one moment her eyes closed, and she moved her hands
as if warding something off, keeping it at arm's length, and
below her breath she murmured:
No, no! ah, no!'
Then the moving of her hands ceased, and she stood there
with bent head, beaten. She had done her utmost, but there
was something too strong for her, and with her own hands,
though she could scarcely remember it, she no doubt had
written to him asking him to come. The struggle was over;
she had been unequal to it, and she had yielded. And this
'No, no!' that came from quivering lips, was but a drowning
cry, an appeal like the dying wail of an animal, to the blind,
deaf, inexorable law that demands its death. There was no
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more fight left in her, and when the servant came up to know
if she would see Mr. Henderson, she merely nodded her head
in assent.
That was over, then, and slowly, but with ever-increasing
effulgence and effervescence, like sun shining through the
clear bubbling waters of a crystal pool into which plunges a
living stream, a dawn of that light which never was on sea
or land began to glimmer in the blackness of the sky. Once
again (and this week-long drought and abstinence had made
her parched and agonized with thirst) the wonderful com-
munions with the spirit of her father would be hers again :
she would awake from this dim-lit, unreal existence, and
come out into the sun, into the glory not yet openly mani-
fested, but to her vouchsafed to be revealed. Soon again in
the clear day her spirit would commune with her father's:
she would look on him and be satisfied.
Then Henderson entered, and, as once before, there were
no greetings of commonplace at first. His eyes were fixed
on her with a hungry, devouring gaze: they no longer com-
pelled and commanded her: they were suppliant and besought
her. And she met them with eyes of pity, for his whole face,
and not his eyes alone, was the face of a man who thirsts
with an unquenchable thirst, and who now looks on the water
which alone can satisfy him.
Then she held out her hand to him. There was no need
of explanations, for she knew that all that she had been
through was as clear to him as if it had been he who had
experienced it.
And you have suffered, too?' she said. 'I am sorry.'
'I did not know that hell itself possessed these tortures,'
he said. Then the bitterness overcame him. And I am not
there yet,' he added.
That gruesome little bit of jest touched Ida more sharply
than any complaint could have done.
'I have suffered, too,' she said; ' and part of my suffering
was for you, when you called to me. You have called so
often. And you have wanted me, poor thing! so much.'
'I call all the time,' he said, and sometimes I cannot
restrain it, and call aloud-not aloud with my voice, you
understand, but with my spirit. I let the cry go out to you.
It is then you hear me.'
Please don't,' she said quite simply, for it is no use.
You know I am sorry.'
Then, side by side with the flame of his love, as it soared
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255
higher, there rose, too, all that was masterful and brutal,
burning with red and scorching fire.
'I don't want your sorrow,' he cried. 'I have no use for
it. What is your sorrow to me? How does that help me ?
It is you I want.'
He could no longer control himself, and the words poured out.
'You can't tell me it is no use,' he said. 'I hold for you,
I represent to you, all that your soul desires. With me, and
with no other, you can scale those heights on which alone now
you feel that you can live and breathe. All this week you
have gone without food and air. You have been starving
and suffocating yourself, and you have no right to treat
your soul like that, for you must render an account of it. And
you must not think that you can marry this other, and yet
come to me again and again to give you that which keeps you
alive and makes you grow. I can't do it: the flesh is weak,
I suppose, and it is outside my physical power to go on seeing
you as I have done-seeing all that is best in you, that which
I worship, expanding like a flower, and then see you go
away and give that flower to another. I am a man: my flesh
and blood will not stand it. You are trying me beyond what
I can bear. Either you are mine altogether, or I will never
see you again.'
He came a step closer to her with something of menace in
his voice.
Already you are mine more than you think,' he went on.
'I have but to raise my voice, wherever I am, and you hear,
and you feel as
feel as if you must obey the call. Indeed, this after-
noon you have obeyed it, for you have answered me and told
me to come. And wherever you are, and to whomever you
think you give yourself, I can never silence the cry that my
soul makes to you. You will wake in his arms with my voice
ringing in your ears. You will speak of love to him, and even
as the words are on your lips you will rise and go to the door,
feeling that you must obey the voice that tells you to come
to me, and your love for him will be blown about like a
withered leaf in autumn. You will-
Ida had been looking at him with a sort of fascinated
horror, as if paralyzed, unable to move. But here she re-
covered herself.
Stop!' she said, not a word more.
intolerable things.'
You are saying
'Because I suffer what is intolerable,' said he; but his
voice sank and faltered and was silent.
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Then he moved across to the window and came back again,
as she stood still, her bosom heaving with the indignation
that his words had roused.
<
Forgive me,' he said very low. I didn't know what I
was saying. I knew nothing but my need, and it is hopeless :
you have told me so. But are you sure? There are very
few things of which we can say, This is impossible.'
((
His eyes were fixed on hers now with an intensity of gaze
which she knew well. They raged no longer, nor did they
entreat, but very quietly they commanded. She felt that if
she looked a moment longer she would be unable to look away
at all, but by an effort, so violent that she felt as if something
must have been torn, she turned from him.
Ah, it is horrible!' she said. 'But I am sure.
I say it
is impossible. All through this week, which has been to me
one moment of torture, I have felt that, if it were to go on
till it killed me, I could never give you any answer but that.
So take that answer like a man, Mr. Henderson, and since
you say that in this case you cannot see me any more, let me
thank you out of a very full and very sorrowful heart for all
you have done for me. You have delivered me from the
most dire perils, and it is through you that the greatest happi-
nesses of my life have come to me.
Again, with hand outstretched, she looked at him, with a
smile that hovered over her face rather than dwelt on it.
'You must forget that I said that,' he murmured; 'I did
not know what I said. You promised once to let me help
you, and you must do so. You must come to me again. I
think it is the week's abstinence from seeing you that has
driven me half mad. You would not deny me those crumbs,
for I have no other bread. And to you, too, remember
those hours are the richest, the best in all your spiritual
experience. You will not be doing right if you wilfully
forego them: you will be maiming and maltreating your soul-
starving it, not letting it grow.'
She thought of what she had promised Jack, that she
would not let Henderson's influence over her get any
deeper, and shook her head. For that promise there was no
sacrifice too great: she was her own no longer. She had
given herself to her lover.
'No, I must give them up,' she said. 'I promised-
And she paused a moment.
He waited for her to continue; he had a right, she felt,
to know, and she told him.
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257
<
Every time you hypnotize me,' she said rather nervously,
your influence over me gets deeper. Do you remember at
first how it took some time before I passed into sleep? And
each time it has become easier and quicker. I must not let
it go on. I—I am afraid. I am no longer really mistress of
myself. And you must give me back myself, because it is
not mine, but his, Jack's.
Then, like a wicked flicker of lightning, a thought struck
home into Henderson's brain, sudden, illuminating, and he
welcomed the evil luminance, for it showed him for the first
time quite definitely the path he had already half uncon-
sciously determined to follow. Not till this afternoon had
he really faced the fact that, by all the common human laws
of affection and love, Ida was as completely out of his reach
as the moon in heaven, nor till this afternoon, when she had
shown him so sweet a pity and forbearance in answer to his
violence, had he known how implacably his whole will and
all his energies were set on winning her. And a dreadful secret
joy filled him, as bitter salt-water floods an estuary, at the
fact that it was already known to her that his influence was
increasing over her. How strong it already was perhaps she
did not yet guess, but he saw, and exulted when he saw, that
she was already only just capable, should he choose to turn it
in full blast upon her, of resistance. Soon she would be able
to resist no longer, and she would be his by right of conquest.
He would prove himself a stronger man than Jack Carbery,
and by virtue of his strength carry off the prize they both
struggled for.
Not till to-day had he definitely decided on this, though his
decision now was so swift that he must have been long on the
brink of it. For he had hoped that he could have made him-
self so essential to her, that of her own free will she would have
consented to throw over Jack Carbery, realizing in her own
conscious and willing self that he could not give her anything
of that life which was as needful to her as the air she breathed.
But, in so far as her will was still her own and independent of
Henderson, she rejected him; she chose instead—this moment
she had chosen-the human love that was offered her and
the human love that she herself felt. For the first time to-day
Henderson admitted this as certain, and now for the first time he
resolved to employ what influence he had over her in any way
that could attain for him his end. Till now he had fought for
her with weapons such as others used; now from his armoury
he brought a weapon they had not got-his hypnotic power over
17
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
her, which none could wrest from him, the blows of which
there was no shield to parry. And deeper yet within that
armoury, he knew, lay another weapon-a torpedo, so to
speak, a thing resistless, should all else fail. Yet not even now
did he consciously consider its employment: only the con-
sideration of its employment had come a step nearer.
It was
not indeed within the horizon yet, but it was not far beyond
the horizon.
:
She trusted him he was sure of that; indeed, until just
this moment she had been quite right in doing so. But that
resolve once made, he passed outside the pale of mankind.
And his attack was deadly.
No doubt I can hypnotize you more easily now than at
first,' he said, 'but have I deserved what you said next ?
You are afraid? What do you mean?'
This cut her to the heart, just because there were solid
grounds for his reproach. Jack did not trust him one inch;
it was entirely in response to his misgivings that her resolution
to sit in séance with him no more had been made. For herself,
she trusted him completely.
Yes, I said I was afraid,' she said. 'It is true I said that.
But not of you, indeed, Mr. Henderson. I did not mean that.
But I must, I must be in my own control. For the last week
you, your love-I believe it to be that—have been like an
obsession to me. Let me go, then. Take it away, I beseech
you; it is too strong for me, it is breaking me! You have no
right-
Her voice faltered, and the sentence ended in a quick-drawn
breath. For one moment a better man than he really was
stood there; and his implacable will softened just on the surface,
as the sun may thaw the surface of ice, yet not penetrate.
And it was her very beauty, this very beauty of involuntary
weakness and appeal, that hardened him again, so that he was
dead to all but his desire.
(
How can I let love go?' he said. Is it a wild bird that
one snares into a cage? Am not I rather the wild bird that
you have snared? No, not willingly: you could not help it.
You being you, must have been loved by me. It was ordained
so; God himself must have ordained that.'
Her eyes were dimmed, though her voice that had broken
was clear again. She made her appeal to him.
'It
'Then, because you love me, leave me alone,' she said.
seems to you, and no doubt it will often seem to me in the days
to come, that I have chosen a lower level, when a higher
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
259
might have been mine. God knows. But I love the man who
loves me.
I can't get behind that; it is a fact which cannot
be rebuffed. There is no foe it fears, no fear that it will not
face, because it is right. God has ordained that too.
me go.'
So let
Then suddenly her mind went back to a night in March,
when Sirocco stirred in the trees, and deadly terror came near
to her.
'Because you are my friend,' she added.
have already done so very much for me.'
Because you
'Yet your friend cannot cease to love you,' said he, for all
softening was over, and his love cannot cease to call to you.'
The love that women have to be loved, the pity of the star
for the moth, was hers.
'No, my friend,' she said. So call to me if you must, and
all that I have of pity and regret and gratitude responds to
your call. I want to tell you that with my whole heart. All
that is yours. But my whole heart tells me that I can give
you nothing else. Indeed I have nothing else, for all I have
is given already.'
But the die was cast. Once, perhaps, this might have
appealed, and not in vain. Now it was without effect. By
any means that were his he would draw her to him.
thought was quick and apt.
And his
'So then,' he said, 'it is good-bye. And it is good-bye to
another besides me. Never again, so you have determined,
will you meet your father as you have done, until the dawn of
the everlasting day. To me in a moment you will say good-
bye. Do you not wish to say it to him ?'
He waited for her answer with an intensity of expectation
that he had never yet known. For it was clear to him that
his influence over her was all but paramount. He was on the
very border-line of complete ascendancy over her: it was not
yet absolutely assured, but it was very near. Let him but
hypnotize her once more, and he felt sure that her will would
pass into his keeping, so that he could mould her actions and
her very motives as a sculptor moulds the clay beneath the
graving tool. And down in hell Satan must have smiled at
the ingenuity of his last question.
And at it all the longing, all the thirst, that Ida felt for one
more communication, one more half-hour in the bodily and
spiritual presence of her father, rose irresistibly: she could not
resist that desire.
'There can be no harm,' she said. 'I feel as if I could not
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
leave all-all that it has been to me without a word of farewell.
Farewell!' she repeated.
You have chosen it so,' said he. You must remember it
is absolutely your own choice.'
Then for the first time she fully felt what she was going to
forego. But she did not falter.
(
Yes, I have chosen it so,' she said. But I will say “fare-
well." When-when would it suit you?'
The dreadful banalité of the phrase, as if she was to play
lawn-tennis, grated on her ears.
One has to arrange even this,' she said.
He looked at her again with the compulsion of his black eyes.
'Now,' he said, if you are disengaged. Why should we
wait? It is always best, if it is to be farewell, to say it quickly.'
‘But, Mr. Henderson-the medium,' she asked.
Again Henderson looked at her.
'I left him in trance at my flat,' he said. 'There is no need
to send for him. He is waiting.'
A sudden misgiving stirred in the girl, not strong, only the
fluttering of leaves in an aspen to a breath that cannot be felt.
She was not herself afraid; she was only aware, and that
dimly, for her eyes had been fixed on his for some seconds, that
there might be fear.
'Did you foresee this, then?' she asked, already sleepily.
'I did not know: I thought it might happen. So I prepared
for the contingency merely to save trouble.'
Her eyes swam a little as she still continued to look at him.
As she had said, it became easier for him each time to hypno-
tize her; she passed almost imperceptibly into sleep. She
pointed to the door into the sanctum.
I
'We will go in there,' she said. 'He knows that room.
know it too. His voice is familiar to me there. Come !'
She would have led the way, but Henderson backed before
her to the door still looking into her eyes. Ida went across
to the little prie-dieu, and her lips moved, but her eyes were
still open, still looking at him, who stood like Mephistopheles
between her and prayer. Then she sat down on her accus-
tomed seat, and Henderson was still opposite to her. And
speaking as if speaking in her sleep, she said :
Draw the curtain.'
But he did not do so. He continued to look at her. Then
very slowly, very gradually, so that you could scarcely say
that it moved at any one moment, he raised his hand in front
of her face, and let it fall again, like the slow rise and fall of
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
261
some long gentle swell out in mid-ocean that lifts a ship so
gradually that its movement is imperceptible. Four times he
did this, and at the fourth her eyes slowly closed and her head
fell back.
Then after a little she raised her head again, and her eyes
opened, but not on to the material world: she saw neither the
man who sat opposite to her nor the familiar plain little room;
the light of the open vision of things unseen illuminated her
face. Like the slow dawning of day it seemed to Henderson
that she woke, woke from the dimness of this world to the
brightness of the spiritual kingdoms. Her lips parted, and
words which he could not hear came from them; her hand
was raised in welcome, and it seemed to him as if she raised
her face to be kissed. So wonderful and beautiful was the
sight of her that, brute as he was, he had no temptation even
to touch her or to draw an inch closer to her; but his mouth
was dry, and his pulse hammered in his temples as he gazed at
her, and filled his eyes with gazing, as a thirsty man drinks
deep with thirst unquenchable. For a moment his best self
was awakened, and he knew that the world could hold no
finer joy for him than, though he was nothing to her, to see
her thus, to let his love flow towards her, without counting the
cost to himself, without even desiring her love in return. For
this is love triumphant, when it seeks not itself, but is poured
out for another, in full flood unrestricted.
For some quarter of an hour, it might be, the two sat thus
Ida full of the joy of her communion, he almost content to
watch her, to know that this joy was his gift to her, beyond
price, and not to be sold or bought or bartered for-a joy that
none else could give her, and to a better man than he reward
enough for his love. Then slowly, even as it had begun, the
rapture faded, the mouth grew grave again, the eyes fluttered
once or twice and closed, and her head fell back. She was
again in the deep hypnotic sleep out of which just now she
had emerged into the light of the spiritual day, from which in a
moment he would call her back into the twilight of the material
world. And it was this moment which was peculiarly his
when she was fully herself, his power over her was not yet
established when the vision was being granted her again she
escaped him. But just now her conscious life was dead; she
was waiting inert and responsive to him alone, scarcely more,
indeed, than an emanation from his own mind. And at this
moment temptation fell upon him with the might of a man
armed, and overcame him.
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སྙ་
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
"
Come to me when next I call to you,' he said in a low,
authoritative voice. You will not be able to prevent your
coming. Come in your conscious self, and because you must,
and because you choose to, and because the strongest call
earth holds for you is this. Do you hear?'
She gave a little sigh, and her breathing was suspended a
moment.
Yes, I hear,' she said.
For one moment more he hesitated. Should he undo this
that he had just done, a thing that he knew to be dastardly,
blackguardly? But both those qualities were uppermost in
him now, driven, so to speak, in double harness by his desire
for her. He struck her lightly on the backs of the hands.
'Wake, wake,' he said.
Ida moved quickly in her chair, and opened her eyes with a
little startled cry.
6
What is it?' she said.
'What happened then?'
She passed her hands over her eyes, as if clearing them of
the last mists of sleep, and looked round the room. Henderson
had risen, and was looking out of the window. Then she seemed
to forget about that which had prompted her question to him.
Ah, Mr. Henderson,' she said, 'it was wonderful. It was
the best of all. I have never been so close. And I said
good-bye to him, telling him that I could not again see him in
these beautiful ways. He understood, I think, and we both
thank you.'
She got up from the table, and again with the simplicity
of a child knelt at her praying-table a moment. At that, one
sudden pang of remorse came over him, but the thing was done;
it was too late. Over that his mind was divided: part was
sorry it was too late, but the more vital and essential part
rejoiced and sang over that knowledge.
'I won't wait now,' he said. 'I know you like to be alone
after the vision. It is good-bye, is it not?'
Ida looked at him inquiringly.
'No, no,' she said. You will come to see us there will
be nothing changed except that which we settled.'
Then in a tone of extraordinary sweetness,' Why should I
lose my friend?' she asked.
At that, remorse, honesty, pity, all stirred together in him,
making a little swirl on the surface of his soul, like a rising fish.
Yet perhaps it would have been better if we had never
met,' said he.´´ Great and dreadful anxiety and fear has been
your lot owing to me.'
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
263
And joys transcending all else,' said Ida gently.
He paused a moment.
'If you can assure me of that, I take back what I said.'
'I do assure you,' said she.
He held her hand as long as a stranger would hold it, or
'so very little longer,' and next moment the door closed behind
him. That sound seemed to symbolize to Ida the closing of
another door: with him there had passed away a chapter of
her own life which had been extraordinarily beautiful to her.
Short as it had been in the mere rough computation of minutes.
-for Henderson had been in England altogether barely a
couple of months-the growth and the progress to the girl her-
self had been very wonderful; her spiritual life had shot up like
an aloe-flower. No touch of evil, no want of faith in herself,
she felt, had prompted the desire to get into closer communica-
tion with her father, and her experiences had been precious
to her beyond all words. But they were over now, they had
closed in a glory of sunset, and the door was shut, and some-
how that was right too. Deep down in herself she felt she
could not lead two lives so absorbing as the two she had been
trying to reconcile: one life she had promised already to Jack,
and it was his. Nothing could be clearer than the duty that
love demanded.
There was another consideration also. For the last week
the thought of Henderson himself had been with her, she
knew now, almost every minute of the day; all this week he
had been growing in her mind, till it seemed to her that all she
heard or saw, all she did or thought, took place on the other
side of a pane of coloured glass, as it were, which was he. It
was through him, as a medium, that the impressions of the
external world had lately been coming to her, even as also the
visions of the spiritual world were hers through him. And
though she trusted and liked him, she did not want this: there
was only one man in the world, not he, who had the right, a
right which she so willingly acknowledged, to be to her the
interpreter of this world of weekdays and Sundays. But
insensibly, through her dependence on Henderson in the
matters that were hidden from Jack, with which he had refused
to have anything to do, the influence of the former had spread
far outside the limits of his own sphere. Then suddenly a
simile came into her mind which resembled this: she had upset
an ink-bottle the other day over her blotting-book, and the
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
black pool had come in like a tide, devouring the whiteness.
It had spread through it all; there was not an inch that was
not drenched and blackened, there was no stopping it; its
touch devoured.
It was a great relief, she could not help confessing that, to
know that this was over; for she made no doubt that, ceasing,
as she was going to do, from all spiritual communications
made through him, his general influence over her would dis-
appear. But she saw that she would have firmly to deny
herself in the future even the thought or the desire for the
experiences which he had given her, if she was to get rid of
it, for it was he who was so essentially knitted into them.
Yes, they were over, her association with him was over, and
no more, she hoped and trusted, would the voice of his love
cry to her. She had asked him not to let it: she felt sure
that he would spare her, for he knew now how hopeless it was,
and would be man enough to suffer in silence, not crying to
her.
It was already growing dusk, and she left the little white
room, passed through her sitting-room, and went out into the
passage to go downstairs. Just outside her room Abdul was
seated on the floor, as was his wont, with his hands clasped
round his knees. He got up as she came out, and stood, so
it seemed to her, watching her with a sort of patient yet
anxious intentness. All this last week, so she told herself,
with a pang of newly-awakened contrition, she had hardly
said a word to him-had scarcely remembered his existence.
Yet all the week, she felt sure, he had been watching with
those patient, loving eyes.
'What is it, Abdul ?' she asked, smiling.
He looked at her with the same deep anxiety.
'Is all well with you?' he asked. Only tell me that is so,
and I will wait again. I will not vex you, beloved lady, or
trouble you so long as all is well. You alone can know that,
and if you tell me all is well, it is so.'
The contrition struck more deeply, and she held out both
hands to him.
'I
'Yes, dear Abdul, dear, faithful Abdul,' she said.
believe all is well. I have hardly seen you since we came to
London.'
Again the Arab smiled that patient, loving smile.
No, you have many friends,' he said, and that is right,
I am just the watch-dog, and let your enemies beware.'
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
265
The watch-dog may sleep, then,' said she. 'There is peace.'
He shook his head.
Yet he is unquiet,' he said. He sniffs the breeze: there
is something abroad.'
Ida frowned.
You are not fair, Abdul,' she said. 'I know who you
mean. Well, then, I am not going to see him again except
publicly, openly, on such matters as all the world talk of."
So it is as I thought,' he said, his eye flashing, his instinc-
tive hatred of Henderson burning like a beacon in it.
Yes; but it is over,' said she.
Again he shook his head.
'If I thought that, I would sleep,' he said.
CHAPTER XVII
LEONARD COMPTON had been left by Jack a week ago with a
problem to solve, and the longer he considered it, the more
difficult and complicated it appeared. Briefly stated, it was
this: Henderson had by some means, hypnotic or otherwise,
acquired such power over Ida that he could produce in her,
not apparently at stated times-at times, that is to say, when
she expected it--but when he chose, the hallucination that he
was calling her. Frankly, he did not like this: the power it
implied was considerable, and there was no guarantee that it
would not grow till it became portentous. Somehow or other,
then, this power had to be broken, and some plan by which
it could be broken was the solution of the problem. Also
Henderson had acquired and was using this power clearly for
some purpose. What was that purpose?
Now, Leonard never fell into the mistake of underrating
either the fine qualities of his friends or the strength of his
enemies, and though he would scarcely have felt himself
justified in putting Henderson squarely down in the latter
category, he would have allowed, at any rate, that in the case
in point their interests were sufficiently antagonistic. Of
Henderson's strength, then, he proposed to make an estimate
which should not be ungenerous; he wanted to state to himself
what force, so to speak, Henderson could put into the field
in order to gain his object. The total, it must be confessed,
when he passed it in review, rather appalled him. The figures
on which he based it were these:
Henderson had discovered and brought to light, and had
apparently at his call, a power of unfathomable and evil
potency. A master-word,' the belief (and no doubt its
demonstration) that the spirit of an ancient Egyptian, mys-
teriously raised from his sleep below the threshold, was his
servant, had carried him unarmed, a detestable Englishman,
through tribes who were fierce and hostile. But such was the
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267
might of the spell he owned, their fierceness and hostility was
cowed. He had dwelt among them in perfect security, and
the fame of his magic had magically preceded him on his
return, so that the natives of the villages left their work and
turned out to see him. What was that master-word? Well
Leonard knew, for even now the memory of that evening he
had spent in the prosaic little flat in Davies Street was, when
he thought of it, like vitriol poured upon the brain: it
smoked with devouring pungency, it crept horribly inwards
into the very fortress of sanity and actual existence, under-
mining its towers, till the creed which was incredible possessed
the brain. From inside the safety of the circle which It could
not cross he had with his own eyes beheld a dreadful leering,
sensual face, mad with anger, it seemed, and lusting for evil
deeds: through Henderson, as interpreter, he had spoken with
It, and heard It recount with hellish glee the secrets of Its in-
corporeal life. It had asked, too, when 'she' was coming
again—the 'she' whom for some reason It regarded as Its law-
ful prey, which had been unfairly snatched from It. But It
waited for its prey as the crocodile waits at the ford of Indian
rivers in sure and certain hope of the defenceless coming down
to draw water.
The sight, the abhorrence of the spiritual atmosphere at the
time, had sickened him, professed sceptic as he was in occult
affairs, and he remembered how it was with nerves all on edge
and flayed, and with dreadful qualms of dawning disbelief,
that he had called suddenly for lights, as Hamlet's uncle
called, unable to bear the veiled possibilities of darkness,
which had been lightened only by the shimmering outlines
of that incarnated evil. Then had followed the question
which inference involuntarily drew had the look of aban-
doned terror which he had seen once on Ida's face anything
to do with this horror just now made manifest? And the
affirmative had come. It was she, Ida, for whom It waited :
she had once in some terrible way drawn near to It; a word
from him would expose her to It again. Meantime Hender-
son had acquired this awful mysterious influence over her.
So now, when he reckoned up Henderson's assets, he had
to add to the hypnotic power he possessed over her, which he
used, and by which he called to her, this second dreadful spell,
as yet held in reserve. Then on that same evening there had
followed a recital, almost more terrible yet, to which at the
time had he pledged secrecy-how that in some oasis, the name
of which he had forgotten, which Henderson arrived at still
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in the character of doctor, there had been talk for many days
about magic. For days he, like a miser, hugging the secret
knowledge of his wealth, had listened, and at the end had
given an example of his own power. Henderson had warned
the villagers what might happen: he did not then wholly
know himself the terms he was on with this hellish familiar,
and had drawn the magic circle into which he had advised all
present to come. But three out of the crowd had laughed
at him, and stayed outside, defying him as the magicians of
Pharaoh defied Moses, to produce anything more than they
could themselves imitate. Of these none looked again with
sane eyes on the wholesome day. Something entered, and
their mouths spoke no more of bread and meat and wine and
the sun and the moon, but cackled for a day or two of things
unseen and terrible. And before a week those three mouths
neither spoke nor cackled any more at all.
That, perhaps, had impressed Leonard more than anything :
Henderson, flicking the ash off his cigarette, deplored the
accident indeed, but said, justly enough, it was their own fault;
they had been rash, and in consequence of their rashness
had died. They were outside the circle of safety when Set-
nekht was abroad, and had simply not found it possible to
live any longer. Then, in answer to a question, they had
died of horror, he supposed. He was sorry they had not taken
the ordinary precaution of making themselves safe; the ad-
visability of doing so had been clearly presented by him, but
they had not done so. And at that thought once more
Leonard froze again with horror, for it was something con-
nected with that, some tentacle reaching out from that hellish
monster, which had produced on Ida's face the squinting eyes
and the incarnate fear. Set-nekht in some way was respon-
sible for that moment of quivering mouth and blind, shuddering
terror; he had done that-that was his work. And he, and
all that he did, was in the control of this dark man.
At any
moment, apparently, he could loose the eighth plague of Egypt.
For a whole day Leonard had pondered over the unreality
of the point at which he had logically arrived. A series of
credible conclusions, so far as he could judge, led up to a
conclusion which was nearly laughably incredible-a con-
clusion at which a man might reasonably snap his fingers.
Did one suppose-it was this that the whole thing came to-
that a man in the twentieth century could loose the spirit of
one who had died twenty centuries before these began to be
numbered, on a beautiful and innocent girl of to-day? A
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269
thousand times it was ridiculous, but in wakeful hours of a
thundery night it was more possible. And though a hundred
times he told himself that this was laughably incredible to a
reasonable man, he neither laughed nor was able to disbelieve
it. He himself had seen what he had seen, and he could not
disbelieve his own senses. That spirit had been raised by
Henderson; he could raise it again, he could make it put forth
its power where he would. So, in estimating Henderson's
possible strength, he could not leave this out.
At this for an hour he writhed in his chair. It could not be
that God should allow it. Yet God allowed cancer and lupus,
and let dreadful fevers, conveyed by mosquitoes which had
drunk at wayside pools, enter into the body of a clean and
healthy man. An Englishman went out to some fever-district
full of noble ideals, full of health and potential usefulness and
with the credit balance of a clean life. Yet a mosquito bit him,
and where were his ideals and his cleanliness of life, and all
the good deeds he might have done? A shivering thing, half
a corpse already, was conveyed to the ship, and before the
green shores of home were in sight the lead-laden hammock
was committed to the deep. One was not more inexplicable
than the other. Everything in Nature preyed on its fellows,
and what if in the shrouded mysteries of the spirit-world the
same order of things held? No one, at any rate, could affirm
that it was not so, or bring proof to the matter.
Yet no man, he told himself, could be such a fiend as to
employ this awful supernatural demon on a human being,
and that a girl, innocent and defenceless. Yet once, somehow,
Ida had been in its power, and who could have put her in its
power unless it had been Henderson, to whom in some in-
scrutable way control over it was given? Once, at any rate,
so Leonard, not knowing the true story of that night in March,
was bound to conclude, he had let this devil of darkness get
hold of her, so that weeks afterwards the mere memory of it
was sufficient to contort her face into an unrecognisable mask
of herself. And if he had done it once, he might do it again.
At the séance he had attended, Set-nekht had asked when She
was coming again; he remembered her, he waited for her.
Who was She but Ida ?
Then the second source of strength in his enemy passed in
panoply before him, and it, to his mind, was scarcely less to be
dreaded. Henderson had some influence over the girl, hyp-
notic, mesmeric, already strongly established, so that she
went to his rooms, in defiance of all convention, and could
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hear him call to her at a distance. What had Henderson's
object been in establishing that? How and for what purpose
did he intend to use it? For he was not a man without
motive; he did not keep his razors sharp merely to let them
repose in their cases.
This all looked black enough: yet perhaps he was on a
wrong chain of inferences altogether. Ida, so Jack had told
him, had said she owed a great debt to Henderson. He had
delivered her from a mortal peril-from a danger that was
darker than death. Was, then, the reverse of all he had been
uneasily imagining the truth? Had Ida, in some other
manner, independent of Henderson, come defenceless within
the circle of this demon? and had he delivered her from it,
bringing her, perhaps, as a necessary preliminary under his
own hypnotic influence? For what, on any reasonable
hypothesis, could this danger be, except the power of the
demon, to which, as Henderson had told him, she had once
been exposed? Yet even then, though this was sunlight to
storm in comparison to his first hypothesis, he did not like it :
he detested the idea that the influence of any should be para-
mount over another-it seemed to him an immoral state of
things—and when it was the case of these two, it was doubly
detestable.
Yet all these fears, whether justly or unjustly conceived,
were in themselves fruitless, and only bred in himself fantastic
and further terrors, probably groundless and certainly un-
nerving. He had, that situation so paralyzing to thinkers,
to make a plan, the object of which was to do something. All
his life he had spent in thinking, the object of which was
theory; now, and without delay, something had to be done.
Also it was shadows and ghosts against which he was fighting,
things the power and the nature of which he had no means of
estimating. Jack Carbery, too, admirable if a man had to be
knocked down, or any definite course followed involving
muscle or primary action of the brain, was useless here-
useless was Ida herself, while Mrs. Desmond, who would
have laughed at the whole of his fantastic theorizing, was
useless also.
One person (next he forced his mind into practical channels)
was alone likely to be of avail. Yet he, Abdul, was so
unarmed: his devotion to Ida, of course, was beyond all possi-
bility of question, but the force and the enemy to be dealt
with was no brain employed merely on abstruse subjects, and
adept at that, but a brain that dictated the speeches of an
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271
orator, that wove and conceived, that had tact, finesse, and
infinite patience and cunning, and at the same time was backed
up, apparently, by these impalpable, undefined, but terribly
potent allies. How else, indeed, could Henderson have estab-
lished his influence over Ida, except by the most delicate
and calculated handling? No: Abdul might be a powerful
confederate for certain contingencies, but for the work of
unweaving, unravelling, of finding out what was the actual and
obscure state of affairs, he was no good. Then, with a mental
slap in his own face, and a leap out of his chair at his own
stupidity, the other possible man who could help flashed into
sight. Like a spider in his web, Henderson sat in Davies Street;
what if a second spider wove webs with him? What if
eventually the two quarrelled over a fly, and Abdul, like a great
bumble-bee, buzzed through the gossamer, upsetting both,
maybe, but giving escape to the fly?
The sketch of this was instantaneous; it occurred only with
the same validity as the numerous unfounded imaginations
he had erected over what he feared. But as he looked at it
more closely, it took form and solidity, and became at length
a definite plan.
The practical upshot of it was that, on the evening of the
day on which Ida had made her farewell to all that Henderson
had admitted her to, Leonard Compton again entertained the
latter to dinner. Leonard was awake to his every chance,
and, feeling all the time slightly ashamed, seeing that Hender-
son did not refuse sherry with his soup, plied him with wine
with rather greater insistence than he would have ordinarily
employed. Yet his shame was superficial; in reality, he was
ashamed of nothing that could help him to secure his end and
render Henderson powerless. To say, of course, that Hender-
son was drunk, or anything near it, would be a gross misuse
of language, but, quite naturally, he was rather more com-
municative after dinner to-night than he would have been if
he had abstained, which was exactly Leonard's object. Wine,
traditionally, 'makes glad the heart of man'; and though his
heart was scarcely made glad, it was made, at any rate,
conscious of its emotions, and not unwilling to speak of them.
He had no reason to regard Leonard as anything but a friend,
and Leonard, on his side, told himself that he had as yet no
reason to regard the other as an enemy. Yet the lists were
set, so to speak, in the dining-room of the Bath Club; and had
the other members known, they would have formed a ring
round the little table for two in the centre of the room. For
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the duel, a duel of life and death, began that night, and
though the passes were made without foils, thrust and parry
had begun, and already a mistake on either side might be
fatal to someone.
The conversation naturally enough turned on occult
subjects, and Leonard asked several questions on the use of
hypnotism to unseal the inward eye.' Henderson had
devoted a good deal of his last lecture to this point, which was
new to most English spiritualists, and had given rise to a good
deal of discussion, and there was, thus, nothing in the least
far-fetched in Leonard's referring to it, for he had attended the
lecture, and had expressed, if not scepticism on the point,
ignorance, at any rate, about it.
The suggestion you made interested me very much,' he
said-' namely, that of putting one person in a séance into
a hypnotic sleep, while the others remained conscious, and
comparing their impressions of any phenomena that might
Occur. But what reason have you to suppose that spirit-
communication through a medium will be more vivid to a
person who is hypnotized than to one who is awake?'
Henderson looked at him quickly a moment, and emptied
his glass of champagne. He was not suspicious that this
inquiry had any particular bearing-indeed, nothing could
have been more unlikely than that Leonard should know that
Ida had been hypnotized by him-but he was at present on his
guard.
'It seems to me a theory which is in itself very probable,'
he said. ‘A hypnotized person is, of course, far more sensitive
to suggestion than one in normal consciousness. It is reason-
able to suppose, therefore, that the suggestions—for they are
that really—that come from the spirit-world would be also
more vividly perceived by one hypnotized.'
'But would they not be overlaid, so to speak, by suggestions
which might come quite involuntarily, perhaps from the
person who has hypnotized the subject ?'
'No, I don't see that,' said the other; ' such suggestions, I
should guess, would take effect when the hypnotic sleep was
over, if they took effect at all.'
'Yet during the sleep two sets of suggestions are possibly
being made,' argued Leonard, one coming, as you say, viâ
the medium from the spirit-world, the other straight from the
hypnotizer. Why should one take effect immediately, and
not both?'
Henderson shrugged his shoulders.
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273
I can only say I have found it as I tell you,' he said.
Ah, then, you have tested your theory to some extent,'
said Leonard. 'It would be good of you if you would tell me
about it; for the idea is quite new to me, as I fancy it was to
most of your audience.'
Yes, I have made a few experiments,' said he, 'and I have
found that the subject when awake again is peculiarly sus-
ceptible to the influence of the hypnotizer-quite peculiarly
so,' he added. 'Just as I said, the suggestions, even involun-
tarily made by the hypnotizer, take effect afterwards.'
And while hypnotized, you said the subject is very sensi-
tive to the communications conveyed by the medium ?'
Yes,' said Henderson, 'also peculiarly so.'
Ha! that's very interesting,' said Leonard. 'It is a new
point, is it not ?'
'I found it recognised in my Egyptian wanderings,' said the
other. But as regards England, I should say it was new.
England, after all, is still at the ABC in these matters.'
He paused a moment, considering, but his prudence saw no
reason why he should not speak.
6
It is rather annoying,' he said; ' the person with whom I
have been experimenting has suddenly refused to sit with me
any more, and my experiments are left like a rope-end dangling
in mid-air. However, my influence is already very consider-
able, and I think it highly probable that—that his refusal no
longer is valid, so to speak, that all power of resistance is
really gone.'
Ah, there we touch on ethics,' remarked Leonard.
'What
a pity it is, from a scientific point of view, that one has to
respect another person's individuality, which, after all, is the
most sacred thing on earth!'
He laughed, but he felt his heart sink suddenly into his
boots, as he waited for Henderson's reply. They had finished
dinner, and the latter was leaning forward, elbows on the table,
looking rather excited. His eyes gleamed, there was a touch
of colour in his face, he looked extraordinarily alert.
Yes, we touch on ethics indeed,' he said, 'but the ethics
go deeper than you suggest. True, one has no right to in-
fringe on another's individuality, but what if one cannot fulfil
or complete one's own except by so doing? One's own
individuality is also sacred, I take it. One has no right to
starve or stint it. It is our first duty to develop it to its
utmost and best. I am talking, you will understand, quite in
the abstract.'
18
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Again Leonard's heart sank.
Of course,' he said. 'But how can one's own individuality
demand the rights of another, except in the way a vampire
demands the life-blood?'
Henderson shook his head.
We are all vampires, if you come to that,' he said; ‘and
though it is an ugly word, I'm not afraid of it. We none of us
have an independent existence. We all-horrible as it sounds
-suck each other's blood. You may call it vampirism, if
you like, but how if you call it love? The individuality of the
woman makes the individuality of the man complete, and of
course vice versa. Each singly is half himself. You will find
the same idea expressed in the most exalted passages of the
most respectable poets."
Quick as he habitually was, Leonard had no reply for the
moment: this new complication, that Henderson was in love
with Ida, was so utterly unexpected. Yet it was so simple,
so natural, that he could not think why it had not occurred
to him before. Even Mrs. Desmond could have helped him
to it, had he known she would not, as he supposed, have
been altogether useless in unravelling this dreadful tangle.
'Ah! I call it vampirism, not love,' he said, 'because the
essence of love is that both give. But vampirism takes from
an unwilling victim. And to exercise one's power over one
who can no longer resist seems to me alien to love.'
Henderson's face was all on fire, and he opened his mouth to
speak. Then, before words came, he checked himself, and
Leonard felt sure that what he said was not his original
thought.
(
Yes, I see your distinction,' he said, ' but I wonder whether
in practical life love admits any arguments at all. Indeed, if
one thinks of it, perhaps it would not be a bad definition of
love if one called it the only thing in the world which admitted
no arguments at all. Impossibilities, whether moral or
physical, should not exist for love. "Neither bolt nor bar
will keep my own true love from me, as that old song has it.
That seems to me very true: and whether the bolts and bars
are made of iron or of more ethical stuff does not matter.'
"
All is fair in love and war, you mean?' said Leonard.
'That is certainly not true of war; you may not poison wells,
or cut off water, or use explosive bullets. And it is the same
with love, I think you may not cut off the beloved's indi-
viduality; that is her running water.'
Henderson's face suddenly softened.
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
275
'Yes, yes,' he said. 'While you say that, it seems to me
true, and yet afterwards I shall begin to wonder again. And
soon after that I shall not wonder at all, but believe that it is
as I say.'
<
Ah, then send for me,' said Leonard; 'I will repeat it as
often as you find it necessary.'
There was a shade too much of personal interest in his voice,
and it flashed through Henderson's mind that Leonard con-
ceivably had some inkling of the state of affairs which had
prompted this discussion. But to-night he was a little off his
guard, and but gave the possibility a fleeting, wayside glance—
it seemed so extremely unlikely. He laughed.
No, I don't think you will continually find yourself being
being rung up by me,' he said, 'in order to discourse to me on
the nature of the limitations of what is fair in love. But,
after all, what do you propose to do? Every man or woman
who is strong exercises, whether he wills it or not, influence
over his surroundings. All influence is hypnotic; you can
water it down or give it neat: it is all one. Supposing you
suggest to me now that there are certain points beyond which
one should not go. Your suggestion has weight with me. I
consider it : it infallibly must have its effect, however minute,
on my mind. You can't put up the shutters against the influ-
ence of others: whatever you do, however hermit-like you
live or however strong you are, you are influenced by others
every moment of your life.'
Leonard also leaned forward on the table.
'You don't mean you seriously contemplate enslaving the
personality of another ?' he asked.
All the little promptings of caution which had just faintly
whispered in Henderson's ear were stilled at this. The subject
interested him so enormously in an impersonal manner that
he no longer paused to consider, or even cared, whether
Leonard would make a practical or personal application of
what he said.
'Ah, there is nothing that at times I don't contemplate,'
he said, his voice sinking into almost a whisper. There are
no dreams that ever visit my pillow so gigantic and monstrous
as those which I indulge in soberly when I am quite awake.
To think how blind man has been through all the ages, man
who carries about within him the one inconquerable force in
the world—namely, will! I don't believe that any one man's
will is stronger than any other's; it is only that one has more
control over it than another, has grasped it more firmly, and
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uses it more vigorously. In some people, you can hardly call
it a force at all; at least, it is a force utterly dormant. Others
have got to know how to use it a little we call them strong.
But none of us ever have employed one quarter of the force we
really have. We none of us fully know what the force of it is ;
it is only by employing all we know of that we can bring more
into action. To make your body stronger, you have to exercise
your muscles, such as they are, to the full: to make your will
stronger, you have to exercise it also to the full.'
He paused a moment.
And the power that lies within our grasp, if we could only
grasp it!' he said. 'I soberly believe there is no miracle that
each of us could not perform. Look at the Christian
Scientists! With a little toy copy of this truth, a little
mirror that catches just one ray of the blinding flood of sun-
light which is there all the time if we could but see it—with this
one ray, so to speak, they heal diseases: it is no use denying
it. They have not a pennyworth of science between them,
they know nothing of occult matters: they have done no
mining in the soul, but on the very surface they have picked
up a few grains of gold. But to reach the solid reef below:
that is what each of us can do, if we will. Ah, that possibility
of power which is really unlimited, that dazzles me.
nothing I would not do to bring my will to full working order.
What could one not compel! Love, happiness, all that is
worth anything, would lie in one's hand, not only an absence
of headaches and a freedom more or less complete from small
nervous worries.'
There is
The theme seemed to intoxicate him, and the vivid, clear-
cut sentences which really revealed himself flowed out like
a spouting weir, far-darting with the weight of water behind
them.
'Yet I know, too, how a miser feels,' he went on. 'I
know well the ecstasy of self-denial, the consciousness of
powers which one refuses to use. You sat with me once in
Davies Street; you saw-well, you saw enough to convince
you that I am, as they say, strongly backed up. Supposing
I loosed that on the world? Did I tell you about the panic
in the bazaar at Cairo ? Yes? Well, the world would all
be panic-stricken even as the bazaar was. Supposing I
even loosed it, not on the world, but on one person, whose
money, let us say, or whose love, I desired? Should not I
get them, do you think?'
Leonard started back. The impression of that evening in
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277
Davies Street was, somewhere deep down in him, too horrible
for contemplation: he had covered it up, but now Henderson
was plucking off the coverings with deft, implacable touch,
and the shrouded form of the horror was every moment
growing more distinct in outline. The other noticed his
start, and laughed.
Ah, you need not be afraid,' he said; 'I am not a fiend,
though really I believe you thought I was. I am only telling
you what might be. And who knows? Perhaps, as I suggest,
it is only the motive that lies at the centre of the miser's
instinct which prevents me. The miser will put up with
squalor and rags for the sake of the sense of power which he
chooses not to use. Perhaps it is as well that I share that
passion with him. I am content to be obscure, to work for
my daily bread, to live quietly and rather meanly.
what if I said, "I will be a miser no longer; I will realize my
assets"? It is so simple: I have but to put Mohammed to
sleep, and in three minutes It will be by me, ready to do my
bidding.'
But
Leonard had been listening with a sort of fascinated horror,
but at this, common-sense or so he would have called it-
came to his aid. Here were he and his companion seated in
a modern club in an ordinary West End street in that mer-
cantile town of London. Patient waiters in prosaic livery,
some yawning discreetly behind their hands, some talking low
in the corner, were standing about till they should leave the
room from which all the other diners had long ago departed :
the steward was by his desk with the bill ready, talking in
undertones to the chef: on the table lay the menu of which
they had just eaten, with its reassuringly material list of dishes;
the smoke of crisp-smelling cigarettes curled in the air; the
hum of London droned outside. Yet he, Leonard Compton,
was listening with a heart that quaked, and a forehead on
which cold beads of perspiration gathered, to the suggestion
of the possibilities that would ensue supposing the spirit
of a man who had been nearly four thousand years in his
tomb was let loose on the world. In the obvious blatant
absurdity of such a notion, his minor fears also were flooded
with the same daylight of common-sense. What if Hender-
son had hypnotized Ida? How on earth could this justify
any uneasiness on his part? What could the man do?
They were in Dover Street: Ida was in Berkeley Square:
the town was London, the country was England, the date was
nineteen hundred and four.
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He threw his napkin on the table, and nodded to the waiter
to bring the bill, fingering the coins in his pocket, and telling
himself they were round, and hard, and real.
'My dear fellow,' he said, 'you are a conjuror. Your
dreams, which I allow, too, are far more vivid than any which
have ever visited my pillow, have infected me. You really
almost gave me the nightmare, a thing to which I always
object, especially if it comes by day, for it seems more real then.'
A rather ugly look came into Henderson's eyes.
'I only talked of the nightmare,' he said. 'Come round
to Davies Street if you like, and renew your acquaintance
with it.'
Evidently the nightmare was not quite over in Leonard's
mind, for he started up with a somewhat uncontrolled move-
ment.
'No, no,' he cried. Come, shall we move across to my
rooms? We have been keeping everybody waiting.'
Henderson looked at him quietly a moment, with, per-
haps, a shade of contempt in his mind, for it was quite
clear that his host had been rather frightened, a feeling to
which he was himself a stranger, and with which, consequently,
he had little sympathy.
By all means said he.
The rest of the evening, the second act, the second part of
the duel, opened quietly enough in Leonard's rooms. He had
a copy of the Cerigo bronze just arrived from Athens, and
Henderson betrayed an artistic eye in his appreciation of it.
Then, from the consideration of muscles it was but a short
step to nerves, and Leonard, surrounded by his medical library
of fat, respectable volumes standing in their bookcases, re-
sembling so closely, to the imaginative mind, professors and
practitioners in their broughams, felt himself escape for the
moment from quicksands. But from nerves it was but a
short way back to psychical subjects, and they soon drifted
again in that direction.
Of course there is no limit he was saying, 'to the in-
fluences of the mind over the body. Nor, naturally, is there
any limit to the influence of A's mind over B's body. The
thing follows as a corollary. If one man can control the
feelings of his body, so also can another man, if he under-
stands him. For instance, I can give bread-pills to a patient,
having told him distinctly that he is taking a nerve tonic.
He swallows them as a nerve tonic, and tells me with rapture
a week afterwards that they have done him no end of good.
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
279
That he is better is beyond all doubt, but what has done him
good is my suggestion that these innocuous pieces of dough
would help him. That is quite sufficient: I can, if he trusts
me as a doctor, make him believe that I am curing him.
The result is the same, for he cures himself. I have injected
plain water, having told a patient that it was morphia, and
he has slept, in spite of great pain.
Leonard sat down, feeling that for as long as he could he
would steer the ship clear of the quicksands of occultism.
And there was this of interest, too,' he said, 'that one
particular patient to whom I administered plain water was used
to morphia, and the effect was that he awoke with a morphia
mouth. Definite effects, that is to say, had been produced
on his mucous membrane by the belief that he had taken
morphia. He had not, but his body conformed to his belief,
and his mucous membrane was affected in a way that could
not have occurred unless he had taken morphia. But it
was only water!'
Henderson was looking at him with a kind, encouraging
sort of smile, the sort of smile that a grown-up person may
give a child who has really discovered the amazing fact
that 'a-b' makes 'ab,' and produces this astounding dis-
covery as something really enlightening.
Yes, yes, of course that would be so,' he said, as the
child looked up for approval.
(
'Well?' asked Leonard.
This. A's mind can, of course, act as you have stated
on B's body. How much more directly, then, can A's mind
act on B's mind, if A has any idea how to use his mind? That
certainly must be so. A's body can act on B's body quite
simply and directly; he can hit him. A's mind can also as
directly hit B's mind: it can knock it down, put it in chancery,
and, as I said before, it can hold it in such a position that B
has no power of resistance. Yet you object to that. It is
only a question of degree: we all employ influence or hyp-
notism over others every day of our lives. But, as I said
before, your hypnotism may be either neat or watered down :
it is merely a question of degree. Yes, thanks, I think I will
have a whisky-and-soda, not neat at all, but very much
watered down. Yes, please, quite to the top.'
Henderson took a long drink before he spoke again. There
was always a sort of restrained violence both in his move-
ments and his voice, and now, as he walked up and down the
room, glass in hand, Leonard found himself irresistibly re-
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minded of some prowling beast of prey, which found its cage
far too narrow for its roaming propensities. And it was a
beast of prey that spoke.
((
I want so much,' he said, ' and if all was given me I should
still say
more." One's desires, one's imaginations, so far
outstrip all that exists. I want knowledge, knowledge,
knowledge. I want the power that comes with knowledge.
There is no position in the world that I would accept if I had
to stop there, and could not go further. And I don't think
I care at all at what cost I get it: my own life and blood, or
the life-blood of another, I am really quite indifferent which
it is to be. But I do not recognise that anybody has any
rights with regard to what I want. Nor have I rights
another stronger than me may come along and beat me.
shan't complain.'
Then he looked Leonard straight in the face.
I
And when I want anything enough,' he said, ‘I get it.
The two things are practically synonymous. One only has
to want enough. That is a function, again, of the will.
Most people want so very feebly.'
There was very little consoling here; the hard outlines of
the man as sketched by himself were more horrible than all
the lurid imaginings of Leonard. He had imagined a vague
sort of bogie, claws and hoofs and fiery eyes, but this hungry,
eager man was far more alarming, for he so emphatically
belonged to practical life. Then Henderson finished his
glass with a couple of gulps, and proceeded to complete his
sketch with light and shadow.
And if that was only all!' he said—' if only one's whole
nature was taken up with the desire for knowledge and
power! But within us all there is the imperishable child,
on which depends our heaven and hell. And when the man
is tired and has to rest, then the child awakes, and it cries
for playthings, it cries for happiness and for love. Heavens !
how it cries ! It won't stop. You may offer it gold, you may
offer it knowledge that would have made Solomon's mouth
to water, but it pushes them aside and just points to the moon.
Nothing will do but the moon. And its crying interrupts
the man so that he has to contrive to get the moon somehow,
cast a noose round it, draw it to earth, charm it, will it to
come down. Not till then will the child cease crying. Oh,
the moon, the moon-that beautiful moon which so entirely
defies imitation. No copy of it is any good: the poor child
knows directly that it is not the real one.'
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281
(
There was something frightfully sinister about this: but
there was also something indescribably pathetic, and in spite
of his rooted antagonism to Henderson, his firm resolve to
fight him to the death, Leonard could not help being sorry
for him. He was suffering so much; he brought all the
strength of his nature to bleed on the altar. He was alto-
gether fiery-coloured; the same intensity that inspired his
aims inspired his emotions: he was in love with all his might,
he wanted' so keenly. It was this very intensity, too,
which had made him speak so freely; it would have been
clear to any that the man was in love, and that his love did
not run smooth. But that Leonard should know that, he did
not care: earlier in the evening he had settled that the possi-
bility of his knowing that the moon was Ida was too remote
to be considered; also he had spoken of the person who would
not continue the experiments as a man. There again, too,
nothing could be more improbable than that Ida should have
spoken to anyone of her secret visits to his flat. The whole
point was that they should be secret.
Leonard jumped up briskly, with a very frank manner.
My dear fellow,' he said, you're in love. I congratulate
you most heartily. I know of no condition so excruciatingly
delightful. I hope'-and his words were two-edged-'I
most sincerely hope all will go well.'
Henderson had sat down at the end of his speech in a very
low arm-chair, but on Leonard's rising he got up and stretched
himself, and again the recollection of a wild beast stretching
itself came into Leonard's mind.
Thanks,' he said; 'it is quite sure to go well. As I said,
one has to contrive to get the moon. And the moon, one may
always remember, is comparatively close to the earth. Now
I must go to bed. I owe you an apology too. I have jawed
this evening; I have maundered; I have cackled like an old
hen with one egg, that thinks the news must be of engrossing
interest to the whole world. And you have been a most
finished listener, for I am certain you must have been bored,
and you have managed to conceal the fact completely.'
'I assure you I have not been bored,' said the other with
really pedantic truthfulness. 'Must you really go ?'
So Henderson took his departure, but Leonard did not at
once go to bed. He sat in front of the dying fire, where ashes
crinkled and coals collapsed, revising his imaginings in the light
of Henderson's self-revelation. Not much revision was neces-
sary: for though he no longer believed that it was Henderson
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who had loosed Set-nekht on Ida, yet he knew that he might
conceivably do so. Though Henderson had denied it, it was
clear that the idea had been in his mind as a possible one, and so
the worst that Leonard had foreboded he felt sure was terribly
correct. Then he reviewed his forces. There was Ida, who with
all the will that was left her struggled for her own liberty; there
was Jack, for whose sake she struggled; there was himself,
who, though he perhaps had nothing more, was possessed of the
enemy's general schemes, though not perhaps of the practical
working of his campaign. Finally there was Abdul, who must
be called up.
Leonard must tell him all he guessed or
knew, and all that Abdul's knowledge of things occult was
worth was for certain at the service of his beloved mistress.
And God knows we shall need it all,' said Leonard to
himself.
6
He passed a night that was a logical sequence to the
evening, a night of dreadful dozing horrors, of dreadful sharp
awakenings to fears more definite but not less terrible. To-
wards morning, however, he slept dreamlessly, and was
awakened from far-away unconsciousness by his servant
drawing the curtains. He had, according to custom also,
brought him his post. Topmost of his letters was one
addressed in the handwriting of Jack. This, with a sudden
qualm of misgiving, he tore open.
'DEAR LEONARD,
Ida last night expressed a wish to leave London, and
go down for a week into the country. So we are off this
morning, for I am going with them. I can't tell you how
relieved I am : I want her so to get away from this neighbour-
hood. She's looking awfully tired, and I don't think Mrs. D.
is quite happy about her.
Let me know if anything occurs, and thanks awfully.
Yours,
'JACK.
'P.S.-I fully believe my own nerves were largely re-
sponsible for the exhibition I made of myself the other day,
but until then I really didn't know I had any. Anyhow, I
am much happier about it all now. We were like children
frightening ourselves by making faces in front of the glass.'
It was but a moment's work to read this, and Leonard's
heart was still thumping with the fearful expectation of what
it might contain when he had finished.
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283
'Best thing that could happen,' he said.
Then his satisfaction died.
'But how can I tell Abdul?' he thought. 'I can't write it
all to him. I must wait till they come back, I suppose.'
Somehow this did not please him. He would have preferred
to tell the Arab at once. Yet as long as they were all in the
country and Henderson in London, he felt that danger was
somehow not so imminent as when but a few hundred yards
lay between the two houses. Besides, Jack and Abdul were
with her. She was in excellent hands, while if anything ever
so faintly disquieting occurred Jack would be certain to tell
him.
CHAPTER XVIII
SPRING came early this year, and the last week of February
was full of warm suns and westerly winds, and promise of the
ever-returning miracle of the fertility of the fruitful earth.
The weather-wise, among whom was Mrs. Desmond, shook
their heads, and prophesied terrible things of March, which,
according to them, was likely to be a month of frosts and
storms which would wreck young growth that had been coaxed
into premature appearance, and nip the early blossom of the
year. But in spite of this unsatisfactory outlook for the
future it was impossible not to be entranced with the present,
so full of tremulous beauty was this early awakening of spring.
Spring, too, so felt Mrs. Desmond as she sat out-actually sat
out-on the southerly-facing terrace of the house at Ryssop,
was around her in ways more metaphysical. Just now it was
divine, yet she wondered, with a certain foreboding of evil
which was altogether foreign to her usually very placid and
optimistic nature, whether here, too, storms and a return of
nipping winter lay between now and summer, between now
and that mating-time, which was fixed for April, or between
now and June, the month of nightingales.
They-she, Ida, and Jack—had been down here for three
days, three days of real spring, of warm cloudless skies and
cloudless serenity, and a blaze of golden sun. Ida this after-
noon had suddenly been overcome by a dreadful sense of
duties unperformed, and had driven off alone after lunch,
during which bitter scenes of recrimination had taken place,
to return calls of a congratulatory nature which had accumu-
lated. The recriminations were due to Jack's inflexible
refusal to accompany her on these overdue errands unless he
might be permitted to remain outside while she went in, and
Mrs. Desmond had supported him.
'Dear Ida,' she had said, ' these calls are of the nature of
ordering dinner. Jack will not in the future come into the
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285
kitchen with you for that; that is our part, we poor household
drudges, and, indeed, in this sort of matter a man, I assure
you, is in the way. This afternoon, for instance, you can get
through what you have to do really much better without him.
He will only look awkward, and make you feel so. So if duty
really beckons, go by yourself, and leave Jack with me.'
Ida had expressed herself quite clearly on this subject, but
without effect. In consequence she had driven off alone, and
just now Mrs. Desmond was waiting for Jack to come out.
Her active support of his views on the calling question was not
wholly ingenuous, since she very much wanted to have a talk
with him. Before long he came out.
(
'You behaved nobly at lunch, Aunt Julia,' he said. But
for you I should have yielded, and looked awkward, as you
said.'
It wasn't noble,' said she; it was a mass of ulterior
motive. I wanted to talk to you privately. Sit down.'
There must have been some current of thought running in
Jack's mind, which was alive to the vague forebodings which
were in Mrs. Desmond's, for he looked up at her quickly.
'Nothing wrong?' he asked.
This was somehow rather disconcerting to Mrs. Desmond.
She would have wished that it had not been in his mind.
Ah, why do you say that?' she asked.
He sat down on the chair she had indicated.
I don't quite know. Anyhow, tell me what you want to
talk about. At least you needn't. Of course it is Ida.'
Mrs. Desmond drew her chair a little closer to his.
'Yes, Ida, of course,' she said. 'Now, since we have come
into the country Ida seems to me to have been absolutely
normal and happy. It is because she is that that I realize
how very abnormal, and really how very far from happy, she
was before we left London. I can hardly tell you in what way,
for impressions of this sort, though they are unmistakable, are
so difficult of definition. But she seemed to me always to be
listening for something, and often to be hearing what she
listened for. Now, does that convey anything to you? Did
you notice anything akin to that? Or do I seem to you to
be talking pure nonsense? I'm sure I hope so.'
Jack moved in his chair rather uneasily.
It's odd you should mention that,' he said, ' because about
a week ago—rather more-I was talking to her, and twice she
thought somebody had called her-called her by name, I
mean.'
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Mrs. Desmond nodded.
Somebody has been calling her all this last week,' she said,
' until we came down here. Now, who called? What was it?'
Jack's kind, genial face changed somewhat. A sort of
fighting look came into his eyes, and it would have seemed
to any prudent man at that moment far more comfortable to
have him for a friend than an enemy.
(
Henderson's been calling her,' he said rather abruptly.
'I'll see to it.'
Mrs. Desmond turned to him quickly.
Ah, take care,' she said.
Don't do anything rash, for
Heaven's sake! Somehow I fear that man.'
'I don't,' remarked Jack.
(
'No, because you don't know. Also I am sorry for him.'
Sorry for him, when he allowed her to go alone again and
again-
He stopped abruptly; he had not intended to say that, but
it came out before he could stop it. Yet perhaps, after all, it
was better Mrs. Desmond should know, and he was not sorry
when she prompted him to continue.
'To go alone?' she suggested.
'Yes. I had forgotten you did not know, but I will tell
you. She went several times alone to Henderson's flat.'
Mrs. Desmond moved quickly in her basket-chair, so that
it creaked.
She is such a child,' he went on. 'I love her for that white
innocence. And in proportion I hate him for allowing it: he
must have known how impossible it was. She went for some
infernal séance, and he has been hypnotizing her. He has
got influence over her-she acknowledges that; she said, too,
she owed him an enormous debt of gratitude. But she
promised she would let his influence get no deeper. Also she
knows him well, and I am sure trusts him. I hope she is
right, even though if she is right I am utterly wrong. But
Ida has as much judgment of character as a cow, the darling!
She thinks everybody is as good as herself.'
Mrs. Desmond was silent a moment.
As she has not told me,' she said at length, 'I don't offici-
ally know that, Jack. Perhaps, again, I have news for you,
for she probably has not told you that he proposed to her
about a month ago. She did not tell me that, either, by the
way, but he did.'
This was news to Jack, and he considered it:
'Poor chap!' he said. 'I don't wonder, then, that he calls
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to her, though he has no more right to do it than he has to let
her go and see him. But if he loves her, I suppose I ought to
shake hands with him over that; but, to tell you the truth,
I don't think I could shake hands with him over anything.'
Then the ordinary, material, straightforward view of the
world which he habitually took was shaken as by an earth-
quake, as the strange nature of the call came into his mind.
What does it mean?' he said. 'How does he do it?
Every hour of the day I call to Ida, and she does not know ;
yet this man makes himself heard by her in some awful inward
mysterious manner. What am I to do? Shall I tell him that,
if ever he lifts up his beastly voice again, I'll thrash him ?’
Mrs. Desmond had a great affection for this wholesome,
straightforward young man, who was so very primitive and
elementary in his suggestions. The very absence of scheming,
of finesse, in him was delightful to her, for his blood beat so
firmly, so full, without trying, so to speak, to run up secret
out-of-the-way channels. He was not in the least a fool, but
his simplicity almost rivalled Ida's, and, in parenthesis, she
almost laughed to think how their servants would tyrannize
over the arrangements of the house. But the parenthetical
laughter was short, and, with a sort of regretful sigh for the
time when differences of opinion were adjusted by this prac-
tical question of who could hit the shrewdest blows, she
returned to the case, which could not be settled in this very
simple manner.
No, I'm afraid neither the threat nor the thrashing will
do any good, Jack,' she said, and, indeed, I don't believe
either need be ever desirable. Well, we have said all the
ugly things—all the things that neither you nor I like. He
has, as you say, some infernal influence over her. But she
has promised you that shall not go deeper. Now let us look
on the other side. We have been here three days, and Ida
has been like a new creature. The influence, whatever it is—
I hate the thought of influences, by the way—seems to have
been cut off. She has been all the time her best, her most
natural self. We neither of us like Mr. Henderson, but, as
far as we know, we have no right to suppose he would ever act
in a way that you and I would call unfair. Nobody has called
to her whatever that means-since we left town. Let us
think of that only something that was constantly haunting
her has ceased for the present to haunt her. Dear Ida, as we
both know, likes horrors; she manufactures them for herself.
In fact, I shouldn't the least wonder, if it was she alone, by

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some exercise of her horror-making faculties, thought she was
being called, quite independently of him. But don't let us
think of horrors any more, for apparently she is not thinking
of them.'
Mrs. Desmond got up and looked out over the sun-flooded
landscape, which seemed a visible sign and incarnation of
peace and security.
How often we disquiet ourselves in vain!' she said; ´ and
it is so rankly stupid to be vaguely afraid just in case there is
anything to be afraid of. For three days now there has been
no cloud of any sort over Ida, and I at least have been
imagining future clouds just because the present is so cloudless.
In the same way I have been imagining frosts in March because
February is so warm. Let us cease doing that, and, to show
how much in earnest I am, I shall devote the rest of this after-
noon to bedding out. I regard it as a propitiatory offering
for my want of faith. It is sheer madness, you see, to bed
out in February, but I want to show that I am ashamed of
forecasting spiritual frosts and storms, in some material
manner.'
She turned to him again from the sunny brooding landscape.
Come, Jack,' she said, 'you and I have been building our
fears together, as children build houses out of wooden bricks.
But one touch of the hand, down it all goes, clatter, clatter !
My dear boy, push yours down too, as I have done, and never
look back again to what has been. Look forward always,
and God knows, my dear, your future could not promise more
happily. She is a pearl beyond price. And she loves you.
What fairer fate could a man conceive than that which is pre-
pared for you? There are not many Idas, dear, in this im-
perfect world of ours.'
No dreamer of dreams, no solitary dyspeptic imaginer,
could have resisted the buoyancy of her appeal. And Jack
was neither, and he responded full-voiced and with all his
heart.
Yes, you are right,' he said, ' and if in the past we have
imagined clouds, the sky is fair now. For my part, I shall
imagine no more. I shall take '-and his voice trembled a
little-'I shall take the perfect exquisite present, which is
ours-Ida's and mine-and think only of the future, which
shall be ours also. There have been clouds, but
Here she cut him short.
But we made some of them,' she said, 'and, for all we know,
we may have made them all. They are not worth another
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word. And let us be quite sure that we shall have no more of
our own making, Jack. I solemnly believe that we have
imagined the greater part of them. Now, have you any last
word to say before we dismiss from our minds the whole of
what has seemed to us cloudy in the past ?'
He looked at her with absolute candour.
'No, not one,' he said.
'Nor I,' said she. But if out of your great happiness you
can spare a little kindliness, a little sympathy, dear, for a man
who has been very miserable where you have been very happy,
it will not be wasted. Kindliness, gentleness, Jack, are never
fruitless. The sixtyfold and the hundredfold are their crop.
And the best of it is that the hundredfold is paid in two ways:
once it comes back to us; once also it is paid to those towards
whom we have felt the kindly impulse. It blesses both. So
don't even wish that you could go and have a turn-up with
Mr. Henderson.'
They sat in silence a moment. Then she spoke again.
So, as Abdul says he told me the Arabic proverb the
other day—" A sponge to wipe out the past, a rose to make the
present fragrant, and a kiss to salute the future." We agree
on that. Do you know, I like Abdul.'
Jack responded to this also.
Ah, there is a heart of gold,' he said; ' and I used to hate
black men. How I know he has a heart of gold I couldn't
tell you, but somehow I am certain of it. But when I've got
the nightmare, give me Abdul's hand to hold.'
(
Just what I feel. And to think that I used to allude to him
as a nigger! So if anything turns up-ah, I forgot, there is a
sponge for the past.'
Yes, quite wet,' said he. 'Out it all goes.'
Ida had chosen her afternoon of amendment for the things
she ought to have done, with luck so good that it seemed almost
as if she must have had intention in the matter. For this
brilliant afternoon would have lured a mole into the sunlight
and open air, and she found that not one of the objects of her
visits were at home, so that Jack might just as well have
taken a drive with her as not. Yet in certain ways, delightful
though his presence would have been to her, and much as she
had insisted on it at lunch, she was not sorry now to be alone,
for she too, no less than the others, had things to think over.
Yet they were scarcely that, even it seemed to her, as she
drove along the sun-flooded lanes, that all that was possible
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was to be, like these very lanes, sun-flooded. Until the voice,
that for a week had called to her, had been stilled, she had
scarcely known what a darkness that voice had cast over her,
or out of how dense a cloud it had come. It had been like
passing through a tunnel; the whole of her environment,
roof, sides, and floor, echoed with it: she herself echoed
with it: it had been all-pervading in its ringing resonance.
Then, about a week ago, she had had that strange interview
with Henderson-an interview arranged, though not con-
sciously by herself, in that note she had sent to him, without
ever really knowing how she had done it. A few days after-
wards they had left London, she and her aunt and her lover,
and it seemed to her as if she had passed out of the dark,
resonant tunnel, and was speeding along between green
meadow-lands and pleasant parks. Something, too, beside
the crying voice had been left behind: she no longer climbed
the glacier-stair. She had been allowed, so it seemed to her,
to loiter for a little, anyhow, in the happy valley which she
had looked at with such envy. The sublimities of the sun-
rises and moon-settings were gone from her, but gone, too,
were the murmurings from unseen crevasses, the crash in the
blue caves of ice, the myriad dangers that beset her on her
steep and narrow way. It might be a lower path that she had
chosen, yet in the experience of the daughters of Eve there was
nothing finer than the fate she had made hers to the exclusion
of the dangerous way. A man whom she loved—she knew
that-loved her. Another, Abdul, could bring her, not so
fully, but still in very beautiful ways, into touch with those
spiritual things which were as integral a part of her life as
bread and wine. This was hers-all of this was hers.
Yet there had been-there no longer was a choice, and
the choice that she had made she endorsed this afternoon,
not only willingly, but with almost rapture. In that which
she had rejected, the fuller vision, she saw nothing that could
be certainly put down as not right, but the conditions under
which it was granted to her were impossible for her to accept.
She could not take all that Henderson offered and give nothing
in exchange. Could she have given him her love, had not
that been pledged beyond all power or possibility of redemp-
tion to another, she would have given it. But it was no
longer hers: her power of love had passed absolutely into
the keeping of another. And in Henderson's offer there was
a clause of reservation: each time she was granted the open
vision she became, as she quite well knew, more under his

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control, and thus she had classed the two together, as they
were most certainly to be classed, and rejected both.
Thus, by coincidence no doubt, but almost simultaneously,
since her conclusion was arrived at as she triumphantly
swept out of the carriage-drive of the third 'not-at-home,' she
got to the same point as that which Aunt Julia and Jack had
won their way to. All this was past; there was a great deal
past that was dear to her, terribly dear to her, but past, too,
was all that was terribly dangerous. And on things dangerous
and dear alike she shut the door, locked it for her part, and
threw the key away. Last March—the March which was so
soon to come round again in the beneficent wheel of the
year-that was dead; dead, too, was Henderson's love for
her: dead was his terrible crying to her. A sponge had gone
over it all, dear and bitter alike. No more, so she said to
herself—no more, conceivably, on this side of the narrow
stream that separates living men and women from those who
truly live, would she hold that doubtful-or so it appeared
to be now-but that close and intimate intercourse with
her father. No more, too, would Henderson's hopeless love,
made audible to her inner and vital self, cry to her; no more,
above all, would haunt her that possession which in her waking
moments was as dim to her as the sea through the mist of
winter mornings-that Something that had stood in the
temple of Mut, for that was now in the control of a man
who loved her. It was his love, indeed, that rendered truly
impossible any possibility of its recrudescence. From that
she was sheltered as securely by Henderson's love as she was
sheltered from Henderson himself by her love for Jack.
Oh, this limitless golden afternoon, which stretched east,
west, north, and south, from horizon to horizon! The purr
of growth was almost audible in trees and grass, so rapid was
the sudden upspringing of life that this week of warm sun had
called forth. Winter, with its storms and squalls and dark,
uncertain days, was over, and though as yet the trees stood
bare and leafless, the stir of the yearly forces of this renewal
of life had begun, and she fancied that if she laid her ear to
a tree, as in childish days she had laid it to a telegraph-post
to listen for the humming of the tense wires, she would
assuredly hear the rush and riot of the upward-flowing sap.
Last week the snowdrops in the park, pale heralds of the
spring flowers, had whispered of what was coming, and to-day
in sheltered places the great fugal hymn of life was taken
up by primroses that lurked in shady hollows and put up con-
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fident pale faces to the sky, and by violets, less bold, that
nestled among their leaves, not venturing to raise their heads
like their more courageous sisters. And the tide that was
beginning to flow again through the world flowed through her
also, the squalls and tempests through which she had passed
were stilled, and inside as well as outside a warm, germinating
wind blew, laden and flooded with sun, bearing light to dark
places, and illuminating all with genial beams. The year had
turned: for shortened and dark days the lengthening of the
lights had begun; for storm and cold, soft air and this broad
effulgence of sunshine was poured abroad, as universal and
as all-embracing as love itself. Over the great open upland
of the forest, on the ridge of which her way lay, that golden
haze lay sparkling, and the warm wind bore with it the
aromatic smell of the pine-woods to her left and the good,
moist, rooty smell of the dusky heather. Far away to the
south rose the long lines of the Brighton Downs against the
sky, and it seemed as if they had been made out of sky itself,
which had been folded double, producing a darker shade,
indeed, of blue, but one not less ethereal or luminous. Here
and there across the dome overhead moved white fleeces of
clouds-flocks of sheep, she told herself, that pastured there,
shepherded by the sun-and their shadows, transparent
ultramarine, moved across the heath below. Gorse was in
flower, too (a fact Aunt Julia had already communicated to
the Gardener), making a separate sunshine of its own, and
as the carriage passed a bank of it the honey-sweet odour
was wafted like a web of scent across the road. Then, from
a coppice near at hand, a thrush suddenly sang a liquid, re-
peated phrase, and to Ida that seemed to crown the whole,
to put into one liquid melody the whole spirit of Spring. She
was happy, and her happiness was complete and unreserved :
just now, had the wishing-cap been put into her hand, she
would have dropped it by the roadside, having no use for it.
She did not wish anything different, nor would she even have
put the year on a week or a month, so as to bring closer that
day of union with her lover. It was approaching, and as day
after day went by she knew that she was becoming more
fit for the consummation. Everything was moving in time
together; all would be ready together.
For a little the very solemnity of her happiness made her
grave, but soon the smile uncurled her lips again and
brightened once more in her eyes, for, as the carriage
turned in at the gate, she saw a figure she knew waiting
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for her, and without stopping the trotting horses she sprang
out.
Ah, Jack, Jack!' she cried-and the name even was all
and more than enough—'I have been having a beautiful
time, and you are divinely punctual to my needs. I wanted
you just this very moment, neither before nor after. I
wanted you now, and here you are!'
The victoria, at a signal from the girl, drove on again, and
they were left alone.
'I am rather hurt,' he said. 'You should have wanted me
before.'
Yet he was not hurt, and his voice said so: he only played
at damage.
'No, not a moment before, but now this minute,' said she.
'I have been adding things up, Jack: I have been looking
back and looking forward, and I have come to a conclusion.'
'What is that?' he asked, still talking like a child to a
child.
'That it is all perfect. I would alter nothing. The
winter has passed, but I would not have gone without winter.
Oh, look round, and is it not past? I would not wish away
a single squall, a single dark hour, for it was in darkness and
in storm that the Spring had to be born. It is really so. I
think all things that are worth having spring out of those
that one would have wished away. Don't you feel it as I do?'
He took her hands in his.
'I must feel as you do,' he said. 'I can't feel otherwise.
And, indeed, what you say is curiously like what Aunt Julia
and I have been saying. We, too, have been saying that the
past, the winter is over, and whatever clouds there have been
are gone. Oh, Ida, my spring!'
They stood together for a moment in silence, by the grave,
so to speak, of the past. There was no need, nor had either
of them any desire to discuss it, to define more accurately
what the past signified to each of them, what exactly each
meant by it; for both knew that its outlines, though vague and
shadowy, contained the same presence, the same spirit, the
same shadows that the sun had illuminated and dispersed.
To-day, at any rate, they no longer came into practical life.
They were a station at which the train had not stopped: it
was now behind them on the line. And that moment's
silence was the committal of all that was past to the ground.
Then Ida spoke its requiescat.
'Mr. Henderson has been very good to me,' she said; 'we
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must not forget that, Jack: I can't tell you how, and you
don't want to know.'
No, dear, I don't want to,' was his 'Amen' to the re-
quiescat.
Horticulturally speaking, that afternoon Mrs. Desmond
ought to have been arraigned for murder and sudden death,
and even by a clement jury quite certainly condemned. The
propitiatory offering for her want of faith, at any rate, was of
the most lavish order, and she spared not the best and choicest:
For, on a February afternoon, and with a March of which she
had spoken in terms of such deep distrust to follow on her
iniquitous deeds, she planted out a dozen sweet verbenas,
three plumbagos, and half a bed of begonias. Already she
trembled inwardly at what she had done before even the
massacre of the innocents was really beyond recall, but out-
wardly her firmness never faltered, and Tom, the gardener
with whom she had previously been so firm on the subject of
fresh air, half wondered whether she would tell him to move
all the orchids outside, too. She tried until the arrival of
the others to talk herself into the confidence she did not feel,
violating at the same time the most elementary and the most
sacred principles of gardening.
'We all coddle ourselves and our plants far too much, Tom,'
she was saying, as, with a sense of madness, she tapped a
plumbago out of its pot. Look at your wife, now why,
she's a different woman since I told her about open windows.
These plumbagos, too, I am convinced they will do better
out. No, I think not that one: put that back in the green-
house, it is such an exceptionally fine plant-and supposing
there did happen to be a frost, which I am sure there won't!
But this particular one-it won't be hurt by a little less air
than the others. Yes, quite so!'
This was feeble, and she knew it, but really the propitiatory
sacrifice must have its limits. As it was, she felt as if she
had arranged a slaughter which was dreadfully unjustifiable,
and Tom's alacrity in carrying back the particularly fine
specimen of plumbago was not encouraging. But any further
murderous schemes with regard to plants, though, like the
Queen of Sheba, she had no more spirit left in her, were cut
short by the arrival of Ida and Jack. The girl looked with
a sort of incredulous horror at the begonias: though she was
no gardener, her aunt's proceedings were almost incredible.
'Dear Aunt Julia,' she said, 'what are you doing? You
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295
said only yesterday that we were certain to have frosts in
March. And begonias after frost-well, they no longer exist.
It is like the almug-trees: there are no such begonias.'
'No, dear, but we are going to have no more frost. Jack
and I settled that after lunch to-day, so don't unsettle me.'
This was clearly a parable, backed by a material instance,
and Ida took it as such.
And I settled the same thing too,' said she. 'I settled
that all the different sorts of winter were over. Do you mean
all sorts of winter, too, Aunt Julia ?'
The sun was near its setting, and a flood of ruddy gold light
shone full on Ida's face. Never, so thought Mrs. Desmond,
had she looked so divinely beautiful: her pale, delicate skin
was flushed with the rose-colour: her hat in its usual place
in her hand, not on her head, let the sun shine through her
great coils of golden hair, making them look as if they were in
themselves luminous, an aureole of molten gold. And in her
eyes there shone a happiness that was more radiant than even
this glory of evening: love burned there, and a happiness
that was content, and asked nothing more except that which
the sure and certain promise of her love brought and would
bring. The past, whatever was there of night, was dead; the
future, whatever was there of day, was alive. The moment
was perfect.
Mrs. Desmond, as she looked at her, with Jack standing by
her, quiet and strong, an emblem and embodiment of security,
felt her eyes suddenly grow a little dim with tears. She had
scarcely known before how keenly she desired security in
Ida's happiness, and how little secure she had hitherto felt it
to be. But now it seemed to her that a boat which had been
driving through wild waves and breaking surges had come into
port, safe at last from the menaces of surges and terrors of
squalls. A thousand mysterious perils of the sea had sur-
rounded it, only dimly understood by her, but none the less
dangerous. Hardly a day had passed, certainly, since Mr.
Henderson had returned to England, on which some vague
feeling of peril had not been present in her mind; what it was
she had never clearly known, but it lurked and gleamed out of
darkness, like some lighthouse beam showing where rocks
were dangerous, appearing and disappearing again. But to-
day all that had vanished in a manner as inexplicable as her
fears themselves had been; she could never have said pre-
cisely what they were, nor could she precisely say why they
had gone, except that now for the three days in which they
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had been in the country Ida had been as unconsciously serene
as a child—no cloud, however briefly, had crossed the blue:
she seemed to have wholly got rid of that which had over-
shadowed her. And she answered the girl's question with
confidence.
(
All sorts of winter, dear,' she said. Yes, just that. We
all-you, Jack, and I—all know more or less what we mean.
Jack and I buried the things of winter after lunch to-day;
you and Jack, I see, have buried them also. And all three
together we bury them.'
There was no need of more words-more words, indeed,
would have spoiled the completeness of the moment-and Ida
turned again to the bed where the innocents were prepared for
their sacrifice.
Plumbago?' she said in a voice of bewildered inquiry. 'Or
am I mad ?”
Mrs. Desmond shuddered.
'I put the best plant back,' she said, 'in case, just in case,
March might not happen to be quite as warm as I am sure it
will be. And we agree, Tom and I, that it is a great mistake
to coddle plants too much. Oh, Ida, have I been very rash ?
It is all slightly allegorical, don't you understand ?'
Ida understood and smiled.
'I think perhaps I should cover the allegories up at night
with some matting,' she suggested. 'It won't spoil the
allegory, will it? And it is rather kinder.'
Mrs. Desmond thought this an excellent idea, and jumped
at it.
Yes, I will do that,' she said with much relief. 'It—it
will improve the allegory, if anything, and also perhaps the
plumbagos: as you say, too, it is kinder. And while we're
about it, I think the verbenas might be covered, too, at night.
And perhaps the begonias. Or shall we make the allegory
very realistic as far as concerns the begonias? I'm not very
fond of them !'
Ida looked perfectly grave.
'I think too great realism is a mistake,' she said. 'It is
inartistic.'
(
<
Yes, yes,' said her aunt. Yards of matting, Tom, over
everything that I have bedded out this afternoon. The thick
kind, you know, not that flimsy stuff that lets the frost in.
Not that there is going to be any. Yes, pray do it to-night
before you go home, and send at once into the village if you
think you have not got enough. It is already a little chilly!'
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297
So the golden days ran their perfect course without inter-
ruption from fogs or frosts. No more propitiatory sacrifices
were required of Mrs. Desmond, for, indeed, it seemed that
the gods most envious of human happiness were content
to grant it here without stint or reservation. In them-
selves, as regards actual incidents, the hours were unevent-
ful, as are most hours when happiness is as complete as theirs
was. Jack and Ida sometimes rode together, sometimes
roamed aimlessly without the distraction of golfballs over
the heathery uplands of the forest, or strayed beneath the firs,
where their steps went silently over the carpets of fallen
needles. To be together was amply and utterly sufficient,
and if one saw a squirrel, that was event enough for a morn-
ing, or the brown fallen acorns of last year, out of which Ida
fashioned a doll's cup and saucer, would detain them so long
that they would be late for lunch, and Jack would have to
produce them as evidence to Mrs. Desmond of the weighty
cause of their unpunctuality. Then four days of brilliant
sun and warm wind was succeeded by a tearing gale out of
the south-west that flung rattling sheets of rain broadcast
against the windows, and fluted with weird shrieks and
moans in the chimneys, making the open wood fire in the hall
spring upwards in leaping yellow flame, and the core of heat
glow with the draught that drew up the chimney, while the
wind wailed like a legion of lost spirits at the corners of the
house. Yet that too, that morning of enforced indoor life,
was also a page of perfection, and instead of the open air they
had the more intimate and domestic hours by the fireside : a
privacy was theirs that the long rambles over the forest,
perfect as they were, could not give them. The gale in its
savage fury only brought exhilaration to Ida, and no Sirocco
forebodings, as in Egypt, made her quiver and tremble. So
much, indeed, was this so, that after the morning by the fire-
side she felt so stirringly the delicious unrest of the screaming
wind enter her very bones, that she and Jack had gone out
and tramped through puddles and dripping heather to the very
top of the ridge of the forest in order to lean against the full
south-west blast as against a solid wall, and drink in and store
themselves with the fierce joy of the hurricane. Standing
there close together, they had to shout to make their voices
audible; the riot and rage of the storm was indescribable, and
they stood alone, without a soul in sight, shut off from all the
world by gray walls of driving rain on all sides of them. Then,
turning, they were fairly blown home again with faces stung
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into glorious warmth and glow by the buffeting of wind and
rain, laughing with the pure delight of any experience
which they shared together. Then tea by the fireside suc-
ceeded their change of raiment, and with Mrs. Desmond they
played absurd childish games, hide-and-seek all over the
darkened house, with who knew what bogies lurking in linen
cupboards, till Jack's courage altogether gave out, and he
refused to face the terrors of the dining-room passage again,
for fear that his nerve and self-control should altogether pass
from him and leave him, for the rest of his life, no man, but an
aspen-leaf. Dinner was a joyful parody of human intercourse,
Mrs. Desmond, who had lately adopted in theory vegetarian
principles, and in practice delighted in sirloin of beef, being a
peg for gaiety. Then a parody of bridge, at which, with care, it
was quite possible to lose five shillings, with explosive argu-
ment thrown in gratis, was the end of the day. But at the
close of each ended day there was the dawn of the morrow to
look forward to.
So the golden days, whether of sunshine or of deluging rain,
sped by. The four days of country, which was all that had
been originally planned, lengthened to a week, the week
before the lapse of time was noticed was ten days, and the
consequent fortnight might have stretched itself further, but
for violent communications from Beatrice. As directress of
the trousseau, she, with the mildness of utter despair, just
asked for directions, since she could no longer reconcile it
with her conscience to be responsible for anything. Did Ida
intend to be married in a sponge-bag, for a sponge-bag, appar-
ently, was the only thing definitely ordered. In case that was
not her intention, would she kindly come to London for an
hour or two and 'try on'? A telegram was requested in reply,
for which an ironical sixpence was enclosed; they were given
reasonable time for consultation, but if no answer was received
by tea-time on that day, Beatrice announced her intention
of washing her hands even of the sponge-bag, and ob-
serving what should follow on her severing her connection
with the trousseau with interest not unmixed with amuse-
ment. The letter, in fact, was of the nature of an ultimatum,
and as such, with intermingled shouts of laughter, Ida read
it aloud at breakfast. Occasionally, for the letter was
extremely long and in parts technical, she said, 'Oh, I'll
miss that out,' but the bulk of it, anyhow, was conveyed to her
audience.
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299
Mrs. Desmond, on the afternoon before the arrival of the
ultimatum, had finished operations in the garden, and behaved,
as the other two thought, rather tiresomely.
'Be married in an alpaca if you like, dear Ida,' she said,
' in the Forest Row Church. But if you don't mean to do
that-I don't oppose it in any way-consider what Bee says.
It seems to me that there is a certain amount of sense in her
letter.'
Ida gave a deep sigh, and looked at Jack with raised eye-
brows.
Alpaca or London, Jack ?' she asked.
Alpaca,' said he promptly, or the sponge-bag.'
Ida clapped her hands.
'Let us wire to Beatrice at once,' she said. "Shall be
married in alpaca, no trousseau required; please counter-
order everything, including sponge-bag." Dear Bee, I think
she would have a fit.'
She had finished breakfast, and went across the room to the
window. Traces of the storm remained yet in the channels
ploughed in the gravel of the walks, the washings from
the paths that had been carried on to the grass, and the
twigs and branches torn off the shrubs by the wind; but the
gale had quite blown itself out, and another calm morning of
sunshine that flooded everything and was spread over the
forest like a golden coverlet met her eye. But she turned
away again with a sigh.
'I suppose one must go, after all,' she said, 'though I
should like, as at bridge, to "double this fortnight we have
had here, to begin it all over again. It has been so perfect—
oh, it has been so perfect! But we needn't stop in London
very long, need we, Aunt Julia, or do you want to be there now
till Easter ?'
'I must be there a week or two, dear,' said she; ' but there
is no reason why you should stop. Come down here again
with Beatrice, if you like, as soon as you've satisfied her with
regard to clothes.
Ida's eye brightened.
<
'That's a good idea,' she said. Somehow, I don't think I
want to be long in London. I've got-what do they call it ?
a sort of scunner of London. I suppose it is because I have
had such a delicious time here. Well, we must settle, I
suppose. Let us go up the day after to-morrow. Will that
suit everybody?'
Jack rose also, and joined her at the window.
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'I feel quite like you, Ida,' he said. 'I want to double this
last week, because never in my life have I been so happy.
But I must go up to town soon.
Then, the sooner the better, and get it over,' said Ida.
'Thurdsay, then. What a pity that doubling is impossible!
Because I don't want to go to London at all.'
Accordingly, two mornings later they left. That cloudless
morning after the storm had been but an interlude, and the
weather had broken again angrily and in earnest. East winds
had taken the place of the warm westerly breezes, and the
garden cowered and was torn beneath the lash of cold rain.
All the way up to town it beat pitilessly on the streaming
windows of the carriage, and drummed a dismal tattoo on the
roof. Their train crawled dispiritedly along, stopping at
sodden, rain-drenched stations, where a few passengers huddled
under mackintosh or umbrella, and the bookstalls displayed
drenched and torn résumés of the morning's news. Jack had
bought a paper, but it lay unregarded on his knee, and he
stared listlessly out, while Ida, in the corner opposite him,
had taken a book from her bag, but had at present not turned
a page of it. Darker and more dreary it grew as they ap-
proached London; backs of houses of incredible meanness and
squalor, with tiny soot-covered gardens containing a forlorn
shrub or two, ran on either side of them through miles of
monotonous suburbs. Again and again they were stopped
by signals outside stations, and stood forlornly rained upon.
till, with a mournful hoot from the engine and a jerk of
couplings, they crawled on again. Even Mrs. Desmond was
somewhat affected by the delays and the darkness, and dozed
uneasily-she was one of those eminently fortunate individuals
whose sleep in trains is commensurate with the duration of the
journey-in her corner, till with a final jar they came to a
standstill underneath the gloomy and soot-ridden vault of
Victoria Station.
Really, I wonder if we were wise to come up,' she said.
'Of all dreary mornings Why, Ida, what is the matter?'
For the girl had risen, and was looking out into the dark
tunnel of the station with a face of terror and trembling hands
clapsed together.
She turned on her aunt's voice, and looked at her.
(
'Oh, it is dreadful!' she cried, and I feel frightened. Oh,
why did we leave the country, where we were safe, and come
here? Why did we come-why did we come? We shall be
sorry!'
CHAPTER XIX
ON that same dismal and dispiriting morning, and at about
the same time as the party from Ryssop arrived at Victoria,
Henderson was looking out from the window of his flat on to
a mud-coloured scene. The houses in Davies Street opposite
his windows looked as if they were built of mud, the street
and pavements were certainly covered with mud, and the
colour of the low drifting sky irresistibly suggested that
buckets of liquid mud had been emptied into it. It was cold,
too-cold with the marrow-searching dampnesses of east wind
in February; a cold that penetrates more than a zero of
firm frost, and seems to half congeal the flow of the blood and
to stiffen and make heavy the joints. All these sensations
were very vividly present to Henderson, as with a shiver of
both moral and physical discontent he turned back again into
his room, where, at any rate, the electric light was lit and the
fire prospered in the grate.
Yet, though the physical environment was bad enough to
justify a shiver of disgust, it must be confessed that in most
ways, at any rate, his other circumstances were serene and
cheerful enough. The set of six lectures on psychical subjects
of which he had just given the last had met with a success
that had exceeded his most sanguine expectations, and this
very morning he had just signed a highly advantageous agree-
ment with a prominent publisher to bring them out in book
form. He was also given a series of séances which had been
no less remunerative from not merely a financial point of view
—though, indeed, from that standpoint he had no reason to
be dissatisfied with the result. For he had invited representa-
tives of various learned societies in England to be present at
he had invited them also to bring a conjurer, an adept at
tricks and sleight-of-hand, to help them to observe, and also
to impose any tests, except that of broad light, that they
wished. They came, if not to curse like Balaam, yet certainly
one;
301
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The
in a suspicious and antagonistic spirit, and one or two of them,
at any rate, went away, if not exactly blessing, at any rate
very much interested, and, to tell the truth, rather frightened.
For Henderson had warned them that they must not come
expecting to hear slow music, or any playing of hymns on a
cracked banjo, or messages of a vaguely cheering kind about
faith, hope, and love, and a life beyond the grave. Of the
life beyond the grave he hoped he would be able to convince
them, if any needed conviction on such a point, but there
would probably be nothing about faith, hope, or love. The
control, in fact, which he proposed to present to them-he
had a certain secret glee in using this mercantile phrase-was
that of an ancient Egyptian, who, as far as could be judged,
was not particularly loving. But he appeared to be very
powerful, and Henderson proposed, when they were assembled
at Davies Street, certain experiments which might be of
interest, inviting the representatives of the learned societies
to suggest others. His own suggestions were quite simple,
but rather difficult to explain except by supposing that super-
natural agency had perhaps a finger in the matter.
control in question did not speak English, or, indeed, any
living tongue; but since an eminent Egyptologist was among
them, no doubt the hieroglyphic writing which he hoped might
be witnessed would be interpreted to them by this gentleman.
This particular séance, it must be understood, was one of
invitation: should the Psychical Society, the Swastika Club,
the Society for the Promotion of Occult Science, the New
Theosophists, and others, desire to see more, he would be
happy to arrange further sittings for them, if they cared to
pay for them. One thing also Henderson insisted on: namely,
that everybody should sit within a certain ring which he had
marked out on the boards and surrounded with certain
cabalistic signs, and not stir from it, on oath, till he gave them
leave. He would not otherwise be responsible for what might
occur. This condition, after consultation, was accepted, though
at first the more experienced were disposed to demur to this.
The tests imposed were sufficiently strict, being the outcome.
of the ingenuity of all present directed towards the elimination
of any possibility of fraud or trickery. The members of the
learned societies searched the room as if for hidden treasure,
but found it not: Mohammed and Henderson voluntarily
submitted to a similar scrutiny. Windows were bolted and
sealed, doors were treated likewise, the table was tapped and
sounded by the conjurer as if it had been a patient with
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303
(
tubercular disease. Then came the consideration of Hender-
son's proposed experiments. In a locked box on a small table
near the window was laid paper and a pencil, on which it was
hoped that the control' would write answers to any questions
which were suggested, and which Henderson or the Egyptol-
ogist would translate to him. There were also, he proposed,
to be placed there any ordinary coin of the realm, which Set-
nekht should be asked to crumple up like a fragment of soft
paper, just by way of showing that he was possessed of some-
thing more than ordinary physical strength; a pocket-knife
which he should be asked to stick in the ceiling, which was
some ten feet above the floor; and two separate curtain-rings
which he should be asked to link together. Also there was a
question asked him, but what it was only the Egyptologist
who had written it knew.
These experiments, after being revised in a few small
details, were accepted as satisfactory, and the representative
scientists proceeded to tie up Mohammed till he resembled a
trussed hen. His master also insisted on being treated in the
same way, and the control of the light, which was to be
turned off as soon as Mohammed was in trance, was given to
the president of the Swastika Club, a gentleman of infinite
incredulity, in whose presence, as of the sun, fraudulent
spiritualists had often ere now melted away like morning mists.
Then the séance took place, and when, half an hour later, the
light was turned up again, rather pale faces were seated round
the table. All the time during which he had been in trance
Mohammed had moaned, the moan occasionally rising to a
shriek of terrified horror or breaking into a babble of wild,
entreating words. Then, when he was awakened, he suddenly
burst into tears. After that, as soon as the contents of the
box on the table by the window had been annexed by one of
the guests, he was set free from his bonds, and after a word to
Henderson left the room.
Professor Clarence, the gentleman of so fine an incredulity,
turned to Henderson.
6
May I ask what your medium said ?' he asked.
By all means.
He said that the control is very angry.
He said also he wants something-what, I am afraid I cannot
tell you it is a private matter.'
Then the box was unlocked and the contents of it examined:
the paper of hieroglyphics was taken possession of by Pro-
fessor Clarence, a florin all crumpled up like a fragment of tin-
foil passed from hand to hand, two curtain-rings were inter-
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laced and showed no mark of a join, and in the ceiling was
embedded a pocket-knife. Then the interpretation of the
hieroglyphic writing, executed with exquisite neatness, was
communicated.
Set-nekht, the steward of the king Seti, is present, and
writes this.
'His Ka was laid to rest in the temple of Mut, and in the
temple of Mut, a year ago, his spirit, which had been laid to
rest, was again set free by one who sits here.
'He wants one who is lawfully his-
Henderson started, and made a gesture of interruption.
'I must ask you not to read more of that,' he‍ said, ‘if
there is any name that follows.'
'No, there is no name,' said Professor Clarence, feeling
suddenly suspicious, though, indeed, it was difficult for him
to determine exactly what there was to be suspicious about.
She was outside the circle, and she is mine."
He says,
A pause.
((
'One hundred and fifty-three.'
What was that question ?' asked Henderson.
The question was, "What is nine times seventeen ?”›
It seems correct,' said he dryly. 'At least, I make it that.'
Such had been the strange occurrences that took place on
the occasion of the invitation séance, on which a series of others
had followed, and this very morning the whole press was agog
with the accounts of the new magic, this dangerous, delightful
magic, in which, so to speak, the very flame of the nethermost
pit played around the earnest inquirer. And Mr. Henderson,
so the conversational comments ran, which were quite as
voluminous as those of the press, was such a dear, Italian
blood, you know his mother was a Marchesa-so gentle, so
interested in what one said, and an inquirer only himself. Of
course the prices of his séances were rather high, but everyone
wants to go, and it is difficult to get in at all, but perhaps if
we ask him to dinner he will somehow make room for us.
Now all these very propitious events had happened, but
this morning, when Henderson turned back from the con-
templation of the universal mud-colour to his warm, bright
room, no thought of it all was in his head. Just two lines of
the Morning Post filled his entire consciousness-two lines
which announced the date of the marriage of Miss Ida Jervis.
It was to take place at St. Peter's, Eaton Square, on the
second of April:
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305
For a whole fortnight now he had borne, like the Spartan
boy, in silence and with a certain heroism that was altogether
praiseworthy, the fox gnawing at his entrails. He knew that
Ida had left London, for the shuttered house, off which he could
not keep his eyes as he passed, told him that. Yesterday, too,
seeing that they were still absent, he had called there to inquire
about their return, and heard they would be back this morning.
It was that thought that banished all other dreams and
ambitions, already realized or in process of realization, from
his head. While Ida had been away it had been rather less
difficult, rather less impossible, not to yearn after her, to
repress, as he had done, the call to her which he knew she
must answer. But now, in an hour or two, perhaps already,
she would be back, a few hundred yards away from him only.
That, coupled with the lines in the Morning Post, made an
intolerable thought. She-that six feet of English beef beside
her, always beside her
All morning until after noon he sat alone with this thought,
which like some angry, inflamed spot throbbed and burned
within him, making him restless and unable to apply himself
to anything, as if he had been feverish. Outside the mud-
coloured day passed on in dark unluminous hours; inside the
room Mohammed, silent-footed, stole in and out again with a
log for the fire, and a glance at his master to see if he wanted
anything, surprised that he sat without employment in his
armchair, for it was seldom that he did that. And, indeed,
Henderson wanted something very much, and each time that
Mohammed came in he looked at him, wondering, idly, so he
told himself, whether it would come to this, that she should
be driven to him, and whether one day he would no longer be
able to keep himself from employing any means which should
bring her to him.
His thought might be idle, but he gave leave to his imagina-
tion, anyhow, to work round it with festoon and embroidery,
till, like some rose-supporting arch, the arch itself was unseen
beneath the burden that blossomed and leaned on it. Driven
to him, if needs be, driven-oh, a thousand times 'no'!
That torpedo he could not direct on her. It was a bargain
with hell itself. Yet he and she together, she by any means
brought to lean on him, like the supported rose to blossom on
him! For she was that without which he was less than half
himself; she was his completeness, and he—he could not help
knowing this could alone fulfil the utmost yearnings of her
spiritual nature. To think of her just as a mother of
20
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
children, a housewife in a humdrum English home, was in-
conceivable. Better that she should die than live to be so great
a parody of what she might be. Yet he distrusted the sober
conclusions of his own mind; his longing for her was such,
indeed, that he knew he could not think soberly where she
was concerned. And on the second of April at St. Peter's,
Eaton Square-
But better a mere objectless tramp through the leaden,
mud-coloured streets than this fevered musing indoors; and,
indeed, he had an object in going out. He felt he could not
apply himself to anything while he was still uncertain whether
she had or had not come back to London : for while she was
in the country, while even so few miles separated them, he
seemed to himself to acquiesce in her absence, but what he
could not stand was the uncertainty whether she was back yet,
separated from him only by a couple of hundred yards of
London streets. It would be something to be sure she was not
yet back in London; it would also be something to be sure that
she was. Certainty, anyhow, on this point was essential to
him he could not bear not to know where she was. He had
to think of her definitely, with the details of the place where
she was round her, to complete the image of his thought: and
he must know whether she was down at Ryssop, in which case
the acuteness of his feeling would be a little assuaged, or
whether she was now close at hand. He realized how object-
less, how fruitlessly sentimental, was his expedition, but
reason was vanquished: he could neither rest nor work till
he knew where she was.
:
Outside the windless, perpendicular rain splashed into the
puddles of its own making. Just opposite his flat the road was
half up, and where the wooden bricks of the roadway had been
removed, a pool of water three inches deep was collected, into
which the rain splashed more resonantly. No further road-
mending was possible in this downpour, and the iron furnace
for the liquefaction of the asphalt to lay over the bricks was
covered with a dripping tarpaulin. Iron posts and ropes
hedged round the area of mending, and though it was noon-
day, so dark was the noon that lit lanterns hung upon them to
warn carriages. From the windows of other houses, too,
lights gleamed, and at intervals down the street the lamp-
posts were crowned with a weary flicker of flame. The day
was dead and windless: a London fog seemed imminent,
should not some breeze ventilate the town and disperse the
growing density of the cloud and smoke that overhung it.
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
307
Further south, though the distance was but a few hundred
yards, the day was more luminous, and in Berkeley Square
itself the gas was not lit. The plane-trees in the garden
stretched crooked, writhing fingers against the sky, and the
houses were sharply outlined against a less leaden gray. But
inside the rooms lights were lit, and fanlights flared above the
doors: one house, the one which was his goal, was illuminated
in all its stories, and he paused opposite it. At the moment
a motor-brougham came round the lower end of the Square,
and he went back some twenty paces. It drew up at the
house he watched. A big, tall woman got out, a man followed,
there followed him a girl. They had been expected, for the
front-door opened the moment the carriage drew up at the
house, and a blaze of bright light was cast across the pave-
ment. They all three went in, the door was shut with a
muffled clap of sound, and he was left outside under the gray
and dripping sky.
The object of his walk was accomplished: she had come
back, and he carried home with him the knowledge, sat with
it in front of his fire again, saw it stare at him from the book
he made pretence to read, found it wedged among the bundle
of press cuttings about himself like a withered flower, met it
everywhere and whichever way he turned. But the certainty
did him no good; even now that he knew, he was no more able
to settle to anything. It grew more arresting too; it obscured
the whole page of his book, so that no idea could pass from it
to his brain; it got between him and the fire so that he
shivered, it stared in at the windows, it called to him from
corners. Ida was back : she was near: in a couple of minutes
he could be with her in a couple of minutes she could be
with him. For he had only to call.
:
Then that last thought,' he had only to call,' was like an
anchor cast from some drifting balloon, which at length had
caught in something firm. For the last fortnight he had
drifted on, ropes out, the grappling anchor swinging close to
the earth, yet not catching, for his mind desired itself indul-
gence in that thought. But now it had caught his drifting
was stayed, a rope was taut between him and the earth, so taut
that it twanged to the breeze. He had only to call: one call,
she would hear: she could not help hearing. And, hearing,
she could not help coming; he had already arranged that.
Henderson had not waited after seeing the party of three
into the house, for he had seen enough. But had he remained
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
there a little longer he would have seen Jack come out again.
He would have seen him, too (and that would have interested
him), go to that house in St. James's Street where he himself
not long ago had passed an hour or two after dinner at the
Bath Club. And could he have followed him into the sitting-
room, with its bookcases full of fat medical lore, and listened,
he would have been even more interested.
Leonard was at lunch; his man-servant, seeing Jack enter,
softly laid another place, but Jack's genial nod to him, as an
old servant of his friend, was absent. Cumbered, like Martha,
with serving, he did not heed the talk, and even if he had
heeded, he would have been but little the wiser. Jack, indeed,
scarcely nodded to Leonard, but took a chair beside him and
began to talk at once.
Yes, we are just back,' he was saying. She has never
been more natural and more serene than she has been all this
fortnight. We played the silliest games, and took the longest
walks, and did nothing. But the moment we got into Victoria
she was frightened. I only stopped a few minutes: I just
went with them to the house, and she is still awfully frightened.
What about, God knows. I dropped a book in the hall, like a
silly fool, and she screamed out, "What is that? Is that
somebody coming? Don't let him in." For my sake,
Leonard, go round there and see what it is. If I know what
it is, that is something. If any of us know what it is, it is
something: one can act then, and not go mad in this dreadful
ignorance and suspense. Oh, confound your lunch! you can
have lunch every day: just go there now: lunch there: it is
perfectly natural. But just try to find out what is happening.
It isn't anything that I can put my finger on that she fears; it
isn't nerves, or this horrible day, or London. She fears some-
thing that is coming. By the way, have you anything to tell
me? Have you found out anything more?'
(
Leonard had risen.
Nothing definite,' he said.
Then don't tell me. But as soon as there is something
definite, something for the hands to do, anything, anything to
do——' he cried, suddenly losing control over his voice.
Leonard turned on him sharply.
Look here, Jack,' he said: "if you are going to behave in a
silly hysterical manner, I'll have nothing more to do with you.
Good heavens, man! if that's your tune, I shall just prescribe
you a sedative, and stop here to see that it acts. You're all
jingling with nerves: I can hear them.'
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309
Jack rose up, huge and square from his untasted fish.
Go,' he said-' just go. And if you come back and tell me
that it's I who am unreasonably alarmed, you may dissect all
my nerves one after the other, and send them to the College of
Surgeons. If you don't go I'll kick you,' he said with a grim
calmness.
Leonard could not quite stand this: he did not wish to
torture Jack with delays, but, really, no self-respecting man
could let this pass.
Kick away, then,' he said.
Instantly Jack's manner changed.
'Oh, my dear chap,' he said, for Heaven's sake go, if it's
only to console me. I would do the same for you; I would go
on a wild-goose chase further than Berkeley Square, if my
going would comfort you, however unreasonable I thought it.
So, please, I apologize for all I have said, if that will do.'
Leonard, as a matter of fact, would have gone in any case :
he only insisted on the decencies of life being observed. As
Jack had said, there was nothing unnatural in his dropping in
to lunch at Berkeley Square, and without further delay he
hailed a hansom, and even told the man to drive quick.
Jack, left alone, ate an automatic lunch, lit a cigarette,
and waited. But he had scarcely finished when his host was
back again. Leonard wasted no inquiries on the nerves of
the other; he took, automatically, as Jack had eaten his
lunch, a cigarette from the box his servant handed him.
'You have lunched ?' asked Jack; this also was automatic.
'No.'
He lit his cigarette, and puffed at it furiously once or twice.
without replying.
Thank God, Abdul is there,' he said.
Jack tried to speak and failed; at the second attempt a
croak of words came from his mouth.
What is it ?' he said.
Leonard threw his hands apart.
'I have no idea,' he said. She is frightened, terribly
frightened. That is all I know. She is not ill-her body is
not ill at least, pulse strong, breathing good. But, Jack, you
must be prepared for her being ill. There is something, I don't
know what it is-I wish to God I knew-that we have to fight.
We can fight it in two ways. That is to say, Abdul is fighting
it now. He is talking to her in Arabic, a language I don't
understand; but I am convinced that he is on her side-what-
ever that is—and what he says keeps her quiet, or in any case
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the seizure does not get worse. She was clinging to him like a
child.'
<
Seizure ?' asked Jack.
Yes. Whatever is the matter with her, it is serious, or it
may become so. Then there is another way in which we may
fight it-that is my affair. I only came back here to get-to
get things I might want.'
Jack's mouth went suddenly dry, and he poured out a glass
of cognac and drank it like water.
What things?' he asked in a sort of strangled whisper.
It won't do you any good to know,' he said,' but it won't
do any harm. A morphia syringe, that is one; a bottle of
A.C.E., that is another.'
<
What is that?'
An anesthetic. My dear chap, there is no reason at
present to be frightened, and in any case, if there is reason to
be frightened, it is unspeakably important that you should not
be. But if this goes on, in any case if it gets worse, it may be
necessary to render her body powerless, and to relieve by
unconsciousness some stress and tension that is going on in
her brain.'
Then he threw his half-smoked cigarette into the grate.
'I don't believe what I am afraid of, mind,' he said. And
I tell myself again and again that she has got a bad attack of
nerves of some kind. Nerves may take any form; you can't
possibly forecast exactly what you will have to fight. But
they usually-in fact, it is perfectly usual-they usually, like
influenza, attack your weak point.
(
Then the lover rose in arms.
'Ida's weak point?' he cried.
Yes, fear of certain things, and also of a certain person.
Jack, there is a man in this town whom I fear, too. The name
does not matter.'
Jack got up, suddenly calmed by the prospect of doing
something.
Davies Street, isn't it?' he asked in a perfectly steady
voice. 'What's his number ?'
'That's no good. At least, that is not the important part.
It is no good, I mean, you going to him straight, as you would
like to do. You would only get taken up for assault, or
perhaps murder, and you would not help matters in the least.
130A is the number, if you wish to know, but you mustn't go
there till there is some object to be served in doing so.
let me think a minute.'
Now
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311
In happier hours Jack had nicknamed his friend Sher-
lock Holmes, for that masterpiece in fiction bore a certain
resemblance to the astute Leonard. Though he did not
smoke a few ounces of shag tobacco when he was in a difficulty,
he always smoked, and though a couple of minutes ago he had
thrown one half-consumed cigarette into the fireplace, he took
another. He sat motionless as he inhaled it all, though he
was the author of a small brochure on the danger of inhalation,
and inhaled the whole of yet another before he spoke, while
Jack fidgeted about the room.
You are no good inside the house,' he said at length.
'But wait opposite 130A. You had better go there now-one
can't tell.'
(
And do what ?'
That also I can't tell you. I don't know what is going to
happen. But you must do as seems to you right. It is just
possible that she may go there, or that he may come to
Berkeley Square. At least one must be prepared for that.
If he does, follow him, and prevent his ringing the bell. He
mustn't come in: you must see to that.'
And if she goes there?' asked Jack.
Leonard gave a long frown to this.
'Follow her into the house,' he said at length, ' if you can-
not intercept her before she goes in, and bring her back.
Carry her back.’
Jack started up.
But it can be prevented,' he cried; or are we all in
Bedlam? What are the police for? what is Scotland Yard for?'
Leonard almost laughed, and his laughter would have been
more grim than his gravity.
(
What has he done?' he asked. What crime do you
propose to charge him with ?"
There was no reply possible: occult power was no more
recognised in West London than in the Soudan, and Leonard
rose.
'I am going back straight to Berkeley Square,' he said.
'What I may have to do I have no idea. And you must go,
too. Watch the house: I have no more idea what you will
have to do than I have about myself. Watch there for an
hour then, if nothing has happened, walk on the right-hand
pavement back to Berkeley Square and inquire for me. If
I am not there, I shall have left some message for you. We are
all absolutely in the dark we cannot arrange for any con-
tingency as certain.'
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
In ten minutes they were off, and walked together as far
as the Berkeley Square house. Here Leonard went in, and
the other went northwards up Davies Street till he came to
the house that he was to watch. There was a saddler's
below it, and the clean, aromatic smell of leather hung curiously
in the still damp air. Above the saddler's was a row of large-
paned windows; three of these were lit; above that, again,
was the third story: here the blinds were already drawn.
:
The rain had practically ceased, but the darkness, though
it was still not much after three of the afternoon, was like
that of night, and the street-lamps were all lit.
The fog,
though it might descend any minute, hung somewhere high
above the town, for it was perfectly clear down here in the
streets, and the tops even of the highest houses showed no
blur of outline. The far side of the road opposite the house
he watched was taken up; behind it was a narrow arched
entrance to some mews, and in shelter of this Jack took up
his position, for from the darkness of it he could observe with-
out himself attracting attention. The street was strangely
deserted only at long intervals did any wheeled traffic pass
him, and even the passengers on the pavements were few, so
that a single step was audible in either direction for many
yards. And even these few seemed all to be single passengers,
and for the first half-hour, certainly, of his vigil Jack heard no
sound of the kindly human voice. He longed for it to be
otherwise; had the sun shone, had the street been bustling
with the usual ordinary crowd all intent on their daily super-
ficial work, he felt that his agony of suspense would have been
somehow more endurable. But the silence, the darkness, the
few and lonely passengers, so aggravated it that he could
almost have screamed for the disquiet of his nerves. Then
someone appeared at one of the windows of the first-floor
above the saddler's, and looked out for a minute or two.
There was a gas-lamp just opposite, and his face was vividly
illuminated, white, haggard, and set. It was Henderson.
He stood there with eyes fixed on Jack, yet Jack felt sure,
though he drew himself a little more into the shadow of the
arch, that they saw nothing except some inward vision of his
own brain, the vision that ruled those deep furrows in his fore-
head and compressed the thin mouth into those hard, un-
yielding lines. Then suddenly, with an awful gesture as of
despair or surrender of some sort, Henderson threw his arms
wide. But after that the white, haggard face was changed, the
compressed mouth smiled, a dreadful kind of joy was written
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
313
there, but a joy of no kindly or wholesome sort. Then, with
a couple of movements, he drew the curtains over the win-
dow, reappeared after a second or two at the next window,
and then at the third. Over all he drew the curtains: the
flat had closed its eyes. Yet it did not seem to Jack as if it
slept : it had closed its eyes for concentration, for meditation,
for the maturing of the schemes that filled the busy brain
within.
The hour was up sooner than he had expected, but Jack
stayed five minutes more, and then walked back along the
right-hand pavement towards Berkeley Square. He noticed
that the overhead fog was descending, and the tops of the
houses, though still in the street below the air was clear, were
just blurred with brown vapours and swirling wreaths of
fog. For a hundred yards down the street he met no one;
then quite suddenly he was conscious that a rapid, light
step was coming towards him from the direction in which he
was going. It was so quick that it was almost a run, and
some inner sense of strange foreboding and dismay told him
that it was terribly familiar to his ears. Then the owner
appeared out of the darkness already close to him, a tall,
slight figure, and under a gas-lamp they met face to face.
Ida stared at him, as he put his arms out to stop her, with
blank, unseeing eyes no light of recognition even was in
them it was as if she had never set eyes on him before, or,
indeed, did not see him now. The next moment, with a
sudden movement of incredible strength and quickness, she
had thrust his arm aside, had passed him, and was running
up the street. At the same moment he heard more steps
tearing up behind him, but without pausing to look round-
though he guessed whose they might be he had started
after her. But run as he might, he could not gain on her,
for some supernormal excitement impelled her to a speed
which ever outdistanced his own. Her figure stood out clear
for a moment as it passed the lights of the saddlery shop;
she sprang up the three steps of the side-door, and just as
Jack came up it was banged in his face.
In a couple of seconds more, while he still hesitated, the
steps that had followed joined him. It was Leonard, hatless,
splashed with mud, breathless with his race after the girl.
Can't explain now,' he said. 'In we go!'
The door had apparently been on the latch before: now it
was closed, and they had to wait till the bell was answered.
Then to the man who appeared Leonard merely said,
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
Mr. Henderson is on the first floor, is he not? I have
business with him which cannot wait,' and pushed by the
astonished servant. Upstairs he dashed, followed by Jack,
and the two burst together into Henderson's room:
He was standing on the hearthrug: opposite to him was Ida.
She turned as they entered, and put up her hand to her
head. The spell that had held her as she dashed past him
in the street was over, apparently: it had done its work and
had brought her here, and now her eyes were those of a
conscious, living being: She looked puzzled, indeed, but she
was the Ida whom Jack knew, by whom he was known.
6
'Jack?' she said. And you, Mr. Compton? Why am
I here? And you, Mr. Henderson? Where am I? What
house is this? Ah, yes, yes, I know now.'
She sat down in a dazed, helpless attitude.
'Jack, take me home,' she said.
He stood over her between her and Henderson.
Yes, dear, yes,' he said. We will go now at once. Take
her downstairs, Leonard. I've got one word to say to this
man.'
Ida rose again with the same helpless, unresisting obedience,
and left the room with Leonard. At the door she paused a
moment, looking back like a child for her best friend, who
lingered.
You're coming, too, Jack?' she asked, with a curious,
hesitating utterance.
'Yes, in a moment: I'll be with you in a moment,' he said.
He closed the door behind her when she had gone out with
Leonard.
'I've only a minute,' he said, 'and I don't know what
this devilry means, or want to know. It is some black art of
yours, I suppose. But if anything of this sort happens
again I will kill you-kill you with my hands! throttle you,
you devil! Have you anything to say ?'
Henderson looked at him a moment with a smile gathering
on his lips, the same sort of smile as Jack had seen there an
hour ago when he watched outside in the street.
'I think you will be sorry you said that,' he said very softly.
Jack did not wait, but went after the others, catching
them up just outside the house. Ida was quite quiet, her
eyes were still a little troubled, and she took Jack's arm,
clinging close to him.
What has been happening?' she said.
Nothing, dear, nothing,' said Jack, moistening his lips
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
315
before he could speak: 'You-you tell her, Leonard,' he
said.
(
'We won't speak of it,' he said; there is nothing to be
afraid of, Miss Ida. And I promise you it shan't happen
again. You are just coming quietly home with us, and we
will take care of you.'
Then a sudden terror came into the girl's eyes.
You didn't quarrel with him-with Mr. Henderson ?' she
said to Jack. You must be very careful about him. He is
so strong, so dreadfully strong. I think even God must be
afraid of him.'
There were no more words till they reached the house
again. Mrs. Desmond was standing bareheaded on the pave-
ment outside the door, looking out up towards Davies Street.
Ah, thank God! thank God!' she cried as she saw them.
You have brought her back safe. Now, dear Ida, you will
be good, will you not? and do all that Mr. Compton tells
you. He will soon make you comfortable.'
Why, of course,' said she, 'if he can only make me better,
I will do anything he tells me. Here and here'-and she
touched her head and her breast- I am well; but deep down
inside somewhere I am ill-oh, so ill! and so tired! If you
could only make me sleep inside! What am I to do, Mr.
Compton, ?'
Go upstairs,' said he— go and lie down in your bedroom :
I will come to you in a minute.'
Ida smiled at them, nodded, and held Jack's hand a
moment. Then, with the docility of a child, she walked
upstairs, as she had been bidden.
Leonard waited till she had gone: then he turned to the
others and spoke with the quick peremptoriness of a man
who was used to being obeyed.
You must face the whole of it, Jack, and you too, Mrs.
Desmond,' he said, 'so listen. She is so much under the
hypnotic influence of that man that he has but to say to him-
self, "Come here," and she goes. She slipped away just now
when I had left her for a moment, and how she ran you saw.
That is all bad enough, but that is only half: it is less than half
the whole danger. He has, or she believes he has—and to a
girl as sensitive as that it is precisely the same thing-he
has under his control a spirit of awful and evil potency. At
any moment he may loose that power on her.
power on her. It would be the
act of a fiend, so we must be prepared for it. I believe also—
I cannot help believing it-that it is true, that some horrible
316
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
power is at his command. Now, what did you say when you
stopped behind just now, Jack?'
I said I would kill him if this occurred again.'
Leonard waved his hands in impotent dismay.
'Ah, I might have guessed it,' he cried. 'I should never
have let you stop. And he?'
(
He said I should be sorry for saying that.'
Leonard shrugged his shoulders: the thing was done, and
it was no use wasting regrets over it.
Now I am going upstairs,' he said, ‘and I shall be here all
night. If there is any indication that the hypnotic influence
is being exerted over her again, I shall give her morphia.
And if I see any sign of any stronger and more awful influence
at work, I shall give her a more potent anæsthetic. It will
be no time then for half-measures.'
(
How will you be able to tell that ?' asked Mrs. Desmond,
but her voice faltered and broke.
She will be frightened,' said Leonard,' and that fright will
be something different to the state she has been in to-day.'
He paused a moment. 'Also she will squint,' he said.
There was a moment's dreadful pause, while the horror of
all that was possible passed by each in procession. Outside
the clear darkness had given place to the thick density of the
descended fog; it had come down and engulfed the streets,
flooding them with a palpable gloom. Then Leonard turned
to Jack again.
Come upstairs and wait outside in case I want you,' he
said. 'She may struggle, she may have terrible strength. I
want Abdul, too. Wait outside with him, and tell him all I
have told you.'
Mrs. Desmond laid her hand for a moment on Jack's
shoulder, as a comrade to a comrade.
Be a man,' she said, ' and be cool. You are going to fight
perhaps for her very soul, dear, to-night, and that is a big
prize. Yes, Leonard, I will send Abdul.'
The two men went upstairs. Leonard tapped at the door
of the girl's bedroom, and entered. She was lying on her
sofa near the window: her maid was hovering uneasily about
her with vague suggestions of eau-de-Cologne, hot water, and
smelling-salts. She raised herself quickly as he entered,
looking rather excited, yet completely herself; life, vitality,
anyhow, was not wanting; the childlike docility was gone.
I have lain down, as you told me to do,' she said; 'but
indeed I am quite well, and why should I stop here? I must
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
317
get up, too: I must go out: he is calling again, I think. I
must go,' she repeated, looking about her with troubled, eager
eyes. I think it would be altogether wiser of me if I went
now. It is best always to obey, is it not?'
Leonard filled the hypodermic syringe. She did not see the
intense scrutiny of his eyes nor the decision of the doctor.
Yes, you shall go soon,' he said soothingly,' but he is not
really calling you yet. I shall hear, you may be sure, when he
calls, and I will tell you. Just give me your hand.'
Ida was still looking about from window to door, from door
to window. She did not seem even to be conscious of the point
entering her skin, and he pushed the piston home-a full dose.
There was just one drop of blood on her wrist, and that he
wiped away.
You must really let me go,' she said; 'he is calling-really
he is calling. And if I don't go he will be angry. And if he
is angry—ah, let me go, for others may be angry, too.'
She struggled to a sitting position, but Leonard pressed her
gently and firmly back again.
Now, you have got to do as I tell you for five minutes,'
he said. He can wait for five minutes, and so can you.
There is no hurry. But for these five minutes you have got
to rest. You are really very tired, though you may not know
it, and just a little rest will do you good. Now, anyone may
come and sit with you. Whom would you like? Jack ?
Abdul ?'
The trouble in her eyes was increasing.
I ought to go,' she said, 'but five minutes does not matter.
If he wants me so much, he will not mind if I am five minutes
late. Yes, send for Abdul, please. Send for him quick. I
want him. And I have so little time to spare.'
Leonard went to the door: Abdul was already there, and
Jack was talking to him in whispers. A moment's more
delay completed the communication that Jack had to make,
and Abdul knew as clearly as any of them could know from the
lips of her lover, the little they hoped, the much that they all
feared. Then Leonard beckoned the Arab in. Ida's eyes
were turned to the door as he entered, and she seemed to
thirst for his presence.
'Oh, Abdul,' she cried, 'help me. It is all so dark, and I
feel as if Sirocco was coming again. Do you not hear the trees
sighing? Lighten our darkness-what is it ?—I ought to go,
too, but I am feeling heavy and sleepy, and the darkness is
so deep. If I sleep for a few minutes, you will watch, won't
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you? Don't let anyone come to me while I am asleep.
Keep them off-oh, pray, Abdul, pray! Evil is approaching;
what was the rest of the message ?'
Be not afraid,' said Abdul, that was the rest of it.
I will say it over and over to myself, for with my whole
heart I know that is true. Ah, beloved lady, you are quitte
safe.'
But if It comes while I am asleep,' cried Ida, her voice
sinking a little, 'I shall not be able to resist. And I am so
tired: I would give anything to sleep. And, and-
and———————’ Her
voice died for a moment into silence.
'But if you will promise to stop It,' she said, ' perhaps I
might sleep for a little, and go to him afterwards. If you pray
all the time, Abdul, I don't think It could hurt me. Yes,
I must sleep first. Who is It?'
Then came a few more incoherent words, then a moan, a
sigh, a long breath, and her head fell back.
Leonard was looking at her with a deep frowning intent-
ness, and as her eyes closed he gave one sigh of immense
relief: whatever was the will that called to her, the morphia
that he had given her was stronger than that.
'That has worked quickly and well,' he said, ' and, anyhow,
we have gained a little time. God knows we want that.
what next-what next?' he added below his breath.
Abdul cast one long loving look at Ida's face.
And
How long will that medicine keep her asleep, sir ?' he asked.
But he spoke with the tone of command: he was a general
questioning his inferior with regard to the execution of some
order.
Leonard looked at the syringe and the bottle of morphia:
he had scarcely paused to consider how much he had
given her.
Six hours at least,' he said, ' unless—unless some—some—
unless he brings a further influence to bear on her, which
excites and terrifies her brain-unless-
Abdul had gone to a ghastly pallor below his dusky skin;
the communication Jack had made to him had eaten like
vitriol into his mind.
Unless he sends Set-nekht,' he said. 'And what then?'
I shall give her stronger medicine,' said Leonard.
'Strong enough?' asked the Arab. As strong as what
will be sent ?'
'I hope so I believe so. Anyhow, I shall be able to do no
more.'
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319
The hours, those sick-room hours when every second
lengthens itself into an hour of agonized suspense and every
day is a lifetime of deferred and dying hopes, passed slowly on,
and still Ida slept. Her breathing was so quiet, her repose so
undisturbed, that Leonard began to think that he must have
overestimated the strength of Henderson's power over her;
for he had expected troubled sleep, at any rate, if not sleep
actually broken by moments of consciousness, and the signs of
struggle between a spirit that wanted to wake and a drugged
brain that clogged it. But she breathed quietly, she hardly
moved, and the sleep seemed perfectly natural. Or again,
perhaps, Henderson had ceased for the present to exert any
control over her; indeed, it was physically impossible that for
hours at a stretch he could keep his mind in that state of
tense application through which alone, as Leonard knew,
hypnotic influence could be exerted. Whatever the cause of
her quietness was, anyhow there was a lull, in which suffering
was spared her, a period in which the watchers by her had
time to think, to ponder over that unanswerable question,
What next?' And in whispers at first, then in spoken tones,
since their voices did not seem to disturb her, Leonard, Jack,
and Abdul, each with an eye on the sleeping girl, discussed
what had happened and what was to be feared.
C
Henderson stood quite still for some moments after Jack
had left him with those words of ill-considered threatening,
with that thin-lipped and not very pleasant smile on his face.
He had in his hands a thin ivory paper-knife, which he rubbed
gently with his brown slim fingers, and once or twice he said
half aloud, 'Yes, I think he will be sorry-I think he will be
sorry.' And with the tip of his tongue he just licked his lips.
Then that gentle rubbing motion ceased, the evil smile
faded, and he stood as if made of stone, but that his eyes grew
brighter as he looked out, not seeing what was in front of him,
just staring into vacancy. Then a sudden spasmodic move-
ment passed through him, the paper-knife splintered into
fragments in his hand, and he moved quickly towards the door.
Mohammed,' he called, and from his room the boy came
out.
'I shall want you, perhaps, in about an hour's time,' he said.
'Till then, go and pack all your things, all my things. There
is a journey: we shall go to-night. Pack everything-clothes,
papers, books, all that there is of mine or yours in the house."
Mohammed's eye brightened, and he gave a long sigh.
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
To Egypt, to Luxor, effendi ?' he said, with a sudden
yearning for home, for these long days of fog and darkness
had lost their novel excitement, and were unutterably gloomy
to the sun-loving Southerner.
'Yes, to Egypt, to Luxor,' said Henderson.
packing at once.
You will have to be quick.'
Begin the
He shut the sitting-room door, closed his eyes a moment,
and held out his arms in front of him, while all other
thoughts came home to roost, and he concentrated himself
on one thing alone.
Come, Ida, come!' he said. 'Come!'
He dwelt on the thought with all the intensity he could
summon, so that his hands quivered with the mysterious
magnetic force which was foaming out from him in flood to-
wards her. It was like that that he pictured it to himself :
a torrent rushed down Davies Street and swirled in eddies
about the door of her house. Through the door it passed
unhindered, and, like an upward-gushing fountain, mounted
and mounted till it burst into her room, and surrounded her,
foaming and bubbling. Then, when that was completely
pictured to his mind, he left her thus, so to speak, surrounded
and enveloped in the force of his desire and command, and
turned to certain arrangements that must be made. She
must come, that was certain, and she would come of her
own will, which was his will. Jack, Leonard, would try to
stop her, and be unable; they would come with her here,
no doubt, but what could they do? She would insist on
going with him, and they were powerless.
His plans, then first of all the train. He and she would
dine together here and catch the night express. Morning
would see them in Paris. Then South, South, as man and
wife. At that thought for a moment he felt his heart beat
and hammer, till it seemed that it must almost burst through
the flesh and bones that covered it. Whatever he was, evil,
unscrupulous, deadly, he was at least a man of force, of
huge vitality, and all his conscious self yearned and longed
for the girl. It was impossible that destiny did not decree
that they were made, so said the egoism of his love, made
and predestined for each other to sound, lip to lip, the depths
of passion, and rise together through knowledge, through the
oneness of their souls, till earth was out of sight below them,
and below them burned dim the very stars to which the eyes
of men look up.
Then once more he followed the torrent of the magnetic
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
321
1
power which he had poured out down to the house in Berkeley
Square. It was still there, in foam and bubble round her, but
something was rendering it effectless-something resisted it:
it did not seem quite to touch her, though it was all round her.
She should have been out of the house by this time; he should
have been able to picture to himself the torrent returning,
bearing her in it. But he could not-it still was not yet coming
back to him: he could neither picture nor feel that, and
knew it was not so.
But there were letters to be written, bills to be paid, notice
to be given to the landlord, dinner to be ordered. All this
took time; yet even when it was finished, he still knew that
Ida was not yet coming, and she should have been here by
now. Physical force, he felt sure, could not have restrained
her if any of them-Leonard, Jack, Abdul-had tried by
mere physical means to keep her, they must have seen that
such compulsion would simply kill her. She would break
sooner than not obey. Yet why did she not come ?
:
The wicked and cruel smile again came on to his lips:
there was another weapon yet in his armoury-the torpedo.
It was horrible, no doubt: she would be terribly, mortally
afraid, but come to him she must. Then, when she was with
him, how he would comfort her, how his own force and will,
which had so complete a command over her, would be her
slave, her staff, and her consolation. How convincingly his
love would prove to her, by her mere knowledge of its reality,
that never more was it possible that he should use this against
her. Once, just this once, it was necessary: after that im-
possible. Yet it was fiendish-he knew it was fiendish. But
she must come-she must come. He could not do without
her.
At that moment Mohammed entered: the very fitness of
his entrance clinched the matter.
'It is done, effendi,' he said, ' and the hour is up.'
Henderson looked at his watch; it was half-past five, and
he had yet to go down to Westminster to settle certain affairs
with one of the occult clubs with which he was in contract
to give a sitting this very evening, explain as well as he could
that very urgent business called him from town, and offer to
renew the séances in the summer, when he should again be
in England. That would take him in this fog-for driving
would be slower, even if it was possible, than walking-the
best part of an hour: by seven he must be back here again,
to dine before setting off. There was no time to lose. And
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322
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
he had so often contemplated the possibility of the necessity
of what he was going to do sometime arising (though, per-
haps, it had never till now been a sober imagining) that there
was scarcely a struggle or a protest from his better self now.
'Make ready,' he said to Mohammed quickly.
Mohammed stared at him a moment; the brightness of
his face which the anticipated return home had brought there
died away.
'To sit, effendi ?'
What else?'
He wheeled the table out into the centre of the room:
round it he drew the circle with its magic signs that he knew
by heart: the lamp was set: the switch was by his hand: across
the fire, which was burning very brightly, he drew a screen.
Look at me, Mohammed,' he said.
Then soon the switch clicked beneath his finger.
The room was nearly dark, but for a little reflected light
on the ceiling which came from the fire behind the screen,
and Mohammed moaned in his sleep. Then a splitting crack
sounded from the table, a hot wind blew violently round the
room, making the curtains to sigh and stir, and slowly from
outside the circle the white, luminous interlacing lines began
to weave themselves in the air. More distinctly, more sub-
stantially every moment, the work of that infernal loom
manifested itself: the swathed body of a man stood there,
and there crowned it the white sneering face, beardless and
wrinkled and evil, of the spirit that served the necromancer.
'Fetch her here,' said Henderson. 'I cannot bring her.
Do not terrify her more than is necessary. I wish to find
her here alive when I come back in an hour.'
Then he slapped Mohammed on the hands.
Wake!' he said; it is finished.'
The spirit faded quickly and was gone: once more the
curtains stirred and rustled in the close-shut room with a
wind that was not of the beneficent airs of heaven, and Hender-
son turned up the light. He himself was pale and excited;
he half loathed himself for what he had done, yet had the
hands of the clock gone back half an hour he would have
done it again. The desire that had overmastered him then
would at the last always overmaster him.
'I must go out now,' he said to Mohammed.
be here soon.
'She will
See to anything she wants. I shall be back
in an hour. Make the room comfortable for her, and say
nothing about the journey.'
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323
And he went out, trembling at himself and at what he had
done, and was swallowed up in the density of the fog.
It was at that moment that suddenly the watchers in Ida's
room heard the stillness rent and shattered by an awful cry,
a cry that shrilled higher and more appalling, a cry of despair
and of hopeless, overwhelming terror. In one moment she,
who had lain so still all these hours, breathing deeply and
slowly, with the long, restful inspirations of sleep, had sat up
on her sofa, her sleep ended, broad, wide awake, while these
screams of abandoned, helpless terror poured from her. She
was staring straight in front of her, her arms held out as if
to ward off some dreadful presence which must have been
very close to her, for her eyes looked inwards, squinting
horribly.
No, no!' she screamed. I will come.
I will-
But there was no more, for in a couple of seconds Leonard
was by her. He had poured a pool of the anesthetic on to his
handkerchief, and roughly, brutally, so it seemed, he held it
over her nose and mouth. But with one movement of her
arm she had thrust him aside again, and he called to the
others.
Come and help me to hold her, all of you!' he said. 'It
is life or death, and she has the strength of three men.'
Then followed a couple of minutes so ghastly, so terrible,
that none ever spoke of them afterwards, though none until
death could ever forget them. She had rushed to the door,
and, maniac-like, she had flung Jack from in front of it. It
was no time for gentleness, and none knew that better than
he, and he sprang fiercely at her again, at her, the girl whom
he reverenced and worshipped with a love and tenderness
beyond all telling. He got hold of her arm and pulled her
back again into the room away from the door, when she—
yet it was she no longer, but only the hellish spirit that
possessed her-turned on him like a wild cat, and bit to the
bone the hand with which he grasped her. But he did not
relax his hold, for his love made him strong, though her
struggles were like the irresistible strokes of some steel piston-
rod, and next moment Leonard had come up behind her,
holding her neck with all his force in one hand, while with
the other he again jammed the handkerchief across her face,
pressing it close over her nose and mouth. Then Abdul got
hold of her other arm, and, though shaken to and fro like a
terrier, he clung to it with all his strength. Backwards and
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
$
forwards, upsetting chairs, smashing through the table, this
Laocoon group of wrestlers, who struggled not with a mere
snake that could but kill the body, but with the awful in-
visible force of hell which was poured through the girl's
limbs, swayed and hurled itself about the room. Through
the handkerchief over Ida's nose and mouth there had soaked
the blood from her lips where her teeth had bitten to the bone
the man she loved, and down the sleeve of the arm he held, it
poured in floods from the wound in his hand. Now from one,
now from another, would come a short, sharp gasp or pant as
his strength was tested to its uttermost, but once only did
human words issue from the mouth of any.
'Pray to God-pray to God!' cried Abdul once; 'it is the
very jaws and gate of hell.'
Not less awful, too, was the hot and dreadful wind that blew
through the curtained room, a wind that made the hair to
stir on the head with its hot buffeting, and even turned the
leaves of a book that lay open on a table. None had eyes for
anything but that which occupied them, but once, sideways,
Leonard thought he saw near the window a sneering, grinning
face, a white, thin hand that pointed an unswerving finger
of command to the centre of their group. And at that-for
he had seen it before—the sweat poured from him, and he
knew for certain that it was It with whose power they wrestled.
Then again one spoke.
"Thank God,' panted Leonard, whose strength was nearly
exhausted, ‘it is taking effect; she is weakening.'
Then slowly, yet with horrible momentary renewals of the
paroxysms, so that again they were flung about the room,
the demoniacal strength began to lessen as the anesthetic
gained on her. The struggles grew fainter, then ceased, and
she fell back limp and unconscious into the arms of those who
held her. Then with loving tenderness they took her to the
sofa off which she had sprung but a couple of minutes ago, and
laid her down. She was breathing very quickly, and her eyes
were still open, and they still looked inwards. But of the
horror of the last moments there was nothing left but that.
Then Jack knelt by her: he covered her eyes, and, as if he
had been alone with her, he kissed her very gently on the
forehead. Then he turned to Leonard.
'She will die, will she not?' he said. 'I think, I hope she
will die. O my God! my God!'
Leonard was looking at her with brows knitted; he had
taken the anesthetic from her face.
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325
'I can't possibly tell,' he said. 'By the way, let me tie up
your hand.
Then he just laid his hand on Jack's shoulder.
'Poor chap!' he said. 'But be ready: what may happen I
don't know. This may perhaps be only a breathing space.
Ah !'
Ida had moved her' head with a sudden jerk, and he sprang
to her side, and for a few seconds more he put the anesthetic
over her face till she grew quiet again. Every now and then
she moaned gently in her sleep.
Since she had become unconscious Abdul had stood a little
apart. After she was quiet again Leonard had busied himself
for a minute or two in binding up Jack's hand. But when that
was done Abdul touched him on the shoulder.
Can your medicine keep her like that for an hour perhaps ?'
he said.
Yes, I think so,' said he.
Then there is a chance,' he said. 'That is for me to do.'
He went to the overturned table, and found a piece of
paper, and for a minute or two wrote on it. His face still
streamed with the exertion of the struggle, and his hand was
unsteady. But he was smiling, as if all danger was past, as
if broad sunlight, not the darkness of the pit, was about them.
What he wrote was this:
'BELOVED LADY,
It is only this moment that I have seen what is to be.
You will wake, but with your eyes of mortal sight you will
not, I am sure, see your loving servant again. But speak to
me sometimes in the ways we know of. My love for you is
stronger than death, and I am going to prove it so. May
happiness and peace rest always on your house!
Your most humble and loving servant,
He folded his note and gave it to Leonard.
Give it her when she wakes,' he said.
work is not here any longer. Perhaps I shall
I do not think so.'
ABDUL.'
I must go. My
come back, but
'You may be
'No, you mustn't leave us,' said Leonard.
wanted by her. When she wakes she is sure to want you.'
Abdul smiled, the calm, patient smile of his race.
'I am wanted by her now,' he said, ' but not here. There
is one way only; I see it. I must take it.'
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
He spoke with authority, then turned to look once more on
the woman he loved with a love that was so infinitely more
strong than death. Jack was still kneeling by her, and he
spoke to him.
'I I must kiss her once,' he said. 'There is no harm.'
Jack looked up at him with amazement. But there was
that in Abdul's face that amazed him more, a look that he
had never yet seen in any human face; for it was the face of
one who is utterly purged of all earthly desire, of one who,
though he was yet on earth, had done with all material and
earthly things. The flesh was but a mere transparent envelope,
and through it shone a soul so strong, serene and beautiful
that he felt gross and unworthy to be near him.
Yes, Abdul,' he said, 'kiss her, and then go out to do
whatever you must do. And God speed you, whatever it is.'
Then Abdul bent down and kissed her once, even as Jack
had kissed her, on the forehead, with the reverence of a true
lover, and stood there a moment more looking at her. Then
he turned to the other two.
'I know,' he said. 'The open vision has come to me
unsought. Keep her like that for an hour; that is all you
have to do. There will be no more after that, no need for more
of it'—and he pointed to the bottle of anæsthetic-'or of me.
Farewell, effendi and friends of mine.'
He spoke with an air of authority that none questioned or
thought of questioning, but paused at the door, made his
deep Arab obeisance, and left the room. The clear vision had
come unsought to him, the vision which he knew was granted
only to those to whom death was very near. What, in detail,
the next hour should bring forth, or in what manner it should
come, he had no clear notion: all he knew was that the voice
that he had listened for, the whispers of which he had
heeded all his life, had come to him now clear and articulate.
To what it would guide him he did not yet know: he knew
only that its guidance was assured: like a child he grasped a
hand that enfolded his, a hand that seemed to him actually
present, in warmth and pressure like a human hand, the hand
of a friend and a guide.
It drew him from the room, it led him downstairs, and out
into the fog, with a leading so assured that, though he knew
not where his next step should take him, each single step was
enough. Violence, struggle, death, he believed were close in
front of him, yet as surely the love that was stronger than
death was with him. Henderson, he felt assured, was the
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327
objective, the man who had loosed hell on the innocent. Yet
for Henderson he felt no resentment nor anger. If the wages
of his sin were death, and he, Abdul, had to pay him them,
yet he paid them only as a natural immutable force exacts
death as the penalty of transgression of its laws. He felt no
more anger either for the sinner or the sin than the rocks at
the bottom of a precipice feel for the climber who has slipped
a thousand feet above them, and which, in penalty for his
rashness, break him, yet with no savagery, into something
that is scarcely the semblance of a man.
So through the thick, palpable atmosphere Abdul went across
the Square, knowing that he was led. Round him, in muffled.
lento of the fog, moved those whose business or whose pleasure
took them out into the inclement evening; groping walkers
shuffled by him; cabs and hansoms went at a wary foot's pace,
nosing slowly and warily into the obscurity of the thick dense.
vapours. But Abdul moved faster than most: somehow, he
knew there was not much time to spare, and his hand was in
another's, one whom he trusted, one who knew the way.
At the bottom of Hay Hill he paused; he was there in
time-of that, also, he felt certain. A gas-lamp peered down
through the fog, making a ring of illumination a yard or two
across, and by this he waited, without any conscious thought
present in his mind, knowing only that when he must go on he
would go on. Even the horror of the last hours had gone
from him: it was no more than a forgotten dream.
from the north came a footstep, quicker and more decided than
the general footfalls, and a man passed close to him. It was
he, and yet even the sight of him roused no resentment or
indignation in Abdul's mind. He himself was again no more
than the rocks on which the climber would be broken.
he followed him.
Then
And
At that hour all that was utterly evil in Henderson held
undominated supremacy. Five minutes ago, when he started
from Davies Street, he was perhaps a little sorry, a little
ashamed, at what he had done, for he had trembled when he
set hand to the latch; but shut off alone with himself in this
encircling and isolating blindness of fog he was sorry no longer.
He knew only that when he came back-and this he thought
he knew with utter certainty-Ida would be there, weak,
terrified, maybe, to the verge of death, with squinting eyes;
but it would be she, whom he desired more than he desired
the joys of heaven, in his power, given to him at last. Then
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THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
it would but remain to make the circle once more, and deliver
her from the dreadful spirit that had brought her to him.
And never, so he swore to himself, would she regret that he had
exercised this force of hell to win her. All that love could give,
and his love was powerful to give her all that was really
dearest to her soul, would be hers: he would teach her the
completeness of spiritual life which it was within his reach to
bring her, of which she had had but a foretaste in those
interrupted séances. To-night would see them away from
London, which, associated as it was with the real suffering,
the unsatisfied longings which had been his, had become
hateful to him, and in four or five days the palm-clad South
would be theirs. It was in an exaltation of wickedness that
he walked he could no longer sanely estimate the infamy he
had perpetrated: indeed, it seemed to him infamous no longer
-all moral judgment was gone from him.
He passed Abdul close, but without seeing him, and Abdul
followed, knowing that his time was not yet, though near.
The streets a little lower down were full again of passengers ;
men jostled in and out of each other's arms, groping blindly
in this leaden thickness of fog. All down Piccadilly Abdul
followed, descending after the man he pursued into the
grosser blackness of St. James's Street. At the bottom
Henderson hesitated a moment, but in such an evening the
short-cut across the park might easily prove to be the longest
way, and instead he went down Pall Mall and into Whitehall,
keeping to the guidance which the houses would give him.
Here the fog was markedly less dense; spaces of com-
parative clearness and lucidity intervened, and Abdul dropped
a little further back from the man he followed, yet still keeping
him well within sight, and careful only to minimize the risk
of recognition should Henderson turn. At the bottom of
Whitehall he crossed the street, and went eastwards under the
Houses of Parliament, then turned in through the door of a
big lighted house just opposite the clock-tower. And still
smiling, still assured and patient, Abdul waited till he should
reappear. The time was getting very near now, but he was
in no hurry.
And waiting there, as utterly without impatience with
regard to what was coming as he was without fear, the
material world, with its mortal needs and cries and terrors and
gropings in the dark, passed from him for ever. Only one deed
on this earth lay in front of him, and it was not as a man, so
he felt, that he would do it, but as a force that stood outside
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329
the range of material things. That concerned him personally
not at all; it was the one Eternal Will that decreed this; for
his own will there was no longer any use; his book had been
closed when he kissed Ida, and that was the last of his mortal
voluntary acts. Yet even now, from the habit of mere life, his
mind went back over the years that had been one long effort
of devotion of self to the inward call, devotion so ungrudgingly
rendered, so sweetly rewarded. Once again he was with his
beloved mistress, while yet that river of golden hair was
unloosed on her back, teaching her the elements of spiritual
things again he saw her grow up, increasing in wisdom and
in beauty, always ready to learn, with always a smile, too, for
her teacher until storm came, the storm that had descended
one March night close on a year ago. But to-night the damage
of it would be repaired to-morrow for her would dawn
cloudless again, and the last skirts of the tempest would have
left the sky for himself also there would be no more clouds
in the day that would then have dawned for him.
A sudden draught of air moved up the river, and the fog
melted before it, dissolving, dispersing with wonderful
rapidity, till, swinging high in the eternal calm of the heavens,
there shone down with a very clear light the moon near to
its full. It was but a narrow cleavage of the fog, for it was as
dense as ever on the Surrey side; it was dense, too, a hundred
yards only to the west of where Abdul waited. But here
and over the river to the east was the clearness as of a Southern
night stars innumerable clustered together in the velvet
vault of the heavens; just this one pathway to the sky, this
celestial funnel, was open and serene. At the moment Hen-
derson's figure appeared again in the doorway of the house
which he had entered ten minutes ago, and he lingered there
a moment shaking hands with some man who had evidently
come down with him, just to see him to the door. Then the
two parted, and he stepped out into the street alone. From
then until the end Abdul's eyes never left him, but his eyes
were not angry: they were patient-they were sorry, even.
The wonder of this extraordinary local dispersal of the fog
seemed to strike Henderson: his business here had taken him
less time than he had anticipated, and as he did not want to
get back to Davies Street before the hour was up, he strolled
on to Westminster Bridge, there to observe the wonderful
effect of this oasis of moonshine in the desert of the fog, for it
was a thing that might have given pause to a murderer flying
for his life, so exquisite and unusual was it. And to his own
330
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
mind he was no murderer: there was no known justice that
could touch him. He had but exercised the powers that were
his, which he had brought to such perfection in himself, and
he claimed by right of conquest a soul for his own. Thoughts
of some random poetical order, too, streamed through his
brain; on such a night and on such a night in the near future
would Ida be with him, and the moon that now approached
to fulness would shine complete and round on them when
two nights hence it lit up the dewy decks where they would
pace together and watch the tideless sea break in phosphor-
escent bubbles round the prow of the southward-going ship,
as she ploughed her way to the shores of the ancient and mys-
terious land of the Nile. So in this supreme and ultimate
moment neither shame nor remorse was his the golden
imminent future blinded his eyes, thoughts of the moon and
stars were his, lovers' thoughts, and that it was through the
unloosing of the powers of hell that he should make real his
dreams cast not a shadow there. This had to be-by right
Ida should be his, by the right of his strength and his love.
Like a meteor, momentary and luminous, these thoughts
blazed through him, as he paused in the middle of the bridge,
and then turned homewards again. The broad asphalt
pavement on either hand was empty, the luminous circle of
the clock in the tower told him that it was time to return, and
he began to retrace his steps. Then from the roadway a
figure that was somehow familiar, not strange to him in any
sense-for, since for the last minute or two he had been far
away in sunlit Egypt, among sands and temples, the unusual
garb seemed but natural to his thoughts-came swiftly
towards him, and until it was quite close it but chimed in
with his mood. But when he saw who it was, terror at that
which was even more vivid and certain than the golden future
which had just now seemed so close unloosed his knees. He
was a brave man, but about this there was something final,
it was so quiet, so inexorable.
Abdul?' he said, and for a moment his voice choked.
What do you want?
Then terror gained on him: he looked fearfully to either
side, and saw he was alone with this man and with the fate
he brought. Behind him-for he had faced the road—was
the low parapet; beyond and below that the full tide of the
river ran seawards, smooth and deep, and the moon wavered
on the waters, in scrolls of reflected light, tipping the waves
with silver.
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
331
Abdul was standing close to him now; there was no anger
in that dark face, yet there was no pity there, and the mortal
terror, the terror of death, of going out alone into the
silent sea, overcame him, and he turned to run. But it was
too late to run: he was already clutched. And he would
have shouted for help, but his throat was clutched also, and
only a thin, strangled cry came from it. Then very quietly
Abdul spoke.
'I have come to kill you,' he said, and I think to die.
For love is stronger than death, and I love her, and death is
but a friend, and she is delivered. I know no way but this.'
Then Henderson's strength came back to him, and he fought
like a fiend. Twice he forced his adversary back into the
roadway, twice he exulted to himself, thinking that now
and now he could loose the throttling hand from his throat,
kneel on the chest of this bravo, this footpad, who for the
moment stood between him and love, and stamp the life
out of him. Yet it was like fighting with a shadow: struggle
as he would, he could effect nothing, and step by step he was
forced back again on to the pavement, nearer to the parapet.
Those fingers had never yet been loosened from his throat,
and already his ears sang and his head buzzed.
Then he felt something hard and smooth, and as unyielding
as Abdul's hand at his throat, in the middle of his back, and
knew it to be the parapet of the bridge. Eternity was not
longer than that moment, and the knowledge that his strength
was fast giving way was with him through those æons. Then
the rustling air sped by them both, and the moon tipped the
waves of their falling with silver, and turned the fresh fountain
of the spray into spouts of living light.
EPILOGUE
THE shadows of the June evening were lengthening over
the grass, and the wind of sunset was fragrant with its passage
over the rose-garden. On the heights of the ridge of the
forest the sun still lingered, turning the green of the grass
into living emerald, and the russet of the heather into gold.
The shadow of the house, though, stretched out beyond the
terrace, warm and fragrant and mellow, and in it stood Ida
with the man she had married that day. They were to spend
a week here alone, so it had been settled; at the end of that
time Mrs. Desmond would come down. If they did not want
her, they were to telegraph very briefly to say, 'We don't
want you.' But if they did not telegraph she would join
them, assuming that they did not object to her presence.
The two had been very silent for the last hour. Ida
occasionally had asked a question, but had followed it up
with an injunction. Don't tell me if you would sooner not.'
And twice, at any rate, he had said:
'No, dear; it is better for me not to speak of that.'
But this silence had somewhat disturbed her, and at
length her trouble found utterance.
Oh, Jack,' she said, 'it is our marriage-day, and from
to-day it will all be behind me.
But there are one or two
things, I think, I must know. I do not want to know what
happened in those hours-
Oh, Ida—' he said.
But she shook her head:
'You must not be frightened at what is gone, is dead,
dear Jack,' she said. 'Never be frightened at that—or at
anything.
She paused a moment.
'But I don't ask you about that,' she went on.
To me
it is nothing more than a dream. It was not me—oh, you
know that. I had nothing to do with it. It was It.'
332
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
333
She caught up his left hand. There was a scar on it,
running from the first joint of the forefinger to the middle
of the back of the hand-a scar healed over, but white on the
wholesome brown. She drew her finger gently over it.
'Nor do I ask you about that,' she said, ' for it was not I.
I am not even sorry for that, since it had nothing to do with
me. But my redemption, Jack-I want to know about that.'
He looked at her a moment in silence.
'Yes, darling,' he said, it is only right. It may hurt
you : it may make you cry a little, but why not? The awful
things are those for which one cannot cry. I would have
given the world once to have been able to cry, but I could
not. Leonard tells me I laughed after Abdul had gone out—
sat and shrieked with laughter. He gave me something to
stop me―same as what he gave you.'
Ah, Jack, Jack!' she whispered.
'Yes?'
Jack cleared his throat; even now across the broad sunlight
of his happiness some shadow lay which, perhaps, would
never quite pass from him. As by an earthquake the very
foundations of his being had been shaken.
'We don't know much,' he said, 'for we were all rather
attentive to you, and when about seven o'clock in the evening
-that evening-you came to yourself, and awoke from the
anæsthetic that old Leonard had given you, we-we were
rather glad, if you understand, because it was you who came
back to us-you yourself; yes, just that, you yourself.'
<
And Abdul?' she said again.
Yes, I was telling you. Before that, you see, Abdul had
gone out, leaving for you the note that you were given. He
must have followed him-Henderson. For next morning
there came ashore, just opposite the Greenwich pier, two
bodies. There was no question about who they were.'
There was a long silence: the shadows lengthened on the
grass, the wind of sunset rustled among the bushes, and
wafted the 'good-night' of the flowers one to another.
There was no sighing and waving of palm-tree fronds there:
the 'good-night' was gentle and fragrant.
'Then, did Abdul kill him?' asked the girl.
'Yes, dear; there was no doubt of that.
you again.'
Ah, it will hurt
'No, no,' said she. 'You don't understand. It cannot
hurt me.'
'There was no doubt of that,' repeated Jack.
on Henderson's throat. There was
were
His fingers
even a doubt
334
THE IMAGE IN THE SAND
whether Henderson was not dead before he was drowned. I
say it badly, but you see.
And Abdul?' she asked.
'Ah, there no one can tell you,' he said. 'It is all un-
certain: but it appeared that Abdul could have left the
other dead, and saved himself, if he could swim.'
Oh yes,' said she;' he used to swim in the Nile every day.'
Then he preferred not to swim. His hand was still
clasped on Henderson's throat, but perhaps he preferred to
die. That is not hard to understand. For I can understand
it myself, and even now, oh, Ida-even now I almost wish
that it had been given me to do that for your sake. But that
night I could not help; the higher work was given him.
envied him. For he loved you, and within an hour he laid
down his life for you. He went out from us like a man who
is going home. He thought of it like that too, I am sure.'
Jack's lips quivered: he had not known really till now
how his love dominated him also, making death a mere small
incident in the events of a day. Something rose in his throat,
choking him, and with swimming eyes he turned to her in a
sort of mute appeal.
(
God bless you, dear!' she said, even as He has blessed
him. 'And now I, this wretched, helpless I, for whom you
two have done these things-
'That is how He has blessed us both,' said Jack.
THE END
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