THE HAUNTING
 
 BY 
 
 G. A. DAWSON-SGOTT 
 
 AUTHOR OF "ANNA BE AMES," "MBS. NOAEBS," 
 "AGAINST THB GBAIN," ETC. 
 
 "Nothing but infinite pity is sufficient for the infinite 
 pathos of life" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 ALFRED A. KNOPF : MCMXXII
 
 Printed in Great Britain by the 
 Garden City Press, Letchworth
 
 TO 
 YOU 
 
 DREAM. 
 
 / had a dream of a merciful Christ, 
 
 A dream that all those old stories were true, 
 
 That I heard a voice say? out of the mists of 
 
 Death, 
 
 To him that hath suffered much, much is forgiven. 
 
 Strange dream ! Oh, veriest dream ! Yet a sweet 
 Dream. 
 
 (By G. R. MALLOCH.) 
 
 2138047
 
 A Series of FOUR NOVELS on the Handicaps of 
 
 Life: 
 
 I. WASTR ALLS The Handicap of Circumstance. 
 II. THE HEADLAND*-The Handicap of Heredity. 
 
 III. THE HAUNTING The Handicap of the In- 
 
 explicable. 
 
 IV. THE CORNISH MOORS The Handicap of 
 
 Chance.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MR. CORLYON stood before the mirror in his white 
 shirt-sleeves, the razor in his hand, and lather covering 
 his cheeks. He must hurry. He had to shave and 
 dress, and at any moment Antiks Hellyar might call 
 up the stair, " Young Maister be comin' down street." 
 
 He must be at the front door to welcome his brother. 
 Not once during the years of Pascoe's roving had he 
 failed to be there. He had opened the door as the 
 lad walked up the path, had drawn him into the warm, 
 bright house, had closed the door on the accomplished 
 fact of his return. 
 
 Of the long family only they two the eldest and 
 the youngest were left and it was for Mr. Corlyon, 
 abiding in the little waterside town, to remind his 
 brother that the walls and roof to which he returned 
 from his voyages were not only a shelter. The boy, 
 while adventuring on blue and green and grey seas, 
 should bear the brown house in his mind as something 
 glowing, a something to which his heart of a wanderer 
 must eventually turn. 
 
 He might come at any moment and Gale Corlyon 
 was not ready. That business of Buddie's horse had 
 kept him longer than he had supposed it would. Diffi- 
 cult to convince Shugg that as he had let the animal 
 down he must pay, that to do otherwise would be 
 unprincipled.
 
 10 THE HAUNTING 
 
 He wiped the lather from pale smooth cheeks and 
 taking the scissors clipped his moustache a little closer. 
 A moustache gave the final touch of masculinity to a 
 face. He liked the rough feel of his. Other men had 
 moustaches that stuck out, or hung down ; but his 
 curved in, lying above his thin well-cut lips like a 
 defiance. He cut the edges of the hard black-grey 
 hairs. He would not have his lips hidden. 
 
 It was fortunate that he had brushed his suit before 
 going to meet Shugg and Buddie, for now he had only 
 to change out of his work-a-day clothes. He had 
 worn the same suit last time Pascoe came home. 
 As he fastened the smoked-pearl buttons of his waist- 
 coat, he glanced at his reflection. It paid to have 
 your clothes cut by a good tailor. They were growing 
 shabby, but they still set off his young figure of a 
 middle-aged man. He pulled his waistcoat into 
 place, settled the new tie. Blue was becoming to his 
 clear skin and clear eyes, while the small white spot 
 added a note of gaiety. The old well-brushed suit, the 
 steep hard collar, the fresh tie. Pascoe should feel 
 that the stay-at-home was as well-looking a chap as 
 any he had seen on his travels ; that he was not neces- 
 sarily dead to the ferment of life because he had 
 chosen to remain in Stowe. 
 
 He smiled, confidential fashion, at the reflection 
 extraordinarily black and white in the mirror. 
 Pascoe's life of a wanderer made him the pebble rolling 
 on the floor of the seas. He might learn something 
 of human nature, but what did he know ? 
 
 People did this and that, but what made them do 
 it ? He, Gale Corlyon, had spent his life in Stowe and 
 he knew not only what was done in the houses huddled 
 at the head of the harbour, but why it was done. Oh,
 
 THE HAUNTING 11 
 
 how much he knew . . . the men and the women 
 . . . they made their faces into shop -windows, but 
 behind, on shelves and in drawers, were the goods, 
 the secrets of their interesting lives. 
 
 When the shutters were up, the shop closed, he 
 could lift the latch of the side -door. He could go in 
 because he had a finger in the little pies simmering on 
 the various hobs. Fifty years in Stowe and he the 
 cleverest man in it. To whom else could people turn 
 when they were bothered ? The parson would have 
 admonished, doctor and lawyer would have sent in a 
 bill, but he ... 
 
 He liked being of use and, because he never talked, 
 he was safe. The people knew that. 
 
 They could trust his wisdom and, also, his discretion. 
 
 And the secrets . . . 
 
 It was godlike to know, to have behind his white 
 silence, like sheep under snow, this knowledge. After 
 all, his was a more interesting life than that of Pascoe 
 who, though for ever seeing new things, saw only the 
 surface of these things, who never penetrated, who 
 knew, dear lad, nothing. 
 
 A scatterbrain . . . would have scattered money 
 too, if it had not been for Gale . . . did scatter what 
 he earned. A pity that, but as long as he remembered 
 to buy where his ship touched and to bring home 
 what he had bought, Gale would be able to fill those 
 brown skin bags of his with the proceeds, able to "fat- 
 ten his pigs," to fatten them against his and Pascoe's 
 old age. 
 
 This time Pascoe, in his letter home, had said 
 " emeralds." An intriguing word emeralds.
 
 12 THE HAUNTING 
 
 ii 
 
 If the ship had got into Plymouth yesterday, he 
 should have been home by now. He had, of course, 
 to dispose of the emeralds ; but he knew the byeways 
 of Plymouth better even than the highways, and was 
 no bad hand at a bargain. 
 
 He would not have let the buyers detain him not 
 long. Perhaps, though, he had reached Stowe and 
 had been buttonholed by some gossip as he came 
 through the streets. He knew everybody had 
 known them since his babyhood. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon looked from his window. Men were 
 unloading a collier on the other side of the harbour, 
 a smack was heading for the wharf of the fish market ; 
 but, on the road that ran along the side of the quay, 
 there was no sign of the familiar figure. 
 
 He could only see as far as the opening of the street 
 through which his brother must come. No one ! 
 But the house had a side -aspect. From Pascoe's 
 room he could see up French Street as far as the Corn- 
 ish Arms. 
 
 He crossed the landing, the shadowy landing with 
 the white curtains and the plants and, further down, 
 the doors of disused rooms. That, opposite to his, 
 belonged to Pascoe. During the three months of his 
 absence it had been a chrysalis, now it displayed 
 hangings and coverlet and the shining surfaces of 
 walnut wood. Mr. Corlyon looked between the dimity 
 curtains, looked over the bushes of purple veronica, 
 and up the road. 
 
 At the head of the quay, on the old men's bench, 
 Spargo and Abel Prior were sitting. A cat, careless of
 
 THE HAUNTING 13 
 
 dogs and men, was sauntering across the road, a 
 great grey cloud, pregnant with rain, hung over the 
 town. The shops, low bands of colour on either side 
 of the way, ran from the opening of the street, up hill 
 and over. Mr. Corlyon looked sharply for what he 
 sought. Instinctively, he had glanced first at the 
 baby-linen shop. There, if anywhere, but no, no 
 horse was tethered to the wall-staple. 
 
 It was evidence Pascoe was not in the low-raftered 
 shop, talking to Jenifer Liddicoat. Something in the 
 man checked and resumed at a lesser speed. Pascoe 
 must be still on his way. 
 
 But he had better hasten or he would be caught by 
 the rain. Anyway, as the roan mare had not yet 
 topped the hill that sloped to the flat grey edge of 
 the harbour, his brother would have time to go round 
 the house, see everything was in order. 
 
 Pascoe's room . . . clean, neat . . . Antiks knew 
 her work. Mr. Corlyon stopped at the mantelshelf, 
 looked at the row of cartes-de-visite behind the opaque 
 blue vases. Jenifer Liddicoat's photo . . . 
 
 He had not taken it with him, then ? 
 
 in 
 
 In the kitchen, Antiks Hellyar was wetting flour 
 >for cake. She stood in front of the table, her sleeves 
 rolled above dimpled arms, a big plain apron covering 
 her blue cotton frock, rounding up over her breast, 
 out from her jimp waist, out over her hips. Mr. 
 Corlyon on his tour of inspection had reached the 
 work-a-day centre of the house. He smiled at Antiks. 
 She was not young now, the hussy, but she was still 
 pretty. That dark hair of hers, curling round her
 
 14 THE HAUNTING 
 
 forehead and her softness he did not wonder the 
 men could not leave her alone and she worked in his 
 kitchen. 
 
 " Push in a few sticks, Maister, your fire don't go 
 ahead like our'n do." 
 
 On the pane the quick rain drummed, streaming 
 down the glass, blurring the view of grey outhouses, 
 of the lane at the side, changing the hill at the back 
 into a dark wall. Mr. Corlyon, crossing to the big 
 basket of fuel that stood under the window, thought 
 of Pascoe, riding across high open land, pushing 
 through the rush of water. Poor weather, indeed, a 
 poor welcome. They must see he had his favourite 
 food . . . open a bottle of wine. 
 
 " Did you buy a hog's pudding ? " 
 
 Antiks' mouth, lifting at the corners, revealed 
 strong regular teeth. So many women, old and young, 
 were snaggle-toothed, but not she. ' 'Ow do 'ee 
 think I can get 'og's-puddin' when ole Billy 'aven't 
 killed the pig ? " 
 
 " Thought he was going to do it, Saturday? " 
 
 " Ole sow wadn't fit to kill you knaw moon's 
 batin'." 
 
 " So it is." 
 
 She shook her head at him. " You a country-man 
 and not know. Us'll 'av to wait till next week for 
 puddins." 
 
 The warmth of the kitchen, as well as a certain inner 
 stir, made him linger. His feet were always cold. 
 He would sit for a moment in thecorner of the settle, 
 stretch them to the fire. 
 
 There was no hurry. Pascoe, if he were on the 
 road, would house-up somewhere . . . some farm 
 . . . cottage. " What have you for supper ? "
 
 THE HAUNTING 15 
 
 " There be the bit of bacon boilin' and this rabbit - 
 pie is ready to bake." Antiks fetched the round black 
 baking iron, put pie and cake and pasties on it, and 
 fitted the baker over all. A fire of stick embers, 
 roofed in with turf . . . nothing better. She opened 
 out a space, pushed in the baking iron, covered all with 
 the dark sods. 
 
 " By time 'e come, it'll be done lovely," she said 
 and stood at ease. After the long hours of work, 
 good to have an idle moment, a craik with " Maister." 
 Her blue eye turned appreciatively on the lounging 
 figure, found that he was studying her, found that in 
 some fascinating way his face had changed. He had 
 come in cold and with his snowy look, now he was 
 young, eager. Her heart seemed to sink under a 
 happy burthen, to fall away. 
 
 " Come over here, Old Easy-Daisy," and he pulled 
 her onto his knee. 
 
 " Now, give over, do." 
 
 He turned her face deliberately, put his lips to her 
 mouth, found it ripe, willing. 
 
 " Who is after you now ? " 
 
 " Don't 'ee talk about it, there 'edn't no one." 
 
 " What about Jacky Trudgian ? " 
 
 She stirred in his arms. Jacky ... if she had 
 cared for Jacky and she was not going to admit it ... 
 anyway that was away back last winter ! Nobody 
 now . . . unless . . . yes, she did like the " Maister," 
 but he did not care for her. He only took her because 
 she was there. If she had had any sense, she would 
 have married Jacky, settled down with him ; but no, 
 she could not, not while the " Maister "... 
 
 " Jacky be goin' to Mexico and I be glad. Don't 
 want any of they bothering round."
 
 16 THE HAUNTING 
 
 He smiled down at her. " No, you don't want any 
 of them, do you, Antiks ? " 
 
 He was teasing her, but it was the truth. She had 
 not run after the men, and yet, somehow, she seemed 
 to get mixed up with them. Difficult to say " No," 
 difficult to go on saying it ... yes, especially when 
 you liked them. If it had not been for the children 
 but poor little dears, they came . . . 
 
 " There be one thing I can say ; I never m'aae 
 nobody pay for what 'e 'ad and I've been always able 
 to work for the children as God sent me." 
 
 " Is that the way you take it ? The children are 
 nothing to do with the mei^ ? " 
 
 " Oh, don't 'ee be silly, Maister, talking such stuff." 
 
 She had four children and he knew the men who had 
 fathered them ; but he knew, too, that easy as she 
 was, her easiness had dropped away since she had been 
 working in his kitchen. His hand, stroking, slightly 
 pinching, passed up her arm. Pretty, every bit of 
 her, and warm, made for love. 
 
 In the brown sitting-room, the fire had been lighted, 
 the table laid for supper ; laid with silver, with cut 
 glass. The best cloth had been got out, the old 
 Sunderland ware. Antiks had understood that for 
 Pascoe he wanted the best. The lad was to see he 
 was thought of, prepared for. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon looked about the room. The peat in 
 the fire-basket was burning dully. That last load 
 from St. Wenn had not been worth the cost, the sods 
 were both thin and damp. He must speak to Hen- 
 wood about it. If he paid good money, he wanted
 
 THE HAUNTING 17 
 
 money's worth. A few sticks, a dry motte, and the 
 fire would blaze. 
 
 At the end of the room was a heaped yet tidy desk. 
 Business meant papers, and Corlyon not only had his 
 business of an auctioneer, but that quiet finger-in- 
 eyery-pie business, the business that brought him 
 Cresting information, which brought him was it 
 Bovver ? If it was, he made no use of it. Of course 
 not. He was a man of principle. 
 
 A few rubber bands and the mass was so much re- 
 duced that the lid could be shut and the key turned. 
 Not that Pascoe was curious, but when you were the 
 repository of other people's secrets, you could not 
 be too careful. 
 
 He glanced from the well-brushed floor-cloth to the 
 rubbed mahogany sideboard, from the sideboard to 
 the curios on the wall, the curios Pascoe had brought 
 from foreign parts. Antiks had wanted to rub the 
 blood from the head-hunter's spear, and had been 
 told that on no account must she touch the weapons. 
 Her master looked at the spear closely the one dirty 
 thing in the room dull dark metal and darker 
 smears. A man's blood. A queer world where the 
 soldier got honour and love o' women for taking 
 life, while if the civilian saw red he swung at 
 Newgate. 
 
 That was because the odds were uneven. When the 
 soldier slew it was nation against nation ; but the 
 ordinary citizen, avenging his private quarrel, was 
 fighting, not his enemy, but the community. A man 
 might no longer take his spear in his hand, challenge 
 his enemy, and fight with him to the death. In such 
 a contest the winner would be the loser, for the com- 
 munity would hang him. The dirty old spear stood
 
 18 THE HAUNTING 
 
 for a clean way of fighting, for something at once fierce 
 and jovial. 
 
 Above the spear, higher on the brown wall, was a 
 quiver containing half a dozen tiny arrows. A more 
 deadly weapon that one scratch and you were as 
 good as dead. Mr. Corlyon, looking from the spear 
 to the arrows, dwelt thoughtfully on the latter. The 
 weapons of the pigmy, of the out-classed. Not a 
 clean way of fighting . . . why not though ? A man 
 fought to kill. 
 
 Idly, his glance on the dusty quiver, he thought of 
 Africa ; of books he had read. He could imagine 
 what happened ... a narrow path between walls 
 of growth, a black speck in the sky and a man walking 
 . . . quickly . . . along the path. He did not know 
 why, that man, but he was afraid. He would try 
 not to quicken his pace, would tell himself that either 
 side of him was only jungle, that the jungle was . . . 
 untenanted. 
 
 Yet away back in the wood was the other man, the 
 pigmy ; and at the appointed moment a tiny brown 
 shaft would wing out of the green. Its poison point 
 would graze hand . . . cheek . . . 
 
 The sweat would break out on the man, his quick 
 walk turn in spite of him into a run. He would be 
 running, poor devil, from what he carried in him . . . 
 and above, in the blue, the one black spot would be 
 joined by others ; and below, near the place where, 
 at last, he dropped, the ants, the bone-pickers, would 
 hurry out of their ant-hills. 
 
 He would die there and would not know to whom he 
 owed his death. 
 
 Gale Corlyon looked from the slim brown arrows to 
 the heavy spear. The pigmy had grasped one of the
 
 THE HAUNTING 19 
 
 tenets of civilization. A man wanted to match himself 
 with his opponent ; but when the odds were unequal 
 he strengthened his arm ... as best he could . . . 
 
 On the sideboard Antiks had set out a decanter, a 
 decanter of cut glass. 
 
 When he had fetched the wine from the cave at the 
 end of the cellar, Gale would have made all the pre- 
 parations he could. 
 
 Taking the lanthorn from its nail in the passage, he 
 lighted the candle and went down the stone stairs. 
 A grating revealed some boxes and barrels ; revealed 
 also a flagged passage leading to a low door. The 
 cellar was under the garden, a narrow garden which 
 ended abruptly at the foot of the hill ; and the low 
 door, being at the end furthest from the house, seemed 
 as if it must open upon some elfin palace. It led, 
 however, into the bluff which stood between Stowe on 
 its estuary and the open sea. 
 
 The wood of this door was black with age and con- 
 sisted of heavy timbers that had been salved from a 
 wreck. The ends of these rose above and sank below 
 the oblong aperture. It had no keyhole. Mr. Cor- 
 lyon, when he set it in place, had preferred to pad- 
 lock it with chain and staples to the wall. Opening 
 the door, he let himself in and fastened it again on the 
 inside. 
 
 He was in a rock cavity of some size, a cavity 
 which prehistoric man, discovering, had adapted to 
 his need. On one side, near another low door, was 
 a raised place, a sort of giant bed. Made of stones, 
 the spaces between had been rilled with clay and
 
 20 THE HAUNTING 
 
 the whole levelled. People sitting or lying on it 
 would not suffer from the damp of the floor. On this 
 primitive and ancient couch stood a chest, also 
 primitive, for it had been hollowed from a tree trunk 
 and bound with iron. As Mr. Corlyon passed in quest 
 of the wine, he took the sight of this chest to his 
 heart. The wine lay in casks and bottles at the 
 dim end of the cave-dwelling ; and his business was 
 not with the chest, but if Pascoe were further 
 delayed, if indeed time served he would like to 
 waste it there. 
 
 A bottle of Bordeaux from a hollow in the rock- 
 face ... a flagon of rum, stuff which Pascoe had 
 brought in the smack, that he and his brother had 
 carried through the fogou and stored in this old hid- 
 ing-place. 
 
 He put the bottles in readiness by the door of 
 entrance, then, crossing to the other, opened it on 
 a low twisty passage. The lanthorn showed this to 
 be of the height of a man, and about three feet 
 wide, showed it running forward tunnel-wise into 
 the bowels of the hill. 
 
 The fogou this passage lay like a black snake 
 between Stowe and a sheltered cove where sea met 
 estuary. As Mr. Corlyon stood to listen he heard 
 the faint distant rumble of the tide, and it seemed 
 to him that the familiar sound was dull, duller than 
 usual. 
 
 Could anything have happened to the passage ? 
 His mind considered the length of uncoiled serpent 
 thrusting mysteriously through the hill : and he 
 remembered that in one place the rock roof had 
 cracked a little, had let through stones and earth. 
 Not much had fallen, surely not enough to diminish
 
 THE HAUNTING 21 
 
 the sea thunder. The hush must be due to the state 
 of the tide, or to the wind being off-shore. It was, 
 however, a reminder. He must get Pascoe to help 
 him shore up the bulging strata. One or two baulks 
 from the wood weathering in the garden, and the 
 fogou would be good for another thousand years. 
 
 With his mind's eye Mr. Corlyon regarded that 
 velvet -black crevice. The fogou, this work of an 
 ancient and forgotten folk, intrigued him. It had 
 been a means of egress or escape a secret way. 
 When Stowe was a stockaded fortress, its inhabitants 
 had been able, in extremity, to escape by means 
 of it, to get away from the oncoming, irresistible foe. 
 The chieftains had handed the secret from father 
 to son, and now it was his. The secrets of his fellow 
 citizens were known to him and them, but this secret 
 of the fogou was. his unshared. 
 
 There was, of course, Pascoe ; but Pascoe was 
 his brother ... no one else in the town of Stowe, 
 in the duchy, in England, in the world, knew of the 
 fogou ; and, after all, a brother was your own flesh 
 and blood. 
 
 He was the cleverest man in Stowe, and he held 
 the old secret of the rulers. He wondered whether, 
 perhaps, he were descended from them, whether 
 his fine-sounding name . . . Corlyon . . . had some 
 tribal meaning. He wished he knew. 
 
 Turning back into the cave, he went over to the 
 giant bed of welded stones and clay. The chest 
 that stood on it was, by comparison, a thing of 
 yesterday, and yet the tree from which it had been 
 cut had done its leafing centuries ago. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon, unfastening the two locks, raised the 
 lid, but the interior thus revealed showed, at first,
 
 22 THE HAUNTING 
 
 entirely commonplace. A piece of holland had been 
 folded to fit the oblong. It was thick, a piece some 
 yards long. Lifting it out, he laid it before him on 
 the dry ground. 
 
 Beneath it, in two rows, were a number of pig- 
 skin bags, the mouths of which were fastened with 
 leathern thongs. Gale, on his hunkers by the chest, 
 touched each with a slim finger, counting. The 
 number was correct. So many fat-sided bags, so 
 many waiting to be filled. He picked up an empty 
 bag, laid it by. The money Pascoe received for the 
 emeralds should be dropped, coin by coin, into that 
 happy bag ; it should no longer suffer among its 
 fellows the reproach of emptiness. Pascoe was 
 coming home, and Pascoe would bring money, money 
 that should be added to this store his brother kept 
 hidden in the depths of his dwelling. He lifted a 
 full bag, unfastened the thong, poured the sovereigns 
 on to the holland. 
 
 His business brought enough for his comfort, and 
 he had not tried to develop it. What occupied 
 his mind was the finger-in-every-pie work which 
 brought no return, no monetary return ; but being 
 a good citizen he had to take thought for his old age, 
 also for that of Pascoe. 
 
 He had told Pascoe what to buy and where to sell, 
 had received from him the proceeds of these deals, 
 had stored them in the pig-skin bags, and the bags 
 in the shaped iron-bound trunk. 
 
 His savings. 
 
 A voice called to him from the top of the cellar 
 stairs, " Maister ! Maister ! " 
 
 He shovelled the gold into its bag, fitted the bag 
 into its place, the holland overall, and locked the chest.
 
 [THE HAUNTING 23 
 
 " Maister, your brother be just corned. He'm 
 ridin' down the street." 
 
 Pascoe, the young brother who went out empty 
 and came back full, whose every voyage added a 
 fat sum to the provision Mr. Corlyon was making, 
 Pascoe was come. 
 
 Snatching up lanthorn and wine, Mr. Corlyon 
 fastened behind him the door of the cave, and ran 
 up the stair.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ANTIKS HELLYAR had lifted the cloth from the table, 
 had washed the dishes, and gone home to her children. 
 The men, desire of meat put from them, were smoking 
 and talking. They lay back in deep chairs east and 
 west of the hearth, and between them on the table 
 the many facets of a cut-glass bottle sparkled in the 
 radiance of lamp and firelight. 
 
 On the lamp was a green shade. Save for a little 
 moon of light above the chimney, the upper part of 
 the room was in darkness, but from the edges of the 
 shade brightness flowed over table and floor, over 
 Pascoe's short stuggy body and bronzed face, over 
 the shining blackness of Mr. Corlyon's boots. 
 
 " I was looking for you quite an hour before you 
 came." 
 
 " The rain ! " and Pascoe reached for the square 
 bottle. 
 
 " You you stopped somewhere ? " Not till Pascoe 
 affirmed it could he believe what he already knew. 
 
 " At Treveglos." 
 
 A farm some way out of the town, a farm at least 
 two miles from the baby-linen shop. " You did not 
 see anything of the Liddicoats as you came 
 along ? " 
 
 Pascoe measured himself a tot of rum, and his 
 brother noticed that the tot was ample. Of course, 
 
 24
 
 THE HAUNTING 25 
 
 the lad had had a long ride, and he fresh from 
 board-ship life. Tired, no doubt. 
 
 " Came down Main Street." 
 
 Main Street was the midmost of the three that 
 opened on the harbour. Pascoe, riding into Stowe, 
 must, if he came by way of it, have made a detour. 
 
 " Joe Gregor had asked me to order him a case 
 of winter fruit. I thought I had better tell him it 
 was on the way." 
 
 His excuse would hold water. " As you were late, 
 I thought you must have stayed at the Liddicoats for 
 supper ? " 
 
 Pascoe understood that old Gale was curious ; 
 he wanted to be indulged with the truth of the matter. 
 He was like that,- a digger, and always at it. 
 " Thought you would be waiting for me . . . ' 
 
 That ought to satisfy him, but no. " You were 
 fond enough of dropping in there last time you were 
 home." 
 
 Pascoe nodded. Why try to keep things to himself ? 
 Gale must know, and as well first as last. " Lot 
 of water has flowed over the wheel since then." He 
 smiled to himself, his mind shifting from adventures 
 in Jamaica to his amusements when last in Stowe. 
 Out of that three-months-old holiday a possibility 
 stared at him. " How are they ? How is Jenifer ? " 
 
 The older man passed his hand over the pocket 
 of his coat. He could feel the hard oblong of the 
 carte-de-visite he had taken from his brother's 
 mantelshelf. He would not acknowledge he had it, 
 and nothing should induce him to give it back ; 
 but he noticed uncomfortably that Pascoe's voice 
 was quick with interest. 
 
 " Jenifer ? " She had seemed to him a little
 
 26 THE HAUNTING 
 
 paler of late, less blooming. It made her only the 
 more attractive. He would not tell Pascoe that ; 
 the fellow might find it out for himself. Mr. Corlyon, 
 his impassive face a screen, said Jenifer was much 
 as usual. 
 
 " Ah, then, that is all right." Oblivious of his brother 
 he fell back into a dream. " Seemed," he said, " as 
 if that shipwreck brought me luck." 
 
 " Brought you a broken leg and the loss of all 
 you had." 
 
 Pascoe glanced at his loose blue trousers. " It 
 brought more than it took. Leg is as good as ever, 
 and while I was lying in hospital I well, I thought 
 things over a bit." 
 
 Mr. Corlyon felt his heart sink. Fool that he had 
 been to think even Pascoe could forget her, forget 
 such a maid as Jenifer ? Sea-eyed, wheat -haired, 
 and . . . her lips ! The vision of her seemed to pass 
 a brightness through the dull room. 
 
 He pulled himself up in his chair, and the light, 
 cut off sharply by the green shade, showed only the 
 steep hard collar, the dull black of his clothes. To 
 Pascoe, on the brink of confession, it was as if he 
 were speaking to someone who had suddenly become 
 headless. 
 
 " It it is about time I settled down." 
 
 " You think so ? " 
 
 The voice, the still voice that came out of the 
 shadow was disconcerting. Pascoe wished his brother 
 had not withdrawn himself, become invisible. 
 
 " I mean it is time I got married." 
 
 In order to show himself companionable, Mr. 
 Corlyon had been smoking. The pipe was in his 
 hand, but his arm remained stretched along the edge
 
 THE HAUNTING 27 
 
 of the chair, and gradually the tobacco began to dull. 
 
 " Time ? But my dear lad, you are only 
 
 " Twenty-eight, last March ! " 
 
 " I am forty odd," the voice had changed, had 
 become charged with some emotion to which Pascoe 
 could not put a name, " and I ... have not 
 married." 
 
 " A born old bachelor ! I can never think of you 
 with a wife and children." 
 
 " No ? And yet men of my age " 
 
 " Oh, I know." Gale was not old, not really old, 
 still ... he could not hope for the freshness of 
 feeling that he, Pascoe, had. The man had gone 
 past that. " Fact is, old chap, I wish you would 
 marry. Don't like to think of you all alone here. 
 Why not look out for somebody of your own age, 
 somebody who has got a little money ? A widow, 
 say ... " 
 
 " Like Mrs. Liddicoat ? " 
 
 Why should Gale's voice have an edge to it ? 
 Mrs. Liddicoat was all right. "You might do 
 w r orse." 
 
 " Or better. I might, for instance, marry a woman 
 that I was fond of." 
 
 Linking his hands behind his head, Pascoe 
 smiled into a peopled darkness. His brother was 
 incomprehensible, but what did it matter ? Plump, 
 kind Morwenna Liddicoat or another . . . the pale 
 emotions of middle age ! It was, anyway, a matter 
 of slight importance. " Ah, if only you knew what 
 it is to want a maid as I want Grizel." 
 
 Mr. Corlyon sat forward, his face showing in the 
 full light, showing the astonishment which possessed 
 him. "Who?"
 
 28 THE HAUNTING 
 
 " Grizel Grizel McVitie. Didn't I tell you that 
 was her name ? " 
 
 " You told me nothing." The voice rang out 
 sharply. " I thought you had come home to to 
 marry to marry someone in Stowe." 
 
 " And of course you would rather I did ? " Gale 
 was naturally annoyed, would be more so when all 
 was told. " Sorry, old man, but a chap can't marry 
 to oblige his brother ; and Grizel . . . there is not a 
 maid in Stowe fit to hold a candle to her." 
 
 " Go on," said Corlyon, " let us have it all." He 
 had taken a spill from the mantelshelf, and was busy 
 refilling his pipe. Presently, he sat back, puffing. 
 " Out with it," he said, cheerfully. 
 
 " The McVities," Pascoe told him, " were kind 
 to me when I broke my leg. They had a place at 
 Constant Springs. As soon as I fc was able to get 
 out of bed they asked me there." 
 
 " Jamaica people ? " 
 
 " Old McVitie went out as a young man, went out 
 from Scotland. He is a ship's broker." 
 
 " Married out there ? " 
 
 " Lord, no, married an Englishwoman. Get this 
 into your noddle, Gale, the McVities aren't dark, 
 they are as white as you and me." 
 
 ii 
 
 Gale had taken it just as Pascoe, conning his 
 confession on the voyage home, had known he 
 would. The one thing in the world he wanted 
 was to see Pascoe happily married. With his eyes 
 full of handsome interest he had shaken his brother's 
 hand. A sweetheart in every port had been Pascoe's 
 way, but this was better.
 
 THE HAUNTING 29 
 
 And the other, an obscure doubt laid to rest, 
 opened his heart. Gale, being so much older, had 
 always been like a father. A fellow could speak out 
 to him. Being only, after all, a brother, he could 
 not go back on you. 
 
 Sitting at ease, smoking placidly, even sipping 
 the hot rum and water at his elbow, Corlyon listened. 
 He had never felt more comfortable, more like a warm, 
 full-fed, purring cat. Pascoe with a wife ! A little 
 house, and in it Pascoe's young wife, and presently 
 Pascoe's children ! Good ... it could not have 
 been better. 
 
 As the sailor talked, his words shuttling about the 
 figure of that distant girl, Corlyon gradually became 
 aware of the McVities. They drifted in and out of 
 the tale. A kindly shrewd father, a mother who kept 
 her eye on her two daughters, sons who were away, 
 one a doctor, one ranching in Florida. Alexander 
 McVitie had made it plain that he would tolerate no 
 " hole-and-corner " love-making. All open and above- 
 board. Come forward with your offer, or clear out. 
 And Pascoe had lost his heart. " Nothing new, that. 
 You've been in love a pretty many times." 
 
 " I mean it now." The other women hadn't 
 counted, this was the one ... he only wanted to 
 get back to her . . . couldn't eat or sleep for thinking 
 of her. There was a ship sailing on Monday . . . 
 
 " On Monday ? Come, come ! " 
 
 But Pascoe had made up his mind. The emotion 
 compelling him was too strong. When a chap felt 
 like that, he did not waste time. Gale could not 
 be expected to understand, but he, Pascoe, must go. 
 
 " And when you are tied up good and tight, you'll 
 bring her home ? " He must find them a house ;
 
 30 THE HAUNTING 
 
 must have it papered and painted in readiness. No 
 trouble that, he would enjoy it. 
 
 Under his kindly planning was a secret warmth, 
 the hope of similar adventure. Pascoe and his over- 
 seas maiden ; but he, Gale, would be content with 
 one who had spent all her waking and sleeping hours 
 in little old Stowe. If only she would have him, 
 and she might . . . now that Pascoe was out of the way. 
 
 As in a dream he saw the young man's face change, 
 grow apologetic. " Bring her home here ? No, 
 her father would not hear of it. He made a point 
 of our living out there." 
 
 " In Jamaica ? But you are not going to, are 
 you ? " What about the secret trade, the articles 
 Pascoe invested money in as Gale's agent ? What 
 about bags that had still to be filled ? 
 
 " Can't help myself. Both McVitie's sons being 
 away he really needs another man in the business." 
 
 " But you you wouldn't know enough a sailor 
 like you." 
 
 " He says my knowledge of shipping will be useful 
 to him." 
 
 " And you really think of settling in Jamaica ? " 
 His thoughts were with his hoard. The fat bags 
 represented a goodish bit of money, but he had looked 
 forward to many more of Pascoe 's laden home- 
 comings. It seemed to him that his brother was 
 acting shabbily. Without warning, without even 
 seeming to realize what he was about, he proposed 
 to put an end to the trading that brought him yearly 
 such a comfortable sum. How selfish were even the 
 best ! A girl shyly lifted her blue eyes, and you might 
 whistle for your money. That was Pascoe all over 
 . . . unstable.
 
 THE HAUNTING 31 
 
 But then, if he had not been happy-go-lucky he 
 would have traded for himself, and he had a wonderful 
 eye for bargains. Gale did him justice. The lad 
 bought in a cheap market, and always turned in 
 to him, Gale, the difference. Yes ... all these 
 years. And it was a goodly sum. If he had chosen 
 to lay it out . . . invest it ... buy land . . . 
 
 But there had been no need. He earned enough 
 for his bachelor requirements. Now, perhaps . . . 
 
 " You see, Gale, he has offered me a share in the 
 business." 
 
 The pebble rolling hither and thither for so long 
 had found a rich hollow. 
 
 " He is doing well," Pascoe said. It's a good 
 business. I should be a fool if I did not take on the 
 job." 
 
 Gale had almost uttered the words behind his lips, 
 " And what about me ? " 
 
 Had Pascoe no thought for anyone but himself ? 
 Gale dwelt on the long affection he had borne his 
 young brother . . . apparently it was no more to 
 Pascoe than ballast. For the sake of this girl he would 
 jettison it without hesitation. 
 
 " I congratulate you, but," he must try him a little 
 further, make sure, " you'll be back here, now and 
 again ? " 
 
 " Daresay I shall, though old McVitie says, ' where 
 a man makes his home, there he should bide.' He 
 has never been back. But I am different. Fact is," 
 he laughed at his fatuousness, " I want you to see 
 Grizel ; and I want to take her around, show her 
 places, the fogou, and so on ... the places I've 
 told her about," 
 
 " The places in some way connected with you ? "
 
 32 THE HAUNTING 
 
 " That's it. She'll be interested. She'll want to 
 see them." He went on talking, and Gale, half 
 listening, let his eyes rest on the straight handsome 
 features, the moving lips. Pascoe was entirely 
 occupied with the girl and his relation to her. That 
 Gale would miss his home-coming had hardly occurred 
 to him. It was of no importance. He had put it 
 on one side and forgotten it. 
 
 in 
 
 " How did you get hold of the emeralds ? " 
 
 " Ship was at Cartagena for cargo r and I met a 
 miner from up-country, a Cornishman, and stood 
 him drinks. He had the stones. I don't know how 
 he came by them, but he needed to pass them on, 
 and pretty quick, too." 
 
 If Pascoe was showing a cold disregard for Gale's 
 future, at least he had done him good service up to 
 date. Queer chap, Pascoe, he put your suggestions 
 into practice, made money for you, and thought 
 nothing of it. All in the day's work. The adventure 
 of a bargain as good as any other adventure, but no 
 better. 
 
 " You sold the stones in Plymouth ? " 
 
 Pascoe saw he was expected to render account, 
 and he was willing. The tale of his secret earnings 
 had always been poured into Gale's ears, Gale, the 
 trustworthy old buffer who took care of the money. 
 " Malet gave me fifty for the two biggest. They 
 were worth more, but he wouldn't part." 
 
 " And the others ? " 
 
 " Twenty for the others, seventy in all." 
 
 " That's not so bad."
 
 THE HAUNTING 33 
 
 " I gave ten for them ! " He chuckled over the 
 easy money, thought of the one stone he had kept 
 back, the stone which was to be set in a gold band for 
 Grizel. Seventy pounds and a fine ring ... all 
 that for a tenner . . . not so dusty ! 
 
 Gale looked over his shoulder at the window. 
 The curtains hung brown and straight across the 
 aperture. The brothers were as safe from prying 
 eyes as if they had been in the Cave. 
 
 " Let's see the colour of it." 
 
 That, too, Pascoe would give. With an effort 
 because of its packed rotundity he pulled a bag 
 out of his trouser pocket. " Seventy pounds," he 
 gloated, and, untying the neck of the canvas bag, 
 poured them on to the black tray. 
 
 They slid over each other with a sweet metallic 
 sound, they twinkled in the yellow light of the lamp. 
 Gale, stretching a lean finger, would have stirred 
 them, but ... he did not realize how . . . Pascoe 
 was before him. 
 
 " Seventy pounds that I have earned," he said. 
 
 IV 
 
 Gale was thankful for the long training in discretion 
 which listening to other people's private affairs had 
 given him. At that amazing utterance of Pascoe's 
 he had felt something fall away inside, but he had 
 not spoken. He had sat, tensely silent, apprehension 
 growing apace ; but, growing behind the still mask 
 of his face, growing invisibly. 
 
 " Seventy pounds that I have earned ! " 
 The necessity was on Gale for some sort of 
 movement, some outlet for the rush of emotion. He 
 c
 
 34 THE HAUNTING 
 
 got up, a tall thin man who looked his age. " The 
 fire wants mending. I'll fetch a motte." 
 
 In the basket under the kitchen window were a 
 couple of big tree roots mottes. Gale took the 
 hatchet, and carrying the bigger piece into the yard, 
 shaped and trimmed it. The passion of him went 
 into the blows. He came back to the brown sitting- 
 room his usual pale but debonair self. He was ready 
 now for this new Pascoe. 
 
 His glance, as he entered, went to the tray ; but 
 the shining heap had vanished. 
 
 Pascoe must have put the gold back into his pocket. 
 
 " Come," Gale began roughly, then pulled up short. 
 With this new Pascoe he must walk warily. " I mean 
 . . . move aside, the motte is heavy." 
 
 He thrust the root deep into the hot smouldering 
 turf, thrust so fiercely that it was as if he would have 
 pushed it through the fire-basket. That money . . . 
 a strange thing for Pascoe to have done . . . what 
 did he mean by it ? 
 
 If he were short of cash, wanted some to buy his 
 girl a present, wanted some for furnishing, he had only 
 to ask for it. Gale had always, well . . . not given 
 him money to waste . . . but been generous. If he 
 were treated properly, no one was more open-handed. 
 
 From behind him, still busy with the fire, came 
 Pascoe's fresh-air voice. " We must settle up, I 
 think." 
 
 " Settle up ? " What was there to " settle up " ? 
 The old brown house on quay-side had been their 
 mutual home, the expenses of its upkeep Gale's affair.
 
 THE HAUNTING 35 
 
 He had never grumbled at the cost, had been glad to 
 think Pascoe should have a home to which he could 
 return. 
 
 Pascoe might have offered, if not to share expenses, 
 at least to pay a little, but he had not. Where money 
 was concerned, he had always been a bit careless. 
 Gale had had to think for them both. 
 
 If he had not, they might have drifted into Poverty 
 Street. He turned his back on the fire. From his 
 lean height he looked down, questioningly, on his 
 brother. " Settle up ? " 
 
 " You know, father left this house between us," 
 Pascoe said. " We'll get it valued, and you can buy 
 me out, or we'll sell it." 
 
 The house so solid, so long Gale's house thinned 
 suddenly to paper. Though built on "hard country," 
 it heaved under his feet. The house in which he had 
 been born, in which he had spent the forty odd 
 years of his life, the house which, since the death 
 of his father, he had looked on as indisputably 
 his . . . 
 
 Pascoe had put in a claim : Pascoe, who, for ten 
 years, had paid nothing 
 
 ' You've lived in it rent free," Pascoe Was saying. 
 " Of course, that is no matter, you were welcome." 
 
 Rent free ? Was that how he had looked at it ? 
 The revelation of his mind was bewildering. Had 
 Gale been mistaken ? Was Pascoe not the happy-go- 
 lucky sailor, indifferent to money, keen only on 
 adventure ? Was he not the affectionate lad . . . 
 
 But he had had proof already that Pascoe cared 
 for him, Gale, not so much as a snap of the fingers. 
 Grizel filled his heart. He could bid farewell to the 
 brother who had fathered him, who had been devoted
 
 36 THE HAUNTING 
 
 to him, without so much as a backward look. He 
 was, indeed, only impatient to be gone. 
 
 A bitter awakening . . . but Gale must not think 
 of that now. A situation had arisen with which he 
 must deal. That first. Pascoe, no longer the easy, 
 semi-dependent young brother, was demanding his 
 . . . rights. Yes, the unconscionable dog, that no 
 doubt was how he looked on it. The letter of the law 
 . . . but law was not justice . . and law between 
 brothers ... 
 
 Why, law was not even common sense ! It would 
 have been wiser to have left things as they were, 
 to have kept the old house on quay-side as a refuge 
 to which Pascoe could always come. You couldn't 
 tell . . . life was uncertain ... he might be back, 
 wife and all, within a twelvemonth. This talk of 
 selling . . . 
 
 That Pascoe could contemplate It for a moment. 
 The house was home. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon could not imagine himself dislodged, 
 a snail from whom its shell had been taken. Why, he 
 would do extra work, do without comfort, live on 
 bread and tea rather than turn out. Alarming, this 
 talk. Not that it meant anything, for he would, of 
 course, have the house valued, find the money to 
 buy Pascoe out ; but the suggestion had opened a 
 vista of possibilities. 
 
 " And," pursued the cheery voice, " and there's the 
 money." 
 
 Gale found his lips dry. The money ? What money ? 
 
 " I should think by now it will be a brave sum." 
 
 " But father did not leave any money." A mistake 
 somewhere. Pascoe could not mean, impossible that 
 he should mean . . .
 
 THE HAUNTING 37 
 
 " I know . . . poor old father ; if he had not been 
 so fond of his glass, he would have left us more than 
 the house." 
 'Us! 
 
 " No : I mean the money I have made ; the money 
 I gave you to take care of for me." He smiled at his 
 brother. " I knew it would be safe in your hands. 
 Get milk out of a cheese, easier than money out of 
 you. How much is it ? I'll be bound you know." 
 
 In the turmoil of his wrath and excitement, Gale 
 clung to one thought. He must be wary. He must 
 not show what he was feeling. He must not give 
 anything away, not information, not himself. This 
 unheard of, egregious, abominable demand . . . 
 
 " I don't, though." 
 
 Was the effort that he was making palpable ? He 
 glanced at Pascoe, at the smiling happiness of him, 
 and felt he could no longer endure the sight. Turning, 
 he pushed his chair a little back, and sat down. He 
 wanted time ... a few moments' grace . . . self- 
 control was sometimes so very difficult to compass. 
 But he mustn't speak. It was imperative that he 
 should keep the words back. 
 
 " Let's have a squint at it, then. Some fun counting 
 it up." 
 
 Gale leaned back in his chair, his face once more a 
 paleness in the green dusk of the lampshade. " I 
 would not bother about it to-night. To-morrow will 
 be soon enough." 
 
 " If you don't want to stir out of this, give me the 
 key and I'll go get it." 
 
 Go get it ... down the cellar stairs, into the cave 
 . . . Gale's sanctuary ! Pascoe put out a hand, but 
 Gale, sitting back in the shadow, did not move.
 
 38 THE HAUNTING 
 
 How much longer would he be able to sit there . . . 
 silent . . . hiding his bitterness. And it was more 
 than bitterness. Something had broken . . . 
 
 " What's the hurry to-night ? Business in business 
 hours. You have trusted me all these years," surely 
 one night more isn't going to break the square ? " 
 
 Pascoe sat there, contemplative. Of course, just 
 as Gale liked, but he had been thinking of it during 
 the voyage home, wondering how much he had. 
 " You see I have to buy my partnership in McVitie's 
 business." 
 
 Gale's groping mind had found the solution to the 
 problem. Pascoe would not get his wife unless he 
 stood in with the girl's father. An obedient . . . 
 obedient ? Perhaps even, she was the scheming 
 daughter of this canny Scot. McVitie wanted money, 
 and Pascoe was to supply it. Not having any of his 
 own, he had bethought him of Gale's money. An 
 unscrupulous lot, and Pascoe as bad as the others. 
 He would never have thought it of his brother . . . 
 still, when a woman stood at the turn of the road, 
 beckoning . . . 
 
 How did Pascoe know that McVitie's business was 
 flourishing ? The fact was, he did not know. He had 
 accepted McVitie's statements, and McVitie, of course, 
 had put his best foot foremost. Without inquiry, 
 Pascoe was going to hand over Gale's money . . . 
 
 From start to finish the trading had been Gale's 
 idea, carried on under his direction, and the proceeds 
 handed over. He thought of the double row of pigskin 
 bags in the chest. His savings, ten years of careful- 
 ness, of slowly mounting addition, and now, a hand 
 stretched towards it, a greedy acquisitive hand. 
 
 If only he could have struck it down.
 
 THE HAUNTING 89 
 
 He could not trust himself much longer this 
 outrageous claim ! 
 
 He would not give up the money ... his money 
 . . . that, at least, was certain. But how would he 
 fend off those eager fingers ? He must think, must 
 have time. 
 
 The night lay black about him, and he felt thankful 
 for the long hours. Before the grey of morning he 
 would know what . . . not what he would do ... no 
 indeed, but how he should set about it. 
 
 An unconscionable, a wicked demand . . . yes, and 
 a mercenary pair. Pascoe was playing into their 
 hands. The fool . . . 
 
 " I think," Gale said, and he rose with a certain 
 fierce briskness, " I think we'll go to bed." 
 
 The other laughed apologetically, as he followed. 
 " I haven't half told you about Grizel, still there is 
 always to-morrow."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " Good night ! " 
 
 On the threshold of his room Gale Corlyon yawned 
 as if he were tired. Hitherto, bolting the front door 
 and putting up the chain, he had felt he was shutting 
 himself and Pascoe in, that they two were united 
 against a world of marauders. Now, suddenly, 
 horribly, the situation had changed. Pascoe, with 
 whom he had thought of himself as standing shoulder 
 to shoulder, had become hostile. 
 
 Gale was conscious of a desire to be alone, the only 
 wakeful creature in the dark house. He wanted to be 
 surrounded by thickness on thickness of dead opaque 
 night ... he wanted to bar out Pascoe. 
 
 It had come, all of a moment, to that. He wanted, 
 not to shut Pascoe in, but out. 
 
 This was not the brother whom a few hours earlier 
 he had welcomed with such a show of kindly prepara- 
 tion ; and the only way to be rid of him of this 
 intruder was to feign a drowsiness he did not feel. 
 
 If the fellow thought he, Gale, had taken his demand 
 as a matter of course, had not been bothered by it, 
 had, in fact, gone off casually to bed, he also would 
 sleep ; and, once asleep, the irritation of his presence 
 would be, in part, removed. He would become, if 
 not a nothingness, at least only a tooth which, though 
 it held possibilities, did not ache. 
 
 4 o
 
 THE HAUNTING 41 
 
 Gale could wait. It seemed indeed as if he must, 
 as if his brain were numb, had been stupefied ; as if 
 with that flame of alien consciousness burning so 
 close to him, he could not think. He must that 
 was it he must have the house to himself. 
 
 His house, his poor house, his house on which a 
 sacrilegious finger had been laid. 
 
 The house which, if Pascoe had not been saved from 
 the wreck, would have been legally his. 
 
 He had so nearly, so very nearly, not come back. 
 
 Gale visualized that long swim, those hours in the 
 water. At the moment of failing endurance, a big 
 wave had rolled Pascoe up the beach, left him there. 
 It might so easily have rolled him under. 
 
 And if he had been drowned . . . 
 
 If if ! Ay but "if" is a crooked letter. 
 
 Pascoe had come back to show Gale the sort of 
 man he was, to claim half of the house on Quayside, 
 and all the money. 
 
 He would strip his brother, and then bid him good- 
 bye. " A man should bide where he made his 
 home." 
 
 Gale, holding his head in his hands, in his long 
 nervous hands, which -were so capable, groaned to 
 himself, groaned softly lest Pascoe should hear. 
 
 He had thought to know his brother as he knew 
 the little limewashed rooms of the house. Light, 
 easy, ay but loyal. 
 
 Across the pale, candle-lit room his eyes sought 
 an old and fading photo that hung on the wall, the 
 photo of Pascoe that he had had taken on his first 
 voyage. He had had that photo for how many 
 years ? It must be over a dozen. 
 
 He drew a long breath. More than a dozen years,
 
 42 THE HAUNTING 
 
 and during that time he had set the clock of life by 
 his brother's comings and goings. 
 
 And Pascoe had seemed . . . 
 
 That was it seemed ; good Lord, yes, he had only 
 seemed. His loyalty, his affection had been no more 
 a part of him than his clothes. 
 
 The real Pascoe . . . Gale could not see him clearly, 
 could not see all of him, but what he saw . . . 
 
 The world seemed to Gale bottomless as Dozmare 
 Pool, a black hollow through which one sank and 
 sank. He had lost something, but it was not Pascoe. 
 
 The Pascoe to whom he had been so much attached 
 had never existed. In his place stood a stranger, a 
 stranger who, under a breezy manner, had hidden 
 fierce and predatory thoughts, who had regarded 
 Gale, not as flesh of his flesh, but as an " old buffer " 
 away back in Stowe, who might be plundered. 
 
 It hurt ... it was as if splintered glass were running 
 into his flesh, were letting out warmth and red blood 
 and some sort of stored emotion. 
 
 On the cane chair by his narrow iron bed, his bed 
 of a bachelor, he sat very still, his heart crying out 
 in him. 
 
 He wanted the old illusion, the old happy belief. 
 
 He wanted, not this new Pascoe with the hard 
 smiling eyes, but the young brother who had come 
 to him when in trouble, who had borrowed his money, 
 and been at home under his roof. 
 
 The years of comradeship, so many and now that 
 he was looking back, so short ! 
 
 From the room across the landing came sounds of 
 movement, the sudden dipping creak of a bed. Pascoe, 
 his demand made, and his affairs in order, was settling 
 to happy dreams of his sweetheart, would dream,
 
 THE HAUNTING 48 
 
 perhaps, of the money he was filching from Gale, 
 the money that was her price. 
 
 Very soon now he would be asleep. 
 
 And then Gale might go, through the silent house, 
 down and down. 
 
 He needed to see the treasure at which Pascoe had 
 snatched, to touch it, to comfort himself with it. 
 
 It was all he had. 
 
 Why, when Pascoe made that outrageous demand, 
 had Gale not said that he had speculated with the 
 money, lost it ? 
 
 He had, of course, been taken by surprise ; but he 
 was not a liar. The money was his, and he would 
 fight for it. Fight, but not deny the existence of it. 
 
 Going quietly to the door, he pulled it open. 
 
 ii 
 
 From Pascoe's room came the sound, rhythmic and 
 slow, of deeply drawn breath. He was asleep, asleep 
 with his door left casually ajar. Gale, candle in hand, 
 saw the oblong and in that pocket of blackness, the 
 dim outlines of furniture. For the time being his 
 enemy was, as it were, buried. Sleep had covered 
 Pascoe, rendered him deaf and blind and the house 
 was once more Gale's. He went down the bedroom 
 stairs, the cellar stairs. At the other end of the flagged 
 path, the low black door scowled from the hill-side. 
 Letting himself in, he did not close it behind him. 
 He had the feeling that he must not be shut away from 
 the house, that he must be able to hear what went on 
 in it. 
 
 Once inside the cave he went directly to the great 
 bed of clay-fixed stones. The old chest, banded with
 
 44 THE HAUNTING 
 
 rusty iron, wore for him a friendly aspect. Here, at 
 least, was something that would not change, not in a 
 lifetime, not in many. Its seeming was the real thing. 
 Grey wood from the outside to the in, grey wood that 
 had been hollowed to hold what man wished to store. 
 
 He threw back the lid, spread out the holland, 
 emptied on to it the pigskin bags. His fingers were 
 trembling as he untied them. Ten bags . . . the 
 savings of ten years. With the contents of those bags 
 he might have hired himself servants, taken a larger 
 house, married a wife ; but he had been content to 
 slip coin after coin into the little greedy mouths ; to 
 save until bag after bag was full, over-full, until he 
 might thong it about and start on the next. 
 
 What were figures on paper to addition in the con- 
 crete, to that adding of sovereign to sovereign ? No 
 emotion so satisfying. 
 
 The flame of the candle burnt steadily in the still 
 air of the cave : its light fell on the pyramid of shining 
 coins. 
 
 Gale felt his heart swell, felt that his chest was not 
 big enough to contain it, that it must choke him. 
 
 Here was substance which would not change into 
 fairy gold . . . into withered leaves. 
 
 Affection ? No, only this was real. 
 
 He stretched his arms, curving them round the 
 glittering heap. He wanted to lay his cheek on the 
 cold smoothness of the metal. The money was his 
 . . . his . . . 
 
 Within him something hard began to push, to grow. 
 
 in 
 
 " Hullo, Gale ! " cried a voice from the doorway. 
 " So this is where you are ? "
 
 THE HAUNTING 45 
 
 Pascoe, dark hair in a tousle, but no hint of sleep in 
 his eyes, stepped up to the giant bed. He was looking, 
 not at Gale, but at the money and he was smiling. 
 
 What did it mean ? Pascoe's door had been ajar 
 ... on purpose ? He, too, had been waiting ? 
 
 " After all," Pascoe said, " you wanted to know. 
 Come on, then, we'll count it." 
 
 He seated himself on the edge of the raised place, 
 sat with his back to Gale ; and Gale, watching him, 
 thought how singularly unprotected people were who 
 had their backs to you. No scaly armour, not even 
 a thick hide. 
 
 To take what a man had, to sit as a matter of course 
 with your back to him, showed the esteem in which 
 you held him . . . the lack of esteem. A fangless 
 lion whose claws had been cut ; an old cat by the 
 hearth. 
 
 The candle -flame had swooned in the breeze of 
 Pascoe's sudden entry. It climbed again, a yellow 
 flame about a thick inordinately long wick and the 
 smoke rippled blackly to the rock roof. Gale, staring 
 at Pascoe's back, at his head bent over the coins, at 
 the busy movement of his hands, wondered how he 
 could ever have thought the fellow good-looking. 
 Too wide and thick for his height, why, he was almost 
 squat ; and his hands . . . the dishonest thumb . . . 
 
 IV 
 
 Having separated the sovereigns from the half- 
 sovereigns, Pascoe was heaping the former in tens, the 
 latter in twenties ; and behind him the older man 
 waited. 
 
 " My word, old fellow," Pascoe said at last and,
 
 46 THE HAUNTING 
 
 leaning back, looked up with the old affectionate 
 glance. " If it had not been for you I should not have 
 saved half as much." 
 
 Gale let out a careful driblet of words. " You 
 would not." 
 
 " You have looked after my interests mighty well. 
 Could not have done better if they had been your own." 
 
 The breezy manner, genial, hearty, was that with 
 which he was familiar but Gale was wondering how 
 he had been taken in by it. The veneer of walnut 
 on plain wood. . . . 
 
 " I put the money by. Yes, dragged in the chest 
 and had the bags made and filled them. I filled them 
 till they brimmed. Every pound they hold, I saved." 
 
 " You did." Pascoe smiled an acknowledgment. 
 The little rouleaux, the tens and twenties, would give 
 him his wife and a home worthy of her. " Mean a 
 lot to me, these do. Never thought I should be as 
 glad of them as I am." 
 
 *' Pascoe " Gale caught at the blurted word, tried 
 to dam the black tide, failed. " If you didn't think 
 to marry and the maid's father hadn't bought you, 
 never a word should I have heard about this money." 
 Sweeping his arm out towards the gold he spoke with 
 more deliberation. " You spent what you earned, 
 you would have spent this. It isn't yours and until 
 it suited your book you never thought of it as yours." 
 
 " Not mine ? " Pascoe said, a little breathlessly. 
 He was ready for old Gale. The chap was fond of 
 money, but he had always been straight -dealing. 
 When he came to think it over, he would see he had 
 not any right to this. " Oh yes, 'tis mine right enough. 
 I earned it." 
 
 " You ? You bought where I told you to, sold as
 
 THE HAUNTING 47 
 
 I bade you and brought me the proceeds. You were 
 my agent." 
 
 " Not a bit of it, I kept account of every halfpenny 
 I gave you, the dates and all. Believe I got it on 
 me," he searched his pockets. " No, must have left 
 it with McVitie." 
 
 Gale was taken aback. " You kept an account, 
 you gave that account to McVitie ? " 
 
 A fresh revelation of under-currents. Pascoe, 
 handing over sum after sum, had not commented on 
 them, yet had kept an account ; and the paper of 
 figures had been left behind with McVitie carefully. 
 Pascoe had not needed to count the coins in the box, he 
 had known as well as Gale what the sum total should be. 
 
 " Why, yes. No harm in that, was there ? It was 
 as well for the man to know how much I could put 
 into the business. It would have been more if you 
 had invested it, or put it on deposit at the bank." 
 
 There it was, just as it had been handed over, a 
 lump of dead metal ; and what was the use to anyone 
 of bottled money ? He had a sense of injury. 
 
 " My God ! " Gale said. 
 
 " Don't look at me like that." Sitting between his 
 brother and the money, he seemed small and gnome- 
 like. The candle which was behind him was reflected 
 in Gale's eyes, twin flames in eyes as darkly bright as 
 agates. Pascoe felt a momentary doubt. Old Gale 
 looked . . . 
 
 He could not put a name to it but ancestors of his 
 had been ill-wished by men who had looked at them, 
 who had looked like that. 
 
 " Come ! " said he, with propitiatory glance and 
 smile. " Money's mine and I've got to have it, but 
 no need for us to part bad friends."
 
 48 THE HAUNTING 
 
 " I'm the wrong man to rob," Gale answered him. 
 
 Pascoe, sweeping the gold together, made a bag of 
 the holland. Absurd, of course, but he felt queer 
 . . . daunted. He must get back to his room, to the 
 security of those four walls. 
 
 A good thing as he had the money to turn the 
 key in his door. With the door locked a man might 
 sleep sound. 
 
 Money or no money, a good thing to have a stout 
 and locked door between you and ... 
 
 And what ?
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 JENIFER 
 
 " WHAT, Jenifer ? All by yourself ? " 
 
 Gale Corlyon coming through the shop had noted 
 Mrs. Liddicoat's absence. Nor was she in the half- 
 parlour, half-kitchen, at the back. Only Jenifer, 
 blossoming golden and rose-red in the obscurity. 
 
 " Mammy's overstairs." The girl was sitting on 
 the window-bench, and the light, falling on a slope of 
 garden that was always green, fell also on Jenifer, 
 on her bent head, her warm smooth cheek. She had 
 looked up on Mr. Corlyon's entrance and her glance 
 had been welcoming. He noticed, however, that it 
 slid past him, down the shop to the door, that when 
 she returned to her needlework it was with a faint 
 sigh. 
 
 ; ' What are you doing ? " 
 
 'Tis an order we've had for embroidery, order 
 from young Mrs. Pendragon." Between her fingers 
 she held a tiny cap. She was embroidering on it a 
 design, the crest and arms of the Pendragons. 
 
 " Ah," said Gale and seated himself beside her on the 
 bench, " I call that a waste of time. You should be 
 minding your own work and leave doing other 
 peoples'." 
 
 His nearness affected her unpleasantly. It was 
 
 49 
 D
 
 50 THE HAUNTING 
 
 not Mr. Corlyon who should have sat there. But that 
 was always the way. The wrong man came, while 
 the one for whom you looked till you were so restless 
 you did not know how to sit still, he was late. 
 
 Where was Pascoe ? He had said he was coming to 
 supper, that he would come in with his brother. 
 
 Why then had Mr. Corlyon come in by himself ? 
 Did it mean Pascoe had gone elsewhere ? She glanced 
 at the other. She would have liked to question him, 
 but could not quite get the words past her lips. 
 
 Over her tilted face the sun poured a revealing 
 clarity of light. Gale looked at her lips. Soffr full 
 red lips. He put out a hand . . . 
 
 He would take the round white chin in his hand, 
 pull her nearer. 
 
 " Don't," she said, her voice harsh, but instantly 
 she repented. She was being rude to Mammy's 
 friend. " I I don't like being touched." 
 
 He leaned forward, came within that radiance of 
 sun. " What ! not even by me ? " 
 
 Grey hairs at his temples . . . old as her mother, 
 older . . . and his hand ! The skin on it was loose, 
 the knuckles were large, the flesh had gone from the 
 bones. It was an old hand 
 
 " No." 
 
 A quality in his voice that she deprecated. ;c Why 
 not, Jenifer ? " 
 
 She might not tell him, not yet. Perhaps after 
 to-night . . . 
 
 " You are Mammy's friend." She had got up, 
 moved away. 
 
 " I'd rather be yours." 
 
 " You can't be." 
 
 " Don't you say that to me." He spoke with a
 
 THE HAUNTING 51 
 
 vehemence that was startling and on his face was a 
 plain nakedness of desire. Jenifer shrank from it. 
 Not Mr. Corlyon, no. 
 
 " You are too old," she said, fending him off with 
 the weapon readiest to hand. 
 
 " I am not. It isn't that." The new difficult voice 
 beat harshly on her reserve. She had not known, 
 had not even dimly suspected, had always thought of 
 him as a quiet old boy, Mammy's friend. Yes, and he 
 was old ; but, as he said, it wasn't that. Her heart 
 was full . . . full of secret trouble . . . why did he 
 come bothering ? 
 
 " 'Tis, then." 
 
 " Jenifer, 'tis you I want and nobody else." 
 
 The tears . . . annoyance, shame, even a vague 
 pity for the man because of that urge in his voice, 
 because she understood too well, stood in her eyes. 
 " No." 
 
 " You can't care for anyone else ? " He searched 
 the soft face, trying to look through it into the girl's 
 heart. " Surely not you are too young ? " 
 
 Too young she ! 
 
 And the last three months, the longing, the fear. 
 " Don't ! " she said and lifted her hand as if the 
 words were tangible, were sharp, stabbing things, as 
 if she would shield her heart from them. 
 
 But his need of her was blinding him. " I've come 
 here week after week " 
 
 He had come to supper with her mother and after 
 the meal they had played cribbage or sat one on each 
 side of the hearth talking or had gone for a stroll 
 he and her mother. 
 
 " I've come thinking to have a word with you ? 
 Even a look would have been enough. I used to
 
 52 THE HAUNTING 
 
 wonder sometimes whether perhaps my brother 
 
 Ah, now . . . she and Pascoe, they had tried to be 
 secret ; but love is a red flag in the breeze and how 
 can it fail of being seen ? 
 
 " But, last night 
 
 " Yes ? " 
 
 He missed the wherefore of her sudden keenness. 
 " I made up my mind, last night, not to let it go on 
 any longer. ..." 
 
 Let what go on ? Had Pascoe said anything ? 
 
 " At any rate you should know ..." 
 
 Know ? Know what ? 
 
 " That 'twas you I want." 
 
 That he wanted her, he who mattered to her no 
 more than last year's roses. She could have cried 
 with vexation ; and, suddenly, she felt that his grey 
 Jiairs, his old hand, did really matter. She wanted 
 Pascoe, his divinely rough hard kisses ; and, for the 
 moment, with a swing of emotion, she hated Gale. 
 " Don't be so foolish as to think anything about me," 
 she cried, in the exasperation of her longing. " I 
 don't want you to. I can't bear that you should." 
 
 The stair creaked under a quick tread. The latch 
 of the green door lifted and, conscience -stricken, 
 Jenifer realized that the table was not yet laid for 
 supper. What would Mammy think ? She flew to 
 the drawer for a clean cloth as Mrs. Liddicoat in a 
 gown of dark purple with a ruffle of lace at the end 
 of discreet sleeves, with a gold glint on the French 
 lace of her collar, stepped down into the room. Her 
 bright glance gathered in, at once, the girl, collecting 
 in haste glass and cutlery, the man on the window- 
 bench. They would have been chatting and that 
 would have made them forget the time ... a good
 
 THE HAUNTING 53 
 
 thing Jenifer liked him well enough to chat with him. 
 
 " And where's Pascoe ? " 
 
 But the long-longed-for was at length come . . . 
 the sailor, genial and hearty, had stepped in out of the 
 chilly street. 
 
 " Ah," said Mrs. Liddicoat in her comfortable way, 
 " needn't ask because here he is now, coming in." 
 
 But she could have wished her daughter had not 
 glowed with that quick increase of life. When she 
 came down it had been a folded Jenifer, a Jenifer 
 shadowy under the eyes, now it was a maid flowering. 
 And Pascoe ? The mother could not tell. . . . 
 
 No use worrying, the young people must do as they 
 would. 
 
 She glanced away from Pascoe and Jenifer, glanced 
 at Mr. Corlyon. Was it her fancy or did he look 
 tired ? Been working too hard, perhaps. Ah well, 
 she knew what should be waiting for a man at the end 
 of his day's labour, and she smiled reassuringly, for 
 the chicken had been in the oven just long enough, it 
 would be done to a turn. 
 
 ii 
 
 " There is someone in the shop, Jenifer." 
 
 The girl, still busy with the embroidery, was sitting 
 by the white lamp. 
 
 " I think," Mrs. Liddicoat added, " it must be a 
 man from Caer." 
 
 " I have got six done," Jenifer said. She was to 
 have the money for them ; and, until Pascoe came 
 home, had worked briskly on the fine cambric. Since 
 then the time had gone, she did not know how. 
 
 " Tell him you'll have the others ready by the next 
 time he comes into Stowe."
 
 54 THE HAUNTING 
 
 It would be Denny Manhire, the groom ; and he 
 would have come to see Jenifer. Mrs. Liddicoat did 
 not offer to go in the girl's place. Jenifer managed 
 her own affairs. 
 
 And Jenifer, laying down the cap, wished her mother 
 were not always so thoughtful. She had been sitting 
 by Pascoe, listening to his sea-talk and she knew that 
 the lamp-light, falling on her work, on her bright loose 
 hair, on her full figure, was doing her a kindness. 
 But, in the dimly-lighted shop, Denzil Manhire, the 
 hard sprig of a stem of heather between his teeth, 
 was waiting for her and he didn't care how long he 
 waited. 
 
 " I will be back in a minute," she said, looking up 
 with eyes that not so long ago Pascoe had found dis- 
 turbing, that he still thought were fine. 
 
 Jenifer, handing Denny the little parcel of completed 
 caps, explained that the others had yet to be embroid- 
 ered. Perhaps . . . next time he was in Stowe. . . . 
 
 That would be all right. Mrs. Pendragon did not 
 need her " traade," not yet ; and he was coming over 
 next week, would see to it that it was he, not Trispin 
 Job, who came. 
 
 Meanwhile he had something to tell her. 
 
 " Have you, then ? " She wanted to get back to 
 Pascoe . . . this was the first time she had seen him, 
 really seen him to talk to, since his return home. 
 Still . . . there was no real hurry . . . not a bad 
 thing to let him know that others liked her. 
 
 " Maister say I can have the rooms over the stable 
 . . . four good rooms and a stove." Before that he 
 had been only one of the grooms, now he had a home 
 to offer. 
 
 Though Jenifer wanted to say the kind thing, she
 
 THE HAUNTING 55 
 
 did not wish him to think those four rooms could 
 mean^anything to her. 
 
 " I suppose your mother's coming to do for you ? " 
 
 " No, she don't want to leave Bloomfield." She 
 had said that nothing would induce her to live over a 
 lot of horses ..." the noise of they things stanking 
 up and down and the smell." But he withheld her 
 comment. He wanted Jenifer to see the little rooms 
 as comfortable, handsome. 
 
 '' Well, if you can't get your mother you must get 
 somebody else. I daresay there would be jplenty 
 who would like to come." 
 
 He was big and fair. Plenty of maidens in St. Ryn 
 who would be walking on the headland, Sundays, if 
 Denzil Manhire lived over Caer stables. 
 
 " If I can't have the one I want, I'll do for myself." 
 
 " Well," she said non-committally, " you know 
 your own mind better'n anyone else. You must 
 please yourself." 
 
 " Jenifer He leaned towards her across the 
 
 painted deal of the counter, " can't 'ee come out for a 
 walk ? " 
 
 Against shop etiquette to turn a customer away, but 
 she seized the opening. " No, I can't to-night, 
 because we have got somebody in." 
 
 ; ' Well, will you the next time I come over ? " 
 
 " I dare say I shall be busy." 
 
 " You might as well, just for old time's sake. 
 Won't 'ee now ? " 
 
 She wavered. No harm in that, and she and Denny 
 had been friends this many a year. " We'll see," 
 she said, " but don't you build your hopes too much." 
 
 Better than nothing, he thought, as he mounted 
 and, with the little packet safe in his pocket, rode from
 
 56 THE HAUNTING 
 
 Stowe. The Master was in good humour these days, 
 willing to give other men a chance, and the four 
 rooms . . . Denny was some hand at the carpenter- 
 ing, he could put together a bacon rack, a bench for the 
 wall, a cupboard. He rode warm, thinking of winter 
 evenings. . . . 
 
 Jenifer following him to the door, had watched him 
 ride away. The street was empty, but the shops 
 still glowed, a little riband of brightness, along the 
 edge of the dark houses. " Pascoe," she called 
 softly over her shoulder, " come and get a mouthful 
 of fresh air." 
 
 in 
 
 As it was past closing time, Jenifer turned the 
 lamp lower. It flickered for a minute or two and 
 went out, but the place was not altogether in dark- 
 ness. From the room in which Mammy was playing 
 cribbage with Mr. Corlyon . . . " fifteen two, fifteen 
 four and a pair's six ..." flecks and beams of light. 
 The biggest, falling through the square opening that 
 raked the shop, lay like moonlight along the floor. 
 Pascoe crossed it as he joined Jenifer at the door. 
 
 " Terribly hot in there," she said, turning her face 
 to the breeze that came up the street from the harbour. 
 
 " You like the fresh air, Jennie ? " 
 
 " I like the breeze," she said, " it blows you home 
 to me." 
 
 Pascoe's tongue seemed to be stiffly hung ... if 
 only he could have trusted Gale to send out the money, 
 if he had not had to return ! He wondered, with a 
 sinking heart, what was immediately ahead of him 
 . . . discomfort, of course, and he deserved it ; but,
 
 THE HAUNTING 57 
 
 if everybody got their deserts, it would be an ugly 
 world. 
 
 " The three months," Jenifer said, " have gone 
 slowly. I only got one letter from you 
 
 " Which ? " said he. 
 
 " The letter you posted at Trinidad and after that 
 never a word." 
 
 " I told you about my time in hospital." Although 
 the long immersion had not been death, he had come 
 from it into a new phase of life. Until this evening 
 he had not wasted a thought on the old existence, at 
 least hardly a thought, not any on Jenifer. 
 
 Even now he saw her as across a dark space. 
 
 " You've been in Stowe two days," she said, " yet 
 you never been to see me." 
 
 A rainbow bridge was being laid across the darkness. 
 " Don't bother about that," he said, putting his arm 
 over her shoulders shoulders firm as warmed marble. 
 " You've got me, now." 
 
 She put her hand against his breast, not harshly 
 but so that he should see she had found him negligent. 
 " Do you mean that ? " 
 
 " Kiss me ..." that wonderful mouth of hers ! 
 His arm tightened and, though she doubted, she saw 
 no reason to resist. He was come back, he wanted to 
 kiss her, surely she had him still ? Her arms went 
 up round his neck. " I've wanted you so terribly." 
 
 " When I came to myself, I was . . . laid out to 
 dry and pretty warm ! " 
 
 " I might have lost you." The details of that life 
 and death adventure were poignantly interesting,
 
 58 THE HAUNTING 
 
 but he was safe . . . given back to her . . . She 
 looked at the dark face, clear in the many broken 
 lights that had lifted night from the street. " I wish 
 you wasn't a sailor." 
 
 " Well," he said easily, " perhaps I have been knock- 
 ing around this old earth long enough." 
 
 " You are going to stay home ? " 
 
 " I've had a job offered me and I hardly know what 
 to do about it." 
 
 " In Stowe ? " 
 
 " Out there." 
 
 " Should you have to live there ? " 
 
 " For a bit." 
 
 " I shouldn't like that then." 
 
 " D'you want to stop here all your life ? " 
 
 " Please, Pascoe." 
 
 And she could, for all he cared. 
 
 " I'll have to go out again " He knew instantly 
 
 that he had made a mistake. Why couldn't he have 
 held his tongue ? "To settle up," he concluded, 
 lamely. 
 
 " But not just at once ? " Her tone was anxious. 
 
 " Oh, no." 
 
 " Can't we be married Before you go ? " 
 
 He remembered, as if it had been an occurrence in a 
 former life, that he had promised to marry her. To 
 think she should have taken him so seriously 1 
 
 " Married before I go ? Well, we will." Best to 
 agree. He did not want a fuss. It was quite enough 
 to have his brother unreasonable and ill-tempered . . . 
 
 She snuggled closer. " You'll see about it, then ? " 
 
 " It ? " 
 
 " The " he might have helped her out, " the 
 
 banns, Pascoe."
 
 THE HAUNTING 59 
 
 " The banns ? " 
 
 " You'll have to see Mr. Stokoe, to put them in." 
 
 " I'll see him on Monday." His hand tightened on 
 her, and he laughed. She thought she had him, but 
 he had arranged to leave Stowe on Sunday night. 
 By Monday he would be aboard ship. 
 
 What a rare old joke !
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 BY the draped toilet table Jenifer was brushing her 
 hair. Parted in the middle, it fell in smooth bright 
 waves on either side, and Mrs. Liddicoat, already in 
 bed, watched broodingly. 
 
 Behind her was the comfort of three pillows ; and, 
 lying down, she yet commanded the room, the big 
 low room that spread over shop and kitchen, filling 
 the space between Tippett, the watchmaker, on her 
 right, and Rabey, the newsagent, on her left. Strange, 
 she thought, to have other people within a yard or 
 two on both sides, and yet be cut off from all but a 
 dim knowledge of them. She and her daughter, 
 though closely encompassed by the many people of 
 Stowe, were absolutely alone in the small space of 
 this room. 
 
 Yes, and each of them was shut away from the 
 other. Mrs. Liddicoat's middle-aged flesh was folded 
 about secret hopes. Time made only one difference. 
 You still wanted things, but now you feared it was 
 too late, that you would not get what you wanted. 
 
 Not you . . . but also not Jenifer, who was young. 
 Ah, the poor maid, yet before her were the years that 
 had gone by for you, the years in which things might 
 happen, good things, the supreme good. 
 
 She was very quiet, had not spoken since they had 
 come upstairs together, but she did not seem 
 
 60
 
 THE HAUNTING 61 
 
 unhappy. Mrs. Liddicoat meditated on her daughter's 
 dreamy withdrawn expression. She and Pascoe 
 had stood for a long time in the dusk at the shop door 
 . . . voices and silences, and then voices, the mother 
 had taken note. If it had not been for Mr. Corlyon's 
 news she might have thought Pascoe was still fond 
 of Jenifer ; but the older man's annoyance had 
 revealed a sincere belief. And Jenifer was in ignor- 
 ance . . . Pascoe would have told her a parcel of 
 lies. 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat did not want to make the girl 
 unhappy ; but no good came of keeping people in 
 the dark. 
 
 " Well, dear life," she began, " had a pleasant 
 evening ? " 
 
 Jenifer, with quick fingers, began to plait the 
 shining hair into a long tail. " Very," and she drew 
 a contented breath, " I I was a bit worried not 
 hearing from Pascoe for so long, but he've made it 
 all right." 
 
 " Have he ? " Then it was as she had guessed . . . 
 
 Jenifer, blowing out the candle, jumped into bed ; 
 and, between her and her parent, the big feather 
 mattress rose in a soft curve. 
 
 " We are going to be married," she said. 
 
 The room was not altogether dark, for a greyness 
 had slipped through the slats of the Venetian blind ; 
 a greyness that tempered the velvet of the night. 
 Mrs. Liddicoat, however, could not discern the features 
 on the other pillow. " Married ? " 
 
 " Pascoe promised before he went that, as soon as 
 he came back, we'd be married. Why, Mammy, 
 you knew that, I didn't make no secret of it." 
 
 " Ah, my dear, but three months makes a lot of
 
 62 THE HAUNTING 
 
 difference to a man. They don't come back same as 
 they go." 
 
 " Pascoe have." 
 
 " Jenifer, dear, was it he who spoke of the marriage, 
 or was it you ? " 
 
 " Why, Mammy, what's the matter ? " Her fears, 
 dispelled for a little, crowded back. The talk of 
 marriage ... it had been she, not Pascoe ; still, he 
 had not hesitated. 
 
 " Mr. Corlyon been talking to me." 
 
 Jenifer felt, of a sudden, angry with him. " Old 
 gossip, then ! " 
 
 " No, my dear, he don't gossip, and what's more, 
 he don't lie." 
 
 " What have he said ? " She did not want to know, 
 for what her mother had said in his defence was true. 
 
 "He say Pascoe's going straight off back to 
 Jamaica." 
 
 " Yes, he'm going back, but not for a bit." 
 
 " Mr. Corlyon told me ship was sailing Monday." 
 
 " It may, but Pascoe won't be in it." 
 
 " Why is he going back at all ? " 
 
 " He've things to settle up." 
 
 " He have, indeed, there's a maid . . . ' 
 
 " Mammy ! " 
 
 " They'm tokened." She had dropped back into 
 the vernacular. " Iss, my dear, they be, and he've 
 come back to fetch what be 'is'n." 
 
 " No ! " Her denial was violent. " I don't believe 
 
 it. Why " With his kisses still warm upon her 
 
 lips how could she believe ? 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat, leaning against the three pillows, 
 said no more. Best to let it sink in. 
 
 " Mammy it isn't true ! Oh you don't think it
 
 THE HAUNTING 63 
 
 true ? Mammy . . . ' A hand came out, caught at 
 her shoulder. " Oh, Mammy, say it isn't true ! " 
 " My dearie . . . what would be the good ? " 
 
 ii 
 
 "But why did he ..." Jenifer, looking back, was 
 noting straws. To begin with, her mother, having 
 learned from Mr. Corlyon when Pascoe was expected, 
 had told her, and she had watched for him to pass 
 down the street. 
 
 Watched and watched, but he had come by way of 
 the quay. 
 
 That morning she had met him by accident in the 
 fish market, and he had declared he was on his way 
 to the baby-linen shop . . . 
 
 Anyway, he was coming to supper, he and his 
 brother. 
 
 She had been ready early, and Mr. Corlyon had 
 come, but Pascoe had been late. 
 
 He had explained why, and the explanation had 
 seemed ... at the moment ... to hold water. 
 
 Home after three months' absence, and he a lover ? 
 He should not have been late. 
 
 He need not have been. Not if he had really and 
 truly wanted to come. 
 
 Well, avoidance . . . she must grant that ; but 
 surely it only showed she was not powerless, that the 
 woman in Jamaica had no very strong hold. 
 
 Why should she have him ? He had been Jenifer's, 
 and there were reasons . . . 
 
 " I don't want for him to go back." Mammy would 
 help. When you got through your own strength, 
 your own resources, there was always . . . Mammy ! 
 " He promised "
 
 64 THE HAUNTING 
 
 " Ay, men'll promise. It don't mean nothing." 
 
 " What can I do ? " 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat stroked the hot head. Was Pascoe 
 worth keeping, Pascoe who so evidently had meant 
 to leave his old sweetheart in the lurch ? The boy 
 was some handsome with his hair, curly as the middle 
 of a sheep's back, but he had a many fancies, never 
 stuck to no one. If Jenifer married him it would be a 
 case of losing him, first to this woman, then to that. 
 Better lose him now, for good and all. 
 
 " To-day's Friday," she spoke tentatively, " and 
 Sunday evening he catches the coach at Triggyveal. 
 There edn't much time." 
 
 Jenifer realized that Pascoe had meant to creep into 
 Stowe, gather up his belongings, and be gone. Her 
 heart swelled. He was her man, but someone else 
 had put a spell on him. 
 
 " He wanted to get away quick," she said, with a 
 fresh rush of tears. How could he behave so ? She 
 had been sweet to him, always sweet, and this was 
 the return he made. How had he had the heart . . . 
 
 " Would you like for me to speak to Mr. Corlyon ? " 
 
 " 'Twouldn't be no use." If Mr. Corlyon knew, 
 he would see reason to hasten Pascoe's departure. 
 No, they must manage without his help. Her indig- 
 nation with Gale flashed into flame. Why, at this 
 moment, when she had so many worries, did he want 
 to 'add to them ? 
 
 " Shall I see Pascoe, then ? " 
 
 Jenifer, her head in the hollow of her mother's 
 shoulder, was silent for a little, thinking. See Pascoe ? 
 If anyone saw him it had better be she. Having the 
 knowledge that he had meant to desert her, she could 
 be explicit. He should know what he was doing.
 
 THE HAUNTING 65 
 
 " Mammy, I'll see him myself. I can say things to 
 him that you can't. But I dunno . . . he's a slippery 
 one ... " 
 
 " He's a proper dragon." 
 
 "I want to make it so that he just can't go." She was 
 silent again, and this time for so long that Mrs. 
 Liddicoat thought she must be getting sleepy. 
 
 She stirred at last. " There's the charmer to 
 Springs . . . ' 
 
 " Isaiah Quinion ? Yes." 
 
 ** I believe he can do anything he've a mind to." 
 
 in 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat thought little Maddicott, of the 
 Cornish Arms, might know the way to Springs. It 
 was on the downs, fifteen to twenty miles from Stowe. 
 She knew vaguely the direction in which it lay . . . 
 somewhere among the hills east of the town, the round 
 hills, visible on a fair day from the back window 
 upstairs, but she had never had reason, hitherto, to 
 visit Isaiah Quinion, or, as the town called him, 
 " the ole feller what charm." 
 
 She told Mr. Maddicott that the mole on her cheek 
 was giving trouble, and moles were unsightly, and 
 she'd like it gone. Would he drive her over to Springs 
 in his wagonnette ? And he agreed. 
 
 From a country of deep lanes the party gradually 
 came to wide stretches of country. The hedges 
 thinned away, the trees shrank into furze. In an 
 unhurried trot the shaggy pony carried the Liddicoats 
 past Bogee and Mount Misery, past Crackruddle and 
 Music Water and Wynnards Perch and Rosevannion. 
 The moorland air brought them the scent of the
 
 66 THE HAUNTING 
 
 heather, and Mrs. Liddicoat, sniffing, wondered what 
 it might be that smelt of honey. 
 
 " 'Tis some time since I been out here," little 
 Maddicott said, stopping to ask a man where he should 
 turn off the highway. " I've forgot whether we go 
 through this farm or the next." 
 
 " But you've been here before, Mr. Maddicott ? " 
 
 " Oh, iss drove Emma Pollard out last feasten. 
 She had a running sore in her head, tarrible bad it 
 were ; but Isaiah Quinion charmed it, he did, and 
 you should see it now. Lovely head of hair. They 
 say she was the last person he cured." 
 
 " The last ? Why, what do you mean ? " 
 
 " You know he is dead, don't you ? " 
 
 " Dead ? No, I never heard." 
 
 " Died last Christmas. 'Tis his daughter, Elizabeth 
 Brenton, do the charmin' now ; old man taught her 
 before he died." 
 
 " Ah, they say the ' gift ' go from man to woman," 
 but she was a little troubled. She had come to consult 
 an old and experienced man, a man who, though he 
 lived remote from towns, was famous as far as Bodmin, 
 perhaps even Truro, for his cures of ringworm, wildfire, 
 adder's bite, and for his wisdom. Did the gift really 
 go from father to daughter ? Could young Mrs. 
 Brenton have inherited the wisdom ? 
 
 Mr. Maddicott turned through a farmyard on to 
 the open moor. A trackway crossed the unfenced 
 land which was dark with strange vegetation, dark, 
 and yet richly coloured. The slopes were red with 
 heather, and yellow with gorse. The many waters 
 ran chuckling and gurgling over brown beds. It 
 was indeed a land of great space and many waters, 
 a land strange to Mrs. Liddicoat. She looked with
 
 THE HAUNTING 67 
 
 interest at the gushing springs, at the gleams between 
 the black stems of the plants. Where a stream ran 
 over the trackway, a clapper bridge, a bridge made 
 of a single moor stone, had been laid above it for the 
 foot traveller, but the pony splashed indifferently 
 through the water. 
 
 " 'Tis no wonder this place is called the Springs," 
 she said, and Maddicott told her he, for one, would 
 not try to walk to the Quinion's farmstead across 
 country. It was marshy, sodden, with unexpected 
 pits and quags. 
 
 The house lay some miles beyond the last moorland 
 village, a lone building of grey stone, widely visible 
 upon the treeless moor. About it the springs burbled, 
 breaking from the heathy ground, spreading over the 
 stones, busy with their singing and pouring. Mrs. 
 Liddicoat and Jenifer left the wagonnette at the 
 farm gate, and went on alone to the knoll on which 
 the house was built, and so to the glazed porch at the 
 front. 
 
 A homely, middle-aged woman led them through a 
 stone hall, the blue grey walls of which were unbroken 
 by peg or nail. Throwing open the door of a parlour 
 and ushering them in, she said she would fetch her 
 daughter. 
 
 " There are children here," Mrs. Liddicoat said, 
 pointing to a boy's whip which lay across the books 
 on the table. She spoke softly for she was nervous. 
 
 Jenifer, who had been thinking over what she had 
 to say and ask, seemed to awaken. " Why, yes, 
 I've heard Elizabeth has a boy. Her husband teals 
 Springs for Mr. Quinion I mean for her." 
 
 " Saving man, Mr. Quinion, if he bought Springs 
 with what he made by charming. But there, people'll
 
 68 THE HAUNTING 
 
 pay anything if they get what they do want." 
 The door opened, and the young woman, on whom 
 the mantle of Isaiah Quinion had fallen, came 
 quietly into the room. 
 
 rv 
 
 " I don't do this sort of thing," Elizabeth Brenton 
 said. Jenifer had gone with her to an upper room 
 and, sitting on the one chair while the other leaned 
 against the chill white bed, had explained her wishes. 
 " I cure disease. I can make that mole drop off your 
 mother's face ; but I don't meddle with what might 
 not be right." 
 
 " You could do this for me," Jenifer said, " I know 
 you could." The dark eyes under winged brows gave 
 her confidence. This woman, young, remote, and 
 yet a mother, had the power to help her. 
 
 " There's bad charms as well as good, but I only 
 learnt the good ones. My charms are prayers." 
 
 Jenifer was convinced that they were more than 
 prayers. Without doing anything Elizabeth Brenton 
 made you conscious of her power. It was a power 
 for good. You saw her, and knew at once that she 
 could heal, that she could help you. " Then pray 
 for me," Jenifer said. 
 
 The dark eyes scrutinized her, the witch pondered 
 over what she saw, and Jenifer waited anxiously. 
 
 " You say he promised to marry you ? " 
 
 " He promised solemnly that he would come back 
 and marry me." 
 
 " And there is a good reason why he should keep 
 his promise ? " 
 
 Tears came easily to Jenifer. " Yes," she said, and
 
 THE HAUNTING 69 
 
 the big drops splashed down on to her clasped hands. 
 
 " Have you anything of his with you ? " 
 
 Having come prepared, she produced the long- 
 hoarded treasure of a clean white handkerchief. 
 
 " I promise nothing, but " the steady eyes were 
 making Jenifer increasingly conscious of the something 
 in this woman which would make her help efficacious, 
 " I'll do what I can for you I will charm this hand- 
 kerchief, and you must give it to him. See it does 
 not touch wood before you put it into his hands." 
 She sat down, unfolded the handkerchief, and laid 
 it diamond- ways across her knee. " Your name ? " 
 
 " Jenifer Liddicoat." 
 
 " And his name ? " 
 
 " Pascoe Corlyon." 
 
 Murmuring the names, Mrs. Brenton bent her 
 small dark head over the white square. " I have to 
 say the charm three times," and turning in the 
 opposite corners, she folded the handkerchief length- 
 wise, so that it resembled a long bandage. 
 
 " I can't hear what you say," Jenifer said, anxiously. 
 
 " That is right, you must not hear the words, for 
 they are the charm." She smoothed the linen with 
 workworn hands on which the nails were short and 
 small ; then began to mutter a sing-song of phrases. 
 It seemed to the watching, deeply-impressed Jenifer 
 as if Mrs. Brenton were saying them into the handker- 
 chief, and that her voice held a note of command. 
 It was calm, unhurried, it performed a ritual, but 
 behind it lay force, a peculiar sort of withdrawn 
 concentrated strength. At the end, she uttered an 
 audible invocation " in the Name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 The smoothing, by the two hands from the centre
 
 70 THE HAUNTING 
 
 to right and left, continued for some time. Jenifer 
 felt as if the will of the young dark witch were being 
 made manifest in that chill and silent room. She was 
 convinced that what Elizabeth Brenton willed must 
 come to pass ; that once the handkerchief had been 
 given to Pascoe he would forget the overseas woman. 
 
 The hands ceased their earnest, irregular, and yet 
 rhythmical movement. Mrs. Brenton lifted the long 
 folded strip and breathed upon it, breathed into it 
 her spirit. The ends were then folded over charm 
 and breath. 
 
 She turned to Jenifer, her grave face full of kindli- 
 ness. " You must have faith," she said, " the love 
 he had for you is still there, underneath." 
 
 " And if I give him this it will come back ? " 
 
 " I will do all I can to bring it back ; . . . and," 
 she repeated it, " you must have faith." 
 
 " 'Twill be all right I b'lieve if I press this with an 
 iron before I take it over to the Brown House ? " 
 
 The Liddicoats, starting late for the moor, had been 
 all Saturday about their business. When they reached 
 home the evening was advanced, and neither thought 
 of disturbing the brothers. Sunday lay before them, 
 the whole of a white day, a day on which shops were 
 shut and man seen in the streets. 
 
 " Iron isn't wood, my dear ; but, whatever you 
 do, don't let it touch the table or the ironing board." 
 
 Jenifer flattened the handkerchief into its unusual 
 folds. It made a square, looked indeed much as 
 usual, would look, she thought, all right to a man's 
 eye. She was a little uncertain as to how she was
 
 THE HAUNTING 71 
 
 to obtain the necessary interview with Pascoe. 
 Keep watch at the bulging front window of the 
 bedroom until he came out, then meet him, as it were, 
 by accident ? She put on a hat, and seated herself 
 behind the long Nottingham lace curtains. She could 
 see the Brown House and the warehouses beyond it 
 on Quayside. It was the last of the houses, behind 
 it a path climbed the green hill and ran beside the 
 estuary along the cliffs. Jenifer had memories of 
 that quiet lane from which the path sprang. She 
 had waited in it for Pascoe, had gone there to meet 
 him. So close to the heart of Stowe, yet unfrequented ; 
 a little green place, not overlooked by any window. 
 Mrs. Liddicoat went up the road to church, and 
 when she returned Jenifer was still at the window. 
 
 " Come and eat your dinner," she said. "They 
 won't be going out now. If I was you, dearie, I'd 
 just go straight in this afternoon and ask for him." 
 But Jenifer wished to see Pascoe alone. She could 
 not utter what had to be said with Mr. Corlyon listen- 
 ing. She was shy of Mr. Corlyon. She wanted him 
 out of the way. 
 
 " Oh, go on," her mother said, " he won't eat you. 
 I lay he know Pascoe has been courting ye." 
 
 But he didn't know, and he mustn't. Jenifer 
 could not bear that he should. After dinner, she 
 resumed her vigil, but that afternoon no one either 
 came out of or went into the Brown House. 
 
 Jenifer waited in what was almost a stupor of 
 anxiety ; but at last, her patience exhausted, she 
 decided that whatever might be thought by an 
 observant public of her going to the house, go she 
 must. As smoke was rising from the kitchen chimney, 
 she knew someone must be at home, and she could
 
 72 THE HAUNTING 
 
 only hope it wasn't Mr. Corlyon. She had waited 
 so long now that the roads were filling with shadows. 
 Perhaps her flitting figure might pass unnoticed, 
 anyway, the need was on her. Pascoe would be going 
 soon, and she must see him, give him the handker- 
 chief, tell him the truth. He would not go when he 
 knew . . . 
 
 The gate at the end of the short garden creaked 
 as she pushed it open. No one at the parlour window. 
 She wished that she dare look over the brown wire 
 blind and, if Pascoe were alone, signal to him. But 
 Mr. Corlyon would probably be there too, and he 
 would think . . . yes, seeing her, what would he think ? 
 
 She rapped on the door with her knuckles, but 
 though she heard some sort of stir within, it died 
 away and nothing happened. She waited two or 
 three minutes, then rang the bell, and now was certain 
 that she could hear voices. 
 
 Why did not one of them come to the door ? 
 Probably Pascoe was busy packing, probably, too, 
 on this, their last evening, they did not want people 
 to drop in. 
 
 She couldn't help that. The white witch had told 
 her to give the handkerchief to Pascoe, and she would 
 do it. She rang again, and in the silent house the 
 bell gave out a hollow reverberation. They did not 
 mean to let her in. 
 
 For a moment she was blindly angry. She must 
 see Pascoe. It was immensely important. Her 
 future, her happiness, hung on the interview. She 
 must reach him, tell him . . . 
 
 Had Mr. Corlyon seen her at the gate, guessed the 
 reason of her visit, and decided that she should not 
 see his brother ? She had always been a little afraid
 
 THE HAUNTING 73 
 
 of Mr. Corlyon. He was so taciturn, and behind his 
 quietness, his smoothness, was a strange vitality. 
 He would not want her to see Pascoe. Oh, but she 
 must. 
 
 She stood thinking. No one about. No one to see 
 what she did. She could run down the little secret 
 lane till she reached the jutting stones, the stones 
 in the wall. Pascoe had come over by those stones 
 to find her waiting for him in the green dusk, and she 
 knew exactly where they were. She could go in that 
 way. 
 
 She must give him the handkerchief.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE tide was in, and as the Corlyons, on their way 
 home from Mrs. Liddicoat's, came from between the 
 walls of French Street, Gale noticed that it was full, 
 that the grey water was lipping the quay-edge. 
 A man coming out of The California, meandered 
 in wide curves along the head of the basin. Nothing 
 between him and deep water . . . easy for anyone, 
 walking near the edge, to slip on the wet granite and 
 overbalance . . . really, it was a wonder that more 
 roysterers did not come by a liquid end. 
 
 He glanced at Pascoe, happy, and trolling a song. 
 A few weeks ago he had been at the sea's mercy. 
 But Pascoe could swim . . . 
 
 Curious the luck of drunkards, children, and those 
 whom the gods loved. 
 
 Die young ? Not they ! They came up out of the 
 sea, escaped the perils of earth, fire and water, and 
 returned to rob and harass the just. Their days were 
 long in the land ; that is ... 
 
 " You going to bed ? " he asked, breaking the 
 silence that had been maintained between them since 
 Pascoe 's seizure of the money. 
 
 " I believe so." He watched his brother turn the 
 large key in the door lock. Queer old stick, had he 
 come to his senses ? 
 
 " I want you for a minute." He lighted the candle 
 
 74
 
 THE HAUNTING 75 
 
 that stood ready on the hall table, and led the way 
 into the parlour. " You are really going back to 
 Jamaica ? " 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " You start on Sunday ? " 
 
 " That's so." He thought again of Jenifer's 
 surprise, and a smile broadened on his brown and 
 jolly face. " You might write and tell me how people 
 take it when they know." 
 
 " You haven't told anybody, then ? " 
 
 " Not a soul." 
 
 " And there are people in Stowe . . . ' 
 
 " One or two." 
 
 " Debts ? " 
 
 " No doubt they think I owe them something, but 
 it isn't money." 
 
 Amusing to hoodwink people, so amusing that he 
 trusted old Gale would forget his grievance and write. 
 
 Going to his desk Mr. Corlyon took out a paper. 
 " You asked me to have the house valued." 
 
 Pascoe's smile changed, grew keen. " Who did 
 it for us ? " 
 
 " Polkinghorn. He says the place is worth about 
 four hundred pounds." 
 
 " Four hundred ? Quite that, if not more. If 
 Stowe were to develop it would be a valuable site." 
 
 " Stowe is derelict, the Doom Bar has spoiled its 
 chances. No shipping of any size will ever be able 
 to get into the harbour." 
 
 " A few mammoth dredgers would make short work 
 of the bar and this is the only harbour west side of 
 the duchy. Still call it four hundred." 
 
 " Having no money, I have had to take out a mort- 
 gage on the house. Here," he pushed four fifty-
 
 76 THE HAUNTING 
 
 pound notes across the table, " here is your share." 
 
 Pascoe picked up the notes, and after examining 
 them, bestowed them in a wallet. " Sorry you had 
 to do that." 
 
 Gale cleared his throat. " There is another matter," 
 he said, his face straight and tense. " I've come to 
 see that the money in the chest, though I saved it, 
 does belong to you, Pascoe." 
 
 For a moment the other stared doubtfully ; but 
 the confession was in keeping with his estimate of 
 Gale. An upright and scrupulous man. At first his 
 love of money had been too strong for his probity ; 
 but he had slept on the matter, had come to see that 
 he was in the wrong. After all, they were to part 
 friends. " That's right." In return he must show 
 his brother they were on the old footing. " Will 
 you lend me your nag to take me to the coach, 
 Sunday ? " 
 
 " You are welcome to that one." 
 
 " Henwood can bring it back." 
 
 " Yes, surely." Mr. Corlyon unfolded the paper 
 he had taken from his desk. " But to return to what 
 I was saying. You have taken possession of the money 
 and I should have a receipt for it. Best, though we 
 are brothers, to have black upon white." 
 
 Pascoe took the paper and read it. He would make 
 sure of the contents. The receipt would be in order, 
 for old Gale was not the sort to try and cheat you ; 
 still, he, Pascoe, would sign nothing that he had not 
 read. 
 
 " I, Pascoe Corlyon, about to leave Stowe to take 
 up residence in the West Indies, hereby declare that 
 my half-brother, Gale Corlyon, has paid over all the
 
 THE HAUNTING 77 
 
 moneys belonging to me which were in his hands, 
 and has paid his share of Tre-fogou, known locally 
 as the Brown House, and I hereby give him full 
 quittance. 
 
 "(Signed)" 
 
 Pascoe tried a quill on his nail, dropped it, and 
 took up another. " Wonder how I shall get on in 
 McVitie's counting house," he said. " I make a 
 poor fist at writing." 
 
 He wrote his name in full " Pascoe Viall Corlyon " 
 across the stamp of the receipt and added the date. 
 " If you like," he said, looking up as he handed it 
 back, " if you like I could still freight you goods on 
 commission tobacco, fruit, whatever I got hold of." 
 He winked at Gale. " There is a lot more comes out 
 of Columbia than people know of, and you've an eye 
 for stones." 
 
 Mr. Corlyon locked the papers in his desk. " I'll 
 think about it ... let you know." 
 
 He had the receipt. If any questions were asked, 
 he had it to show. 
 
 But who should ask any why should they ? 
 
 And what questions ? 
 
 ii 
 
 On Saturday morning, Pascoe, making purchases 
 in the town, had noted with surprise that the shutters 
 of the baby-linen shop were up. Catley, of Bate and 
 Catley, the combined grocer and drapery stores, said 
 he had seen Mrs. and Miss Liddicoat drive off in Tubby 
 Maddicott's little old wagonnette, and as they'd 
 a basket of food with them, he thought they would
 
 78 THE HAUNTING 
 
 be gone for a brave little while. Astounding that 
 Mr. Pascoe didn't know of it ... 
 
 Pascoe was in agreement with Mr. Catley. He cast 
 back over the talk of the previous evening, but could 
 find nothing that would account for this expedition. 
 Whatever the reason, ib had been withheld, and this 
 withholding made him uneasy. Did they know any- 
 thing ? They couldn't know, but they might suspect. 
 Jenifer might fancy he had tried to avoid her as he 
 had. She might think he had not played the lover 
 convincingly and perhaps he hadn't. She was a 
 pretty little woman, he couldn't run away from that ; 
 but he didn't care for her now ; not a bit, he didn't, 
 it was all Grizel with him. 
 
 Even if Jenifer suspected that he was deceiving 
 her with his talk of marriage, what could she do ? 
 He thought uneasily of the law. But if the promises 
 a man made when he was courting were to be con- 
 sidered binding . . . 
 
 He reflected with a sense of relief that men made 
 the laws ; they would not have been so foolish as 
 to make such promises binding . . . they would know 
 that to do so would incriminate all who ever went 
 courting ... all the race of men. 
 
 He was back at the Brown House in time for the 
 mid-day dinner. Gale, who had not been out, was 
 sitting in the armchair by the fire, and Pascoe 
 wondered to see him with his hands idle. 
 
 " I thought you were such a busy man." 
 
 " Sometimes I work my brain." 
 
 " On other people's account ? " 
 
 " I do not often need to work it on my own." He 
 looked at Pascoe, and Pascoe had an uneasy feeling 
 that the bright dark glance had passed beyond him,
 
 THE HAUNTING 79 
 
 that it was focused on something at his back. He 
 looked over his shoulder. Nothing behind him but 
 the wall, and nothing on the wall but a few curios, 
 nothing of any interest. 
 
 " The Liddicoats have gone driving," he said, 
 drawing a chair to the table. 
 
 " So Mrs. Maddicott told me." 
 
 " She been here ? " 
 
 " Came to consult me about an investment. She 
 said her husband was driving them out to Springs." 
 
 " Springs ? " 
 
 " Stowe gets its water from Springs." 
 
 " But what should take the Liddicoats there ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Liddicoat said she wanted a wart charmed." 
 He began to cut the beef. 
 
 " 'Tis late in the day for that, then." 
 
 " It has five hairs on it that wart. I should be 
 glad if Elizabeth Brenton could charm it away." 
 
 " But," Pascoe had thought his brother was a 
 sceptic. If Gale believed in the power of charms, it 
 would make a difference. He himself was by no means 
 sure . . . 
 
 He remembered Isaiah Quinion. His eyes . . . 
 so black and strange and piercing. People said he 
 had ill- wished Tom Jonas 's best horse, and when 
 farmer went into his stable the following day, he had 
 found it dead in stall. A bad man to cross, Isaiah 
 Quinion. 
 
 If Jenifer knew that he, Pascoe, were deceiving 
 her, would she have him ill-wished ? The sea lay 
 between him and Grizel . . . 
 
 " Do you hold with charming ? " Pascoe asked. 
 
 " If the wart drops off Morwenna Liddicoat 's 
 face
 
 80 THE HAUNTING 
 
 " Aw, give me a straight answer, can't you ? " 
 " Do I hold with charming ? I suppose not, and 
 yet . . . the truth is that queer things do happen ! " 
 His memory supplied examples, and his voice was 
 grave, convinced. " I've known them to." 
 
 in 
 
 As Pascoe understood it, you could not ill-wish a 
 person unless you set eyes on them. The eye had 
 power, and if he did not see Jenifer again . . . yes, 
 he would keep out of her way. 
 
 He would finish making his small purchases, the 
 pretty trifles you could not get in Kingston, the 
 ribbons, veils, and fine stockings for Grizel, and then 
 he would stay home. After all, only one more day. 
 
 There would be the riding through Stowe . . . but 
 no, he would go by the lane. Horses did not often 
 traverse it, but it was of a sufficient width. If 
 necessary, he would lead the nag. 
 
 The lane went up behind the houses, it twisted 
 among the gardens, and came out on the main road 
 by Coulter's Folly. From there, nearly a straight 
 line to Triggyveal and the Plymouth coach. He would 
 not be quite at his ease, not quite comfortable until 
 he were aboard ship. To-day, or next week, or next 
 month, hitherto it had been of small consequence 
 when he should start on a fresh voyage ; now, he 
 must not waste a day. 
 
 Grizel was waiting. Ah, but was she ? He was 
 hers, but was she equally his ? If he were only sure 
 of her. 
 
 He must get back. Nothing must be allowed to 
 delay him, nothing . . . nobody . . .
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 " ANYTHING special you want to do, Gale ? " 
 
 Sunday morning, and the people were thronging to 
 church and chapel, but Mr. Corlyon did not like 
 services. For him a book, or a walk through the 
 fogou to the sea. For one day in the week it was 
 pleasant to put the business of Stowe from off his 
 shoulders ; indulge himself with a look at hidden 
 treasure. 
 
 "Church ... or is it chapel?" The place of 
 worship Pascoe patronized was decided for him by the 
 sweetheart of the moment, or by the wish to avoid 
 her of yesterday. 
 
 " 'Tis neither." Meet Jenifer on the streets ? 
 Not he. "I'm not going out." 
 
 Mr. Corlyon put a marker between the pages of the 
 Vestiges of Creation. Before Pascoe came home he 
 had found it an absorbing book, now his attention 
 wandered. He read and found he had gathered 
 nothing but words. " Well ? " 
 
 " Tide's out." Pascoe glanced at the slipways, at 
 the grey mud of the harbour, and yawned. This last 
 day was passing slowly. If he could only have 
 ventured into the streets, had a talk with this man 
 and that, gathered the news. He must do something. 
 " Believe I'd like to see the fogou again. You've 
 the key. What do you say to going down ? " 
 
 81 
 F
 
 82 THE HAUNTING 
 
 Said Mr. Corlyon in his deliberate voice : "As good 
 a way as any of wasting time." 
 
 " Come on then." Fresh air and sea were at the 
 end of the fogou, and that would be better than 
 sticking in the house with nothing to do. 
 
 The brothers, Mr. Corlyon carrying the lanthorn, 
 went single file down the stairs, through the damp and 
 mossy cellar, into the cave. The lanthorn was half 
 shuttered. The man who held it did not want its 
 beam to fall on the empty chest of which he was 
 unhappily conscious. He would keep his mind like 
 the lanthorn. He would not think of the hours he 
 had spent in this hollow of the rocks ; of that old, 
 now lost security ; of the years, peaceful, quiet ; 
 the years that had flowed softly like a stream, flowed 
 away and sunk into the good earth. 
 
 He might forget them, if, like the candle -beam, he 
 threw his mind forward, if he thought of the fogou, 
 that snake twisting into the solid hill, thrusting 
 through into a sea-cave, into the light and colour 
 beyond. 
 
 The brothers took the passage with feet to which 
 the way was familiar. To the west of Stowe lay cliffs 
 and the sea ; and the fogou, yielding to the inequali- 
 ties of the strata, yet contrived a westerly course. 
 After they had traversed a few hundred yards, the 
 blackness began to thin, and the dull booming of 
 the sea broke into recognizable sound. They were 
 nearing the exit, and Mr. Corlyon, thinking his secret 
 thoughts, had almost forgotten Pascoe was at his 
 heels when the latter spoke. " Didn't you tell me a 
 bit's fallen in ? " 
 
 The walls of the passage had suddenly slipped 
 away on either side, and Mr. Corlyon, pushing back
 
 THE HAUNTING 83 
 
 the lanthorn shutters, let out a roundness of light. 
 They were in a low cavern, the floor of which was 
 littered with debris of wreck-wood, rotting cordage, 
 and old iron. A faint light, entering at one side, 
 fell on the polished surface of a pool, beyond which, 
 heaped and uneven, lay earth and quartz and broken 
 crystal. Pascoe strode towards it, and Mr. Corlyon, 
 swinging up the lanthorn, searched the roof. The 
 crevice, a jagged velvet -black cut in the rock surface, 
 was easily found. 
 
 " 'Tis some wide," said Pascoe. The water filtering 
 through the strata, filtering through unceasingly, 
 and year after year, had washed away the soft earth, 
 loosened the seam of quartz, the crystals. If man 
 did not shore up the strata, more quartz, more crystals 
 must inevitably fall, and, in the end, the rock cave in. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon pointed to the passage, not more than 
 eighteen inches wide, that led out into the daylight. 
 Turning sharply right, then left, it was not more 
 than four feet long. " Two or three middling stones, 
 and this would be walled up." 
 
 Many a little bale of goods had come into Stowe 
 by way of the fogou. Pascoe thought of moonless 
 nights when he had carried tobacco, wine, scent. 
 
 Never again. 
 
 He was going to settle down with Grizel, with the 
 woman he ached for ; he was going to be law-abiding, 
 prosperous, but he would miss the moonless nights 
 and the risks taken as much for the fiery joy of 
 them as for the easy money. 
 
 " Well," he said, " it don't much matter . . . now. 
 You'll have no use for it, and it was bound to come 
 down sooner or later." 
 
 In Mr, Corlyon's heart the new wonder moved.
 
 84 THE HAUNTING 
 
 Pascoe had no natural affection ; he had been willing 
 the old house should be sold, should become the 
 abiding place of strangers, and now the fogou . . . 
 
 He must believe that to Pascoe it was not the 
 romantic and mysterious possession, the strange 
 secret because of which they were different from the 
 other people in Stowe, the people of the surface . . . 
 it was simply a passage. 
 
 Having no further use for it, he was willing the 
 sides should cave in, the roof fall, and the fogou . . . 
 this old human runway from the cove to the harbour 
 . . . the fogou, should cease to be. 
 
 It made a man feel queasy ! " Let us go on. I 
 want to get out, to get into the air." 
 
 Pascoe glanced at the tall lean figure. Was Gale 
 annoyed with him ? He ought, perhaps, to have 
 shown more interest ; but he did not feel any. Feel 
 an interest in a mouldy old passage, slippery with 
 sea-damp, and of no further use ? 
 
 " Look here," he said, good-naturedly, " it takes 
 rather a long time for a thing to go to pieces, and 
 when I come back, I'll help you shore up the rock." 
 He kicked at the stones and earth heaped under the 
 crevice. " As yet there is not enough fallen to bury 
 a dog." 
 
 Mr. Corlyon had stepped into the narrow passage 
 that led to the light ; but, at Pascoe's words, he came 
 back, and raising the lanthorn, peered at the crevice. 
 
 " Not enough to bury a dog," he said. " Ah, but 
 look, there's plenty more ready to come. Oh yes 
 . . . enough . . . '
 
 THE HAUNTING 85 
 
 ii 
 
 " When you come back, Pascoe ?" 
 
 " I shall come, you see if I don't." 
 
 " Don't make too sure." 
 
 " When a chap wants to come back, he comes." 
 
 " You think you'll want to come ? " 
 
 " Certain sure I shall." 
 
 The greyness of the cavern had changed to daylight 
 as the brothers, following the narrow passage that 
 masked the entrance to the fogou, stepped into a little 
 cave. 
 
 " Seeing is believing," Gale remarked. The cave, 
 through an opening over which hung trails of green 
 weed, gave on to a small sandy cove, landlocked, 
 and only used by an occasional bather. 
 
 " Don't you fret. You'll see me perhaps sooner 
 than you think." 
 
 "Well, if you come" Gale felt his smile like a 
 stiffness on his face, " you you'll be welcome ! " 
 
 " Not a long voyage from Jamaica." 
 
 " No . . . not from Jamaica." 
 
 The sun, now setting, shot a beam between the 
 trails of weed, and filled the cave with reflections of 
 dimpled and dancing waters. 
 
 A stream, trickling through the strata, spreading 
 over the slopes of dark grey rock, had left a velvety 
 deposit, and this deposit was coloured. In the main, 
 it was crimson, every shade of crimson from faintest 
 carmine to blood-red, but parts were a bright yellow, 
 others green, others a metallic peacock. In one corner 
 the drip had hollowed a basin, a basin lined with 
 very pale rose, a rose that flowed over the edge, that 
 made a broad ribbon of colour down the slope.
 
 86 THE HAUNTING 
 
 The sun shaft, falling on the water in this basin, 
 water for ever troubled by the drip, had flung motes 
 of rich light over roof and walls. Mr. Corlyon drew 
 his breath sharply, and stood looking. He delighted 
 in warm bright colour, and this rainbow gave him 
 excessive, almost passionate pleasure. It was the 
 strange and lovely ending to the mysterious fogou, 
 it was his " secret heaven of flowered delight." 
 
 Curving a long slender hand, he cupped a little 
 water in the hollow of it and drank. A ritual that. 
 By drinking he took possession, every time, of this 
 place which was his. Afterwards he would glance at 
 the sand to see if any had profaned its smoothness. 
 At high tide the cave was under water, water that 
 slipped through the narrow passage to freshen the 
 black and polished pool of the cavern, water that 
 drowned the warm colour, and shut out the light. 
 When he was sitting over a book in the brown parlour, 
 and the tide was lipping the quayside, he would think 
 of the far cave at the end of the fogou, of its renewal 
 under the insidious creeping or storm turmoil of the 
 waves ; he would feel that the waters guarded it 
 for him against intrusion, kept it secret . . . safe. 
 
 Pascoe, whistling, and without a glance for what he 
 termed " a parcel of muck," had walked through the 
 rainbow cave. His prints were clear on the ribbed 
 sand, and Mr. Corlyon saw them with displeasure 
 . . . the broad, rather deep tread. 
 
 Before long the tide would turn, would flow over 
 and dissolve the sharp outlines. 
 
 With Pascoe gone like the footprints only he, 
 Gale, would know of the fogou's existence.
 
 THE HAUNTING 87 
 
 in 
 
 Pascoe, stepping out of the cave, had walked round 
 the great rock which yet further masked the orifice 
 in the cliff -face. The tide was a sheet of silver, the 
 westerly sun was blinding silver, and the gulls on the 
 sea -edge were like strung balls of dull gleaming silver. 
 Pascoe, looking at the home scene, reflected that 
 between him and Grizel was only this gulf of waters, 
 this herring-pond. A few more hours, and he would 
 have pushed off from the shore, and with his money 
 . . . ah, now, which would be best to keep it in his 
 ditty box, or give the captam charge of it ? He knew 
 the captain, a straight man, and of course he, Pascoe, 
 would have a receipt. But to hand it over would mean 
 an explanation, and he disliked talking about business, 
 about his personal private business. No, on the whole, 
 the ditty box would serve his purpose best. Pity 
 he had not more notes ; but was it ? Bullion was 
 money, but notes were only paper. He remembered 
 that in Cartagena ten-dollar notes were worth only 
 a few pence ; and for all he knew, English bank notes 
 might suffer a like depreciation in Jamaica. He wished 
 he had asked McVitie about it. A shrewd man, 
 McVitie. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon, glancing at the short thick figure, 
 with its stare that crossed a world, felt that Pascoe's 
 thoughts had become agonizingly easy to read. 
 With the plunder in his sack he was waiting 
 impatiently for the moment when he could throw it 
 over his shoulder and be off ... 
 
 " Dog does not eat dog " but this dog was so vile 
 he had turned on his own flesh and blood ! 
 
 Still, there was a limit to human endurance, and
 
 88 THE HAUNTING 
 
 Pascoe, in wronging Gale, had overstepped that 
 limit. 
 
 No one should take from Gale that to which he 
 had a right. 
 
 IV 
 
 The figure by the rim of silver embodied a lost 
 illusion, and Mr. Corlyon turned from the contempla- 
 tion of it. For three nights and three days he had 
 been concentrated on the problem of Pascoe. He 
 knew, at last, what he would do, and he was at peace ; 
 but he did not want to look at or think of him. 
 Sufficient unto the hour ... 
 
 Crossing the belt of sand, he stood under the Dragon 
 Rock, looking up. The crest of the great stone had 
 been worn by weather into a shape which, to human 
 fancy, had suggested a beast. Shaggy with weed, 
 it lay along the flat top, the face leaning forward, 
 the anticipatory lips slightly apart. When the tide 
 was high, Mr. Corlyon, sitting up- over on the cliffs, 
 had seen a slaver of white spume drip from the jaws. 
 
 Was that what dragons had been like ? Rough 
 scaly creatures of huge dimensions ? Had they lain 
 in wait for their prey on some rock coloured like 
 themselves, and had they leaped down . . . 
 
 Crevices in the grey stone gave the dragon an 
 appearance of deep obliquely-set eyes. A queer 
 enough creature . . . made, not by man, and not by 
 God. The battering of storm, the grinding of the 
 seas, and a rock. That was all, and from that had 
 come, at first dimly, the monstrous outline of head, 
 of back, of tail. With the passage of time the shape 
 had grown more definite, until, at last, the tiny 
 generations of man had perceived it, given it a name.
 
 THE HAUNTING 89 
 
 It seemed almost as if, from being mere rock it had 
 developed a sort of life, as if it had being. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon's thoughts turned to his book to the 
 Vestiges of Creation. Perhaps weather and fortuitous 
 circumstances such as had made the dragon, were 
 responsible for the far-off beginnings of life. 
 
 A hand on his shoulder and he started, threw it off. 
 
 " Oh, Pascoe, you ? I beg your pardon." 
 
 " Time's getting on. I ought to be putting my 
 traps together." 
 
 " We'll go back." 
 
 As they walked to the cave, Mr. Corlyon glanced 
 back, glanced at the rock. 
 
 The dragon's face was turned towards the land, 
 towards the green and black wall of the cliff. Long 
 ago, fancy had suggested a connection between the 
 fogou, the pre-historic passage which man, with 
 astonishing assiduity, had driven through the hill, 
 and the monstrous beast. The old thought returned. 
 He felt that on its rock the dragon lay waiting for 
 prey, for something coming to it by way of the fogou. 
 It had knowledge and desire, and it would not wait 
 in vain. Something was coming, not from the sea, 
 but from the habitations of man .
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE brothers traversed the sea-cave, the long dark 
 curves of the fogou, the slant, with man-made hand- 
 holds man-made, how long ago ? to the door. 
 In the rock-cave Mr. Corlyon, crossing to a recess in 
 the wall, had selected wine. 
 
 " The last of poor old father's bottling. It was 
 being kept for your wedding, so it's as well to drink 
 it now." 
 
 Pascoe had eyed the cobwebby bottles. " To wish 
 me a safe journey from the old home to the new ? " 
 It would be jolly on his last evening to have a hideful 
 of the best, to have his whack. He must be careful 
 though, he mustn't risk losing the use of his legs. 
 
 " That will be it," Gale had answered sedately, and 
 Pascoe had passed him, running up the stair. 
 
 "I'll put my traps together, and then we can have 
 supper." 
 
 " Ah, yes, your traps." When a man went to the 
 West Indies he took with him all that was his. You 
 had to bear that in mind. His dunnage, heavy with 
 another man's gold ; the light packages for Grizel ; 
 his boots, cap, sailor-rig. When a man went, these 
 things went too. 
 
 ii 
 
 In the parlour, Mr. Corlyon was decanting wine. 
 His long fine hands adjusted the funnel, he watched 
 
 90
 
 THE HAUNTING 91 
 
 the dark fluid spreading over the bulge of the wine 
 bottle. When the decanter was quite full he stoppered it. 
 
 How much would Pascoe drink ? The mellow old 
 stuff would slip down easy as milk, yes, and one glass 
 leads to another. He must have plenty and then 
 the one glass more. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon took a knife out of his pocket, and 
 tried the edge of the blade. It cut the skin of his 
 thumb. Tut-*~he must be careful. 
 
 Overhead the creaking of boards. Pascoe had asked 
 for his share of the furniture, and Gale had agreed 
 that he should have it. It should follow him out, 
 be forwarded by cargo boat. He was in his brother's 
 room at the moment making a careful list of the 
 pieces of furniture that he would have. It went 
 without saying that he had chosen the best. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon hearkened to that careless tread. 
 He understood that Pascoe, stripping the nest, was 
 examining the various twigs and feathers. Money, 
 house, ay, even the lining of the house. 
 
 He returned to his decanting. It would not do to 
 linger. At any moment Pascoe might come down. 
 He would come dragging that heavy dunnage, 
 clamouring for supper, for a drink. 
 
 Gale Corlyon placed a half-emptied bottle on the 
 sideboard, got out a small deeply-cut flagon, and 
 turned. Before him, a darker brown than the wall 
 paper, hung the head-hunter's spear with, above it, 
 the quiver and bunch of pigmy arrows. 
 
 Outside help, that is to say the law, could not be 
 invoked, for law was not justice ; the spear could 
 only be used when the odds were even, when it was 
 a case of man to man. Mr. Corlyon took down the 
 arrows.
 
 92 THE HAUNTING 
 
 If he were to steep the points in the wine of that 
 one glass more ? 
 
 It would take the poison better if it were warmed. 
 He got out the old mulling horn, filled it, and set it 
 in a red hollow of turf. 
 
 With the fine blade of his knife he pared the tiny 
 points of the arrows. Almost invisible curls of dark 
 dry wood fell into the wine. The tiny shreds floated 
 for a moment on the bubbling turmoil, but as the 
 wine soaked into them they sank and disappeared. 
 
 In his room, looking up the street, Pascoe was 
 singing a chanty. He was packing and singing. Yes, 
 though he had taken his brother's savings, the savings 
 of a lifetime, he could sing. 
 
 No heart, nor even any bowels of compassion. 
 Mr. Corlyon hung the bunch of pigmy arrows, quiver 
 and arrows, on the wall over the head-hunter's spear 
 . . . stood back to survey them. The pared edges 
 . . . were they a lighter brown ? Not much lighter, 
 but still . . . 
 
 He took them from the nail, and as he lifted the 
 mulling horn, dropped them into the fire. They 
 crackled and flamed and spat, dry things but potent 
 ... no longer potent. 
 
 Bane for a rat. 
 
 The flames died, and a little grey ash filmed the 
 glow. Gale Corlyon would do justice, and be 
 responsible for it to whatever whoever was res- 
 ponsible for the making of such as Pascoe. He 
 poured the cooling fluid into the crystal flagon. 
 Was the wine a little thick ? Give it time, and the 
 sediment would settle. 
 
 The chanty had grown louder. Pascoe, carrying 
 his dunnage, was coming down.
 
 THE HAUNTING 93 
 
 " Put it out of the way along the passage." 
 
 "I'll put it at the head of the cellar stairs." 
 
 " The cellar stairs ? " 
 
 " I'm going out by the back door. I don't want 
 to meet . . . people." He came into the parlour. 
 " Supper ready ? " 
 
 " I told Antiks to lay it in the kitchen to-night. 
 Warmer there." 
 
 " But she- 
 
 " Oh, she's gone. 'Tis Sunday, man." 
 
 Pascoe laughed. " To me 'tis the day I start for 
 the West Indies. Why, hullo . . . " 
 
 He was staring at a lightness on the brown of the 
 wall, a small pale oblong. " My curio . . . what has 
 happened to it ? " 
 
 Mr. Corlyon turning, perceived that the absence 
 of the arrows was more noticeable than would have 
 been those slight small marks of the knife. " That ? 
 What was it ? Oh, I remember yes Antiks com- 
 plained of it getting dirty. She was always catching 
 her duster in it and pulling it down. I let her burn 
 it. Do you mind ? " 
 
 " Dunno as I do. A scratch from one of those 
 pin-points, and you'd find yourself in Kingdom Come. 
 A parcel of muck, it was best out of the way." 
 
 " I ought to have given the arrows back to you," 
 said Mr. Corlyon, smoothly, " let you take them with 
 you. 5> 
 
 Pascoe looked at the other curios on the wall. 
 " I forgot about these," he said, slowly, " or no, I 
 haven't room for another thing. Well, see here, Gale, 
 they'd look as well on my wall as on yours. You 
 might pack them in with the furniture you are freight- 
 ing me."
 
 94 THE HAUNTING 
 
 " What you don't take with you," answered Mr. 
 Corlyon, " I will send." 
 
 in 
 
 The brothers sat at supper in the kitchen. " 'Tis 
 pretty good wine," Pascoe said, " this all you got ? " 
 
 " There's a drop more in the other room." 
 
 " When we've drinked this, we'll have it in to finish 
 up, and then I must be going." 
 
 Mr. Corlyon was curious. Why was Pascoe going 
 out the back way ? Who was it he did not wish to 
 meet ? Hitherto, he had come and gone openly, 
 daringly. " You are going up the back lane ? " 
 
 " Best get off quickly," Pascoe said, " some women 
 are jealous as fire." 
 
 But Stowe was full of women " jealous as fire," 
 and hitherto Pascoe had not cared. Mr. Corlyon was 
 puzzled. He looked thoughtfully at his brother ; 
 and Pascoe, warmed, a little bemused by the wine, 
 felt the look as if it, and the curiosity behind it, had 
 been tangible. 
 
 He was not going to own up that he was afraid of 
 being ill-wished. Gale would laugh . . . 
 
 " I didn't tell Jenifer I was going." 
 
 He was through with Jenifer, yet, for some reason, 
 was anxious not to meet her. Mr. Corlyon 's mind 
 groped for the reason. Pascoe was not scrupulous, 
 not easily put about. 
 
 " What is Jenifer to you ? " 
 
 *' She isn't nothing to me." 
 
 Mr. Corlyon had an itch to know. Pascoe had made 
 casual love to half the women in Stowe. He had 
 flirted with Jenifer as with the others ... a matter
 
 THE HAUNTING 95 
 
 of course, as she was such a pretty maid. The ques- 
 tions, why Pascoe was afraid of Stowe streets, and 
 whether Jenifer cared, really cared for him,, clashed 
 in Mr. Corlyon's mind. Pascoe had been away some 
 time. What had happened before he left ? The two 
 had spent the last day at Lewhidden, blackberry 
 picking in the quarry. Had matters come to a head 
 then ? Was there, perhaps, a promise between them ? 
 
 He must know how they stood to each other, and 
 with Pascoe half drunk it should not be difficult. 
 
 " Anyway," he said, musingly, " you have been 
 away some time, three months gone He had 
 
 been going to say, " gone out of this," when Pascoe 
 took him up. 
 
 The wine was going to Pascoe 's head. He had not 
 quite followed what his brother was saying, had a 
 bemused idea it was about Jenifer. " Three months 
 gone ? " He shivered. " Don't say that." 
 
 His eyes were lifted to his brother's. He saw on 
 the face opposite a sudden flash . . . incredulity, 
 horror. It struck through the fumes. Pushing his 
 chair back, he broke into a laugh. " You mazed 
 old rattle, why don't you say what you mean ? 
 Jenifer's no more to me than any other body. 'Tis 
 Grizel's my maid." 
 
 Mr. Corlyon's tongue was dry. " You said three 
 months ..." 
 
 " I meant Grizel." 
 
 " Well, then- 
 
 " Oh, don't bother now," he reached for his glass. 
 " Didn't know I'd drinked this." He glanced 
 suspiciously at his brother, surely it had been full 
 but a moment since. And the wine-bottle was empty. 
 Old Gale had more, yes, in the dining-room, He was
 
 96 THE HAUNTING 
 
 hoarding it, as he had hoarded the money ; and 
 Pascoe's throat was sand dry. " Let's have in the 
 rest." 
 
 " You've had nearly enough." 
 
 " I've a thirst on me that could drink a barrel. 
 So come now, let us finish the wine." 
 
 The other got up slowly. " 'Tis the lees and a bit 
 thick." 
 
 " Want to keep it for yourself, eh ? " 
 
 " You have had everything for which you asked ; 
 you shall have this, too." Would the wine be cool 
 enough to pass muster ? He fetched the little flagon ; 
 yes . . . nearly cold. 
 
 Leaning over the table, he filled his brother's glass, 
 and Pascoe, lifting it, held it between his eye and the 
 light. " Good," he said, " good ! Some body in 
 this wine." 
 
 " Take care, or you'll spill it." 
 
 "I'll spill it down my throat." 
 
 Mr. Corlyon raised his own to set stiff lips. " Here's 
 good luck," he said.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PASCOE, putting the glass to his lips, began to gulp 
 the wine. Not much fun plucking old Gale. Feather 
 after feather, and he made no protest. Pascoe had 
 not thought the man was so tame. He wondered, 
 dizzily, whether he had overlooked any bits of pro- 
 perty money, land for which he might have 
 asked. 
 
 The kitchen being at the back of the house, and 
 its window looking down the garden, the brothers 
 were as snug as if they had been in the fogou, with 
 the thick hill between them and Stowe. The world 
 outside was busy with its churches and chapels ; 
 and the earth went round, the folks on it, like maggots 
 in their nuts, busy and self-absorbed. 
 
 In this house, at this supper table, was the sound 
 of Pascoe drinking. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon's ears gathered the uncouth sound. 
 His body was numb, only one sense, that of hearing, 
 was alert in him. 
 
 Suddenly, shattering his content, pulling him back, 
 a different sound the rapping, the sharp rapping 
 of knuckles on a door. He turned in swift terror. 
 Not the door of their room . . . No, further away . . . 
 a knocking ... it was on the panels of the front door. 
 
 -Someone was near . . . was trying to join them. 
 His security fell about him like splintered glass. Not 
 
 97 
 G
 
 98 THE HAUNTING 
 
 every person in Stowe was occupied with his own 
 concerns, his feeding, and sweethearting, and chapel- 
 going. The minds of some of one, or perhaps two 
 were turned towards himself and Pascoe ; and these 
 minds, they would be interested, curious. Of a sudden 
 the house-walls walls of country stone became to 
 him as a curtain which at any moment might be blown 
 aside. 
 
 These people they might turn the knob of the door 
 and, secure of a welcome, come shouting down the 
 passage, " Corlyon ! Corlyon ! " With a friendliness 
 that would presently change, they might blunder 
 in on he glanced through the firelit dusk at Pascoe, 
 at the red-brown face, greasy with food and the heat 
 of the room. God they must not get in ! Why had 
 he not thought to lock the door after Antiks ? Every- 
 thing but that, and that would bring his plans about 
 his ears. 
 
 Should he steal out now and turn the key ? Would 
 Pascoe notice ? If he were to ... if he asked 
 questions ? Better perhaps to leave it be. 
 
 Under the table Mr. Corlyon locked his hands to- 
 gether, holding on to himself, to that fierce longing to 
 stride out, interrogate the intruders, drive them away. 
 
 A wineglass was set down clumsily. The knocking 
 on the door-panel had reached Pascoe's brain. He 
 looked up, startled. " 'Tis Jenifer," he said, and he 
 leaned over the table speaking as if he thought she 
 might hear. " She has got light of my going but," his 
 voice was a fierce whisper, " but I won't see her. 
 Don't you don't you dare let her in on me." 
 
 Gale fell back in his chair. Jenifer she at this 
 moment ? Yet he could see the links in the chain. 
 He had told her mother and the maid had felt she
 
 THE HAUNTING 99 
 
 must speak with Pascoe. But, of all people in the 
 world, Jenifer. 
 
 He passed his tongue over dry lips. " Well ' 
 
 " Aw leave her knock." 
 
 A bell rang, rang sharply and for a long time. The 
 iron clangour broke out on the beam over Mr. Cor- 
 lyon's head ; and Pascoe gaped, in quick fear, at the 
 moving blackness. The sweat stood in beads on his 
 hot face and yet he shivered. The woman on the 
 other side of that frail door was urgent and her urgency 
 was crying to him through the bell. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon knotted his hands yet more desperately. 
 So difficult to sit there, to sit quietly, to look uncon- 
 cerned. 
 
 " Afraid of this all day," Pascoe muttered. " She'd 
 get me if she could." He startled his brother by 
 breaking suddenly into a low chuckle, " but but 
 she can't get in." 
 
 " Can't get in ? " 
 
 " I saw to it the front door was locked." The old 
 jolly smile had come back, was curving his full mouth. 
 After all he had bested her. Another hour and he 
 would be gone and Jenifer would not have been able 
 to ill-wish him. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon's grasp of himself relaxed. She could 
 not get through a locked door. 
 
 The bell rang again, a long desperate peal. Let 
 her ring ! No lights at the front to tell her they were 
 in the house. She might wait a little but presently 
 she would realize that it was hopeless. He turned 
 from the thought of her. He was beginning to 
 wonder . . . 
 
 If the poison should not work ? The arrows had 
 been on his wall for some time, moreover the quantity
 
 100 THE HAUNTING 
 
 of drink Pascoe had swallowed might prevent the 
 poison from taking effect. He might yet get up and, 
 staggering out, pick up his dunnage . . . that heavy 
 dunnage. 
 
 Gale's will was set that the man who had robbed him 
 should not escape. It was not retribution but justice ; 
 and, if the poison failed there would be still the head- 
 hunter's spear. He could see it, see himself lifting it, 
 see it shearing through flesh, bone ... as Pascoe 
 stooped over the dunnage. 
 
 Suddenly Pascoe spoke, and as he uttered the first 
 word something in his voice gave Mr. Corlyon the 
 news for which he had been waiting. He sprang up 
 and put a light to the candle. 
 
 " Wish I hadn't drinked that last glass of wine," 
 Pascoe was muttering. He walked away from the 
 table, dropped on to the settle. " It has made me feel 
 queer." By the light of the candle Mr. Corlyon saw 
 that his face was grey, pinched. He stared for a 
 second, then, smiling, filled his lungs with the good air. 
 Oh, sweet, sweet and good. 
 
 *' I I'm feeling awful bad," Pascoe said and 
 looked up, looked at his brother. He was looking for 
 help, but what he saw on Gale's face took him aback. 
 
 " You've had too much wine." 
 
 " No." Wine didn't make you feel like this and 
 Gale's face that white hard look. More than 
 hard that look. He remembered suddenly that the 
 
 last glass had been thick. " You " he cried, but 
 
 he was a match for Gale he wasn't afraid ! " You've 
 put stuff in that wine ! " 
 
 He was drugged that would be it ; but why should 
 Gale drug him ? What did he stand to gain by keep- 
 ing him in Stowe ? God it wasn't a mere drug.
 
 THE HAUNTING 101 
 
 He, Pascoe, had taken the money and that devil was 
 trying to do him in. Trying but he wasn't dead yet 
 not by a long way, and he wasn't going to die. He 
 lurched to his feet. " Jenifer ! "he shouted. " Jeni- 
 fer, come quick." 
 
 " You're drunk. Here lie back and sleep ifc off." 
 Mr. Corlyon caught the swaying man about the body, 
 lifted him on to the settle. 
 
 " I'll leave the town know Things were 
 
 growing dim and the sickness was in his limbs, paralys- 
 ing him, obscuring his sight. He must get away, get 
 help and then Gale should pay. 
 
 Gale had thought to get the better of him but 
 Gale should pay. 
 
 Pascoe seemed to have shaken off the restraining 
 hands, but his legs dragged, were growing numb. He 
 could not feel them. No matter, he must struggle on, 
 get to a doctor and then, yes, then he would tell the 
 town. 
 
 His fellow men, the kindly folk of his town, they 
 would see justice done. 
 
 An effort. Dark, but he knew the way. One step, 
 another ... he must be near the door. 
 
 The front door . . . then he must be in the passage 
 and that was why it was dark. So dark. He had 
 his hand on the door-knob but it was slipping. 
 
 Something crashed and he shouted shouted silently 
 into the void of death. 
 
 ii 
 
 Mr. Corlyon, seizing Pascoe to prevent him from 
 running out of the house, had expected to encounter a 
 stout resistance. Pascoe would be desperate and 
 having led a healthy seafaring life would be difficult to
 
 102 THE HAUNTING 
 
 manage. But Mr. Corlyon would welcome that 
 resistance. The irritation evoked by Jenifer's untimely 
 call, had increased his excitement, and though he did 
 not want to touch Pascoe he wanted to exert himself, 
 to do something strenuous. 
 
 The sick man pushed him away, but in a fumbling 
 inconclusive manner. The strength seemed to have 
 ebbed from his round brawn and it was as if his gaze 
 were fixed on something at a distance. He struggled 
 with increasing feebleness for a few seconds, then his 
 legs gave and he collapsed. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon, finding he held an inert body, propped 
 it against the wooden back of the settle ; but Pascoe 
 fell over sideways and lay there, arms and legs twitch- 
 ing. 
 
 " Leave the town know " The words 
 
 were a ghostly breath, suggested rather than uttered. 
 Throat and lips seemed to be paralysed. 
 
 Not ten minutes since he had taken the snake- 
 poison ! He had gone under very quickly . . . too 
 quickly. Mr. Corlyon could not credit it. Pascoe 
 was foxing, was gathering his strength for a fresh 
 effort. He must be careful . . . 
 
 The fire did not give enough light and the candle 
 was behind on the table. He must not turn his back. 
 A sailor carried a knife and that knife had perhaps been 
 whipped out, in readiness. He had a sensation be- 
 tween his shoulder-blades on no account would he 
 turn. 
 
 Putting a hand behind, he groped for the candle- 
 stick. A glass went over ... no matter ! His 
 fingers were encountering food, cutlery . . . ah, he 
 had it now. Carrying the light and holding it well 
 before him, he returned to the settle.
 
 THE HAUNTING 103 
 
 Pascoe lay comfortably asleep, his head on the old 
 red cushion, the breath issuing tranquilly between 
 parted lips. He was not ill, he was merely drunk. 
 The snake-poison, too long exposed to the air, had lost 
 its potency. 
 
 The candlestick shook in Mr. Corlyon's hand. To 
 have botched his job . . . 
 
 Drunk ! In the morning Pascoe would awaken 
 with only a headache to remind him of the previous 
 evening's debauch . . . 
 
 He might have known a man was not so easily 
 killed ! 
 
 The head-hunter's spear ? He couldn't. Virtue 
 had gone out of him. He wasn't capable of the small- 
 est further effort. 
 
 He would go somewhere and lie down, let this tide 
 of blackness sweep over his spirit, give himself up to 
 it ... 
 
 Bone-tired, he was, with limbs as heavy as those of 
 Pascoe. ... It would be difficult to drag himself 
 across the room, up the stairs. 
 
 He found himself listening in his weariness to Pas- 
 coe's breathing. Why, it had changed, grown audible! 
 The long inspirations came with a sort of doubt, 
 almost a break. 
 
 Once more he lifted the candle. Pascoe 's face was 
 a yellowish grey, his nostrils were black and his eyes 
 sunken. This was no drunken sleep. 
 
 Then . . . after all . . . 
 
 He had known from the beginning it would be thus. 
 Neither time nor exposure could abate the virulence 
 of that poison. He had won. If he had had a cap 
 he would have tossed it into the air. 
 
 He was no longer tired he could not afford to be,
 
 104 THE HAUNTING 
 
 for a hard night's work lay before him but anyway 
 he wasn't. He set the candle back on the table. . . . 
 
 Was it his nerves ? No, someone was really knock- 
 ing on the window pane. He could see a dark outline. 
 Good God, someone it was Jenifer ! 
 
 She had left the window, had pulled open the back 
 door, was in the passage. He stepped quickly to the 
 kitchen door, met her, stood there between her and 
 the room, between her and what lay on the settle. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Corlyon, I was afraid you were out." 
 
 " We weren't out." His voice was hard, more than 
 hard. Never before had she heard that inexorable 
 note. It hit like a hammer, not a hammer held in 
 a man's hand, but one driven by machinery. 
 
 " I rang and rang." She looked pleadingly at the 
 steep chin, the thin short curve of the mouth, the 
 whole, long, narrow face. Cold, hard ... no kind- 
 ness. 
 
 " We heard you." 
 
 " I wanted to see Pascoe." 
 
 " He knew." 
 
 " Mr. Corlyon," she took out the handkerchief, 
 " I wanted him to have this before he went." 
 
 " I will give it to him." 
 
 " I want to give it to him myself." 
 
 " No." In his hardness and coldness he was brutal. 
 Only a few days ago he had spoken of love . . . yes, 
 this same frost-bound, stony, implacable man. 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 He was silent but did not move. It almost seemed 
 as if he had forgotten her . . . were listening . . . 
 
 " Oh, please, Mr. Corlyon, why shouldn't I ? " 
 
 " He is drunk, sleeping it off." He glanced over 
 his shoulder and Jenifer saw in the dimness a figure.
 
 THE HAUNTING 105 
 
 She had had a doubt as to Pascoe's being in the house, 
 but he was still there. 
 
 If only she could get past Mr. Corlyon, lay the 
 charmed linen in the hand hanging lax over the edge 
 of the settle. 
 
 " I would not disturb him." She tried to edge by, 
 but Mr. Corlyon caught her arm. Only half a dozen 
 paces between her and Pascoe. With a sudden twist 
 she sprang forward, her hand outstretched, the small 
 folded square between her fingers. 
 
 She would drop it on his broad chest. 
 
 " No," said Mr. Corlyon again and, seizing her, swung 
 her round. Jenifer was a country girl, her muscles 
 strengthened by house -work. She meant to reach 
 that dark and now quiescent figure. She must reach it 
 or as soon as Pascoe was sober, he would go. 
 
 The breaths to which with the very marrow of 
 him Mr. Corlyon had been listening had checked, 
 gone on again, checked. Pascoe still lived did he 
 live did he ? 
 
 The arms that closed round Jenifer had forgotten 
 that she was a woman. 
 
 Struggling, she was thrust inexorably back and 
 back to the door into the passage. 
 
 Between the straining bodies the handkerchief fell, 
 unnoticed, on to the wooden floor.
 
 CHAPTER : > 
 
 " BREAKFAST on the table, Maister." 
 
 Antiks' voice, but from a distance. He did not 
 want to come back, to rouse himself. He was tired, 
 yes and his limbs ached, and at the back of things . . . 
 
 He murmured sleepily. 
 
 " Baint 'ee very well, to-day ? " 
 
 He was an early riser, fond of a cold bath, careful 
 over his toilet. Antiks had never known him to over- 
 sleep. She came in, pulled up the blind. 
 
 " I think I have got a chill/' 
 
 " What, 'av 'ee catched a cold ? " A wash of pale 
 sunlight flowed over the room. She saw that his 
 eyes were red-rimmed, that the pale skin had darkened, 
 was almost sallow. " Iss, you'm lookin' whisht. 
 Shall I go get doctor for 'ee ? " 
 
 " No, no, leave me alone." 
 
 " A cup of hot tea will do you good." The one 
 weakness of his fine physique was a too great reaction 
 to changes of temperature. " I expect your 'ead's 
 goin' around like a top." 
 
 The kettle was on the boil. She soaked the tea, 
 stood the pot aside for the appointed three minutes, 
 and went on with her work of tidying the kitchen. 
 The Maister and his brother had evidently put away 
 a tidy drop of wine with their supper and Maister had 
 
 1 06
 
 THE HAUNTING 107 
 
 no head for the drink. It was probably as much that 
 as the chill. 
 
 She carried the tea upstairs, waiting on him kindly, 
 deftly. While he drank her glance was on his round 
 head, the hair of which, crisp and close-lying, was bed- 
 ruffled, on his sinewy neck and wide shoulders. No 
 need for him to go to a good tailor, he would look well 
 in anything he put on. The shape of'n . . . she 
 thought of the child that might have come to her from 
 him. She did not want any more children ; but . . . 
 Lovely he was, and a child of his ... 
 
 How silly when she had as many as she could do 
 with. 
 
 " I found one of your best wine-glasses in the 
 chimley," she said. " 'Twas broke, of course." 
 
 Mr. Corlyon gave her back the cup. " Do your 
 work, Antiks, and go home. I shall get up when I feel 
 like it." 
 
 She went to the door. " Young Maister went off 
 all right, I s'pose ? " 
 
 " Quite all right." 
 
 " When will 'ee be comin' again ? " 
 
 " He is not coming back." 
 
 " Not comin' back any moor ? Gracious, you 
 frighten me." 
 
 " He is going to marry and settle in Jamaica. 
 No. He will not come back." 
 
 " Aw I wouldn't believe that. This rumpy ole 
 place is 'ome to 'im. It's bound to drag'n back." 
 
 What was it Pascoe had said ? "I shall come back, 
 you see if I don't . . . not a long voyage from 
 Jamaica."
 
 108 THE HAUNTING 
 
 ii 
 
 Mr. Corlyon acknowledged to stiffness, to an ache 
 in the lifting muscles of the back ; but those discom- 
 forts did not account for his remaining abed. He had 
 slept deeply and should have awakened as fit as 
 usual ; but he felt empty, done. It was as if he could 
 not lift his head from the pillow, as if it were too much 
 trouble to move. He did not remember ever to have 
 felt so slack. There was work waiting for him, but 
 he did not think he would bother about it. He would 
 stay where he was. 
 
 Antiks offered to bring him a book, but he only 
 shook his head. Hold up a book ? Keep his atten- 
 tion on the words ? Take in the sense ? After all 
 the Vestiges of Creation was nothing but a series of 
 guesses, while the Rhoda Broughton novel ... he 
 could not remember either name or theme. 
 
 As to Edwin Rabey what did it matter if his wife 
 had gone back to her mother ? It was not Corlyon 's 
 affair. Let them settle it as they would, he had lost 
 interest. 
 
 The black wind was blowing. It mourned in the 
 chimney, it drove through every crevice, thinning the 
 blood, and darkening the winter crops. Mr. Corlyon 
 thought it must have been blowing throughout the 
 night. He seemed to remember . . . 
 
 in 
 
 His mind was like the ground. It lay under a black- 
 ness, a blackness of wind. It lay still and cold, per- 
 haps dead. So exhausted was he, that he felt almost 
 glad to lie quiescent under the numbing blackness, 
 give himself up to it.
 
 THE HAUNTING 109 
 
 He remembered seeing a boy kick before him, along 
 the ringing stones of the quay, an old tin pail. Bent, 
 battered, and with a hole in the bottom, it was kicked 
 noisily into the sea. He was like that, finished and 
 at the mercy of winds out of the east and north, at the 
 mercy of his moods. 
 
 Only momentarily though. A day's rest would put 
 him to rights. A few hours of peace and the destroy- 
 ing blackness would lift. Life was as full of interests 
 as it could hold and he knew it was. He knew it 
 with the back of his mind, yet, in front, was a wonder 
 how he could have bothered himself with the affairs 
 of other people. Trivial and commonplace those 
 affairs, yet at the time they had seemed worth while. 
 
 Nothing was except the maintenance of this dead 
 black peace, the maintenance of it until something 
 underneath, something that had been hurt, wounded, 
 had had time to heal. 
 
 Though he wanted the peace to last, he did not think 
 that it would. It was like a pool : water, clear still 
 midnight water from the surface down. It was deep, 
 but not deep as Dozmare, and it bottomed on what ? 
 No matter what, at least no matter as long as whatever 
 it was did not move. He had a feeling that in those 
 depths was a something that might presently detach 
 itself from the sand and stones, glimmer up from the 
 pool. He did not want to see it, he wanted it to lie 
 there until it had rotted into nothingness. 
 
 A heavy weight of water, heavy enough to keep 
 bones and wreckage " down among the dead men "; 
 yet, for all that weight there was under the water a 
 sort of stir. 
 
 It was so faint as to be hardly noticeable. If he 
 turned his mind to something else to Edwin
 
 110 THE HAUNTING 
 
 Rabey's affairs he would be able to ignore that slight 
 creeping of the ooze. 
 
 Outside, a sailor on the old men's bench, at the head 
 of the quay, thought to warm himself by playing an 
 accordion. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon could not help but hear. The melan- 
 choly long-drawn notes fell on his attempted pre- 
 occupation with Edwin Rabey. In spite of himself he 
 listened ; and, listening, was caught by the emotion. 
 He listened and slowly, gradually, the bottom of the 
 pool slurred. It began to move ; broke, at last, into 
 a squirm of life ; into things that rose whitely, waver- 
 ingly, through the water. 
 
 Tremors began to run down his spine. He was being 
 forced by that abominable melody to see . . . 
 
 IV 
 
 He turned impatiently in his bed. Confound the 
 fellow would he never stop ? He wanted to slip 
 back into the quiet, which like graveyard clods had 
 covered him : that quiet yes, the quiet, almost, of 
 Pascoe. A deed done was a thing that should be 
 forgotten. He had turned his back on the events of 
 the previous night, had concentrated on other people's 
 affairs. At least, he had tried to but, from somewhere 
 deep in himself, rose and continued to rise, this suc- 
 cession of terrible memories. He sought to keep them 
 down but, inexorably, they pushed their way up ... 
 filled it. And he could not escape. His mind was a 
 stage on which certain scenes were being enacted, 
 scenes to which he might not shut his eyes. 
 
 The white, sun-washed bedroom had gradually 
 become less real than the mental pictures at which he
 
 THE HAUNTING 111 
 
 was looking, less real than the scenes in which he was 
 taking part. He was back in the dim kitchen, with 
 the door finally shut on Jenifer, on her despairing, 
 incomprehensible, "Oh, it has touched wood ! " He was 
 standing by the hearth, seeing the disordered supper- 
 table, the candle, the settle. Yet he did not actually 
 see these things, he was only aware of them. 
 
 He was too fiercely intent on something else on 
 those stertorous breaths. He was waiting for the 
 catch, the threatened break. An eternity before it 
 came. At last a heave of the broad chest and where 
 there had been so much sound a sudden astounding 
 silence. 
 
 A silence and stillness that had appalled him. Only 
 for a moment, though, for what he had really felt had 
 been relief. What he had set himself to do was done. 
 A struggle and he had won. He had planned, carried his 
 plan into execution, and therefore could only be content. 
 
 But the stillness it had been unnerving. Life 
 slipped out of the body, slipped, he must suppose, into 
 the surrounding air ; at any rate it so filled the room 
 that the only thing empty of it was the hushed figure 
 on the settle. 
 
 He had lighted more candles. It was necessary to 
 see the dead man's face. He must convince himself 
 that what, a moment ago, had been full of painful life, 
 was grown indifferent. Pascoe's spirit, if it existed, 
 would be a flame of vindictive wrath. To have been 
 got the better of, and by the brother he had despised, 
 whom he had thought of as an old buffer, his rage would 
 be extreme. But of this, on his face there was no sign. 
 He looked entirely unconcerned. 
 
 That unconcern had made it possible for Gale to do 
 what was necessary.
 
 112 THE HAUNTING 
 
 Though a strong man, his back and shoulders had 
 ached before, with his burden, he got to the end of the 
 fogou. God how heavy ! From the settle to the 
 head of the stairs down the stairs, slippery with 
 weather, to the cave. The load he carried was 
 slack, unwieldy ; he had not the knack of it. 
 
 He was stumbling through darkness, he had forgot- 
 ten where the passage twisted, he was bumping against 
 an unexpected wall of rock. Interminable, the narrow 
 black tunnel ! Twisty-ways, it ran back into the 
 hill, on and on, while what he carried was not mere 
 dead flesh, but something bewitched with weight. His 
 mind had cast forward to the run of earth, the crack 
 in the rock-roof. Would he ever make it ? He must 
 have been hours staggering and stumbling along in the 
 dark. 
 
 The accordion on which the sailor was playing to 
 keep himself warm, must be a good one, or it would 
 not have affected him, Gale. That tune, people stood 
 at the street-corners, Christmas, and sang it. He 
 knew it well but could not remember to have been 
 moved by it at any other time. 
 
 Scene after scene rose, passed through his mind. 
 They came in spite of him, he saw them with a 
 greater vividness than he had when they had taken 
 place. At the time he had been too preoccupied to 
 see them as horrible, doubtful if he would now had it 
 not been for the accordion. If only the fellow would 
 take himself off and if he, Gale Corlyon, could shut 
 against unwelcome visions, the door of his mind. Ah 
 if only he need not see that limp, sprawly body that
 
 THE HAUNTING 113 
 
 had slipped from his shoulder to the rubble ; that 
 had settled. 
 
 Even then, he had felt sick. Staggering out through 
 the sea-cave he had found that, after that nightmare 
 of bitter travail, day was still in the sky. Leaning 
 against the rock he had waited until he should be a 
 little recovered. 
 
 Behind him, behind the wall of the sea-cave, lying 
 there in the dank, weedy dark Pascoe's body ! He 
 was shivering in the breeze, but he was not unnerved, 
 he was not even cold ; no, he was tired, that was it 
 tired. 
 
 He would have to go back ; finish his job. 
 
 If only Pascoe had fallen face under. Though Mr. 
 Corlyon brought down on it all the loose rocks of 
 Gudda Hill, he would still see the waxy whiteness of 
 that face. 
 
 Not if he determined otherwise. To determine was 
 to act. He would turn the grisly thing out of his 
 mind and think of the sea, of the thin moon a moon 
 like a shred of linen think of it rising over the cliff. 
 Dull and white, it hung in a fair sky, a sky kept from 
 darkening by that glow in the west. 
 
 The Dragon Rock stood black against the blood of 
 
 a dead and buried sun. Against the blood ? 
 
 There had been no blood and what he had done was 
 justifiable. A man should fight for what was his, 
 fight with what weapons he had, fight to win. 
 
 A fold of rock had made a tongue between the jaws 
 of the Dragon, a slavering, desirous tongue ; and the 
 Dragon it had crouched, expectant. For what was 
 it waiting ? 
 
 He had wanted to stay there, but he might not. 
 There were still things he had to do. 
 H
 
 114 THE HAUNTING 
 
 VI 
 
 Lying stiffly in his bed, with the vision of that 
 burial dark, yet clear, a vision from which he could 
 not turn, to which he could not shut his inner sight, 
 he found that the sweat was standing on his forehead. 
 His shirt was clinging to his body, his fingers crisping 
 as they had crisped on the stout pole of driftwood with 
 which he had thrust at the loose rocks in the crevice. 
 
 On that first thrust had followed a little run of 
 earth. The stones had fallen on that upturned face. 
 They would cover it from sight, but no, they had 
 rolled away. It was still there, a dim whiteness that 
 to him was not dim. Its unconcern with this last 
 indignity had whipped Corlyon to a fury of thrusting. 
 Crash and roar and tumult. He was springing away, 
 but with the dust in his throat. Coughing, he had 
 turned to look back, but to his amazement the gleam 
 of light, the gleam from the sea, from yellowing moon 
 and fading sunset had vanished. He perceived that 
 the roof caving in had blocked the fogou. 
 
 The limp loose flesh that he had dragged through 
 passage and cavern was buried but it had taken half 
 Gudda to hide it. Tons of rock must have rolled out 
 of the crack but why did he keep harping on it ? 
 Pascoe was safely buried, and the time had come to 
 think of something more pleasant. Why not the 
 money ? Gale had poured it back into the pigskin 
 bags, had counted the bags, had set them in rows in the 
 old chest. The money from the emeralds had filled 
 another. There were now eleven bags. But a waxen 
 face rose from under the bags and it was the face 
 the upturned face of Pascoe that had substance, not 
 the bags.
 
 THE HAUNTING 115 
 
 VII 
 
 Gale Corlyon sprang out of bed. Anything would 
 be better than lying there, re-living the occurrences of 
 the night. It was the fault of the music. Once he 
 were in the street, the commonplace, everyday 
 street, he would be able to give his mind to other 
 matters. 
 
 What had he done ? Usurped the law's prerogative? 
 But the law did not do justice. The law acted in what 
 it considered the interests of the community and that, 
 even in the long run, was hardly justice. As to the 
 mills of God, they ground too slowly. 
 
 To take the law into your own hands needed cour- 
 age. Well, at least he had that. Even so, he must 
 admit that he was shaken. 
 
 But only for the time being. He would be all right 
 as soon as other events time was hung like dust, 
 like mist, like a wall, between him and it. 
 
 He would walk up to the Rabeys, have a talk with 
 Edwin about that girl at the Cornish Arms. Mrs. 
 Rabey was partly to blame, an offish cold sort of 
 woman, but her husband had been foolish. He would 
 say ... er ... damnation, he was back in the 
 kitchen ! Clear as if time and space did not exist, that 
 supine figure on the settle . . . 
 
 He hurried out of the house. Evergreens rose 
 above the whitewashed wall of the garden and beyond 
 lay the square basin of the harbour. Corlyon, if he 
 meant to call on Rabey, should have turned to the 
 right ; but the sailor, now playing " Old Zadock," 
 was sitting on the bench and that the events of the 
 night were present in Corlyon's thoughts was the fault 
 of the music. He must get away from it. Without
 
 116 THE HAUNTING 
 
 realizing that he had done so, he turned to the left, 
 walked towards the sea. 
 
 The tide being out, the wide, shallow estuary was 
 a breadth of bright, hard sand. A tortuous sea- 
 channel ran snakily from east to west. On the south, 
 the cliffs, black-faced, were dented into coves, into 
 bays, and the ground at their feet was " hard country." 
 Corlyon walking rapidly was as one in a dream. 
 Coming round a bluff, he startled a grey-blue heron 
 and the flight of the bird, legs hanging, head up, roused 
 him to a sense of his whereabouts. He had reached 
 the Dragon Rock, the grey rough rock, and the over- 
 head sun was wrapping it in white light. At least, it 
 should have done so, but he he saw it black against a 
 blood-red sunset. 
 
 He must keep his thoughts from straying back. 
 This was noon of a lovely day. He saw, as if a veil had 
 lifted, the wintry blue of the sea, the sand dunes 
 of the opposite shore, the island guarding the mouth of 
 the estuary. A beautiful world and he was alive 
 to enjoy it ! 
 
 Alive ? Why could he not forget that there were 
 others . . . one other, who was no longer alive ? 
 Pascoe had not been worthy, and he had been merely 
 the instrument of fate in ridding the world this 
 lovely world of him. 
 
 It must be dinner time. He would go home the 
 short way, go through the fogou. He turned 
 into the sea-cave, heard with joyous heart the 
 drip of the water from rock to basin, from basin to the 
 smooth blue and white pebbles, turned towards the 
 narrow rock- walled passage. 
 
 He had forgotten. He stood, unable to believe. 
 Yes, actually, he had forgotten.
 
 THE HAUNTING 117 
 
 The passage was blocked, fragments of broken rock, 
 of quartz had fallen through into the sea-cave ; but 
 behind, solid to the roof, were stones and earth. 
 
 His glance lighted on a bit of shaped rubbish, a 
 was it a foot ? Quickly, he stepped back. No, no 
 Pascoe was too far under. The black object was an 
 old broken boot, a bit of flotsam which had drifted 
 in on the tide, been stranded there by receding waves. 
 Hitherto, the sea had slipped through the passage, 
 at full tide had flowed a few yards up the fogou. 
 It could not now. It could only beat on a wall 
 of crushed, piled debris, tons of it. As it gradually 
 filled the cave, rising to the rock-roof, it would 
 beat on it more and more heavily but it would 
 not be able to break through. 
 
 Corlyon turned back, turned towards the basin 
 of clear spring water. He had always drunk of it 
 and, as usual, he would drink. He cupped his hand, 
 but as he dipped it, the thought came that Pascoe 
 lay behind the wall from which the water dripped. 
 The rock held him there, and the water . . . 
 
 " Some body in this wine."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 " So we seen the last of Mr. Pascoe ? " The smith 
 was receipting a bill while Mr. Corlyon, leaning against 
 the rough wall of the " shop," waited. 
 
 " I hope not." 
 
 The smith nodded sympathetically. " Reckon 
 'e'll come back when 'e mind to ; but 'e was never 
 the one to stay 'ome. 'E was like a rambling stone, 
 'ere to-day, and gone to-morrer." 
 
 " He will have to mend his ways, for he is going 
 into partnership with friends a business partner- 
 ship." 
 
 " My Gor', if 'e 'aye to sit down and work, 'e'll 
 mump. 'E 'edn't goin' stay in a office, surely ? " 
 
 " Time he settled down. You know he is going 
 to be married ? " 
 
 " Marryin' a foreigner, 'edn' 'e ? " 
 
 " Well a Scottish maid." 
 
 " Ay, a foreigner ! And they'm always different 
 from we. But you'll miss him, Mr. Corlyon, I bet ; 
 'tis all you got, you know." 
 
 ii 
 
 Every fresh person to whom he spoke talked of 
 Pascoe. 
 
 Hitherto, the fogou had been the secret fact in 
 
 118
 
 THE HAUNTING lid 
 
 his life, but that had given place to Pascoe. There 
 was the real Pascoe, hidden under Gudda Hill, and 
 the Pascoe on his way to Jamaica. Two Pascoes, 
 one for the town, and put on when he went out, as 
 he put on an overcoat ; the other, a secret of the 
 Brown House. 
 
 The overcoat was heavy, he got tired of wearing it. 
 The hidden Pascoe was also a weariness. With 
 Pascoe's death his anger had passed. He wanted, 
 now, to forget that he had been wronged and had 
 avenged himself. He would have been glad to 
 forget that Pascoe had ever existed. 
 
 The deed being done should sink into the quick- 
 sands of time. If he were patient, waited a little, 
 this would happen. Eventually, too, the townsfolk 
 would find some other topic of conversation. Mean- 
 while, there was only one house he knew of, in which 
 the name of Pascoe did not star the talk. Mrs. 
 Liddicoat never spoke of him, neither did Jenifer. 
 Jenifer, he noticed, hardly spoke of anything. She 
 sat at her embroidery as if engrossed by it, she wore 
 a strained unhappy look. 
 
 Poor little maid, if he could have done anything 
 for her, he would. Strange that he should feel like 
 that about her ! Why, he would have got her lover 
 back if possible ; and that, of course, meant he did 
 not want her himself. He did not, either. He had 
 no longer any feeling for her. 
 
 Queer, when he had thought the world of her. 
 But that was often the way. Hottest fire is soonest 
 out. And Jenifer he knew things about her, Pascoe 
 had let the truth escape. Yet it was not that, no, 
 it was that she brought it all back. That night 
 and she, trying to get to Pascoe, and Pascoe dying.
 
 120 THE HAUNTING 
 
 Something in him, Gale, had died, too ; died even 
 more suddenly. He did not want to see her again, 
 in fact, he would have gone out of his way to avoid 
 her. Not that he felt aggrieved in any way, but that 
 he had changed. 
 
 Amazing that he should have so greatly changed. 
 His last thought at night, his first in the morning 
 had been Jenifer, but that loveliness of corn-coloured 
 hair, of wide blue eyes, of full red lips no longer tor- 
 mented him. Pascoe's woman but it was not that. 
 It was simply that desire was dead. Pictures of her 
 in the baby-linen shop, in the little old garden at the 
 back no longer troubled his quiet of a man not young, 
 and occupied with affairs rather than emotions. 
 Extraordinary ! He had felt so strongly, and for 
 such a long time, and now he was like an empty cup. 
 The fever in the blood, the craving that had been 
 a pain gone. 
 
 Well, he was glad. It was good to be himself again, 
 to be at peace. From the beginning it had been hope- 
 less, and he had known it ; but, knowing it, had yet 
 persevered. Now he was free of his obsession, could 
 go back to the pleasant round Jenifer had disturbed 
 his work as an auctioneer, his friendly help given 
 to any who needed it, his little suppers with Mrs. 
 Liddicoat. If Jenifer had cared for him, it might 
 have put an end to his pleasant relations with her 
 mother, and that no, he did not want that to happen. 
 That was of real importance to him. During the ten 
 years of placid friendship something in him had 
 grown tall and broad, struck its roots deep. Every 
 Thursday he had dropped in, to sit in .the garden 
 through the warm summer evenings and by the fire 
 during the winter nights. He had talked or been.
 
 THE HAUNTING 121 
 
 silent, come or gone as he chose. It was not 
 only that he was made welcome, he was made at 
 home. The baby-linen shop, the widow's cir- 
 cumstances, her warm heart and sensible mind, 
 they were as familiar <o him as the rooms of the 
 house on Quayside. 
 
 A strong, sane woman, Mrs. Liddicoat, and kind. 
 She made a man think of the fruitful earth and the 
 clean out-of-doors. He liked her, he more than 
 liked her. 
 
 Her presence rested him. When he was with her, 
 the dark recollections which the accordion player 
 had brought to the surface of Mr. Corlyon's mind, 
 and which, since then, had drifted in it like flotsam 
 on the edge of a tide, disappeared. As he went about 
 his work, the thought of her back room, the room 
 that looked on the sunny garden, the thought of her 
 well tended fire, of her sympathetic presence, drew 
 him. He longed to drop in, not only on Thursdays, 
 but every evening of the week. 
 
 Morwenna Liddicoat could be sympathetic without 
 understanding. Words between them were unneces- 
 sary. Whatever his mood, she adapted herself. 
 She gave him peace, she renewed his strength. 
 
 in 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat looked up from the " toddling shoes " 
 she was making out of cuttings of white satin, with a 
 wild notion that the days of the week had misplaced 
 themselves. It was not Thursday? Oh, but it must 
 be, for here was Mr. Corlyon. 
 
 And she had nothing nice for supper. 
 
 Where could Jenifer be ? She must run down to
 
 122 THE HAUNTING 
 
 Butcher Andrew and see what he had. Why, of 
 course, Jenifer was in the linhay, washing her traade, 
 and it was Monday . . . butcher would not be open. 
 
 They had been crying herrings through the town, 
 and she had not bought any : but Mrs. Tippett had 
 taken a score for salting-in. Nothing more toothsome 
 than a well-fried herring, and likely Mrs. Tippett 
 would spare her some. But there, what was she 
 thinking of, he did not like fish. Well, then, she must 
 fry him slices of hog's pudding, with a jam hobbin to 
 follow so like a man not to say he was coming. 
 
 She pushed the satin remnants of wedding dresses 
 which were to furnish forth the shoes of the new- 
 comers aside, and gave Mr. Corlyon the smile for 
 which he was looking. 
 
 " I'm pretty an' glad to see you." 
 
 " Though I was here last Thursday, and mean to 
 come again next ? " 
 
 " You are always welcome." Her lips said it, and 
 her eyes and the curves of her face. Her glance was 
 more than friendly, it had warmth in it. Ten years, 
 and she had never failed him. He spoke on an 
 impulse. " Wennie, let us get married. I feel I 
 can't do without you, and that's a fact/' 
 
 The colour left her face ; and yet, though it changed, 
 the change was towards youth. Out of her eyes 
 looked an intensity which was pitiful. " You don't 
 mean that. You can't . . . you can't want me ..." 
 
 He saw that she loved him : that she had loved 
 him with self-denial and without hope for a long time : 
 that she dared not believe that, at last, he had turned 
 to her. 
 
 He stooped, gave her the kiss for which, for years, 
 she had been waiting.
 
 THE HAUNTING 123 
 
 IV 
 
 Jenifer, her washing wrung out ready for the line, 
 stepped from the low door of the linhay on to the 
 flagged path which ran between bushes of currant 
 and gooseberry to the wall of unequal stones at the 
 end of the garden. Her mother would be in the 
 kitchen sewing white satin uppers to kid soles. She 
 must tell her she had finished, that as soon as she had 
 hung out her traade she would be ready for tea. 
 As she passed the window, she bent to look in. 
 
 Her mother and Mr. Corlyon ! That look in his 
 unusually bright eyes, why it was the look he had 
 had for her, Jenifer. No mistaking it. She moved 
 away, began, mechanically, to hang the clothes on 
 the line. A week or two back, and he had said it was 
 she he loved, now it was her mother. Ah, they were 
 brothers, Pascoe and he. 
 
 Love, men talked to you of love, and appeared to 
 be dreadfully in earnest : they not only seemed, they 
 were ; they felt so strongly that you pitied them, and 
 then all in a moment it was over. They did mean 
 what they said and implied, you could not doubt it. 
 But they meant it only while they were speaking, 
 only while they were in that particular mood. 
 
 To think she should have been so foolish as to believe 
 a man's love could last ! Love . . . with marriage to 
 follow ? It should have been the other way round. 
 Oh that she should have been so green ! Only 
 three months away, yet he had forgotten. As quickly 
 as that ! And he had begged of her, how he had 
 begged ! She burned with shame at her recollections 
 that she should have been so easily won ! 
 
 " Jenifer ! "
 
 124 THE HAUNTING 
 
 She did not hear, and ,the man looking over the 
 wall at the end repeated her name. Rousing at that, 
 she saw it was Denny Manhire, the groom from Caer, 
 the kind boy who was always doing little things to 
 give her pleasure. The sight of him eased the pain 
 at her heart, was a salve to wounded vanity. Here 
 was somebody who thought the world of her. He did, 
 but would he if he knew ? She went on with her 
 work, and Denny, his arms on the wall, waited. 
 
 She was like that, she kept him waiting, yet in 
 the end she came. He did not mind, for he had 
 the evening before him, and it was not often he was 
 able to stand and look at her. 
 
 Her sleeves were rolled high. To keep it free of 
 dust, she had covered her glinty hair with a white 
 kerchief. Over her blue cotton frock she wore an 
 apron, an apron which, in spite of the hours she had 
 spent at the washing tray, was still snowy. Raising 
 dimpled arms, she fixed garment after garment on 
 the line, and the mild breeze set them a-dance. At 
 last, she turned, and Denny tried to encourage himself 
 with the thought of those four rooms over the stables 
 at Caer, but he only remembered their emptiness, 
 and that it was for Jenifer to say whether or no they 
 must remain empty. 
 
 " I bin wantin' to ride over for more than a week." 
 
 " For Mrs. Pendragon's traade ? " 
 
 He put a hand over to take hers, but she showed him 
 fingers crinkled from the water and shook her head. 
 " My hand is all clibby." 
 
 She would not even give him her hand ! That 
 tottering confidence of his his confidence in the 
 rooms, limewashed by himself, and looking over the 
 busy stable yard and back premises of Caer fell
 
 THE HAUNTING 125 
 
 with a crash. She wanted neither him nor his rooms, 
 and he might have saved himself the trouble of riding 
 in. 
 
 He had his back to the sun, but the light was on 
 Jenifer, on roses that had been nipped by some wind 
 of trouble. Denny saw that she looked tired. All 
 day at the washing it might be that. 
 
 "Why, Jenifer, you'm lookin' whisht, what you 
 been doin' to yourself ? " 
 
 The colour rushed into the girl's cheeks. " If 
 that is all you got to say . . . ' 
 
 " Aw, don't fetch your spite out on me, lovey. 
 I'm sick and sorry to see it." 
 
 Gawky, scant -haired, yet kind ! Some men took 
 all they could get and gave nothing in return, but 
 there were others. It might be Denny was one of 
 the others, and she wanted kindness. It was a bad 
 old world, that it was. 
 
 " I'm out of heart with everything." 
 
 " What ? " Denny had hoped for himself ; had 
 feared Pascoe ; deep down had known Pascoe was 
 Jenifer's fancy. " Is a gone ? " Caer was five miles 
 from Stowe, and news was sometimes lame-footed. 
 He had not heard Pascoe had left, and it would account 
 for the alteration in Jenifer's looks. 
 
 " What is that to do with you ? " 
 
 He had known, hoping he was mistaken, hoping 
 until she spoke. Dreariness, like a wash of dirty 
 water, spread over his soul. In the same boat, he 
 and she. Poor Jenifer ! But the rascal Pascoe had 
 cared for her ! Had they all knew what Pascoe 
 was ! 
 
 ic What worry you, dear life, worry me." 
 
 She glanced at him thoughtfully for a moment,
 
 126 THE HAUNTING 
 
 then shook her head. " My worries be my own." 
 
 She was such a young soft little thing. The sight 
 of her in trouble made his heart ache. " Let me 
 share 'n." 
 
 The incongruous suggestion made her laugh, and 
 the laughter brought back old ease and friendliness. 
 Denny had always been good to her; perhaps, even 
 if he did know . . . 
 
 Anyhow, what did it matter ? 
 
 " Share them ? My lor', you can't do that ! " 
 
 The laughter was encouraging. " Jenifer, you 
 been funny with me lately, and after us being such 
 good friends ..." 
 
 " I can't help it if I be." She gave him a quick 
 look. " Pascoe is goin' marry some black woman 
 out there." 
 
 " Then you can't have him." He could sympathize, 
 but under the sympathy, his heart was full of 
 gladness. 
 
 " No-o," her eyes, wide-set and darkly blue, were 
 bright with tears. They spilled over, big flashing 
 drops, they fell on the crazy pattern of the wall. 
 " But, Denny, I I been playin' the fool." 
 
 The meaning of her words leapt at him, and he 
 stood in a momentary confusion. It was as if he were 
 being hit in many places at once. She, Jenifer, she 
 had played the fool yes, and with Pascoe Corlyon. 
 She his, Denny's maid. 
 
 Well, he hated her for it, the bitch. 
 
 This came of putting faith in a woman. He knew 
 what maidens were, none better ; but Jenifer . . . 
 
 While he, the silly ass, was trusting her with all 
 his heart, she was carrying on with Pascoe Pascoe, 
 who was everybody's larbut. The blood gathered
 
 THE HAUNTING 127 
 
 behind his eyes. He wanted to kill. She was his, and 
 she had let him down. 
 
 The sun shone on a falling teardrop. Jenifer had 
 treated him badly, yes, but she had had, was having, 
 a rotten time. She was having the same sort of time 
 as he. 
 
 Gor' the same sort of time ! And she need not 
 have told him. Why had she ? She wanted to make 
 use of him ! Ah she wanted him now. Well, she 
 might want. He was not going to father another 
 man's brat, not he. See her in hell, first ! 
 
 See her in hell ? Jenifer ? No, no. They were 
 both unhappy, but he could help, and he wanted to. 
 Why, when she was a little maid she had always run 
 to him, Denny, when the others teased her. They 
 were not at school now, but it was the same thing, 
 pretty much. 
 
 " It don't make no odds," he began, and was sur- 
 prised at the difficulty he found in speaking. He 
 could not get the words up his dry throat. " 'Tis 
 you " he and Jenifer, they were more than sweet- 
 hearts. 
 
 His words checked the flow of tears. She gazed 
 at him, doubting, unable to believe, and he made a 
 quick movement, a little gesture of pity and protec- 
 tion. His maid, his poor little maid. 
 
 " Oh," she said, " oh, Denny ! " 
 
 A little shakily he asked her, " What be goin' 
 do?" 
 
 For a fortnight, ay, and longer, she had been asking 
 herself that question. It was a fortnight since Pascoe 
 had left Stowe, but ever since she had known for 
 certain how it was with her she had wondered what 
 she should do if he did not marry her. " Emma
 
 128 THE HAUNTING 
 
 told me there's women can help you time like 
 this. They say Rebecca French ' 
 
 Manhire put his arm over the wall, took a hand that 
 was no longer refused him, took it in a warm, hearten- 
 ing clasp. " Now don't, my dear, don't think of 
 such a thing." 
 
 The wall was low with a round coping stone. She 
 let him draw her up to it, was glad to be so drawn. 
 It was good after months of fear, after a fortnight 
 of more than fear, to be able to open your heart. 
 " I don't want to do it, Denny, but 
 
 " Do Pascoe knaw ? " 
 
 " He didn't ask, and I didn't say. I reckon he 
 guessed, but didn't want to know." 
 
 " He shen't, then, not ever." The child should be 
 his, Denny Manhire's. To think of it thus, eased his 
 heart of pain. 
 
 " Last minute, I thought I must tell him . . . and 
 I went down to the house. They would not open 
 the door, but I could not be kept out. I went in 
 back door, and he was on settle, foxin'." 
 
 " Foxin' ? " 
 
 " Aw I could tell he was not asleep. He was not 
 snoring natural, and his breath caught as if he was 
 listening to us. You see, Mr. Corlyon would not 
 let me pass." 
 
 " Why wouldn't he ? " 
 
 " Don't know for why exactly. Perhaps he did 
 not want me to marry Pascoe." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " Well men's funny." He had not wanted her to 
 marry Pascoe because he had wanted her himself. 
 He had, then ; and it was such a little while ago, 
 yet now, he wanted her mother !
 
 THE HAUNTING 129 
 
 Denny saw she was not going to answer his question. 
 " Then, what about your mother ? " 
 
 Jenifer's fingers, hitherto lying slackly in his clasp, 
 suddenly took hold. " Mammy ? " Even Mammy 
 had her own life, and other people's troubles, Jenifer's, 
 were outside it. " She'm more taken up with Mr. 
 Corlyon than she is with me. I believe they'll marry." 
 
 Pascoe gone, her mother occupied with her own 
 concerns life was, indeed, a desert ! She felt that 
 she stood alone, friendless except for little Denny 
 Manhire . . . and he was looking at her so kindly. 
 
 " Jenifer," he said, " don't you do nothing you 
 will live to repent. Let your baby come out to the 
 light." 
 
 She looked at him wistfully. " 'Tis what I should 
 like to do." She could feel it warm in her arms, and 
 she did not belong to have it, but, oh yes, she must. 
 *' The li'l darling, I do dearly love " she must not 
 say that she had played with the thought of hers, 
 loving it and longing for it, but always afraid . . . 
 " I do dearly love babies." 
 
 He, too, he loved them. A home without children ? 
 Why, 'twas the children made it home. He let his 
 thoughts turn to the future there would be the 
 little one that was coming, and then others, his and 
 hers. The rooms over the stable would be full of 
 jolly noise. Trust him, the first little chap should be 
 made welcome, should have his share. 
 
 " Your mother may be vexed about it when she 
 do knaw, but she'll stand by you, and we'll get 
 married at once, and all will be for the best." 
 
 He was for shouldering her burden. A brave, 
 jonik little chap, but she must not take advantage 
 of him. People had not treated her well at least,
 
 180 THE HAUNTING 
 
 one person had not, but that was no reason for behav- 
 ing badly to Denny. 
 
 For a moment she stood, pulling herself together. 
 Somehow, the hand that had clasped hers was round 
 her waist. She drew herself away. " I don't want 
 for you to marry me out of pity. There's more boys 
 in the world that 'ud have me, even if I have got a 
 child. Don't think I can't manage without you." 
 
 He pulled her back. " Maybe there's more boys 
 for you, Jenifer, but there's no other maid for me."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 MR. CORLYON raised his hat, which had a little more 
 curl to the brim that that of other men, and Mrs. 
 Liddicoat watched him walk away down the street, 
 saw him look back when the street became Quayside, 
 saw him enter by the discreet gate in the whitewashed 
 wall. She thought that faintly, above the swishing 
 of the sea-water in the harbour basin, she heard the 
 closing of a door. 
 
 Her heart went with him into the Brown House, 
 and up the stairs, and into the room where he would 
 sleep ; where, presently, she too would sleep. She 
 was possessed by tingling excitement and, under that, 
 lay a deep warmth. 
 
 He had said : " Till Pascoe went, till he left me 
 for good and all, I had not realized I was a lonely 
 man." And later : "I want someone in the house 
 with me ; someone to come back to of an evening." 
 
 Not lover-like, but he did love her. He had put 
 his arms round her, roughly and clumsily, in proper 
 man's fashion, and had hugged her. Again and again. 
 He had given her lover's kisses, and the simple hearty 
 kisses of affection. 
 
 Behind her in the house, she heard Jenifer locking 
 doors and windows, but she did not stir. It was not 
 often in her busy life that she could spare a moment ;
 
 132 THE HAUNTING 
 
 but to-night, when happiness had come to her, she 
 could not go in, not yet. 
 
 The inequalities of the opposite roofs were dark 
 against a silver sky, and she looked past these familiar 
 outlines, lifting up her heart. To have thought life 
 was over as far as love went ! Why, the love she had 
 had for her young sweethearts, for her husband, had 
 been, compared with this, as lamps in a street, small 
 things at best. Yes, small bright things, but now that 
 the sky had lightened for her, no longer bright. 
 Those early loves she looked back, seeing them at 
 last with understanding. They had been sweet and 
 worth while, they had had to do with babies, with 
 home-making, with the business of living. A mixture 
 of emotions, that early loving, but this late-come 
 feeling was different, being the love of one human 
 creature for another. She thought of the tide in the 
 harbour. The tide, the tide of life, had flowed over 
 and hidden her real self. On its bosom had rocked 
 a strange medley of craft, and she, under the surface 
 bustle, the passage of the ships, she had slept. Now 
 the tide had ebbed, and ebbing, had carried the flotsam 
 seaward. She had been left free of foreign craft ; 
 and to her had come the soft wind and the down- 
 shining stars, and the enfolding night. He had come, 
 the man whom she might love through the quiet 
 years, the years that remained. She had slept till 
 his kiss had awakened her. 
 
 But could she accept what offered ? Did she 
 dare ? She was middle-aged, her body had been given 
 her to use, and she had put it to its natural uses. 
 How she wished she had again her virginal breast. 
 His head, the weight of that precious head on a breast 
 worthy of it ! No, she had not that to give.
 
 THE HAUNTING 133 
 
 Falteringly, she had spoken to him about her age. 
 The words had been difficult to say. Her cheeks had 
 grown hot, as hot as if she had been blushing. But 
 he oh, the dear of'n it was as if he did not see 
 the white in her hair and the lines ; he had looked 
 through them at was it at her ? 
 
 " I know how old you are," he had said. Of -course 
 he knew. His life and her life, every year of them, 
 had been spent in Stowe, near Stowe. 
 
 " I know how old you are, and it does not matter." 
 
 He never uttered other than the truth. Not, of 
 course, the real truth, but the truth as he saw it. 
 She could depend on his sincerity. To him, then, 
 strange as it might seem, the lines and the silver 
 threads were of no importance. 
 
 Wonderful that, for Mr. Corlyon was held to be an 
 appreciator of beauty, of soft, frail beauty. So stiff 
 himself, he had been attracted by weakness. He had 
 not married, but he might have. Yes, there had 
 always been women. 
 
 That sort of woman. 
 
 Morwenna Liddicoat had not thought he had it 
 in him to love, not really love. Any man could make 
 love seed thrown by the wayside which would 
 spring up, throw a gaudy blossom, and wither away ! 
 
 But love. 
 
 Deep, warm, big, filling you as a vessel is filled, 
 making you feel^as you felt sometimes in church. 
 The love of God". . . 
 
 She was to give up the baby-linen shop. He wanted 
 her to go to him, and she would. He had only to 
 fix the date. She was ready now. 
 
 She had lived for many years on the edge of the 
 street. The river of Stowe life had splashed her
 
 134 THE HAUNTING 
 
 drexel. She had had the amusement of its constant 
 variety, but the time had come to put up the shutters. 
 She laughed at herself at the itch in her fingers to 
 have those shutters up ! 
 
 He had said she might have a maid to help her 
 with the work of the house. She ! He did not realize 
 the dear how already, though his love-making 
 was only the hour old, she was looking forward to 
 the day when she would cook his meals, sweep up the 
 mud his boots brought into their house their 
 scold him a little so that he should be made to see 
 that she was there, yes, there, and, working for him, 
 loving him. 
 
 She could cook none to beat her in Stowe and 
 she would give him tasty meals, and have the joy 
 of seeing him eat what she had got ready. She knew 
 what he liked. The Thursday night suppers had 
 taught her. 
 
 The thinking out, the getting ready of that meal 
 had been the chief pleasure of her week. Now she 
 would have it, not once a week, but every day. She 
 would go out to buy the food, to buy it with his 
 money, with the money he made, that he spent the 
 day making, that he made for her. 
 
 As to her money Jenifer could have what had 
 come from Peter, and she would hand over the rest, 
 the farm her father left her, to Gale. 
 
 She, Morwenna Liddicoat, wanted to be dependent 
 on her man, to go to him, and say, " Give me so much 
 for the marketing." She thought of him counting 
 the shillings into her hand, thought of the joy it 
 would be to bargain with them, spend with grudging 
 care, spend as little as possible. Those shillings, because 
 he had earned them, they would have a special value.
 
 THE HAUNTING 185 
 
 " Mammy, Mammy, bain't you never coming to 
 bed ? " 
 
 The lap-lapping of the tide made an accompani- 
 ment to her dreams. He would be asleep by now, 
 asleep in the room that looked over the water towards 
 the east. The sound of his laugh, rough with a sort 
 of catch, was still in her ear. Or was it in her heart ? 
 She stepped back. Really, she must not stay there 
 wasting her time. 
 
 When she came to turn the key in the front door, 
 she hesitated. Lock him out ? Put a bolt between 
 them ? No, never again. She had slept all locked 
 up inside herself until he roused her to answer him, 
 to open. 
 
 If she were to leave the door on the latch ? But 
 how about tramps a tramp ? Well not many in 
 Stowe, and besides, how was a tramp to guess that 
 one of the respectable doors of the street was on the 
 latch ? 
 
 Not that Gale would want to come at any odd hour. 
 Only, she felt she could not turn that key. Day and 
 night, never again should there be between them 
 bolt or bar. 
 
 ii 
 
 " Mammy, I been waitin' for you." 
 
 " Have 'ee, my dear ? " 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat had taken but a little time to slip 
 out of her clothes and into bed. She would go back 
 to her dreaming, and so sleep. 
 
 " I got something to tell you." 
 
 Must Jenifer break in with uninteresting outside 
 talk ? Her mother did not want the thread of her
 
 186 THE HAUNTING 
 
 thoughts snapped, her attention diverted. "I be 
 tired." 
 
 " O Mammy ! " 
 
 An arresting note in the child's voice. Mrs. 
 Liddicoat turned on the pillow. " What is it, dear ? " 
 
 " I got to get married." 
 
 Ah! 
 
 But she had guessed half guessed it. She had 
 not quite believed it. Her Jenifer ! Other women's 
 maids, but not hers. 
 
 " You got to get married ? " She was saying 
 to herself that a forced " put " was no choice. 
 
 " Mammy ! " Jenifer sat up, clasping her knees. 
 " When you was young " 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat's thoughts flew to old sweethearts, 
 to the love-making of what seemed only yesterday. 
 
 " Honest men make honest women. You was 
 born in wedlock." 
 
 " Mightn't have been." 
 
 Heavens ! what would the child say next ? And 
 if she had listened to Willy Hosken ; even if but 
 this was profitless. 
 
 " And my chield'll be born in wedlock." 
 
 " Who's goin' father it for 'ee then ? " 
 
 " You don't know ? " 
 
 " Aw, I can guess," and because it would be Pascoe's 
 child she was partly reconciled. 
 
 " I fixed it up to-night wi' wi' Denny Manhire." 
 
 Denny Manhire ? A good little workchap. Jenifer 
 might have done worse. No happiness for any maid 
 with come-and-go Pascoe ; and she would have 
 his child. 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat was conscious of confused longing 
 his child 1 She might never look to hold a child
 
 THE HAUNTING 137 
 
 of Gale's against her bosom. They were past that. 
 A good thing, and yet ah, well, there would be this 
 little one, his brother's child. It might be like him . . . 
 
 " You was so taken up with Mr. Corlyon you didn't 
 see us in the garden." 
 
 The wall at the end was low, and Denny not the 
 first of Jenifer's lovers to have vaulted it. But it 
 was to be Denny in the end, well, well ! 
 
 " 'Tis all right then ? " Jenifer would marry, and 
 she would miss her, but because of her love for Mr. 
 Corlyon, her personal happiness not so very fc much. 
 
 Jenifer turned away, drew the clothes|over her, 
 hunched a shoulder. " 'Tedn't all right," she said, 
 with a sort of violence, " but 'tis the best I can do." 
 
 in 
 
 " Let us go out for a bit." 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat's back room was the most comfort- 
 able place Mr. Corlyon knew, and yet . He glanced 
 
 at Jenifer sitting on the other side of the table. 
 It was impossible to talk before her, also . . . well, 
 he could not stand that continual reminder. To see 
 her for [a few minutes, even sit with her through a 
 meal, yes, that was all right. It was afterwards, 
 when she got out her work and sat with it under the 
 shower of lamplight, that in the dark pool of his 
 mind the ooze began to crawl with life. 
 
 It rose to the surface, and he could not help himself, 
 he had to relive the scenes through which he had 
 passed that night. They rose, they detached them- 
 selves, they passed in procession. Vivid against 
 the blackness, sharp, clear ... so much more vivid 
 than when he had been living them. Then he had
 
 138 THE HAUNTING 
 
 been ignorant of what would happen next ; had been 
 living in the moment. He knew, now, what must 
 come. 
 
 He had struggled with himself before he spoke. 
 His boasted self-control, where was it ? He would 
 think of nothing but the game of cards that he was 
 playing, he would forget Jenifer was in the room ! 
 He looked at his hand, but beyond it shone the bright 
 hair. He moved his seat, but could not forget that 
 it was behind his shoulder. The effort to forget 
 only made the memories nore insistent. He was 
 back in the kitchen of the Brown House. His body 
 grew tense, he was struggling with Pascoe, ah, Jenifer's 
 face at the window . . . What had she seen ? To 
 this day he did not know. 
 
 The sound of those slowing, difficult breaths and 
 Jenifer trying to pass, to get to Pascoe. God, if 
 she did not go he would kill her, he could not stand it, 
 no, not a moment longer. His hand twitched . . . 
 a knife on the supper-table . . . 
 
 " One for his nob," Mrs. Liddicoat had said, recalling 
 him to the present. 
 
 Blinking, he came back to the little room, and her 
 kindly presence, to the fingers scoring a point on the 
 cribbage board. 
 
 Thank goodness, Jenifer was to be married as soon 
 as the banns had been called. Meanwhile, how could 
 he sit in the room with her ? " Let us go out for a 
 bit ? " 
 
 If a little surprised, Mrs. Liddicoat was willing oh, 
 more than willing. He was anything but a restless man, 
 yet he might feel he wanted her to himself. She 
 thrilled with the hope of kisses, of more than kisses. 
 
 " We'll go up to Coulter's Folly," he said as they
 
 THE HAUNTING 139 
 
 stepped into the mirk of the street. They would go 
 up the little lane behind the houses, the lane in which 
 Stowe folk had courted before ever the mud cabins 
 of the first comers had changed from clob to country 
 stone. 
 
 The dark figures turned by the garden of the Brown 
 House on Quayside, turned up between the white 
 walls and overtopping shrubs. Very few people were 
 abroad that evening, possibly because a droll-teller 
 had gathered them in Nancarrow's barn. 
 
 " We will go slowly," said he, warm in his coat, " and 
 we will keep in the shadow of the tamarisk. It is 
 lovely to be out here and by ourselves." 
 
 Venturing greatly, she took his arm. He pressed 
 her hand to his side ; then, shifting, put his arm round 
 her shoulders and bent his head. " I want you all 
 to myself," he murmured. 
 
 " You can't want it so much as I." 
 
 She lifted her face in happy, thrilled expectancy. 
 JHis lips closed on hers, on warm strong lips which 
 were yet soft, and into him passed a sense of healing. 
 This love which was about him like an atmosphere 
 was giving him something of which he stood in need. 
 
 She had pushed evil memories, the trouble and 
 sickness of them, out of his mind. Alone with her he 
 was himself again, his old strong self, the self that 
 went about calmly, peacefully. He had been solitary, 
 but happy. Now after a time of discomfort, of ob- 
 session, he was once more happy. And it was in some t 
 deep way due to her. 
 
 They climbed the hill slowly and as they walked 
 he leaned over her, kissing her again and again, 
 kissing her with a passion new to her experience. 
 
 The night was about them and Morwenna's face
 
 140 THE HAUNTING 
 
 was turned to him. She was learning that the night 
 had been made for lovers, that she, even she,|who for 
 ten years had been lonely nay, who all her^life had 
 been lonely, that she loved and was loved. Above in 
 the dark heavens, flowed the silver of the Mi?ky Way, 
 behind them in the little houses was the drama of life. 
 They came to the verge of Coulter's Folly, to the top 
 of the antient earth, and felt that they were alive 
 because they loved. 
 
 Leaning against him in the shadow of the tamarisk 
 she gave herself to his passionate hands. " Say you 
 love me," she whispered.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 LEAVING his papers for the night, Mr. Corlyon went 
 to his armchair. He was cramped by sitting at his 
 desk. He had spent the morning at a sale, the after- 
 noon stooping over deeds, and it was good to lean 
 back, stretch his long legs across the rug. 
 
 His eyes ached. He would take it easy for a little. 
 
 His mind was still running on the deeds. It was 
 a case of property changing hands, property that had 
 an old mortgage on it. For all that the Pendragons 
 were so well known, he would not be content without a 
 release. He must see their agent. Perhaps, to- 
 morrow . . . 
 
 When land changed hands, there was money in the 
 transaction, a bit for everybody concerned ; and, 
 seeing that Pascoe had helped himself to his, Gale's 
 savings . . . 
 
 But Pascoe hadn't. The pigskin bags in the old 
 chest were as fat as ever. He knew although he had 
 not been into the cave since that night. 
 
 Oh, damn he did not want to think of the dark rows, 
 replete, covered with the holland. To act a part you 
 must believe in the actuality of what you were saying 
 and doing. Pascoe was gone to Jamaica, he had laid 
 greedy violent hands on Gale's money and Gale was 
 now a poor man. The chest was empty of everything 
 but flat leathern bags and a piece of holland. As Gale 
 
 141
 
 142 THE HAUNTING 
 
 had no longer any savings there was no need to padlock 
 the iron bands, the low black door. 
 
 But they happened to be fastened very well, let 
 them stay as they were. 
 
 At any rate there was nothing behind that door 
 which interested him sufficiently to take him down the 
 slippery stairs and across the cellar. A few bottles of 
 wine and ah in the corner 
 
 He had forgotten Pascoe's dunnage. He should 
 have carried it through the fogou, buried it ; yes, he 
 should have done it that night. Now it lay behind 
 the forty-gallon cask a ditty-box, clothes. Nonsense, 
 he had the keys in his pocket, and Pascoe was on his 
 way to the West Indies, clothes and all. Only that 
 morning Antiks had asked him if he thought " young 
 Maister's " ship had reached Kingston. 
 
 He had studied the shipping list, told her Pascoe 
 must have arrived, that by now he was probably 
 married. They must not expect letters, not yet awhile. 
 He would be too busy to write. 
 
 He believed it, he was acting up to his belief . . . 
 it was the only safe thing to do. 
 
 ii 
 
 Though his eyes ached they did not close. After 
 his day's work he ought to have been ready for a 
 snooze before he took his supper. Odd that he was 
 not, for he had not been sleeping well. Dreams, 
 broken slumbers, long hours of restlessness ! 
 
 He was, nowadays, too wide awake, too much alive 
 and it was tiring. A good deal could be said in favour 
 of dullness ! A certain comfort in spending your days 
 working, eating, sleeping, in spending them temper-
 
 THE HAUNTING 143 
 
 ately. Temperance in living meant a continual sense 
 of well-being. He had awakened to it of a morning 
 after quiet sleep. He had taken it with him through 
 the full, but not over-full, hours of daylight. It had 
 been with him not only all day but every day. 
 
 He was conscious of an unwelcome change. He, 
 hitherto so quiet and self-contained, had grown eager, 
 excitable. All day long he was doing things, all night 
 he was thinking of more things to do. He seemed to 
 think at a great rate, to be fevered with thought. It 
 was strange and also it was distressing. Only when he 
 was with Morwenna Liddicoat did the peace to which 
 he was accustomed re-enter his soul ; but as he 
 stooped to her doorway, he found that his mind, con- 
 tinually bubbling, grew calm ; and as she talked to 
 him, caressing him with her words, creating an atmo- 
 sphere of passionate affection, the unrest gradually 
 sank. He was like a kettle of boiling water that has 
 been taken off the fire. The fierce tumult slackened, 
 died and he went from her in the old pleasant quietude ; 
 and he took the thought of her with him like a flower, 
 he slept with the scent of, it in his nostrils. Those 
 nights he did not dream. 
 
 " Have you noticed my mole is gone ? " she had 
 asked him, and he remembered that once upon a time 
 she had had a mole, a mole with hairs. He had thought 
 it repulsive. 
 
 " I had forgotten you had one.'* 
 
 " I went to the teller and had it charmed and last 
 week it dropped off." 
 
 She showed him her cheek, smooth, unscarred. 
 
 He thought that if she had had fifty moles, he would 
 hardly have seen them, and that he supposed was 
 love. He had never felt for a woman what he felt
 
 144 THE HAUNTING 
 
 for Morwenna. Always he had had an eye for the 
 pretty maids . . . for their intriguing ankles ! He 
 would have liked to kiss this one, go yet further with 
 that. 
 
 He found that since he had known he loved Mor- 
 wenna, he no longer looked after strangers with desire. 
 
 in 
 
 He felt unusually tired. He had been busy, so 
 busy he had not seen Morwenna for three days. Per- 
 haps it was that. The remedy was simple, he would 
 go over that evening. 
 
 Jenifer was to be married the following week and 
 after that Morwenna would come to him. She, too, 
 had been busy. Apparently when a maid married 
 many things had to be bought and made. Morwenna 
 had not neglected him, but she had been well, just 
 a little too much occupied with her daughter. Thank 
 goodness, Jenifer was going to live at Caer. Five 
 miles away ! She could not be running in every day, 
 taking up her mother's time. He wanted Morwenna 
 to himself. 
 
 The consequence of her being occupied with pre- 
 parations for the wedding meant that he had been 
 left to his own devices ; and he had thrown himself 
 too heavily into his work. He had thought of 
 nothing else. 
 
 Had he not ? 
 
 Well, he had tried to avoid thinking of certain 
 things, and to do so had thrust not merely a finger 
 into other people's concerns. 
 
 He was used up, tired out and yet restless. He had 
 overdone it. Perhaps if he were to take a glass of 
 wine
 
 THE HAUNTING 145 
 
 He glanced at the sideboard, but the broad maho- 
 gany counter ran, smoothly polished, from the sharp 
 edge to the foliated back. He thought it did and yet- 
 Had he, within the last hour or so, fetched wine 
 from the cave, decanted it, left it on the sideboard, 
 left it ... ready ? 
 
 A trick of memory oh, those ghastly tricks ! 
 He had not got up any wine since . . . since . . . 
 damn it all, he had had no wine since he decanted the 
 bottles for Pascoe. There could not be any on the 
 sideboard. Well, then that faint glitter as of glass 
 what was it ? Had Antiks left a tumbler ? 
 
 But he remembered that when he had crossed to his 
 desk early in the afternoon, the slab of polished wood 
 had been bare. Yet, on the sideboard, dim, hardly 
 visible 
 
 He sat up, straining his eyes to see through the blue 
 dusk, through the flicker of the uncertain firelight. 
 A shudder ran down his spine and it became all at 
 once necessary in some vitally important way neces- 
 sary that he should prove himself mistaken. The 
 jutting wings of the sideboard threw an even darkness 
 across the counter and in that gloom was, he felt sure 
 there was nothing. 
 
 A faintly bright outline ? Nonsense ! And yet 
 but he wanted to think it was not there. It could 
 not be. 
 
 He had watched Antiks set his two decanters on the 
 shelf in the china cupboard. Afterwards he had 
 locked the door, taken the key. 
 
 No use denying that he saw a dim shape, a shape 
 reflecting tiny rainbow gleams. A pricking sensation 
 caught his neck, a tingle as of rising hairs. He was 
 not seeing a decanter, but a small cut-glass flagon, 
 K
 
 146 THE HAUNTING 
 
 The flagon had been washed and put away. It was 
 standing on the shelf in the china cupboard. 
 
 He recognized it, admitted to himself the fact, and 
 his heart seemed to turn over, he felt sick. Leaning 
 his head on his hands, he shut his eyes. It was there, 
 the little flagon, actually there. 
 
 For a long time he sat quite still. He was faint 
 and he must wait till he grew better. The shadows 
 thickened. Outside, the lamplighter, trolling an old 
 song, went up the street. He would go up French 
 Street, past the baby-linen shop, he would see 
 
 Ah, if he, Gale, could have seen Morwenna, if he 
 could have laid his head on that kind bosom. She 
 would have cherished him, obliterated this dread. 
 He would have drawn from her the help [he needed at 
 the moment, the strength to face this thing. Ac- 
 knowledging its existence, he must try to understand, 
 so that he could deal with it. 
 
 Getting out of his chair, he walked to the sideboard, 
 stared through the mocking shadows. 
 
 Faint, clear, the red-brown of the mahogany 
 showing through its upper half, the flagon stood up- 
 right on the counter a little flagon of cut glass ! 
 
 The room heaved about him for the flagon was 
 half-full of thick red wine. 
 
 IV 
 
 He had put out a twitching hand, but his fingers 
 had passed through the appearance, had touched the 
 mahogany at the back. Once more he shut his eyes, 
 but this time it was in the hope of destroying an illu- 
 sion. It had been a fancy, had sprung from over- 
 wrought nerves, it was not really a something on his.
 
 THE HAUNTING 147 
 
 sideboard. When he looked again it would have 
 vanished and he would laugh. To have imagined 
 such a thing, he, of all people, he who had kept his 
 mind free of the country beliefs, who was of all Stowe 
 the most sceptical ! 
 
 He opened his eyes and it was still there, a film of 
 glass, of wine. 
 
 A figment ? He swept his hand across the board. 
 If he could he would push the flagon .off, hear it crash 
 on the planching, see it in fragments . . . 
 
 His hand felt cold. It was as if a dank air had been 
 breathed on it but the appearance persisted, the 
 wraith of a little flagon which held a wine-glassful of 
 liquor. It stood on his sideboard, as it had stood in 
 substantial fact the night that Pascoe went. 
 
 It was, of course, an hallucination ; and hallucina- 
 tions were a matter of health. He turned away, made 
 up the fire, lighted the lamp Antiks had placed in 
 readiness on the table, stood for quite five minutes 
 with his back to the sideboard, occupied the five 
 minutes thinking of the deeds, the mortgage on the 
 property 
 
 Turning he saw the sideboard in the full light of 
 the lamp, came to it with a mind refreshed. It would 
 be bare, he knew it would. There was nothing on it, 
 nothing . . . Oh, but, wait a moment ! Not the 
 glitter of cut glass and yet . . . 
 
 White, misty, a mere outline, the frailest of appear- 
 pnces, but he struck the board with his clenched 
 hand but it was there. 
 
 This came of not keeping a tight rein on his fancies. 
 It stood to reason that what he saw so clearly with his
 
 148 THE HAUNTING 
 
 mental vision he might come to think was tangible 
 that is, if he allowed himself to dwell on it. 
 
 Undoubtedly the flagon was an illusion. That he 
 must admit, but what he could not understand was 
 why, if he must have illusions, they should take this 
 form. He had not been thinking of the flagon. 
 Until that night he. had forgotten the part it had 
 played. A sequence of scenes had crossed and 
 recrossed the stage of his mind Pascoe lifting his 
 glass that last time and so on, but no thought of 
 the flagon. Yet the appearance must he would 
 not admit the doubt it must have come from his 
 mind. 
 
 It could not be a thing in itself. 
 
 It had sprung from his mind, could consequently 
 only be seen by him. It was not actually there, an 
 object visible, however dimly, to other people. 
 
 He rested a hand on the mahogany and for a 
 moment his body shook with sharp foreboding . . . 
 visible, that flagon half-full of wine, visible to other 
 people ! Tales of hauntings the white hare that he 
 had maintained was an effect of moonlight, the patter, 
 patter as you came back from the crouched burials 
 at Harlyn, the presence on the stair at Trevone, the 
 H'ant in the Little Wood. People had spoken to him 
 of these, of Susie and Edgar " piskie-led'n' " from 
 Caer to Vorrick, of appearances on the sea-commons, 
 of what danced on the road up at Church Town. 
 They had told and he had listened, but he had been 
 incredulous. He had said : " Till I see [these things 
 for myself I cannot believe in them." 
 
 He had thought people invented the tales. Imagi- 
 nation, twilight, a windy stir, and the white hanging 
 became a ghost !
 
 THE HAUNTING 149 
 
 Now he wondered, did not feel quite so certain. 
 They had said they saw, was he seeing . . . ? 
 
 He sat down on the nearest chair. His glance 
 travelled about the room, came back to the sideboard. 
 How if the appearance should be a wraith, not a fig- 
 ment of his mind, but an. actual, intangible yet visible, 
 wraith ? 
 
 The wraith of a flagon, perhaps of more than a 
 flagon . . . 
 
 He got up and went quickly into the kitchen. 
 
 VI 
 
 The cover-fire stood by the wall. According to 
 domestic usage the master would adjust it over sod and 
 ember the last thing before going to bed. In the 
 morning when it was lifted away, the turf would be 
 still burning. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon, walking quickly through the dark, 
 touched it accidentally, and the piece of cumbrous 
 copper clattered on to the level. Though he had 
 himself in hand the noise so startled him that a hot 
 flush ran over his body. 
 
 He stood stockstill, holding on to himself. It was 
 only the old cover-fire ! 
 
 The kitchen, facing west, was lighter than the par- 
 lour had been. The red of sunset glittered on the 
 panes, filled the room with a warm glow. Mr. Corlyon 
 looked about, looked searchingly, looked with an 
 unacknowledged suspicion. He told himself that he 
 must look in every corner. He would rather not have 
 scanned certain parts, but he forced himself to be 
 thorough. 
 
 The table by the outer wall was laid for supper, the
 
 150 THE HAUNTING 
 
 settle stood to the left of the hearth. On the red 
 cushion of the settle no. For a moment he had 
 fancied . . . 
 
 VII 
 
 As soon as he had eaten his supper, he would walk 
 up to the baby-linen shop. He would like to go in, 
 stay. Morwenna was a sure refuge ; her sanity put 
 ridiculous ideas to flight. 
 
 A chair was drawn to the table, but he did not take 
 it. He could not sit where he had sat that night. He 
 could not sit opposite to not opposite to Pascoe ! 
 But what nonsense . . . 
 
 It was not that Pascoe would be opposite, but that 
 behind would be the settle. Rubbish, it was not the 
 settle ! He could not sit with his back to a hot fire. 
 He had never been able to, and besides the master's 
 place was at the end of the table. Yes, but not the 
 window end. If he sat there he would know a white 
 face was looking in ... ah, but he could pull down 
 the blind. 
 
 What had come to him ? The settle, the face at 
 the window ! He was " bevvering." It was because 
 of the appearance in the parlour. That little flagon, 
 it had been a shock to his nerves ; but he would pull 
 himself together. He must, or there was no knowing . . . 
 
 He would have supper not that he was hungry. 
 After such an experience how could he be ? And the 
 meat was tough. He must speak to Antiks about it, 
 tell her to hang it longer, she always thought it should 
 be eaten as soon as it was killed. Pah ! he did not 
 want to eat, but he must or it would look strange. He 
 must be careful not to do anything that would arouse 
 suspicion.
 
 THE HAUNTING 151 
 
 Tough meat and absolutely no appetite it was 
 like eating sawdust, but he must get it down. 
 
 He leaned his head on his hands, disordered, 
 uneasy . . . 
 
 What had happened to him ? He had killed Pascoe 
 because such a man was better out of the world than 
 in, because he, Gale Corlyon> had felt that he must. 
 It had been he or Pascoe, and he had won. That was 
 all there was to it, and Pascoe's burial in the fogou 
 should have ended the matter. 
 
 It had ended it, but he was out of sorts and, as a 
 consequence, his imagination had run away with 
 him. Only natural that it should. 
 
 That cut-glass flagon he knew it was safe in the 
 china cupboard, but he would make sure of it. He 
 unlocked the door, and, of course there it was ! 
 It stood in its immemorial place beside the decanters, 
 a little deeply-cut vessel of old glass. That on the 
 sideboard had been an illusion. He put his hand on 
 the flagon. Good to feel the sharp edges, the weight 
 of it ! 
 
 He must try and forget that other. He would stroll 
 up the road, go at once ; and he would not so much as 
 glance into the parlour as he passed. When he came 
 back perhaps. He took up his hat, set it on with a 
 defiant cock. When he came back he would be a 
 different man. 
 
 VIII 
 
 " Where is Jenifer ? " 
 
 " She's out with her chap and we've got the place 
 to ourselves." Very soon Jenifer would be gone and 
 Morwenna would have him altogether, but even this
 
 152 THE HAUNTING 
 
 was better than nothing. She smiled on her surround- 
 ings the small cosy room with the horsehair sofa 
 against the wall, the bright new-fangled grate, 
 the closed doors that led into shop and linhay. The 
 room was theirs, walls that had been set about the 
 bits of furniture to shut him and her off from the 
 rest of the world. 
 
 " That is good." He went to the sofa, sat down, 
 called her to him. " Come over here." 
 
 She had been glad to see him. She had felt she 
 could not be more glad, but at his deepened voice, 
 at the look in his eyes, her heart swelled. She walked 
 across the intervening space as if drawn by irresistible 
 force. Yet she felt shy, felt she must speak of some 
 trivial matter, must take refuge in that way from her 
 too great happiness. 
 
 " My dear life, you'm looking like anybody be- 
 witched. Have you had a bothering day ? " 
 
 He pulled her down beside him. " Nevr mind 
 about that." He must be careful what he said, yes, 
 even to her. 
 
 It would not be difficult, for he was always careful 
 . . . yet for once in his self-contained life he would 
 have been glad to talk. 
 
 " Not unless it comfort you," she said, making, 
 as usual, no claim. 
 
 It would have comforted him. Another mind to 
 have shared with his this bewildering knowledge, 
 would have lightened the burthen . . . but he dare 
 not trust her. 
 
 " Words don't help." He did not mind her knowing 
 that he was troubled. 
 
 " They don't," but loving did, the outward signs 
 of it.
 
 THE HAUNTING 153 
 
 Close to him, leaning against his broad chest, she 
 looked up. His eyes were not as dark as they belonged 
 to be, as they were when he was thinking of her ; 
 and the arm about her, though it lay warmly in 
 place, was not drawn tight. " I've often thought," 
 she murmured, " when I been sitting facing you, 
 playing cribbage " 
 
 His mind came back from its secret places, came 
 back to her. " Well ? " 
 
 " I've thought I should like " 
 
 " What did you think all that time ago ? " He 
 was smiling down at her, glad to forget his worries, 
 inclined to tease. 
 
 But she was serious. " That I should like to put 
 my arms round your neck and kiss you I ought 
 to been ashamed of myself ! " 
 
 His smile deepened. " You would not have had 
 to wait long if I had known," and he bent his head. 
 
 " No," she said, evading him, " 'tisn't that. I 
 want to kiss your face by myself, to kiss it, all of it, 
 and you do nothing." 
 
 He laughed at that, laughed in an amused content. 
 Leaning back, his head on the rolled end of the sofa, 
 he let her have her way. Morwenna was still perfectly 
 serious. She had often thought how wonderful it 
 would be to touch that clear pale skin, and now she 
 might, he had given her leave. Almost reverently 
 she kissed his temples where the crisp hair was 
 receding, kissed his smooth cheeks, his soft eyelids. 
 She crooned over him as she kissed, murmuring of 
 the long hard chin, the hidden eyes. " And I do like 
 it that your moustache is so crisp and stiff. If it 
 were let to grow curly, 'twould be curly as a sheep's 
 back."
 
 154 THE HAUNTING 
 
 For years she had looked at this dear face from 
 what had seemed an insuperable distance. "I'm 
 like the nigger," she said. " When he was asked what 
 the world stood on, he say ' Ah, it stand on a tortoise ; 
 and de tortoise stand on a emmet ; and de emmet 
 on a rock ; and and oh, it be rock all de way down.' 
 I'm loving you all de way down." She had kissed 
 his dear face from brow to chin. Now she looked 
 at his lips. She longed to press them, but she did 
 not dare. She knew, too, that he was waiting for 
 that last deep caress. The stir in her blood told her 
 that he was, but no, she could not. 
 
 " I don't know what makes you care for me." 
 She would have to pay for her boldness. How could 
 she have offered to kiss him ? She had done it because, 
 poor chap, he looked so whisht ; but she had not 
 meant to to make him feel like that. 
 
 She felt ashamed of herself, would have liked to 
 get up and run away and hide. 
 
 " I don't know either." His eyes were open, they 
 had the dark and shining look that\ made her heart 
 behave so oddly. " Kiss me ! " 
 
 She could not run away, she could not even refuse, 
 she did not want to. Her blood, moving hotly, 
 brought her lips to his. 
 
 " You look handsomer to-night than I've seen you," 
 he murmured. " Women always look handsomer 
 when I am loving them." 
 
 IX 
 
 Not till Mr. Corlyon was locking the door of the 
 Brown House did he remember the apparition. 
 The air of the passage seemed to him, after the
 
 THE HAUNTING 155 
 
 warmth of Morwenna's kitchen, after the freshness 
 of the sea-breeze, clammy, stagnant. Before him, 
 within the house, lay the dark, and the dark was 
 peopled. 
 
 He thought of Morwenna. If only he could have 
 brought her back with him. She would have come. 
 She would have done anything he asked of her. 
 She was he held his head higher she was his woman. 
 Absolutely, in every fibre of her, his. 
 
 Her presence in the house would, like a destroying 
 flame, have crumbled his vision into the grey nothing 
 of ashes. Her movements would have blown them 
 away. He saw her suddenly as a plump broom. 
 Saw her busy in the old rooms, busy creating the 
 clouds of dust which, with housewifely women, were 
 the precursors of a new order. Walking along the 
 passage, he smiled at the thought. He smiled until 
 he saw a line of light under the parlour door. 
 
 He must have left the lamp burning. 
 
 He could not let it burn itself out. Yet he did 
 not want to go into that room. 
 
 He pulled himself together put a hand to the 
 door-knob. He would turn the lamp out without 
 looking at the sideboard. 
 
 But once in the room, in spite of himself, his glance 
 strayed to it. He had to look. 
 
 His heart sank away ; the sensation of nausea 
 rose in his throat . . . 
 
 The little flagon was there.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MR. CORLYON woke with a start. Though it was 
 still dark, movements on Quayside told him day had 
 begun. 
 
 His experiences of the previous night had made 
 him anxious with regard to Antiks. He must be 
 down before she came ; and he woke to a fear lest 
 he had overslept. The noises that he heard were 
 they outside the house, or in ? Antiks had a key 
 to the back door . . . 
 
 She could let herself in ; and, once in, she would 
 go round the house, drawing back curtains, opening 
 windows. Suppose that, on going into the parlour, 
 she had caught sight of the flagon ? 
 
 The sweat broke out on his body, and jumping up, 
 he ran down the stairs. 
 
 Thank heaven ... he drew a long breath . . . 
 thank heaven, he had been mistaken. Antiks was 
 not yet come. In the cold dark house, so like a large 
 grave, was no sound, not so much as the chirp of a 
 cricket. 
 
 Was the flagon still a faint film of glass and wine 
 standing on the sideboard ? He went into the parlour, 
 into a blackness so intense that you fell over familiar 
 pieces of furniture. He barked his shins on the wood- 
 basket, cursed, but went on to the window. Drawing 
 back the dark rep curtains, he looked over the wire 
 
 156
 
 THE HAUNTING 157 
 
 blind and down the length of the garden. Lights 
 on the Lowestoft boats, a rattle of anchor chains, 
 trawlers going out. 
 
 The out-of-doors was busy with its own affairs ; 
 it was in no way concerned with him. 
 
 The window faced east, and the sky was lightening 
 over Brown Willhay and Rowtor, the parlour was 
 no longer a mere pocket of darkness. Mr. Corlyon, 
 turning his back on the tide, waited till the black 
 shapes of the furniture had drawn themselves clear 
 of the night, till he could distinguish the stretch of 
 polished wood that lay between the carven wings 
 of the sideboard. 
 
 His heart leapt with relief and joy. The sideboard 
 was bare, was most beautifully bare. Its smooth 
 surface stretched uninterruptedly from front to back, 
 from side to side. With a step grown young, he crossed 
 the room, scrutinized the wooden slab, shut his eyes 
 to look again looked at the same admirable smooth- 
 ness of mahogany. 
 
 He had left the flagon there overnight, and during 
 the dark hours it had vanished. People said '' Gone 
 for good " it was the fitting phrase! The flagon 
 had been a figment of his imagination, due to weariness 
 and overstrain. He must be more careful ; must 
 diet himself, take it easy. After all, he was getting 
 on. 
 
 Ah, but if the apparition were to return ? He must 
 bear in mind that it might. It would, of course, be 
 something only he could see, still . . . 
 
 He stood, staring at the sideboard, cogitating. 
 He stood there till he knew how he would contrive 
 that the flagon should not appear,
 
 158 THE HAUNTING 
 
 ii 
 
 When Antiks came, she found Mr. Corlyon dressed 
 and busy. " Whatever be 'ee doin', draggin' all 
 that cloam out o' cupboard, Maister ? " 
 
 " I " he must give her an explanation that would 
 be convincing " I want the place nice. Mrs. Liddi- 
 coat say 'tis looking bare." 
 
 Antiks' morning mood darkened. If Mrs. Liddicoat 
 was to have a voice in household matters her time 
 to shift must be come . . . and .she did not want to 
 go. " Where be goin' put they putchers to ? " 
 " On the sideboard." 
 
 " Leave'n stay, and I'll wash'n a bit for yer." 
 He glanced at the selection he had made. No 
 denying that the jugs and dishes were dusty. Stored 
 away since the death of his stepmother, they were 
 likely to be. All the same, it annoyed him that he 
 must wait ; that he could not carry them into the 
 parlour, set them in place, do it that very moment. 
 Stowe believed him to be easy tempered, a man 
 who heard a story through without growing impatient, 
 who was willing to -sit, smoking, listening; who, 
 when he had heard all, gave good common-sense 
 advice. No one had ever seen him ruffled. 
 
 He choked back the irritation that was rising 
 from that new overstrung self of his. 
 
 " They'm lookin' rather mucky," Antiks said. 
 He had taken them from the wall cupboard, stacked 
 them on the table among the supper dishes, till, 
 as she expressed it, "kitchen was dancing like Launces- 
 ton jail." " My dear life, Maister, do 'ee go in an' 
 set down, or you'll be hollerin' ' Marblcw ' for break- 
 fast and I'll have nothing ready."
 
 THE HAUNTING 159 
 
 " All right." He walked away. He would turn 
 his attention to something else. Ah, yes, that mort- 
 gage ! It was for the benefit of the younger children 
 of each fresh generation of Pendragons. A clever 
 family, clever, that is, in a certain way. Once they 
 got their claws on to a bit of land, they knew how to 
 keep it. Generation after generation, unbegotten, 
 
 even unimagined, yet with a claim . . . 
 
 ******* 
 
 What a time Antiks was, washing "they putchers." 
 He had thought of her as quick, but she was no 
 
 quicker than others. 
 
 * # * * * * * 
 
 He must make his client insist on having a release 
 from the mortgage. These people, they trusted the 
 Pendragons, yet it was only last year that Mr. Llyr 
 Pendragon had refused to grant any more building 
 leases on the score that he preferred green fields to 
 houses. Stowe could not expand while the Pendragons 
 owned it. He was in favour of State ownership 
 Norway had it, why not his country ? 
 
 Was Antiks never coming with that china ? Ah 
 at last. 
 
 She had pushed open the door with her foot, 
 because she was carrying a tray. Now he could set 
 to work. 
 
 But on the tray was only his breakfast ! 
 
 He went to the table, sat down. 
 
 " 'Aven't ate more'n a sparrow since Maister 
 Pascoe went," said Antiks. 
 
 " Never mind me, go on with your work." 
 
 Although so keenly impatient, he must eat. 
 Already the fact that he had not much appetite 
 had caught Antiks' attention. He wished people
 
 160 THE HAUNTING 
 
 were not so noticing, but he must remember that 
 they were. He must remember, in particular, that 
 Antiks was. 
 
 What was the matter with him ? Why had he 
 no appetite ? Thick slices of fried hog's pudding ! 
 It should have been delicious, yet it had no flavour. 
 Was it true, as she said, that he had eaten no more 
 than a sparrow of late ? That h had had no appetite 
 since Pascoe . . . 
 
 It had, of course, been a shock to discover that 
 Pascoe was dishonest, a callous brute ; to find 
 yourself regarded as a money-bag squeeze, and a 
 bit of gold falls out ! It was more than a shock, 
 it was shattering. Something in him seemed to 
 have given way, and that something had been 
 like the iron that held together the staves of a 
 barrel. 
 
 " All the king's horses and all the king's men 
 Couldn't put Humpty-Dumpty together again." 
 
 not even Morwenna would be able to mend what 
 Pascoe had |broken. She soothed and rested her 
 lover, but the band the iron band was lost. 
 
 When Antiks came in with the big tray, he was 
 walking up and down the room, working off his 
 impatience. 
 
 " 'Twill make a lot of dustin' for I," she said, 
 planting it on the table. 
 
 " I'll see to that." 
 
 " You'll dust they putchers ? " She laughed at 
 him. " I should like to see yer doin' of it ! Never 
 dusted nought in your born days, and I'm sure you- 
 bain't goin' do it whiles I'm doin' for 'ee. No," she 
 took a cloth from the sideboard drawer, " an' you
 
 THE HAUNTING 161 
 
 bain't goin' put'n on the bare boards, Maister, or 
 they'll scratch'n." 
 
 He stood back, let her have her way. " At any 
 rate, I'll set them out." 
 
 With Antiks watching, he chose a grey beer- jug, 
 stood it on the spot which had yielded that rainbow 
 gleam a few hours earlier. By it he placed some 
 pewter, a square bottle of hollands, some old lustre 
 ware. It stood to reason that when a space was 
 filled by one object, it could not be taken possession 
 of by another. He looked at the beer- jug, at the 
 raised figures of drinking riotous folk on its sides. 
 A fine old crock, and solid. The diaphanous film 
 which had "occupied that spot would never worry 
 him again. 
 
 " Now that be looking 'ansome," Antiks said, 
 and for all her sweetness she was a little envious. 
 So he was after Mrs. Liddicoat, was he ? Well, she 
 did not blame the man. With young Maister gone 
 not to return, he must find it dull here in the evenings, 
 and she herself could not expect er more than 
 she got. As men went, Maister had treated her pretty 
 well, better than some. A pity that she liked him. 
 Jimmy Old wanted her, but she could not take so 
 much as a kiss from him without thinking on Maister. 
 At her age, too, and with all she knew ! "Be you 
 goin' in the town, Maister ? I 'aven't streaked the 
 room out to-day 
 
 " Never mind the room." 
 
 " Mucky ole place 'tis." 
 
 ' You can clean it to-morrow." 
 
 He must know whether the illusion would return. 
 He did not see how it could, but he must make sure. 
 He would give it a day, and during that day neither
 
 162 THE HAUNTING 
 
 business nor Antiks should drag him out of the parlour. 
 
 " I have work to do here," and he seated himself 
 at the high desk. 
 
 " Well," she said, only anxious to please, "it 
 don't matter, for I've the bread to bake, and it 'aven't 
 plummed yet. 
 
 To Mr. Corlyon the day dragged by on leaden feet. 
 Antiks brought in the mid-day meal, brought wood 
 and peat. " When the wind come in at kitchen winder 
 fire never go well," she said. " But what I've made'll 
 last 'ee till the beginning of the week. ' 
 
 " Have you finished then ? " 
 
 " I'm off now." 
 
 As the door closed behind her, he gave up pretence 
 of work. The relief of being alone in the house ! 
 He made up the fire, and sinking into the deep chair 
 by the hearth, closed his eyes. It was yet early in 
 the afternoon, but he had a feeling of release from 
 strain. He might relax tired limbs, a tired brain. 
 
 When he opened his eyes, it was to find he had 
 slept a couple of hours. The day was darkening, 
 the peat was low in the fire-basket. Half asleep, he 
 had a little feeling of expectation. There was some- 
 thing, he could not quite remember what, something 
 for which he must be on the look-out. He sat up, 
 remembering fully. He looked across the shadows 
 at the dark bulk of the sideboard. A satisfactory 
 array of delft and lustre-ware ! That had been a 
 fine idea of his. 
 
 In the half-light it was difficult to distinguish china 
 from pewter. 
 
 Not difficult at all to see a faint clear glitter 
 to distinguish a shape, half filled with wine.
 
 THE HAUNTING 163 
 
 in 
 
 During the three days Pascoe had been at home, 
 Mr. Corlyon had lived with an intensity hitherto 
 unknown to him. His thoughts had been so ardent 
 they had been almost alive. Almost ? Could a 
 man's thoughts take shape, come alive ? A thought 
 was expressed in action, but the thoughts themselves, 
 the vehement, vigorous thoughts ? Were they 
 nothing ? The idea that they might not be was new 
 to him. Was it possible that, during those hours 
 in which he had been learning what manner of man 
 lay under the veneer of Pascoe's sailor heartiness, 
 that his mind had given off films of thought ? Feeling 
 so strongly, had he been able to endow his emotions, 
 his thoughts, with substance ? A substance that was 
 exceedingly tenuous, but visible ? Had thought a 
 delicate material body, so fine it seemed intangible ? 
 Good heavens, if one's thoughts should have a 
 separate existence, should be mental children ! If 
 once generated, they lived on by themselves ! 
 
 Or without granting that a thought had substance, 
 might it not be a sort of force ? Flung violently 
 into the surrounding air, it might remain there, 
 vividly impressed on yes, but on what ? Not on 
 the air, for that was continually being blown about. 
 On space, perhaps, the space in which is air, light, 
 heat. In one way it was like the darkness, for when 
 the night fell, the beer-jug and other objects on the 
 sideboard could not be seen. The thought -film 
 if that it was of the little flagon also tended to 
 obliterate them. 
 
 The idea that emotions, thoughts, might have a 
 life of their own was a matter of the sharpest interest.
 
 164 THE HAUNTING 
 
 It might be a fact. Yes, but even if it were it did not 
 prove that the appearance on his sideboard was a 
 force, or had substance. Though the appearance 
 might be a wraith, it was, he thought, more likely 
 due to some disorder of the mind. 
 
 An illusion could be ignored. Existing in your 
 mind, it was as exclusively yours as an opinion. 
 
 But a wraith, or a thought that had impressed 
 itself visibly and immovably on space ? That 
 it might reveal the secrets of a man's life. 
 
 IV 
 
 Mr. Corlyon passed the night in his big chair. He 
 would find out how long the little flagon transparent 
 as rain stood dominantly among the other objects 
 on the sideboard. It came with the decline of daylight, 
 so much he had established. When did it go ? 
 
 He sat by the fire, nodding off at intervals, and 
 waking in fear. His first glance was for the sideboard, 
 for the iridescent gleam. As the night deepened, 
 it seemed to him that the array of china was hardly 
 solid, that the little flagon was the one outstanding 
 object on a vaguely plenished surface. 
 
 If he had not known, he might have mistaken 
 the figment for the real. 
 
 He sat up in the chair, opened the Vestiges of 
 Creation. He would lose himself in these surmises. 
 A strange mind, that of the writer. He had not feared 
 to question, to hold the old beliefs up to the light. 
 Mr. Corlyon had found the book profoundly inter- 
 esting ; ah, but that was before . . . 
 
 The apparition could not be in any way connected 
 with Pascoe ?
 
 THE HAUNTING 165 
 
 Pascoe was dead. 
 
 When a man lay under Gudda Hill, with a thousand 
 tons of rock between him and the sunshine, he had 
 done with life. Ah, and you had done with it when 
 you died in your bed. Dust you were. The dust 
 eddying in the unswept street was the dust of dead 
 men. Millions had been born, and had died. They were 
 gone, they were scattered, a bit here, a bit there 
 dust. The spirit of life animating that dust had been 
 spilt by the breaking apart of the vessel. If men 
 had been ghosts clad with flesh, if when the flesh 
 fell away the ghosts had been left the earth would 
 have been filled with them, a host past numbering. 
 
 You might as well believe that after death a woman 
 would meet her untimely fruit. He smiled to himself. 
 The thing was absurd, farcical. 
 
 Pascoe dead was Pascoe destroyed. 
 
 Yet he, Mr. Corlyon, must grant that thought 
 could print itself on space. The flagon had been 
 born, if not of the events of that night, at least of the 
 mind which had brought those events to pass. It 
 was an emanation from his mind. 
 
 Or or Pascoe's. 
 
 If thoughts and emotions had a separate existence, 
 they might persist after their originator were under 
 sod. Pascoe's feelings when he realized that his 
 brother had poisoned him, his anger, his will to 
 repay might have persisted as an emanation. The 
 air grows foul with the breath of drunken men, 
 remains foul after the men have passed. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon was seeing Pascoe's fury and longing 
 for revenge, as things with which he might have to 
 reckon. 
 
 Between the rep curtains, the tide of returning
 
 166 THE HAUNTING 
 
 day was slipping, wave upon pale wave, into the 
 room. As the light grew, he perceived that the 
 flagon became less distinct. He watched, anxious 
 to make sure. Yes, it was fading. He could hardly 
 see it mistiness, nothing . . . 
 
 His night's vigil had taught him that the wraith 
 came with the night, and with the night it went.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 " SEEMS strange," Antiks said, " you stickin' indoors 
 so. Don't give me a chance to-streak the room out. 
 A mucky ole place 'tes, too. The floor has tracks 
 all over." 
 
 " I am going out now." His business called for 
 attention, and it was humiliating to be kept in the 
 house by a ghostly flagon. It looked as if he were 
 afraid of the thing he ! The truth was haunts, 
 bogies, apparitions, they affected him no more than 
 pieces of furniture. If they were there, well, they 
 were. What did they matter ? Ah, but they did. 
 Tf seen by other people, they might affect a man's 
 future. Though he were in the right, a haunt might 
 make it appear as if he had committed a crime. 
 An innocent man might be found guilty 1 
 
 Mr. Corlyon saw that he must be cautious, take 
 care no one but himself knew of the flagon. He 
 wished that he felt certain it would not return till 
 night, not until after Antiks had gone home to her 
 children. Some days now since he had decided to 
 stay indoors in order to learn when the flagon appeared, 
 and how long it remained. He wanted to convince 
 himself that it was only visible during the night ; 
 and he was nearly certain, but not quite ... no ... 
 
 He must go out. He must chance the reappearance 
 of that iridescent gleam among the cloam on the 
 
 167
 
 168 THE HAUNTING 
 
 sideboard. After all, Antiks had her work ; she would 
 not be on the lookout for flagons that had been put 
 away in the china cupboard. What a person expected 
 to see they very often saw. That, now he came to 
 think of it, might be the reason he saw the flagon ! 
 No, no, the thing was real. He saw it, saw it more 
 plainly than he saw the grey beer-jug. It was actually 
 there, a squat square-sided glass vessel at least, 
 it was there during the night. 
 
 He went over to the Estate Office. The agent had 
 seen Mr. Pendragon about the mortgage and the 
 release had been made out, but it was evident they 
 considered Mr. Corlyon was making an unnecessary 
 fuss. He was a flint on the smooth county road, an 
 awkwardness. His brain so shrewd a brain was at 
 the service of the workers, was for ever scheming for 
 them. Llyr Pendragon, when he heard the auction- 
 eer's name always growled and sometimes his growl 
 grew thunderous, but he could do nothing ; and 
 Corlyon went on with his work, snipping at this bit 
 of power, that so-called right. 
 
 He was for Stowe. He thought a man should own 
 his house ; or, if not, that the community should. 
 Taking the grudged release he smiled at the agent. 
 Once more he had got the better of the incubus. As 
 he walked out of the office, however, he forgot the 
 burning question of the land and its ownership. His 
 thoughts had fled down the street. Antiks was 
 cleaning the parlour ! How, if while she were dusting, 
 the flagon should have become visible ? Nonsense ! 
 He must not let fear run away with common sense. 
 
 He turned into the Farmer's Arms. Mrs. Maddicott 
 had asked him to find her a profitable investment 
 for some money she had saved ; and the Dick Jackas
 
 THE HAUNTING 169 
 
 would borrow 'it to build a house. They were hard- 
 working people and would pay well for the accommo- 
 dation. 
 
 She wanted to speak to him about something else. 
 Rebecca French, " who they call the witch, was 
 trying to buy her cottage and landlord were askin' 
 too much for't. Would Mr. Corlyon speak for her ? 
 Her rent bein' only a shilling a week, landlord didn' 
 belong to ask so much. 'Twas fulish of'n, seein' she 
 could witch'n if she like." 
 
 Mr. Corlyon found himself declaring that he was too 
 busy to attend to the matter. He caught the look 
 of surprise on Mrs. Maddicott's face. He, who had 
 always been willing to forward anybody's wishes 
 what had come to him ? Pulling himself up, he 
 temporized. He had had a cold and that had made 
 him extra busy, but, of course, anything he could do ; 
 she knew he was only too glad to be of use. Who was 
 the landlord ? Biddick ? He would be sure to run 
 across him market-day, would make a point of it. 
 And now Mrs. Maddicott must excuse him ; oh yes, 
 more business. 
 
 He swung rapidly along the street. Before him, 
 halfway down the slope, lay the baby-linen shop. 
 He would get a glimpse of its keeper, and a mere 
 glimpse was better than nothing. The dear, warm 
 woman, she was like a fire oh the hearth. A man 
 could hold his hands to it, sit by it, grow warm all 
 through. 
 
 With Pascoe gone, his was a lonely sort of existence. 
 There was nothing now to which he could look forward, 
 not even an occasional letter. All Stowe was his 
 friend, but that meant he had no intimates. A cold 
 life and, lately, a troubled one. But when Morwenna
 
 170 THE HAUNTING 
 
 came to him he would have the best of company. 
 With her on the other side of the table he would be 
 able to forget that thin glitter of glass on the sideboard 
 and if he did not think of it, perhaps, it would 
 not be there. Was that too much to hope for ? 
 
 He strode on, paused. The shutters of the baby- 
 linen shop were up, the door was fastened. Mr. 
 Corlyon felt as if he had been cut by a friend I Where 
 could Morwenna be ? When he wanted her, she had 
 no right to be out. 
 
 Perhaps she had gone to ask her sister over for their 
 wedding. She might have told him she was going. 
 Not long now before she would be at the Brown House, 
 and then, every minute of the day, he would know 
 where she was and what she was doing. 
 
 He went on towards the harbour, but the blankness 
 of the shop face had depressed him. His mind re- 
 turned to its problems, slipped past them to the' fear 
 lest Antiks . . . Letting himself into the house, he 
 trod quietly along the passage, appeared at the parlour 
 door. 
 
 Antiks was at the sideboard. 
 
 In blind confused anger, a flurry of fear, he stepped 
 up to her. What had happened, what had she seen, 
 what did she think ? " Antiks ! " 
 
 She turned, her face pale. " O, my lor', Maister ! " 
 
 " What are you doing ? " As he spoke, he saw that 
 she was frightened of him, was frightened because he 
 had taken her by surprise. The flagon was there, he 
 could see it, the faintest possible glitter ; but he did 
 not think it was visible to her. Not yet . . . 
 
 Why, then, was she frightened ? His glance passed 
 her, rested on the bottle of hollands. 
 
 " Spirits ? " he said.
 
 THE HAUNTING 171 
 
 " I felt all fainty and queer-like." 
 
 " You were all right when I went out. What is 
 the matter ? " What had occurred to upset her ? 
 If one queer thing happened, another might. 
 
 " Dunno, I'm sure." She came a step nearer. 
 After all he did not belong to be terrible vexed. She 
 had not taken much. " See 'ow goosey-flesh my arms 
 be ! " She held a plump dimpled arm for his inspec- 
 tion with a smile which would grow or die according 
 to his mood. 
 
 It died, for his face was without kindness, his eyes 
 coldly brilliant, his lips thin and set. " If you take 
 to spirits, my maid, you'll go all to pieces. Let me 
 catch you at it again and out you go, neck and crop." 
 
 He went to his desk. Above it, on the wall, hung 
 a calender, big black letters on a white ground. As 
 he put back the lid, his glance rose to it. Good hea- 
 vens, it was Jenifer's wedding-day. That, of course, 
 was why the shop shutters had been up. To think 
 he should have forgotten ! 
 
 n 
 
 Antiks went back to the kitchen. "A month ago 
 Maister would have kissed the arm and forgiven her ; 
 but that Mrs. Liddicoat had him now, and he was sour 
 as a whiggin. 
 
 " Some people had the luck and others the childern. 
 Do her justice though, Mrs. Liddicoat wadn' like some, 
 she didn' go scandlin', nor she didn' throw it up to 
 people what they done. After all why should she ? 
 Had had one man and now wanted another. She'd 
 got'n, too. Not that Antiks put confidence in men. 
 She had had experience.
 
 172 THE HAUNTING 
 
 " If a woman was good enough for one thing, she was 
 good enough for another. So far as that went though, 
 she, Antiks, didn' want to be married. The same man 
 all the time ? She liked a change, she did. Well, 
 mostly, but the Maister . . . 
 
 "Nobody like 'n in Stowe. Lovely built man, great 
 square shoulders and slantin' body and long legs ! 
 'Twas hard luck as he'd gone after Mrs. Liddicoat who 
 was so thick as she was long, and old ; and who'd 
 turn her, Antiks, to doors. A really covechous woman, 
 the more she got, the more she want." 
 
 Antiks began to prepare the dinner. "Maister had 
 been stiff as an old tree to her, but give'n good bellyful 
 and praps he'd bend a bit." 
 
 in 
 
 Mr. Corlyon sat before his desk with a yellowish 
 parchment open on the thin green leather. He was 
 not reading the deed, had forgotten that it lay there. 
 His mind was entirely occupied with the little flagon. 
 
 To begin with, it had only appeared during the hours 
 of darkness. Now, though the noon light was resting 
 on the tangle of grey roofs, if stood plain to see. The 
 bottle of hollands, the cloam and pewter, showed dim 
 beside its brightness of polished glass. So shadowy 
 were they that Mr. Corlyon wondered how Antiks 
 could have managed to help herself. He was sure it 
 would have been impossible for him to have distin- 
 guished between shadow and substance. 
 
 The haunt, or whatever it was, was growing from 
 day to day more noticeable. As yet Antiks had not 
 perceived it she would not have helped herself to 
 the spirits if she had ! His lips twitched at the idea
 
 THE HAUNTING 173 
 
 of Antiks helping herself from that vague bottle if 
 she had known that a ghostly flagon was touching her 
 hand. Helped herself ? She would have screamed 
 and run away and talked how she would have talked ! 
 No, she had not seen it yet, but she would. And 
 Morwenna 
 
 Well, and if they did, what matter ? The house 
 would get a reputation, would be looked on as haunted; 
 but the haunt was a very mild one. It told nothing, 
 showed nothing ; and what more natural than that a 
 decanter of wine should stand on a man's sideboard ? 
 
 It was an odd thing that the haunt should be con- 
 fined to the little flagon. 
 
 If it were. 
 
 He had been conscious, during the last few days, of 
 a dim sensation, a it was rather more than a suspi- 
 cion. Of an evening when he went for supper into 
 the warm half-lit kitchen, he experienced a certain 
 discomfort, a discomfort for which he could not ac- 
 count. He wanted to believe it due to his leaving one 
 room for another. But that pricking and tingling 
 of the skin across his shoulders ! He could not put it 
 down, altogether, to his having walked from one room 
 into another. Always, as he crossed the threshold of 
 the kitchen, a shudder ran down his spine. Why ? 
 He was beginning to find it required an effort for him 
 to go at night into that room. He had to take himself 
 to task before he could induce himself to leave the 
 parlour. Yet it was the parlour that had developed 
 a haunt, not the kitchen. 
 
 He told himself that he was puzzled. Why should 
 the kitchen make him feel queer ? It was in that room 
 Pascoe had died, but in so old a house, there must be 
 hardly a room which had not witnessed death. Cer-
 
 174 THE HAUNTING 
 
 tainly there had been one difference between Pascoe's 
 death and that of the others. Pascoe had been killed 
 and he had known it. At the time, Gale had been 
 glad that he should know. What would be the use of 
 killing if the killed lay down in an eternal ignorance ? 
 Pascoe had died beaten at his own game and aware of 
 it. Baffled, furious, his last breath would be a longing 
 for vengeance, the vengeance that was for ever out of 
 his reach. Was it possible that when life drained out 
 of his body, that longing, set free, had become a 
 something in itself ? 
 
 Whatever the reason, Mr. Corlyon must admit that 
 the atmosphere of the kitchen was no longer friendly. 
 Instinctively he seated himself back to the wall, ate 
 hurriedly yet watchfully, felt relieved when, supper 
 finished, he could return to the parlour. He had be- 
 gun to expect to go back in thought to imagine he 
 
 could see 
 
 ******* 
 
 No good came of trying to put off an evil moment. 
 He must go into the kitchen and eat as usual or An- 
 tiks would notice, would talk. The deed crackled as 
 folding it he pushed it indifferently under the row of 
 pigeon-holes. He found that he was growing impa- 
 tient of other people's business. It was impossible 
 to keep his thoughts on their concerns long enough to 
 do any satisfactory work. Nor did he feel the old 
 keen interest, the sense of power. Mrs. Maddicott's 
 savings, the Dick Jackas' mortgage, Rebecca French's 
 cottage trivial. What did these things matter to 
 him ? His mind was occupied with his own affairs. 
 
 If he could only decide which of the explanations 
 that had occurred to him was correct. Was the little 
 flagon that haunted his sideboard an illusion which
 
 THE HAUNTING 175 
 
 troubled him because he was out of health ? Or was 
 it real, a thought -form sprung from his mind, im- 
 pressed by it on space ? Or could it be an expression 
 of dead Pascoe's undying animosity ? 
 
 Pushing back his chair, he went into the kitchen. 
 Flame had broken through the sods, the lime-washed 
 walls were bright with its reflection, on the disordered 
 table . . . 
 
 But the table should have been set for supper ! 
 
 IV 
 
 He was looking at dirty plates and glasses, at a stain 
 on the cloth. The light was shining on decanters 
 and none had been in use since . . . 
 
 He stood staring. Another illusion ! That splash 
 of spilt wine was not there. He saw it, and yet he 
 could not really see it, for it was not real. He was 
 only remembering. 
 
 He could see through the litter of broken meats, of 
 china, could see that the table had not really been laid 
 for two but only one. Bright silver, clean cutlery, 
 the uncut loaf they were certainly there, but faint, 
 as if seen through mist. 
 
 He was not startled, for he had known for some time 
 that there was more in the kitchen than he saw. He 
 had known, but had hoped whatever it was would 
 remain invisible, would not develop. 
 
 No knowing now what might happen. He felt a 
 deep depression, a sinking of the heart. Would this 
 appearance persist ? Would he have to sit, night 
 after night at this unclean table, eat and drink amid 
 this unremovable dirt ? Oh, impossible. 
 
 And was this disorder of the table all ? He knew
 
 176 THE HAUNTING 
 
 that it was not. He knew that if he looked . . . and 
 he wanted, he longed to look ; but, no, he would not 
 turn his head. 
 
 The settle, the old settle that stood at right angles to 
 the hearth, was shadowed by the high mantelshelf. 
 If he turned he would see that shadow of the shelf. 
 
 He forced himself to sit at the unseemly table, to 
 eat and drink. No matter what he saw, what he heard, 
 what he felt, he would not give way. He was Gale 
 Corlyon and he was not afraid. 
 
 Yet it was difficult to keep his thoughts from that 
 that shadow of the shelf. 
 
 He must bear in mind that when you expected to 
 see a definite thing, the odds were in favour of your 
 seeing it. 
 
 Sometimes, however, you knew without looking. 
 For instance, he knew that on the settle was not 
 only that shadow of the shelf. 
 
 On the seat lay a red cushion. Pascoe's mother had 
 made it the year she died. She was a clever needle- 
 woman and always busy. Mr. Corlyon thought of 
 the pride she had felt in the well-fitting cushion. If 
 she could have known that her child was to lie on it 
 at the last . . . .to lie there . . . 
 
 For some time Mr. Corlyon had fancied he could 
 hear a sound as of someone who breathed who 
 breathed with difficulty. It seemed to him that those 
 slow breaths were coming more slowly, that they must 
 soon cease. On the settle, as he knew, lay a figure. . . 
 
 He could not help remembering that he had lifted 
 that slack heavy figure from the settle, had carried it 
 through the cellar into the fogou, had pulled down on it 
 the impending hill. 
 
 Memory ... it was nothing more ! There was
 
 THE HAUNTING 177 
 
 no figure lying on the red cushion, the settle was a 
 mere blank piece of furniture. To look was to show 
 that he doubted, and therefore he would not look. 
 No and then he looked. 
 
 Oh, yes, he had known. The settle was dark with 
 the outline of a man's body. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon, staring at that black shape, was filled 
 with exasperation. He left his seat at the table, came 
 to the settle, studied the apparition with a sense of 
 fierce repugnance. Dim, but recognizable, it stretched 
 rrom end to end of the seat. It dulled the red of the 
 cushion as if it had been, in truth, a shadow, yet it 
 had substance. Yes, to a certain extent, substance. 
 
 Pascoe, sure enough. Hair curly as a spaniel dog, 
 the full lips that had been old Tom Corlyon's, the 
 hooked nose. Short, broad, rarely strong . . . Pas- 
 coe. 
 
 But Mr. Corlyon had seen the rock fall on, crush that 
 body. This could not be Pascoe. The rascal lay 
 some hundreds of feet away, lay in the rocky clasp of 
 Gudda. Though dead and buried, that sailor rig, the 
 white disk of that face, might yet be seen by people, 
 might yet bring disgrace upon the family. 
 
 No, but it should not. A black bitterness shook 
 Mr. Corlyon. He thrust his hand into the shadow and 
 it went through. It seemed to pass through a layer 
 of cold air, but at last it rested on the cushion. 
 Furious he dragged the cushion away, but all that 
 happened was a red strip of wholesome cushion lying 
 on the floor, while on the settle the wraith of Pascoe 
 lay on the wraith of a cushion. Still more exasperated 
 he tried to move the settle but it was fixed to the wall.
 
 178 THE HAUNTING 
 
 That at least he could deal with. The settle was 
 worm-eaten and of little use. He would break it up, 
 burn it. 
 
 The axe was hanging to the wall. Lifting it from 
 the nail, he set to work with a vigour, savage in its 
 intensity. The wood being dry, split easily and he 
 chopped off legs, back, seat, as if he were destroying 
 an enemy, as if the settle were alive. He felt, indeed, 
 as if it were in league with Pascoe, as if it were part 
 of the appearance. Certainly, if there were no settle 
 Pascoe could not lie on it. 
 
 The flames roared up the antient chimney, the 
 wood withered, shrank together, vanished. The 
 settle was a pile of feathery flakes. Mr. Corlyon's 
 wrath passed with the fluttering ash. It was as if 
 he had been hungry and now was filled. He looked 
 about the kitchen. The very atmosphere had changed. 
 The air was no longer charged with heavy emotion. 
 He had purged it by sacrificing the old bench. 
 
 Returning to the parlour, he settled himself in the 
 big chair and, once there,realized that he was shivering. 
 His teeth were chattering, his knees knocked together. 
 It must be that he was unduly excited, but why should 
 he be ? He had done a sensible thing in destroying 
 the settle, had got the better this time of Pascoe. 
 
 Though his exertions had made him sweat, his feet 
 were cold. They were always cold, but to-night pain- 
 fully so he must change his boots. 
 
 A little unfortunate that his house-shoes should be 
 in the kitchen. 
 
 He hesitated a moment, then laughed at himself. 
 Of what was he afraid. The kitchen had been cleansed 
 by fire of its oppressive atmosphere. Having dealt 
 with the haunt or whatever it was, he could go in
 
 THE HAUNTING 179 
 
 knowing he had nothing to fear. To fear ? He had 
 meant that it contained nothing unpleasant, that 
 there was no longer any likelihood of his seeing the 
 wraith of Pascoe. 
 
 His shoes were kept by the wood -basket under the 
 window ; and, while he was about it, he might as 
 well adjust the cover-fire. 
 
 But what was that shadow at right angles to the 
 hearth ? For a moment he felt dizzy, confused. He 
 had burnt the settle and yet that that shadow. 
 Putting a hand to his brow, he stood for a second with 
 his eyes shut. He mus.t get the thought of the old 
 bench out of his mind, then he would see that it was 
 not there. 
 
 A line of darkness jutting from the wall ! He saw 
 it clearly, the wood bright from years and years of 
 rubbing, the glow of a red cushion and ... on the 
 cushion . . . 
 
 God ! but he had destroyed the settle, had chopped 
 it into slivers, thrown the wood bit by bit on to the 
 fire, had watched it burn. 
 
 It had gone up the wide chimney in pale feathery 
 ash, had been blown away by the sea-wind, scattered 
 over the world. It was incredible that it should be in 
 its year-long, generation-long place by the fire, that it 
 should be still a settle, still haunted. 
 
 Incredible, yet . . . the horror of it was, that its 
 reappearance was not, altogether, a surprise. He had 
 destroyed in a raging fury, but as his passion died, 
 satiate, he had suspected that what he had done would 
 be unavailing. No, he had hardly suspected, and yet 
 when he saw the settle he had not felt any sharp sur- 
 prise. Below his mind had lain a covered, hidden 
 expectation.
 
 180 THE HAUNTING 
 
 He had not been able to burn the settle, and the 
 sight of it no longer angered him. His excitement had 
 passed and he was tired ; empty, too, empty of re- 
 source. He would fetch the shoes go to bed. He 
 crossed the kitchen and so real was the wooden foot, 
 gripping the floor below the settle, that he made to 
 step round it. As he did so he felt a qualm of the old 
 annoyance. The foot was not there not really 
 there. He put out his hand . . . 
 
 Nothing though the settle rose before him, polished, 
 dark nothing. 
 
 Not quite that. 
 
 He had seemed to plunge his hand into cold air. 
 
 VI 
 
 Unable to sleep, Mr. Corlyon lay watching the 
 flickers of yellow light that danced on his wall. The 
 flickers were glints from the riding lights of the traw- 
 lers. As the sea swayed the vessels, the glints swung 
 up and down the wall, tiny flecks that had been 
 familiar to him since childhood ; that he had thought 
 were star -gleams, until his mother, coming to his bed- 
 side one night to kiss him, had told him to look out 
 of the window, see for himself. 
 
 The flickers were a part of the old comfortable 
 routine of life, the routine that was giving place to a 
 new order. He lay watching them, lay quietly and 
 thought. 
 
 It had come to tkis. He could not destroy the 
 haunt. He had proved that. It remained to see 
 whether in any way he could deal with it. Meanwhile 
 he must admit that it affected him. To-night, for 
 instance, it had made him yield to anger. He prided
 
 THE HAUNTING 181 
 
 himself on his self-control, but the sight of that figure 
 on the settle had proved too much for it, and he had 
 let himself go. The burning of the settle had been an 
 orgy. The passions that underlay a man's everyday 
 behaviour had been released. He had slashed and 
 smashed in a destroying fury and, strangely enough, 
 felt the better for it. In wrecking the old bench he 
 had poured out the lees of himself, a black toxic 
 energy that had been fermenting at the bottom of his 
 not mind, exactly perhaps of his consciousness. 
 Tired though he was, he yet felt more his old self, 
 better able to consider this inexplicable pseudo- 
 ghostly appearance to consider also its effect on 
 himself. 
 
 He had to deal with the appearances ; had, if it were 
 possible, to circumvent them. First, though, he had to 
 decide whether he were the man he had thought himself, 
 or whether there were in him deep-lying unimagined 
 possibilities. How was it that he, so self-contained, 
 had flung himself in destructive fury on that tainted 
 bench ? What was it that of late had been let loose 
 in him ? Before Pascoe came home, he had had none 
 of these sudden rages ; now at a thought, a vision, 
 they rose, breaking through. He had, of course, 
 known what it was to be angry, oh, terribly angry ; 
 but his wrath had come upon him slowly, had come 
 because of some proven injustice or cruelty, and it had 
 stimulated him to make carefully considered war on 
 the oppressor. His anger had been impersonal, a 
 clean thing, but these rages 
 
 Were there two Gale Corlyons ? Had he an under- 
 lying self that fell into blind mad rages, that was fun- 
 damentally unstable ? Did it manifest itself in his 
 preoccupation with the little flagon, with the scenes of
 
 182 THE HAUNTING 
 
 Pascoe's death, with what might be seen in the kitchen ? 
 He, Gale, had no superstitious feelings about death. 
 A dead man or a dead pig what was the difference ? 
 But the new Gale, the Gale that clamoured in the 
 dark places, that Gale had hours when he was shaken 
 with a sort of panic. The apparitions sent shivers 
 down his spine, the hairs of his body rose, he felt that 
 he must draw back, flee " from the wrath to come." 
 That was it ! He must flee from the unknown, an 
 unknown that was sweeping down on him and which 
 was hostile, sinister. At these times he could 
 not reason, he could only suffer. At these times he 
 was not himself. 
 
 And the self that was violent, unstable, and over 
 which he had only a slight hold ? It must always 
 have lain under the reasonable, courageous self, must 
 have lain there, a coiled and sleeping force. He had 
 been unaware of it ah, but not altogether unaware. 
 He had known that he was capable of sudden, and 
 strong action ; that he would dare what other men 
 feared to attempt. This secret knowledge had given 
 him poise, had set him above other people, had enabled 
 him to war successfully with those in high places. 
 
 He had sat in judgment, knowing himself capable 
 of carrying out a decision however tremendous. The 
 necessity to do so had come upon him with the dis- 
 covery that Pascoe, his beloved and cherished brother, 
 was vile. He had acted, then, as he had known he 
 could. He had condemned and he had done justice. 
 His reasonable self approved, yes, and in spite of the 
 haunt continued to approve. 
 
 He approved the action, but was surprised to see 
 that it had cast a shadow. The haunt of the little 
 flagon, the oppressive atmosphere of the house, the
 
 THE HAUNTING 183 
 
 illusion of the settle and of what lay on the settle, 
 were shadows that had become visible because the 
 feelings that had prompted and carried through his 
 action had been intense. 
 
 The shadow of a deed ! 
 
 Was it only that ? 
 
 If only a shadow, why did it not remain as it was at 
 first ? From day to day it yes, it altered. The 
 flagon had at first been almost imperceptible. Now it 
 stood out definite, recognizable, an actual glass vessel ; 
 stood on the red and white cloth with which Antiks had 
 covered the sideboard. Mr. Corlyon felt that no one 
 looking in that direction could fail to see it. Moreover, 
 at the beginning it had come with the dusk, glimmered 
 through the hours of darkness, vanished at dawn. 
 It was now always to be seen amid the array of ware, 
 only it was more distinct than cloam or pewter ; while, 
 as to the grey beer-jug, that had become a shadow of 
 its rotund, opaque self. It was the same with the 
 appearances in the kitchen. At first they had seemed 
 not so much actually in the room as at the back of his 
 mind. Gradually they had come forward, become 
 faintly visible ; now . . . 
 
 What would happen next ? He had the feeling 
 that he knew ; yet, when he tried to look at his know- 
 ledge, it was not there. But, shadows ? They were 
 more than that . . . 
 
 His glance followed the glints which danced in a 
 faint glow, a glow of lighted water, but he hardly saw 
 them. He was wondering whether the haunt had not 
 a sort of life. 
 
 It grew and it developed. It seemed to him not so 
 much a shadow as a fungus. He had heard of houses 
 being attacked by a fungus, by monstrous growths
 
 184 THE HAUNTING 
 
 that sprouted from walls and floor, fleshy yellow 
 hands that grew and grew. The apparitions were a 
 sort of ghostly fungus, which had invaded his home. 
 What could he do to rid himself of it ? He did not 
 know. , 
 
 Meanwhile he must take certain measures. If 
 Antiks had seen the flagon, no particular harm would 
 have ensued. The settle was a different matter. If 
 she caught sight of what lay on it, though she promised 
 not to talk, she would not be able to help herself. 
 It would become known that the Brown House was 
 haunted, not by some old-time ghost, but by " young 
 maister." 
 
 His hands went to his throat. They could not prove 
 it 1 Oh, but they could the dunnage in the cave, 
 the cairn of fallen rocks at the end of the fogou. 
 They would not rest, once they got scent of the matter, 
 till they had dug down . . . 
 
 He had done righteously, he was passionately con- 
 vinced that he had, yet the thought of the popular 
 outcry, of the dark prison, the rope . . . 
 
 So far, Antiks had gone about in her usual cheery 
 fashion. Had she ? Once or twice lately, he had 
 caught her looking at him a sort of questioning look. 
 You felt before you saw ! Was she beginning to 
 realize how oppressive was the air of the kitchen ? 
 
 He dare not ask her. And he did not dare chance it. 
 
 VII 
 
 " Whatever 'av 'ee done with the settle, Maister ? " 
 " I've got rid of that." 
 
 She was clearing the breakfast -table. " Nothing 
 but ole traipsy traade, anyhow."
 
 THE HAUNTING 185 
 
 " I am going to put er a glass cupboard against 
 that wall." 
 
 " 'Twill come in very handy." 
 
 " And Antiks " 
 
 She paused, the breakfast-tray on her hip. He 
 thought how sweet and morning-fresh was her 
 face. A pity she must go ; still, he did not dare 
 risk it. 
 
 " Now that my brother has gone to live in Jamaica, 
 I have decided to make a change." He glanced away, 
 he did not want to see her face change, her eyes . . . 
 After all, she did not seem to have noticed that little 
 wraith that stood out so valiantly among the fading 
 delft and pewter. Must he ? " I- 
 
 She waited, guessing that her time had come, feeling 
 her heart sink. 
 
 " I am going to marry Mrs. Liddicoat." 
 
 Antiks' heart sank and sank. She thought she must 
 be going to faint. " I jaloused it." Her hands shook 
 so much she had to put the tray down. 
 
 At last Mr. Corlyon looked . . . that piteous face ! 
 He felt sorry, but his mind was made up. " She 
 won't want you, my dear." 
 
 Her glance was submissive, but it asked a favour. 
 As well have asked it of the cobbles in the street. 
 ' You'll want for me to do for 'ee till she do come, 
 won't you ? " 
 
 " No better not." 
 
 Her surprise spoke. " What be goin' do, then ? " 
 
 " I can manage for myself." 
 
 " My dear life, in a day or two the house 'ud be 
 walkin' from dure to dure." 
 
 "I can't help it." 
 
 She could not accept her fate without making an
 
 186 THE HAUNTING 
 
 effort to escape. Her eyes besought him. " Must 
 I go, sir ? " 
 
 " You can have your money to-day." 
 
 " Oh, Maister, 'tis hard lines." 
 
 " When a thing has to be done, it is no use wasting 
 words." 
 
 The tears were rolling over her cheeks, but there 
 was no more to be said. She took up the tray, was 
 going out. 
 
 " Antiks ..." 
 
 From the doorway she looked back at him aflush. 
 
 " That old settle. I don't suppose you ever noticed 
 anything er anything " 
 
 The flush died away, and her voice had a dull 
 sound. " What do 'ee mane ? " 
 
 " Well, anything about it, anything strange ? " 
 
 " Iss, I 'av then." She paused, but he did not 
 speak. " I didn' think of sayin' anything about it." 
 
 " What did you see ? " 
 
 " 'Twadn't what I see, but what I heered." 
 
 In Mr. Corlyon's ear was the sound of a breathing 
 that caught, that started again. " What what 
 did you hear ? " 
 
 " I heered the tickin', the sign o' death. God's 
 truth, I did." 
 
 Mr. Corlyon sank back in his chair. " Oh, that ! " 
 His relief was so great he could have laughed. " That 
 is only an insect gnawing the wood ; nothing in that, 
 Antiks."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 MORWENNA 
 I 
 
 ANTIKS was gone. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon need not fear that what happened 
 in the Brown House would sift through Stowe. 
 
 Often, people neither saw nor heard things, only 
 felt them, felt them with what lay behind the senses. 
 He wondered what it might be ? Instinct ? Dogs, 
 cats, horses, they were able to recognize the he 
 supposed he must call it the uncanny. He had seen 
 animals looking at, shrinking from what, well, what 
 was not there at any rate, not visibly there. He 
 had known a horse start, grow damp with terror 
 in a wide and apparently clear road. He remembered 
 the story of Balaam's ass that was the sort of thing. 
 
 But Antiks did not appear to have this instinct. 
 At least, she had not noticed that anything was the 
 matter with him, or his house. She had gone 
 unwillingly, but had not carried with her a suspicion 
 of wraiths and hauntings. 
 
 He was glad she was gone. With the haunt showing 
 signs of further development, in another day or two 
 she might have begun to notice. He felt that he 
 had settled with that menace. At all costs, the 
 appearances must be kept a secret. As long as he 
 was the only person who knew of them, they were 
 
 187
 
 188 THE HAUNTING 
 
 of no importance, could not do him any harm. As 
 long as other people ... 
 
 Gazing steadily at the flagon, puzzling over the 
 gleams of the prismatic glass gleams in a thing that 
 was not really there he asked himself how people 
 could let their nerves be affected by a thing so 
 harmless. A haunt was as useless as an ornament, 
 and of no more account. An ornament ? He smiled 
 at the thought of housewives saying, " Our little 
 ghost ? Yes, it is in the shape of an old Greek statue. 
 A handsome object to have about the house. Oh, 
 no, we would not be without it. A house without 
 a ghost suggests that one has been overlooked by 
 Father Time." 
 
 If everybody saw the haunts that lived with them ! 
 The trouble was that as only certain apparitions were 
 visible, people made a fuss about those they could 
 perceive. A fuss ? They behaved like children. 
 
 The haunt itself was of no importance, what 
 mattered was its effect on others. He must contrive 
 that the existence of his should not be known. He 
 must not let anyone guess that the Brown House 
 was in any way different from the other houses set 
 higgledy-piggledy along the antient street. 
 
 ii 
 
 Mr. Corlyon, with the threads of Stowe life running 
 through his hands, had yet found time to turn a 
 considering eye on the women, busy with their sweep- 
 ing and scouring. He thought much of it a waste 
 of time. He could boil a kettle ! Yes, and cook 
 eggs, and even potatoes, so he would not starve ; 
 but as to turning out a room ! If his bedroom grew
 
 THE HAUNTING 189 
 
 fusty he would move into another plenty of rooms 
 in the house. Women dilly-dallied about their work. 
 Why turn out one room a day when you might 
 have them all cleaned at once ? If household work 
 were properly organized, the bulk of it would be done 
 on one day of the week. Still after all, not only 
 women pottered. 
 
 He would miss Antiks, but he could manage, and 
 it would not be for long. Morwenna would be troubled 
 when she discovered he was by himself in the house. 
 She would want to come to him. 
 
 And he needed her ! Not for the bodily comfort, 
 though that was what she would think, and it was 
 as well she should ; but 
 
 He had tried to convince himself he did not object 
 to the presence on his sideboard of the little glass 
 flagon. Nor when he had slept well and was morning 
 fresh, when the day was bright, and his mood cheerful, 
 did he mind it. But there were times . . . yes, 
 as night drew on things looked different. 
 
 As the sun sank below Gudda, and the blue of the 
 sky and of the shadows deepened, a man's point of 
 view changed. The dark was full of incomprehensible 
 sound. You listened, trying to account for this 
 little pregnant noise, for that. You heard the stairs 
 creak as when Pascoe had carried down his dunnage ; 
 you heard steps that had been long familiar, steps 
 that no longer walked the house at least by day. 
 
 If Morwenna were in the Brown House, he would 
 not hear those significant sounds. He would be listen- 
 ing to her quiet talk. 
 
 All day, while transacting his business in the town, 
 he would have in his mind the good thought that he 
 was going back to her, to that warm smile. When
 
 190 THE HAUNTING 
 
 night was folded black about the house, her figure 
 would come between his eye and the glitter of un- 
 substantial glass, between him and the settle which 
 he had so ineffectually burnt. 
 
 His new self, the self he had learnt to fear as full 
 of untoward possibilities, would sink into the back- 
 ground, would fall asleep. His old, stable self would 
 take control. She, Morwenna, was a simple soul, 
 robust, of all women the one for him. They would 
 be married as soon as possible. He would bring 
 her . . . 
 
 Did he dare ? 
 
 If he brought her to the Brown House, she might, 
 in time, become aware of the haunt. It was possible. 
 It was more than that it was likely, in fact, how 
 could he doubt that it would happen ? The wraiths 
 grew out of nothing ; were, first a feeling, then an 
 inexplicable fear, then a shape. 
 
 If only in some violent way he could have destroyed 
 them. The tremendous satisfaction of it ! But he 
 could think of no way . . . 
 
 in 
 
 Could he endure to look on, see the vague doubt, 
 the unpreventable strengthening of that doubt, 
 the final certitude ? That certitude ! That she 
 should know he had killed Pascoe ! 
 
 And she would. 
 
 The thought was agony. He had done righteously. 
 Oh, yes, he -had. He was convinced of it, but she 
 . . . she might not be able to see eye to eye with 
 him. And if she could not ? He might explain, 
 tell her everything, and it might not make any
 
 THE HAUNTING 191 
 
 difference. " A woman convinced against her will 
 . . ." It was necessary that she should be with him, 
 necessary for his happiness, for more than his happi- 
 ness. She must uphold him, his actions, his point 
 of view. Ah, but would she ? Could he trust her ? 
 His brother . . . How would she take the know- 
 ledge ? Would she sit in judgment, would she 
 condemn ? Even if he explained, could he trust her 
 to think as he thought ? He was assured she loved 
 him at the moment. But, love 
 
 He had been sure that Pascoe loved him. Pascoe's 
 love ! Why should he imagine that Morwenna's 
 was of more sterling quality ? Once bit . . . After 
 all, love, what was it but another name for desire ? 
 And desire passed. Once it was satisfied it passed. 
 
 Man slaked his thirst at a stream, then wandered 
 on. No sort of permanence, but a long road starred 
 with lamps. Under each of them he paused for a 
 moment ; but, in the end, always, he went on, 
 uphill when he was young, downhill when he was 
 old. Somewhere on the road he paused to rest, 
 to sleep perhaps between two of the stars. 
 
 Morwenna might think differently of love ; but 
 then, she was a woman. She would see it as a fire 
 on the hearth, a moderate flame hedged round with 
 the respectability of home walls. To her, love would 
 not be so much passion as affection. 
 
 Yet,when she looked at him,there had been a kindling 
 in the grey eyes, an emotion he could not fathom. 
 It was a look that had thrilled him, to which some- 
 thing in the deeps of him had responded. He wanted 
 her to go on looking at him like that. 
 
 Ah, but the emotion of a middle-aged woman ! 
 It could not burn white-hot for long. He must be
 
 192 THE HAUNTING 
 
 prepared for a damping down of the fires, for the 
 mere glow of companionship. 
 
 He wanted that rapturous, .adoring surrender to 
 go on and on. It was like the darkly red and darkly 
 brown fields. They yielded to the ploughman's 
 will with a tremendous giving of corn, yet underneath 
 was their unchanging stability. Morwenna's love 
 was to be like the ground under his feet ; " rock all 
 de way down," as she had said. Pascoe's conduct had 
 proved human affection to be slight and shallow, 
 yet Gale still hoped. The world had shaken under 
 him, had snared his foot ; and he was trying to 
 escape from it on to " hard country." He longed to 
 believe Morwenna capable of a deep and abiding love ; 
 and yet, how could he ? Love o' woman ! He had 
 experienced it. It passed, it always passed. Six 
 months, or at the outside a year, and it was over. 
 Why should Morwenna be different ? How could 
 she be ? Yet he needed a love that understood and 
 would endure ; he wanted her to bring him such a 
 love. 
 
 If she were to find out that he had killed his brother, 
 he might give up hope of it. No quiet, civilized 
 woman could make such a discovery and not be 
 overwhelmed with horror. If he brought Morwenna 
 to the Brown House, he must be prepared to watch 
 the tide of knowledge flow over her love, drowning 
 it as the tide in the estuary drowned the yellow 
 sands. 
 
 He would not be able to endure that gradual passing 
 of love, the dying of it, the change from absolute 
 trust to suspicion, to knowledge, perhaps to fear. 
 
 To a fear of him oh, no, no. 
 
 Sunk in the great chair, he sat with his head between
 
 THE HAUNTING 193 
 
 his hands, shivering. Morwenna's face as it was now, 
 that dear, open, love-lighted face was clear in memory. 
 He saw it changing, losing its doubt, its eagerness, 
 growing blank. She would still smile, but behind 
 her smile 
 
 She was the sort of woman who, in her relations 
 with people, would keep up appearances. He could 
 imagine her hanging a cuitain between their souls. 
 Her civil speech would be the shaking of the curtain, 
 she would pretend he had her confidence, her unabated 
 love ; but he would know, he would not be able to 
 help knowing. 
 
 Each little sign, he would see it ! It would be 
 torture. 
 
 He would be helpless, unable to get away. He 
 would have to watch Morwenna's soul grow furtive, 
 peer at him secretly. She would be afraid ; yes, 
 in the end, she would be afraid for herself. 
 
 IV 
 
 He knew, knew with searing conviction, that 
 he could not bring her to the Brown House. 
 
 He was strong, strong-bodied, and with a sceptical 
 hard -fibred brain. About him like a tangible thing 
 lay the loneliness of his life, but he had hitherto 
 been able to put up with it. What he had done 
 he could do again. A man had to be strong, not for 
 his own sake, but to satisfy a demand which had 
 grown with and was at the core of humanity, to 
 satisfy the spirit of man. 
 
 At the last, a man died, but he did not give in ; 
 he could not let himself break. 
 
 It was Thursday. The evening he was in the
 
 194 THE HAUNTING 
 
 habit of spending in the room behind the baby-linen 
 shop. Morwenna would be waiting. She would 
 have prepared supper, thought out a tasty dish, 
 cooked it and she would be alone. 
 
 Jenifer was married and gone. He would have 
 had Morwenna to himself. 
 
 But he must not go. 
 
 She would be at the half-door that gave on the 
 street. She would be looking out for him. 
 
 She would wait ; and in the Brown House he also 
 would wait .
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A NEW thought falling into his mind filled it with 
 joy. . . . Why should he not shut up the Brown 
 House and live with Morwenna in the baby-linen 
 shop ? 
 
 He was amazed that such a simple way out of the 
 difficulty had not already occurred to him. An easy way! 
 His desk could be put by the window in the back 
 room. He could see his clients there and Morwenna 
 was the kind of woman who knew how to make 
 herself scarce. She seemed to have an instinct about 
 it. Dear woman, she was really wonderful . . . 
 
 He sat back, smiling ! 
 
 Thursday ! Of course, it was Thursday ! He must 
 not keep her waiting. His hat ! Christ how keen 
 and jolly and alive he felt. 
 
 To her lover Morwenna had made no secret of the 
 reason which had induced Jenifer to marry Denny 
 Manhire. " She was straight with'n, and he would 
 not let it make any difference. No such woman in 
 the world, he say, as Jenifer. She don't care for'n 
 now, but she'll come to it. He've treated her jonik, 
 and that is more than the other did. In time a maid 
 learns to take what is offered." 
 
 195
 
 196 THE HAUNTING 
 
 Mr. Corlyon could feel sorry for Jenifer. Sub- 
 mission where there was no love must be nauseating. 
 " Who was it ? " 
 
 " Aw. you do knaw who 'twas," and Mrs. 
 Liddicoat's face broke into that smile of the eyes, 
 that smile behind the eyes that he had learned to 
 look for. With other women, Corlyon had watched 
 their lips, with Morwenna, the full firm lips curving 
 up were less expressive than the glow in the eyes. 
 
 " Pascoe ? " he said, his mouth a line. The 
 treacherous hound had behaved ill to everybody 
 with whom he came into contact. He stole a glance 
 at Morwenna. If she knew she should be glad 
 that Jenifer was avenged, that Pascoe would do no 
 more harm ! 
 
 " Yes, 'twas Pascoe," she murmured, and her 
 expression was inward, as if she were seeing something 
 which as yet only existed in her dreams. " I don't 
 belong to be glad, but I be." 
 
 " Glad ? " 
 
 " 'Twill be like as if 'twas yours." She was seeing 
 Jenifer's children. Little steps, curly nobs and 
 pigtails, with, at the head of them, a splendid boy, 
 a boy like Gale. 
 
 " Lord, no. You must not say that. Pascoe's 
 child won't take after me ! " 
 
 He was lying along the sofa, his head in her lap. 
 The feel, under her hand, of the crisp hair was sending 
 thrills of fire up her arm, and because she felt so 
 strongly the fact that Jenifer, her child, was bearing 
 a son to Pascoe seemed to medicine something that 
 ached a little. He had said that Pascoe's child would 
 not take after him. Why should it not ? " I'm 
 hoping it will then."
 
 THE HAUNTING 197 
 
 Pascoe's child ! It would be Pascoe over again. 
 It would remind him . . . but no matter, he could 
 look it in the face. " He was only my half-brother, 
 he was not like me." 
 
 " But they do say you are your father over again. 
 The li'l chap may take after's Grandfer." 
 
 Like himself or Pascoe, however, the coming 
 child was to Gale unwelcome. " I like children, 
 who doesn't ? But I had sooner my nephew was not 
 a bastard." 
 
 Morwenna's hand left off stroking. " Well," she 
 said, " if no one else is glad of'n, I am." She thought 
 of the women with whom at one time or another, 
 Gale's name had been coupled pretty and nothing 
 else, or pretty and easy. As she put it " very 
 tawdry." Not the sort to have given him sons like 
 himself. Ah-h, to think none should have given 
 him a son. ! The silly bits of things, not to have known 
 it did not matter whether a child had its father's 
 name, if only 'twas made in his image him not 
 finished with when he came to die, but going 
 on. 
 
 Her glance rested on the dear head, relaxed in 
 peace against her soft fullness. To have had Gale's 
 eyes look from a babe's face, from the babe at your 
 breast that any woman who loved him should 
 have been able to forgo that ! 
 
 She leaned back against the sofa dreaming. Her 
 sons, Edgar and Tristram, were fine men, the both 
 of them. But if she had been Gale's wife, what 
 splendid sons she would have had. Poor old Peter, 
 but well, he was dead ; and she, heart and body 
 of her, she belonged to Gale. It seemed as if she 
 always had. The other life was like a vision, grey,
 
 198 THE HAUNTING 
 
 half-forgotten yes, though she had the children 
 to show for it. 
 
 "Go on stroking my hair." He was postponing 
 the discussion of their future, enjoying the calm, 
 the quiet. He had solved his difficulties, and he had 
 only to tell the dear woman what he intended to do. 
 She would be glad to have him. Pleasanter for her 
 to stay where she was, all her odds and ends to hand, 
 than move ; and he, too, would be glad of the change. 
 He had never thought to leave the Brown House. 
 Nor would he now, if it had not been for Pascoe. 
 
 The serene atmosphere of the kitchen was pleasant, 
 homely. He longed to stay on, not return to the 
 living death on Quayside, but that might not be. 
 Already, he was faintly conscious of a pull, as if he 
 were needed in his own house, were being called back. 
 
 Must he go ? Perhaps, if Morwenna continued to 
 smooth his hair, it would make him forget the little 
 pull, enable him to stay. " Go on." 
 
 She was glad her touch gave him pleasure. He 
 should not have mis-called the child, poor little 
 innocent, and if he had been a woman, and had had 
 the bearing of children he would have known better. 
 Still, men, poor creatures, they were like that, they 
 never really understood. She went on, drawing her 
 fingers over the hard hairs. She liked that he was, 
 in essential matters, so ignorant. 
 
 HI 
 
 " I don't know that I ever wanted children," he 
 said, meaning that he did not want them now. 
 
 Morwenna thought it only natural. A middle- 
 aged man ! She gave him her view of the matter.
 
 THE HAUNTING 199 
 
 " No, but I'd like for you to have had a boy, a boy 
 as 'ud have been you over again." 
 
 " I don't know. Better not, perhaps." In the 
 new grate the embers fell from the fire-spot with a 
 little tinkle. Mr. Corlyon's glance rested on that 
 comfortable stir. It was like Morwenna to be the 
 one person with the pluck to try something new, the 
 one person in Stowe. A forthcoming, eager, genial 
 woman would she be able to help him ? Well, 
 if anyone could, she might. After they were married 
 he might venture to tell her ; yes, when their interests 
 were the same. Ah, but no. Now, or not at all. 
 He would treat her as fairly as she had treated him. 
 
 He could not utter the words. He would do any- 
 thing but tell her, and yet, if he only could . . . 
 
 Morwenna's glance brooded. She was looking 
 down on the features that were always a surprise, an 
 enchantment. 
 
 The comeliness of them drew her irresistibly. 
 That he should love her. Stooping, she let her lips 
 rest on his forehead. It was warm because he was 
 alive, and the warmth came from his quietly beating 
 heart. The tears rose in her eyes she was so happy. 
 
 " No," he said, " I shall be all right as long as I 
 have you." 
 
 As he spoke he turned from the fire to the woman 
 who had kindled it ; and at his look, she thrilled 
 from her lips down. The thrill was only bearable 
 because he was near, because she might lose herself 
 in it. He wanted her not children just her. She 
 glowed, stirring a little. She could not come any 
 nearer, but she was flowering towards him, offering 
 all she had, all she was. 
 
 In the muteness of ecstasy she sat very still, her
 
 200 THE HAUNTING 
 
 cheek against his. She had the human warmth of 
 that cheek, the thrill of his skin on hers. He was 
 the most darling man in all the world, the most won- 
 derful. 
 
 She was not to do her woman's duty and give 
 that strength and beauty back to life. Perhaps she 
 did not want to, not altogether, not very much. 
 It would have been an effort, taken a long time, 
 and as you grew older you got so quickly tired. 
 Besides, a child would have taken up her time, 
 and Gale did not want to have only bits of her, but 
 the whole. And, in the same way, she wanted him. 
 As his mother had had him when he was young, 
 so Morwenna wanted to enfold and cherish him now. 
 
 Their life together, it was going to be perfect ! 
 Her pleasure to work for him, to make him happy. 
 He had been lonely, hers to show him what com- 
 panionship could mean. She would be to him what 
 the nail is to the finger, the eyelash to the eye. 
 
 IV 
 
 The need for haste had come upon Mr. Corlyon. 
 He was conscious of a noisy undertow which, against 
 his will, was dragging him from this place of peace. 
 As long as Morwenna's hand had moved over his hair, 
 stroking, he had been able to ignore the steady strain 
 on his will. It was more than a strain, it was a sound, 
 sounds, broken, and yet significant sounds. It was 
 invading his mind and, if he wanted to talk to Mor- 
 wenna of the future, he must make haste. The sounds 
 were filling his mind, preventing him. They were 
 an outcry of words, jumbled, and they came in like 
 a tide.
 
 THE HAUNTING 201 
 
 " Sooner'n you think for ! You'll see me . . . not 
 far . . . come back . . . you will see me sooner 
 than you think for ! When a chap wants to come 
 back ..." 
 
 He turned to Morwenna. Ah, surely she could 
 silence the voice ? 
 
 " What is it, love ? " 
 
 He must not tell her. He had trusted Pascoe, 
 and Pascoe had betrayed him. His secret must 
 be kept from everyone ; even from Morwenna. 
 All his life he had kept secrets, made no bones about 
 it. Why should he even think of taking Morwenna 
 into his confidence ? He knew why. It was because 
 if he told this, shared it, he would halve the burthen 
 of it. He had a feeling that if he were able to tell it, 
 not only half, but all his trouble would vanish. But 
 no, he must not tell. Besides, he did not think he 
 could. 
 
 Half sentences, recollected words, a voice. He was 
 being called away, back to the Brown House. He 
 did not want to go. If Morwenna, with the weak, 
 unbreakable chain of her arms would only prevent 
 him ! 
 
 " Sooner than you think for." The nonsense of it ! 
 See dead and buried Pascoe ? But he did see him. 
 He saw him on the settle. No denying that Pascoe 
 was in the house. There and visible. He realized 
 strongly that on no account must he let anyone into 
 it. Best, then, not to let Morwenna know Antiks 
 was gone. Why, good heavens, she might insist on 
 coming over ! Might want to get his breakfast, or 
 some woman's foolery. Yet he had to discuss his 
 change of plan . . . 
 
 Hesitatingly, he began to talk. The Brown House,
 
 202 THE HAUNTING 
 
 being down on Quayside, was a bit out of the way. 
 How if instead of her coming to him, it were to be 
 the other way about ? If he lived at the baby-linen 
 shop, his clients going through the town would be 
 able to pop in any time. He got up from the sofa, 
 began to walk up and down. 
 
 Only by walking about could he keep under his 
 impulse to go. Something was pulling at him, some- 
 thing he would not be able, much longer, to resist. 
 He was away from the Brown House, and anything 
 might be happening. But it was not that, not only 
 that. The something came from his underlying self, 
 impelling him powerfully, yes, irresistibly. 
 
 Morwenna saw the new plan as sensible. Her 
 house was on a main street, you passed through it 
 coming from the coast villages, going to the fish 
 market, the warehouses. Also, it was large enough 
 shop, kitchen, and the big room overs tairs. What 
 more did they want ? 
 
 " Turn the shop into an office for you ? " 
 
 He had not thought of that ; but yes, it was a 
 good idea. He did not want her to work except 
 for him. 
 
 " I'll get rids of my stuff, and of the counter and 
 shelves," she planned ; " and you can bring your 
 desk over, soon as you've a mind to." 
 
 "Then that is settled ! " His walking to and fro 
 had quickened, he was showing a restlessness that 
 puzzled her. When he arrived, she would have 
 thought, so glad was he to be with her, that he would 
 be sorry when the time came for him to go. But he 
 was evidently in a hurry. 
 
 The voice in Mr. Corlyon's mind was reiterating 
 its monotonous : " When a chap wants The
 
 THE HAUNTING 208 
 
 voice was so loud, the impulse to go so strong, that 
 he hardly heard or saw Morwenna. 
 
 He struggled into his thick coat, and, at the last, 
 his thoughts came back for a moment to the woman. 
 Flinging his arm clumsily across her shoulders, he 
 kissed her, and the kiss was hearty like a boy's. He 
 was fond of her, but he must go.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 MR. CORLYON stood in the passage between the rooms. 
 Nothing in the passage. A quiet place, and dark. 
 He stood there thinking. In the parlour the little 
 flagon dominated the array of ware, in the kitchen 
 was that disordered supper-table. He no longer 
 had his meals at it. Sometimes, when he caught 
 sight of it unexpectedly, his gorge rose and he longed 
 to deal with it as he had with the settle. 
 
 No use trying to destroy it. You might burn the 
 wood, and yet something would remain a semblance. 
 The wave of irritation receded, leaving a black residue. 
 What could he do ? As he stood with his hands on 
 the lintel of either door he felt sick, hunted. The 
 haunt had grown was growing. At first it had been 
 confined to the sitting-room. Before long it had 
 spread to the kitchen, and Mr. Corlyon was expectant 
 of further developments, expectant and troubled. 
 Night always brought that sense of trouble, of dim 
 reaching out to knowledge. 
 
 Pascoe lay on the settle he would not always lie 
 there. 
 
 Up to the present, the shadows that had taken 
 possession of the Brown House had not moved, but 
 they might. 
 
 He knew that, in time, they would. 
 
 204
 
 THE HAUNTING 205 
 
 What he did not know, what he could not imagine, 
 was what they would do. 
 
 Pascoe's design was to let people know what had 
 happened to him. How would he set about it ? 
 
 Mr. Corlyon, unable to guess, felt that he must be 
 on the look-out and ready. That night he had left 
 the house, locking the door behind him, had trusted 
 to luck. He must not do it again. Certainly, as far 
 as he could see, nothing had happened. It was 
 what might that would keep him on the spot. He 
 could not leave Pascoe to do as he would. 
 
 How peaceful it had been in the baby-linen shop ! 
 While there, he had felt safe, at least, he had at first. 
 Later . . . 
 
 It was not only that during his absence things of 
 dread and horror might be shaping. It was the 
 feeling that he must be in the midst of those happen- 
 ings, that he must know. In Morwenna's back room, 
 in its calm, good, restful atmosphere, he had been 
 unable to keep his thoughts from straying to Quayside. 
 What was happening behind his own locked door, 
 in the rooms he knew as he knew his own body ? 
 He had been obliged to go and see. 
 
 The haunt had drawn him back, and what had 
 happened once might happen again. If he were living 
 at the baby-linen shop he might would be uneasy, 
 would perhaps be unable to stop. The skop was a 
 refuge, but how if he were unable to avail himself 
 of it? 
 
 Standing between the doors, his body swayed a 
 little, swayed with his mind. He could not bring 
 Morwenna to the Brown House, he was not able 'to 
 leave it. 
 
 It was nothing to him that a shadow lay on the
 
 206 THE HAUNTING 
 
 settle, that it was black, and the blackness cold as 
 winter. He could go further and say it was nothing 
 to him that the shadow might move, but . . . 
 
 He must be there to see it move. 
 
 It was exacted of him that he should be there. He 
 would have escaped to Morwenna ; but he was like 
 a dog on a chain, and it pulled him back. 
 
 That very evening he had put it to the test. 
 
 His hands dropped from the lintels, he sank in 
 on himself. The outlook was black, and there was 
 no star in the sky. He could not have Morwenna 
 on any terms. 
 
 ii 
 
 The night was to Mr. Corlyon the right setting for 
 his mood. Hitherto a man of transitory affections, 
 he had realized that this late -come love was as 
 necessary to him as light and air. He would not 
 give it up. He would find a way of arranging matters 
 so that he might keep it. He must, or life would 
 gradually become impossible. 
 
 He sought desperately, sought through the night, 
 and every now and then the figure of Morwenna rose, 
 vivid in memory. When this happened, his seeking 
 mind would fall asleep, give place to sheer longing. 
 His woman ! He had a vision of her with thick hair, 
 new-washed and flying in an August wind under an 
 August sky, a soft cloud of hair that robbed her of 
 her years, and her firm mouth, and her definiteness. 
 Between the waves of loose hair he had seen only her 
 eyes, eyes that worshipped and adored. 
 
 That long tender glance 1 Could it be that he was 
 a sick man with fancies, fancies which that glance
 
 THE HAUNTING 207 
 
 of hers, making him good and keeping him man, 
 was able to drive away ? 
 
 Fancies ? Was it possible the haunting was a 
 disordered fancy, nothing more ? 
 
 He straightened the sheet below his chin, straight- 
 ened his limbs in the bed. Ah, if ... 
 
 But no, he could not think it ! The apparitions 
 did not come from his mind, they were nothing to 
 do with him. He could not believe they were an 
 illusion and, right or wrong, a man acted on his beliefs. 
 
 His mind swung between thought -films indelibly 
 stamped on space, and a survival. Pascoe the 
 Pascoe who had loved Grizel and broken his promise 
 to Jenifer, was at the heart of Gudda. His body was 
 changing, disintegrating, becoming one with the 
 earth. But something of him might have survived 
 death. 
 
 What were the ghosts his neighbours saw ? 
 Hitherto, he had accounted for them in one way or 
 another ; he had not believed them to be actually 
 visible, things which had an existence outside the 
 imaginations of mankind : but he had been shown 
 cause to reconsider his verdict. 
 
 Pascoe, under a jovial surface, had been a fierce, 
 primitive creature. At the moment of death a man 
 might find himself possessed of undreamed-of powers. 
 The stories of appearances at a distance of people 
 who were at that moment dying suggested that this 
 was so. A phantasm might be a thing in itself, 
 might have a tenuous, yet material body. He could 
 not deny that haunted houses made you feel as if 
 you were watched ; as if something lurked in the 
 shadows, and waited behind the doors. He had 
 said " imagination," or that " people were out of
 
 208 THE HAUNTING 
 
 sorts ! " He no longer thought that explanation covered 
 the ground. 
 
 Pascoe's furious disappointment, his rage, his lust 
 of vengeance these things might have survived 
 his death. They might have taken a certain shape, 
 might be animated by a living principle. That 
 principle, Mr. Corlyon could see, would be Pascoe's 
 hatred of himself, his indestructible will to get the 
 better of him. 
 
 What had survived was not Pascoe, but the evil 
 of him. It was that with which Mr. Corlyon had to 
 reckon an incarnate (or discarnate) menace. 
 
 " I'll leave the town know." That was what he 
 meant to do. Not Pascoe, no, but what remained 
 of him. But how would it what - ? 
 
 Granted the existence of this evilly-disposed entity, 
 you did not know what were its powers, its limita- 
 tions. 
 
 He turned restlessly. The thing was no illusion.* 
 He saw what he thought he saw, and presently he 
 might hear, might do more than hear the possibili- 
 ties were unending. To another man they might 
 have been overwhelming ; but Gale clenched his 
 teeth and, above his steep chin, his lips were a line, 
 iron-hard. He had beaten Pascoe once : he would 
 beat him again. 
 
 Even if it cost him Morwenna. 
 
 Morwenna, and his sanity, and his life. 
 
 He would stay in the Brown House, deal with 
 each fresh development as it came. So far, he had 
 not been conspicuously successful in getting the 
 better of the haunt ; but if he put his back meaning 
 his brain into it, he stood a chance. 
 
 But Morwenna ! That soft breast. It offered
 
 THE HAUNTING 209 
 
 itself to a man's hand, rounded under it. And her 
 kiss . . . the swooning sweetness of it. 
 
 His eyeballs ached with the tears he might not 
 shed. In distressful longing, he flung himself from 
 side to side. His throat, his chest, his whole body 
 ached. A life of stern denial ! Oh, impossible ! Day 
 after day, with the knowledge that she lived up the 
 street, to stay in his own place ! How could he 
 know her there so near and not go. . . . ? 
 
 in 
 
 If you had once made up your mind to do a thing, 
 there was no turning back. Whatever the cost, 
 you went on pig-headedly. You accepted the 
 results, allowed nothing short of death to turn you 
 back. 
 
 From Thursday to Thursday Mr. Corlyon stayed 
 as far as possible within the house. Though he kept 
 appointments already made, when it was a matter 
 of fresh business, he proved elusive. He went out 
 early and late, but not in the broad daylight ; went 
 by way of the side streets and back lanes. Always 
 a quick walker, he went, now, like wind-driven dust. 
 If people spoke to him, he excused himself on the 
 score of being late for an appointment. If they came 
 to the house, he let them ring and ring. He would 
 be in the parlour, behind the screen of the wire blind, 
 waiting. When, finally, they gave up the attempt 
 to see him, he would draw a deep breath. He did 
 not want their business. At odds with himself, how 
 could he give these trivial matters his attention ? 
 Later, perhaps 
 
 Hitherto, Thursday had stood out from the other
 
 210 THE HAUNTING 
 
 days of the week as promising a time of quiet enjoy- 
 ment. Some people's weeks are punctuated by pay- 
 day, others by the rest and quiet of Sunday ; but 
 for years, Thursday had been the good day of Gale 
 Corlyon's week. It came this week, as it had all 
 those others _ . . 
 
 He could not eat ; if he were to go out he would 
 go straight to the baby-linen shop. For hours he 
 had walked to and fro in his haunted house no 
 longer seeing the wraiths ! At last he sat down, 
 sat himself on an uneasy chair behind the brown wire 
 blind, held himself there with hands clenched on his 
 knees. 
 
 From the road came the clop, clop of hoofs, the 
 roll of wheels, the voices of men. The timber wagons 
 were dragging lumber from the Norwegian vessels 
 to the ship-building yards. They would go, the three 
 brown horses, the carter, the baulks, up French 
 Street. 
 
 All week he had avoided the hilly street. It would 
 be impossible to go past the shop. Now it seemed 
 intolerable that others, the wagons, the men, should 
 be travelling along that road, while he ... 
 
 But he had made up his mind, and he would not 
 budge. Under the window, his strongly-knit whip- 
 cord figure remained as motionless as a statue ; and, 
 like the work of a great artist, though petrified, 
 it was full of life. This was the first Thursday. 
 To win through the next would be easier ; and the 
 next, and the next, till he was, like the very old, 
 indifferent. 
 
 He could look forward to that. The agony of 
 living would be at an end, but not yet not for a 
 Jong, oh, an impossibly long time.
 
 THE HAUNTING 211 
 
 God could he sit there, holding himself down till 
 passing hours made it too late for him to go to Mor- 
 wenna ? How much longer ? The palms of his 
 hands were unaccountably sore he had clenched 
 them until the nails cut the skin. 
 
 Hours more of it. . . . 
 
 And Morwenna, up the street, so so damnably 
 near. He had only to take down his hat, open the 
 door. 
 
 She would be so glad. Waiting, she would have 
 grown anxious. He could see the questioning look, 
 the extreme relief, the joy. 
 
 At that very moment she would be looking towards 
 him, wondering. Ah-h what did it matter ? He 
 must not think of her, he must remember only that, 
 come what might, he must not he would not go.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 MRS. LIDDICOAT withheld from a fairly contented 
 Jenifer the shocking fact that, though she was middle- 
 aged and, by unamiable people, might be described 
 as stout, she was the happiest woman in the town of 
 Stowe. 
 
 He her man he was coming to live in her house 
 but she did not mention that to Jenifer, over for 
 the day, and full of Caer news ! He was going to 
 leave that ramshackle old place of his and live with 
 her, cosily, in the slim little, trim little house on the 
 street. She was no gossip, not she, but she did like 
 to know all that was happening in the town. Quayside 
 was at the end of the world. Nothing beyond it 
 but the sea. 
 
 Besides, in a compact place like hers you had every- 
 thing to hand. Her cupboards 
 
 What would he do with the accumulations of the 
 Brown House ? Sell them ? No, people kept their 
 old rubbish " till death did them part." In her little 
 house, though, there would not be room for his 
 traade at least, only what he belonged to have, 
 his clothes, and so on. Her eyes smiled why, 
 she would have to make room for his clothes ! Her 
 wardrobe was a licking great piece of furniture, 
 shelves and drawers, and a hanging cupboard. She 
 must pack her things close so that his trousers might 
 
 312
 
 THE HAUNTING '213 
 
 be laid out, full length, one pair on the top of the 
 next. He was a peculiarly clean-looking man. That, 
 of course, was due to his skin, that pale fine skin. 
 But his clothes became the handsome figure of him, 
 were always neat, fresh, well-cut. During the long 
 years of their friendship she had set many a stitch 
 for him, now she would mend and make for him as 
 a right. Love gave you the right to do things for 
 people ; and the doing of these things was a pleasure, 
 almost the greatest you could have. He wanted a 
 new pair of thick stockings, the dear of'n, and she 
 would begin them at once. . . . 
 
 There was the shop, too. He had not said what 
 day he was coming, had not, perhaps, made up his 
 mind. Her business to get on with the arrange- 
 ments, be ready for him. 
 
 She knew it would be soon ; and though she had 
 been too much excited to fall, at once, into the sound 
 sleep of middle-age, she was early afoot. Rebecca 
 French had said, observing her methods, that for 
 anyone who would take trouble there was a fortune 
 in the little shop. Very well, then, she might have 
 the business and see what she could do with it. As 
 she lived on the opposite side of the street, it would 
 not be far to move the goods. 
 
 Going blithely into the fresh morning, Mrs. Liddi- 
 coat crossed the road. Rebecca would not be able 
 to pay money down. l"he Lord only knew how the 
 woman lived, though there were tales, maids slipping 
 in after dark, and so on ; but if she paid so much 
 on the takings every week that would be jonik. 
 Morwenna did not want to drive a hard bargain, 
 too happy for that ; besides, best to keep on the 
 right side of Rebecca.
 
 214 THE HAUNTING 
 
 The witch slept late. She came from her bed 
 to open the door, and the black ringlets hung disordered 
 on either side of her olive-tinted face. " You'm 
 early afoot," she said. " Mornin' isn't aired yet." 
 
 " Wanted to see you on business, my dear." 
 
 In the dusk of the shuttered room the other's eyes 
 glittered like new-broken coal. " Should have sent 
 Jenifer over to me months ago." 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat came in and shut the door. " 'Tisn't 
 that, then." 
 
 " That is what they do all say to begin with." 
 Throwing back the shutters, she thrust sticks into 
 the smoulder of turf. " Love and life, my dear soul, 
 love and death." 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat 's curiosity was aroused. " Do 
 a-many come to see you, Rebecca ? " 
 
 " A braave few ! For though there's some are too 
 frightened, there's more that daren't stay away." 
 She opened the door into her tiny garden, and stooping, 
 picked up a toad. " My 'andsome," she said, and 
 coming back with it in her hand, sat down on a stool 
 by the hearth. " I'm ready for you now." 
 
 Morwenna leaned forward, smiling. What she 
 had to say would be a surprise for Rebecca. " You've 
 told me time and again you'd like a little shop of 
 your own, and now's your chance." 
 
 The other leaned against the wall for a moment, 
 her dark face grey. " What do 'ee mane ? " 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat explained, and gradually the 
 woman's face lost its unhealthy hue. She had shut 
 her eyes, and, for a moment, she kept them shut. 
 The suddenness of the offer had made her feel as 
 if she were in a place that was all open doors. 
 
 " Suit me all right to have a li'l shop of me own."
 
 THE HAUNTING 215 
 
 Her earnings were precarious, and she was getting 
 up in years. Of late, she had spent anxious moments 
 wondering how to manage, seeing herself cold and 
 hungry, and and old ! She had no near relatives, 
 no friends, not a soul to care what happened to her. 
 
 But if she were to take over the baby-linen shop 
 with its assured custom she would be able to earn 
 enough, more than enough ; moreover, she would 
 be a person of importance in the town, a shopkeeper. 
 She knew, at once, that she would accept Morwenna's 
 offer, knew that she was glad of it. 
 
 " Suit me to have the shop, and suit you to get 
 rids of it, eh ?" She must not let Morwenna realize 
 it was a godsend. Sitting up on the small black 
 cricket, she considered the possibilities of her one 
 
 room. " How about a counter ? And " her glance 
 
 ran like a small live thing about floor and walls, 
 " And I shall want shelves." 
 
 " Edgar Rabey could bring over mine and fix 
 them for you." 
 
 " Thought it all out, haven't you ? " Morwenna, 
 who had sat by her at school, had made a good thing of 
 life, and how had she deserved it more than others ? 
 First, Peter Liddicoat, now Gale Corlyon ! " So 
 you've got'n at last ? Well, you have waited long 
 enough." Her eyes were scornful. " Whyever 
 women tie theirselves up to men is more'n I can 
 think." 
 
 " 'Tis nature." 
 
 ' 'Tis askin' for trouble, addin' fuel to fire. Never 
 had a man myself, never wanted one." 
 
 ' Yet you was a pretty maid." 
 
 Rebecca touched the toad, now making an ungainly 
 effort to crawl out of her lap. " These li'l chaps be
 
 216 THE HAUNTING 
 
 company enough for me, and they don't cost I 
 nothing but love." 
 
 Morwenna rose to go. " Love ? " 
 
 " Love for this, or love for that, 'tis all the same." 
 
 " Oh, no." 
 
 " Two kinds o' love, is there ? This that costs I 
 nothing, and yourn as is all tangled up with life and 
 death ? " 
 
 " Don't 'ee, Becky." 
 
 Rebecca followed her to the door. " People want 
 for it to be only life ; but, more often, many times 
 more often, 'tis tangled up with death." 
 
 ii 
 
 Old stock and new, rolls, bales and cardboard 
 boxes, the contents of the shop greater in quantity 
 than you would have expected were carried over 
 by the women. Edgar Rabey, as good a little work- 
 chap as could be found in Stowe, shifted shelves and 
 counter, and as Morwenna shut the door on him and 
 his last load of wooden fittings, she looked over the 
 gutted shop with a feeling which was half eager 
 pleasure yet half regret. She had enjoyed having 
 a business and meeting the travellers for the whole- 
 sale ; enjoyed using her mother- wit getting cheap 
 lines, job lots, and slightly flawed goods, getting them 
 because she knew how to smile at and interest the men ! 
 Very pleasant while it lasted, but she was going 
 to do what would be still more pleasant. She did 
 not regret selling to Rebecca. Oh, no, not really. 
 
 In the dirty littered room she saw possibilities of 
 a comfortable new order. She would wash the walls 
 with colour, primrose, she thought, as the room was
 
 THE HAUNTING 217 
 
 low and faced the sunset ! Then she would fetch 
 down the carpet Loveday had given her when they 
 moved into the Ring o' Bells. It would look hand- 
 some on the good boarded floor. She was glad now 
 she had had the boards laid. A stone floor was cold 
 to the feet and, tender soul, his feet were so often 
 cold. She was almost glad that they were. He was 
 so strong, it was heartening to think he had a weak- 
 ness any 
 
 No fireplace in the room ! That could be easily 
 remedied. This time of year mason didn't belong 
 to be busy. A fire as well as a carpet for those cold 
 feet. 
 
 The desk would be best between fireplace and 
 window, so that the light could fall directly on to 
 his papers. 
 
 A thin curtain of muslin across the lower panes 
 he would have light, warmth, the place to himself 
 and, if he wanted anything more, he had only to ask. 
 He need not even do that. Trust her to find out 
 what he wanted, and give it to him. Somewhere 
 in the Bible it said " to the half of my Kingdom." 
 The half, only the half ? Some people were poor 
 givers ! 
 
 The curtain would prevent him from being over- 
 looked. Able to see out, to mark who passed, he 
 would be unseen. The people who came on business, 
 they too must feel they were not spied on, that they 
 were alone with him. 
 
 She took the top of a packing-case, nailed it over 
 the glass hatch between kitchen and shop.
 
 218 THE HAUNTING 
 
 in 
 
 The roses of the flowered carpet lay brightly on the 
 boards, a fire blazed behind the bars of the new grate, 
 and fine muslin shut out the world. 
 
 " Look empty it do," Mrs. Liddicoat thought, 
 glancing about her, at the pale primrose of the walls, 
 at the space that had been crowded with cardboard 
 boxes and paper packages, and stock. " But if the 
 dear brings his desk his desk and a chair or 
 two " 
 
 Thursday and in the kitchen a fowl was boiling, 
 half an hour more, and she would take it out of the 
 liquor, set it on potatoes in the baking dish, and put 
 it in the oven. On the table ready for the sauce 
 stood milk, crumbled bread, a muslin bag with clove 
 and onion. As everything was ready, she might go 
 up and change her dress. 
 
 Overstairs the room was in some disorder not 
 time to do everything ! Once he was come it would 
 be different, but she had been busy getting ready ; 
 and while she was alone what did it matter ? 
 
 By the back window stood an old chest open. 
 Her mother's chest, and she kept in it the two pairs 
 of linen sheets her mother had left her, the two 
 damask cloths, the pair of white blankets, the patch- 
 work quilt. 
 
 When the darling came, he should have a bed fit 
 for a king. Fit for ? He was a king, and he should 
 sleep in fine linen, lie under the bright silks and 
 satins and velvets of Grandmother's quilt. 
 
 She regretted that she had not found time to open 
 the bed-tie, pick over the lumps. Very little lumps, 
 hardly noticeable after all, the tie was stuffed with
 
 THE HAUNTING 219 
 
 goose feathers. She had bought them from Sarah 
 Martyn, over to Saint Ryn, and Sarah, whatever 
 else might be said about her, was honest. She never 
 mixed duck and fowl feathers with the goose down ! 
 Still, in the king's bed there must not be the suspicion 
 of a lump. Give her one day more, and she would 
 pick them over. 
 
 One day more ? Put off his coming yet another 
 day ? Oh, no ! It had been a busy week, and she 
 had been absorbed in her preparations, yet every 
 hour had held the hope that he might come, that she 
 might glance up from her work to see him looking 
 at her. Those whimsical eyes ! They made fun of 
 her scrubbings and scourings. She was to do as she 
 liked, but he saw no need for stirring up of dust 
 and shifting of furniture. With half the disturbance 
 he would have been quite as comfortable. Dearie 
 dear, the foolishness, the enchanting foolishness of 
 men ! 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat lifted from a peg in her hanging 
 cupboard a long linen bag. Within, uncreased, yet 
 preserved from moth and dust, hung the purple 
 gown. The ruches at sleeve and throat were fresh. 
 She would add the French lace collar, the gold 
 chain . . . 
 
 She wore her hair loosened a little at the sides 
 and fastened in a seemly knot at the back. So many 
 women had curls, curls in a bunch, or short ringlets 
 hanging from a centre parting, but she must have 
 neatness. If you were the sort for curls, that was 
 all right ; but if a woman like herself wore them it 
 would look foolish. And he he had never said what 
 he liked. A smooth head, or waves, or ringlets, she 
 did not know. Hilde Fone had had a single fat curl
 
 220 THE HAUNTING 
 
 that she tossed over her shoulder ; Emmie Rosevear 
 had had an unruly mop, no less. Thinking over the 
 maids that Morwenna had seen him with, she was 
 unable to come to a conclusion. All sorts ! Perhaps 
 that was it. He liked this, and that, and the other, 
 but she need not worry for, if he had never spoken of 
 her hair, when it came to marriage, it was she whom 
 he had chosen. 
 
 From a box where it lay folded in" tissue paper 
 she took the lace collar. It had come to the town on 
 a woman fleeing from religious persecution, and had 
 been handed down from mother to daughter, a bit 
 of decency. Rebecca French envied her the collar, 
 said she had an equal right to it, seeing the woman 
 it came from had been her great -granny too. True, 
 they were some sort of cousin, she and Becky, but 
 then, most people were if they only knew. Morwenna 
 had the collar because her side the family had been 
 saving, while Becky's father a proper dragon of a 
 fellow ! Why, they said 'twas he changed the white 
 stones on the edge of the cliffs so that Exciseman 
 Tonkin fell over in the dark and broke his neck. 
 It was not brought home to Jacob French, but in the 
 whole place no such a daredevil as he. 
 
 The collar was of fine lace. When her mother 
 gave it her, it had been yellow with age, but she had 
 washed and bleached and mended it. It looked well 
 on the bright purple of her gown, and Gale had said 
 he " loved " her in it. 
 
 If only the neck about which it lay had been firm 
 of skin, firm as it was full. She looked at her reflec- 
 tion. Her throat was white, but the skin under the 
 chin was baggy. Once, and not long ago, either, she 
 had had the fairest neck or so they said in Stowe.
 
 THE HAUNTING 221 
 
 She cupped her face in her hand and, stooping to 
 the mirror, considered the result. Her fingers, 
 gathering in the loosened skin, revealed a soft round 
 chin, the chin that goes with an eager and a vital 
 spirit ; revealed, too, the white column of a neck 
 once beautiful, and still fair. 
 
 Morwenna had always been aware of her good 
 points, had thought her duty done when she saw 
 them again in her children. Not till the hope of Gale 
 Corlyon's love bloomed in her heart had she regarded 
 her looks from a personal point of view. What had 
 she to give ? Not beauty . . . 
 
 She wished^ she were not so ignorant of rouge pots 
 and the like ; that young hussy, Jenifer, knew more 
 of such matters than she. Yet it was she to whom 
 the knowledge might have been useful. 
 
 If only she could have ironed the creases from her 
 face as she ironed the clothes when she had made 
 them water-sweet ! Not many wrinkles, but more 
 than enough. Thank goodness, her skin was still 
 soft, soft as silk. 
 
 If she had done differently during the careless years, 
 would she now have had a firm smooth skin, and no 
 grey in her hair ? A good head of hair, but for colour 
 it was like a sea-mist. It had been yellow as a daffy. 
 It had darkened to brown, it had dimmed to this 
 cloudy grey. 
 
 A slack skin, and wrinkles, and grey hair ! Yet 
 he, who might have had the pick of the parish, he 
 wanted her. 
 
 She was not worthy, not in her body, only in her 
 love.
 
 222 THE HAUNTING 
 
 IV 
 
 The fowl was roasted to a turn, the sauce made, 
 the jam bobbin ready, and yet the step that would 
 have been so welcome had not swung up the lamp-lit 
 street, and over the drexel. 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat stacked plates and dishes in the 
 warm oven and, closing behind her the kitchen door, 
 shutting in lamp and firelight, went through the outer 
 room to the street. She had intended to give Mr. 
 Corlyon a surprise, to let him in, and then, fetching 
 a candle, show him what had kept her busy. He would 
 be delighted with the freshly-limed walls and the 
 gay carpet. Liked bright colours he did, and jollity, 
 and things of good repute. Well, he should have 
 all the brightness she could bring into his life a 
 man who spent all his spare time doing kindnesses 
 for folk ! A Bible phrase came into her head : 
 " He saved others, himself he cannot save." Yes, 
 indeed, he saved others, oh, in lots of ways, but he 
 was going to be happy, he himself. She would see 
 to it that he was. 
 
 She stood at the door, looking into deepening night. 
 The Brown House was in darkness. That might mean 
 either that he was just setting out or that he had 
 gone into the town on business, was coming on to her 
 from some unpaid errand. 
 
 " That you, Mrs. Liddicoat ? " 
 
 A voice from across the street. Morwenna had 
 thought she was sufficiently in the shadow not to 
 be seen. She tuned her throat to an amiable greeting. 
 " Making your fortune, Rebecca ? " 
 
 The light of the little low room, now transformed 
 with goods, outlined Rebecca's spare figure. She
 
 THE HAUNTING 223 
 
 was stroking a small, dark something she held in her 
 hand and her sharp glances raked the street. " The 
 business has made one bit of difference to me," she 
 said. " I used to be sorry for the maidens that got 
 theirselves nabbed, but now 'tis the artful ones I 
 'aven't got no patience with." 
 
 As she spoke a woman, carrying a covered basket, 
 stepped out of the Farmer's Arms. She crossed the 
 road, coming down on Mrs. Liddicoat's side, but she 
 need not have hoped to escape recognition. Rebecca 
 looked from the woman to her basket " Good 
 evenin', Mrs. Maddicott. A fine bakin' day, wind's in 
 the right direction." 
 
 Though Dusha Maddicott returned the greeting she 
 did not stop ; and Rebecca's darkling glance followed 
 her down the street. 
 
 " She'm going to they Spargos, that's where she's 
 going," she cried, as Mrs. Maddicott turned east 
 across the head of the quay. " She's always bakin' 
 pasties and 'obbins for they." 
 
 Morwenna heard without heeding. The little 
 jealousies of the street, what did they matter ? What 
 did anything matter but that time was passing and 
 there was no sign of Gale ? 
 
 A hot supper did not improve by keeping. Unwil- 
 lingly she went back to the kitchen. He would not 
 come any the quicker because she idled away her time. 
 At her waist, fastened to a wad of straw, was the 
 stocking she had begun, and when she had slaked the 
 fire with fine coal and sand, she went on with the three 
 plain, three purl. Jenifer's stockings,' her own, and 
 now Gale's. Hers and Jenifer's as a matter of course, 
 but every stitch she put on to the needles for him gave 
 her pleasure. Stockings for those narrow feet, feet
 
 224 THE HAUNTING 
 
 like the quality had ; but, then, he was quality at 
 least his mother had been ! 
 
 Morwenna, knitting and yet listening, was disturbed 
 by a clash of voices. Trouble had broken out in the 
 street and now she would not be able to hear his step. 
 An excuse to go back to the door ! Little she cared 
 for the women's quarrels. Some trifle or other. Why 
 it was Mrs. Maddicott of all people, Mrs. Maddicott ! 
 Looking so untidy, too. Where was her bonnet ? 
 Morwenna had never seen her on the street without it, 
 but now she stood in Rebecca's doorway, with her 
 fire -red hair a rumpled mass. 
 
 " What is it ? What is 7 the matter ? " Up and 
 down the street women were at their doors, 
 and Morwenna turned to a neighbour for infor- 
 mation. 
 
 *' She do think she been ill-wished and that Rebecca 
 done it. She be tellin' her of it." 
 
 The procedure was time honoured. Only by con- 
 fronting the ill-wisher could you get her to remove the 
 spell. 
 
 " When I got in," cried Mrs. Maddicott furiously. 
 " I was fair boilin' with lice." 
 
 Rebecca, a small dark figure on the threshold of 
 her house, stared coldly. " Comes of going into 
 Spargo's dirty place." 
 
 The defence being reasonable one or two of the on- 
 lookers smiled, but not Mrs. Maddicott. " 'Tis not 
 the Spargos and don't you miscall them, or you'll have 
 they to reckon with. 'Tis you and I know why you 
 done it ! You jaloused I was taking a loaf to the old 
 man and you thought I belonged to give you one. 
 You, with your new shop ! Why should I bake for 
 you ? And now I'm lousy as a pig ; but if you don't
 
 THE HAUNTING 225 
 
 take the charm off me, I'll " she lifted her hand 
 threateningly, " I'll cork you up." 
 
 The women glanced at each other. It was the ap- 
 proved method of releasing a person who had been 
 witched. A brave woman, Mrs. Maddicott, not many 
 of them would have dared threaten the witch. 
 
 " You can't," was all Rebecca said, but her eyes were 
 venomous and Mrs. Liddicoat, shuddery cold inside the 
 purple dress, was thankful she had always been on 
 good terms with the possessor of those eyes. No 
 doubt about it, Rebecca could ill-wish you if she had a 
 mind to. 
 
 " And why can't I then ? " 
 
 " You don't know the words." 
 
 " Don't I then ? Betsey Rosevear told me all 
 about it." 
 
 Corking up was no light matter and Rebecca, 
 although she had never experienced it, had heard tales. 
 The menace in her eyes turned to an aloof dignity. 
 
 " You think you'm lousy," she said, " but you're 
 mistook. Go home now, and as your foot cross the 
 drexel you'll find you are clean as ever." 
 
 She stepped back shutting her door jn the other's 
 face. Young Mrs. Spargo was a higgler and chicken 
 are lousy ; but chicken-lice cannot live on a human 
 being. Her prophecy would come true at any rate 
 before morning. 
 
 Meanwhile the tale that she, Rebecca French, had 
 ill -wished Mrs. Maddicott would travel abroad, bring- 
 ing her more and more after-dark visitors, people who 
 believed she could help as well as harm, people who 
 were in trouble of one sort and another. 
 
 The women faded into the obscurity of doorway and 
 passage, and Morwenna found herself alone on the 
 p
 
 226 THE HAUNTING 
 
 cobbles of the sidewalk. A wind out of the north, 
 cold and with a suggestion of frost, was sweeping up 
 from the harbour. Looking through the blackness, 
 she shivered a little, recalled by the passing of the 
 teacup storm to a dreary fact. He was not come. 
 
 When Mrs. Liddicoat sank into her down bed that 
 night, she felt as if she were sinking through it into 
 nothingness. In actual fact, she soon came to the 
 " hard country " of her mattress, but her heart con- 
 tinued to sink until it was floating in a night that was 
 black and cold and still. 
 
 When he had parted from her, a week ago, it had 
 been with love on his lips. The fact that he had not 
 been near her since it might mean ... A lei- 
 surely place, Stowe, no one so busy but he could 
 spare time for a craik ; and he would want to see her, 
 just as she wanted to see him. Not a morning but 
 when she woke she had thought, "I shall see him before 
 night," and night had found her disappointed but not 
 discouraged. " I shall see him to-morrow " and 
 always she had known, for sure, that Thursday would 
 bring him. 
 
 Yet he had not been in. Not once had he looked 
 over the half-door. And now, even Thursday was past 
 and he had not come. She lay in the dark, crying. 
 
 VI \ 
 
 A clear, bright day called her from shallow dream- 
 troubled sleep, and called her early. 
 
 It might not have been the day that called her ; 
 but her uncertainty, her fear. From the rounded
 
 THE HAUNTING 227 
 
 window of her bedroom, she could see the Brown 
 House, its front caressed by the sun, its panes shining 
 in the dawn light. Antiks Hellyar " did " for Mr. 
 Corlyon and Morwenna would watch her go in. It 
 might be he was ill. 
 
 Antiks would go down the lane at the side, over the 
 stepping-stones in the wall, and in at the back-door. 
 
 Mrs. Liddicoat, putting on her blue woollen dressing- 
 gown, sat down by the window. On those opposite, 
 the sun glittered ; at the back of them, Gudda Hill 
 was yellow with light and also with kissing flowers 
 bushes and bushes of them. 
 
 The day brightened and warmed, but no Antiks. 
 Smoke rose from the kitchen chimney Morwenna 
 knew those chimneys better than her own a window 
 was raised. 
 
 It was Pascoe's window and she had long sight. 
 Though Gale was in shadow, for the room looking 
 south was a pit of darkness, something in her knew 
 that he had opened it, that he was there looking out, 
 looking towards her. She was as certain as if she 
 could see into his mind that he was thinking of her ; 
 and her body tingled and glowed. She lost the sense 
 of personal being, was no longer Morwenna Liddicoat 
 but a something that throbbed towards him, that was 
 part of his life. 
 
 He stood for some time at the window and absorbed, 
 utterly happy, she waited. He was alive, he was well, 
 he was thinking of her what more did she want ? 
 
 In the course of the day, he would let her know why, 
 the previous evening, he had failed to come. She 
 would be at work in the house and, some blessed 
 moment, would lift her eyes to see the face and figure 
 always in her thoughts. Or she would be in the
 
 228 THE HAUNTING 
 
 garden and would hear a voice, his voice ; would hear 
 it so gladly that for a second she would turn faint. 
 Before she could run in she would have to lay her hand 
 on her heart, pull herself together. 
 
 He did not like a fuss, so as she ran, she would have 
 to steady herself, conceal her too great joy. When 
 she reached him she would have to smile as if he had 
 .not been ages absent, give him a good everyday wel- 
 come ! " Well, you are come then ? Glad to see you, 
 always glad. Come on into the kitchen and set down."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE hours of Friday dragged a painful course. Mrs. 
 Liddicoat could not settle to any work. The lumps 
 in the feather-tie ? What ? Run down to him when 
 he came with her hair all fluffs ? No the bed could 
 wait. Dig in the manure her son-in-law had brought 
 her from Caer when he was fetching coal ? She was 
 not in the mood for it, not in the mood for any work 
 that took her out of the primrose room or away from 
 the rounded window overstairs. Why did not Gale 
 come ? He had stood in Pascoe's room, looking up 
 the street, yet the slow minutes fell away and there 
 was neither sign nor sight of him. )Vhat had hap- 
 pened, what was the matter ? The strain kept her 
 moving restlessly about. She began a job but left 
 it half finished. She went from one room to the 
 other ; did a little washing, a little ironing, but even- 
 tually pushed trough and iron impatiently aside. The 
 work was of no importance, nothing was, nothing but 
 the fact that he did not come. Night closing down 
 she could only think miserably that perhaps to- 
 morrow . . . 
 
 If he did not come to-morrow she would do some- 
 thing desperate ! Uncertainty was wearing, was 
 more than wearing. If she knew what was the matter 
 she would be able somehow to adapt herself. Nothing 
 was more difficult to endure than this not knowing 
 
 339
 
 230 THE HAUNTING 
 
 where you were and what was going to happen. No, 
 no, it was not that. She was unhappy because he 
 did not come. If he stood before her in the flesh, she 
 would be able to endure anything. 
 
 On Saturday she caught a glimpse of him. He had 
 come out of his house and was walking swiftly so 
 swiftly he almost seemed to run down his garden. 
 Her heart fluttered with excitement, with hope, but 
 in a moment he had crossed the road and was out of 
 sight. Evidently he was gone out on business, and 
 was late. When he came home, though, he would not 
 be in such a hurry. She might expect to see him in 
 an hour or two. She sat down behind the muslin 
 curtain, waited an hour, another, but he did not 
 come. 
 
 Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 
 
 At night her heart fell into the void of an accepted 
 disappointment. All day long she had hoped, every 
 hour, every minute, but the stroke of ten meant 
 that she must hope no more. He had not come. 
 That day he would not come. 
 
 She had to live through the hours of blackness 
 before she might begin again hours, minutes, every 
 second of the day. 
 
 If only she understood. Had she done anything 
 he did not like, was he annoyed, angry with her ? 
 She remembered the figure at the window. He had 
 stood there for a long time, motionless, looking to- 
 wards her, thinking of her. She could not doubt that 
 he had been thinking of her. Well, then, he could 
 not be angry. . . . 
 
 Thursday morning ! A day of wind and racing 
 cloud and sharp scurries of rain. She went across 
 to the butcher's and bought a sweetbread.
 
 THE HAUNTING 231 
 
 At any rate she would pretend to herself that he 
 was coming. As she walked through the primrose 
 room, the walls echoed her step, the grate stared 
 through a menace of black bars. Empty. . . . 
 
 Her plans, her preparations she put the sweet- 
 bread on the kitchen table, leaned her face on her 
 arms and sat motionless. If she only knew why 
 
 For what seemed to her a moment but was in reality 
 a long time, she sat by the table, seeking the reason. 
 He could not cast her off without a word. Suddenly, 
 too. Something must have happened, something of 
 which she was in ignorance. Her mind traversed 
 straight roads and winding but to no purpose. She 
 had no clue, was in a maze ; but it was unbearable 
 this going round and round, this uncertainty. Hours, 
 days and the ache of longing, why, oh why ? He who 
 was kind to the whole of Stowe, to whom those in 
 trouble turned as a matter of course, he could not be 
 unkind to her. It was not possible. His caresses 
 burned on her lips, on more than her lips. He could 
 not have kissed her like that if he had not loved 
 her. And yet, if he had in his breast the ache of 
 longing that was in hers, he could not simply could 
 not have stayed away. 
 
 He had been able to stay away, therefore he could 
 not love her as much as she him. 
 
 Perhaps men did not love like women. How was 
 she with her one experience and that so commonplace, 
 how was she to know ? 
 
 Gathering up her parcels, she tried to find in work an 
 antidote to pain.
 
 232 THE HAUNTING 
 
 ii 
 
 To Morwenna, sitting hands folded, in her kitchen 
 while the hours of Thursday evening dropped slowly 
 away, those fruitless moments were the last turn of 
 the screw. When she could bear the tightening no 
 longer she went to her room, and threw herself, face 
 down, on the bed. She lay there wrestling with the 
 longing to go, to go at once and ask her lover why he 
 was torturing her. 
 
 Absence, silence. . . . 
 
 All evening she had hardly dared to breathe. The 
 clock in the church tower had cried the hours, and her 
 spirit crossing the " land between " had pleaded for 
 her with that other spirit. He had proved inexorable. 
 All the wiles she knew and yet she could not prevail ! 
 
 How had she contrived to vex him ? Never a 
 cross word between them. She admired him as a man, 
 and he had seemed to admire her management of her 
 cottage property, of her shop, of her little home. If 
 he had wanted her to be different in any way, yes, 
 any way at all, she would have been willing. She 
 would have felt that she was doing it for him. She 
 wanted to fill her life with the doing of things for him, 
 then every moment would be a joy. Already she had 
 given up the shop. . . . 
 
 He knew how utterly she was his, so it was not that. 
 Well, then, what could it be ? 
 
 She lay, in the bravery of her purple gown, her face 
 against the pillow. What matter the reason ? He 
 was not come and she could not, oh, she could not bear 
 it. 
 
 The night was very still. She was lapped in a still- 
 ness of misery, in darkness and bewilderment ; and
 
 THE HAUNTING 233 
 
 under it all was the old craving. If she could only 
 see him, ask . . . Well, and why not ? What was 
 to prevent her going to him ? She had gone in spirit, 
 why should she not go in the flesh. It would be more 
 satisfactory and, surely, he wouldn't mind. 
 
 Before she fell asleep, she had decided to see him, 
 question him. What he told her would be the truth. 
 On this resolve she slept and slept well ; and it helped 
 her through the following day. Fixed in her decision 
 she set to work on jobs that she had left half -finished. 
 Now that she knew what she would do, she could 
 possess her soul in patience. 
 
 in 
 
 For days a swell with following winds, had ground 
 the coast. The fishermen of Stowe, watching askance, 
 had made ready for flooded kitchens and cellars ; but, 
 during the night the sea had fallen silent. When 
 Morwenna Liddicoat came out of crooked, narrow 
 French Street, into the space and light of the 
 harbour she looked on water that was summer-blue 
 and still. 
 
 The latch of the little iron gate clicked under her 
 hand and her heart began to beat heavily. How 
 would he take her coming to him in this way ? Would 
 he be annoyed or would he look up from whatever 
 he was doing with a surprise that brightened, that 
 became joy ? She only knew that she was afraid, 
 yes, horribly. 
 
 Smoke was rising from the kitchen chimney, but 
 not from that of the parlour. She had heard that 
 Antiks Hellyar was no longer " doing " for Mr. Cor- 
 lyon, and at first she had been pleased. It looked as
 
 234 THE HAUNTING 
 
 if he, too, were beginning his preparations. Then, 
 why . . . what was the hitch ? 
 
 Would he be in ? Oh, yes, she knew he was. She 
 had the feeling in her bones, that he was not only in 
 but near. Strange, but she could almost see him. 
 
 If he had a fire in the kitchen, he would be sitting 
 there. Being such a chilly mortal he would not sit 
 in the cold parlour, yet she felt as if he were nearer 
 than the kitchen. She almost, she quite saw him, 
 saw him with the eyes of her mind. Ah, and she knew 
 for certain sure that in a moment more she would see 
 him, himself. 
 
 Her fear had changed to eagerness, a wave of sensa- 
 tion tingled through her body. So near ! Stepping 
 off the gravel on to the strip of lawn, she looked over 
 the wire blind of the window, . . . 
 
 Met his eyes. 
 
 For a moment she was too tumultuously glad to 
 realize anything but that she was seeing him. She 
 stood, her heart in the looks she gave him ; but the 
 face turned to her, the face looking out of the gloomy 
 room, was white and hard. It did not reflect either 
 her gladness or her surprise. He must, she thought, 
 have, watched her walk up the path ; must have 
 understood. She looked into his eyes, the eyes that 
 had softened to her such a little while ago, but they 
 were a flint grey. No warmth, no gold in them and 
 the set of his jaw, grim. She had seen a snapped-to 
 rabbit-trap. The iron teeth Gale's jaw 
 
 Her knees shook and for a moment she wished she 
 had left ill alone, that she had not come. Then she 
 rallied. He did not belong to look at her like that. 
 The tumult of her spirit, its love, its longing, stilled. 
 She was afraid, but not of Gale. His absence had
 
 THE HAUNTING 235 
 
 been grievous, but what he might do now might be 
 worse, for he might wound love itself. She realized 
 suddenly that she did not matter, but love yes. 
 
 She knew now that she was sorry she had come. 
 Nevertheless she was there and must take what he 
 gave. She bent towards the window and in a voice 
 she tried to keep steady, said : " 'Tis the prettiest 
 day we've had for a long time. Won't you come out 
 for a walk, dear life ? " 
 
 Usually he spoke slowly, as if considering his words, 
 but to-day he had them ready. " I can't come." 
 
 The unfamiliar readiness took her aback. Not 
 only that but a quality in the voice. Never had 
 she heard tones so stone-cold, so hard. "Why can't 
 you ? " 
 
 " I have made up my mind." 
 
 The voice might have come from between the lips 
 of a statue. The words were like lumps of marble, 
 dropping, dropping, on to Morwenna's heart and each 
 stone, harsh and jagged, cut into the soft flesh. 
 " Aren't you comin' any more ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 Although he saw the blood drain from her face, his 
 remained set and cold. To-day she was suffering, 
 yesterday it had been he. 
 
 ;c What have I done ? " The glass of the window 
 was between them but he heard. Her fear, her 
 grief they were, in a way, comforting. He had felt, 
 too, and at bottom all feeling is the same. 
 
 " I don't know that you have done anything." 
 
 " Then can't I can't I make it right ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 She sought desperately, in crazy haste, for an argu- 
 ment, something that would wipe that look off his
 
 236 THE HAUNTING 
 
 face. His voice was not only hard, it was final. The 
 end ? Oh, no, not that, anything but that. 
 
 " You don't He must deny it, there was a 
 
 mistake somewhere, and she must manage to break 
 through, get past this stranger, get at the real Gale. 
 " You don't want me ? " 
 
 He did not answer. The truth lay behind his 
 grimly-set lips. If he opened them it might slip out. 
 Want her ? She was sanctuary, salvation . . . want 
 her? 
 
 Yet even this was better than sitting alone, thinking. 
 Here was a fight and it was a relief to hit out, to hurt 
 as he had been hurt ; yes, and to know that his un- 
 happiness was shared. 
 
 She waited, searching his face for a kindness she felt 
 must be there. Ten years of friendship, a month of 
 loving, surely they had bred in him some sort of 
 affection for her ? But no, not a hint of it. The set 
 face, the eyes ! 
 
 Hard as grey ice, those eyes. 
 
 They told her what she had known all along. It 
 had not been possible that a man as splendid as he, 
 should love her. 
 
 "Is it because I am " her vanity boggled over 
 'old,' "because I am not young?" 
 
 A flicker in the hard eyes. She was a poor thing 
 to fight, laid herself open. You had only to strike ! 
 If she had been a better fighter it would have been 
 easier to strike, but he must go on. He had killed 
 Pascoe, now he must kill one thing grew out of 
 another he must kill this. 
 
 He bent his head. He could not lie with his lips, 
 but in love and war . . . 
 
 Seeing, she grew yet more grey and he thought for
 
 THE HAUNTING 237 
 
 an angry moment that she was going to faint. " Be- 
 cause I am old ? " she cried, no longer boggling over 
 the word. What did vanity matter, now ? " Oh, 
 I knew it, I knew it." 
 
 The death-blow ! No woman could stand that ! 
 He had a feeling of release. Those clinging arms, they 
 were gone, and he was free. 
 
 If she would only go. 
 
 His eyes stared unseeingly. He was near, so very 
 near the end of endurance. That humble acceptance 
 by her of his knock-out blow as natural, expected, 
 beat on his self-control. If she did not hurry away 
 he might ... he would . . . 
 
 She must go and quickly, or he would tell her . . . 
 tell her the truth. 
 
 Why did she not go ? He could not stand it, not 
 a moment longer. Oh . . . 
 
 She was looking at him, as the damned look on the 
 face of God. Cast out of heaven she might not see 
 him again. At last ah, yes, at last she was turning 
 away. 
 
 He heard her feet on the crisp gravel of the path. 
 She was gone. 
 
 He sat like a man who has been changed from liv- 
 ing flesh to stone. The receding footsteps dragged. 
 Morwenna went heavily as if she were indeed old. 
 
 The gate at the end of the path shut between them 
 with the fall of iron latch into iron socket.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 MORWENNA 
 
 WHEN it came to bread-baking, meat -roasting, Mr. 
 Corlyon found himself at a loss. Simple things pre- 
 sented no difficulties, and he had found food in the 
 larder. He could make coffee, cook eggs and had a 
 ham in cut. Amazing though, how quickly, even if 
 he only used one plate at a meal, the cloam accumu- 
 lated in the dish-pan. Also very surprising in what 
 a short time the cupboard grew bare. He did not 
 know how to replenish it. 
 
 He did not want to go out and buy. A neighbour 
 or some man on business might come while he was out. 
 Getting no answer when they rang, they might look 
 over the wire blind, they too. 
 
 There was no knowing what people might not do. 
 The door in the garden wall was locked but it was easy 
 to come over by the stones. Antiks had come that 
 way, Jenifer. He thought of somebody peering into 
 the firelit kitchen, seeing . . . 
 
 The settle he had burnt was conspicuously there, the 
 settle and its occupant. No one could help seeing it. 
 
 He passed a hand over his forehead. Nowadays 
 his brain seemed full of woolly cloud. Other people 
 why, of course, other people might not be able to see 
 the settle. 
 
 238
 
 THE HAUNTING 239 
 
 Or they might, he could not be sure. Antiks had 
 not seen it. He felt pretty certain, now, that she had 
 been quite unaware of its existence. Ah, but that 
 was because the haunt was a thing that grew on you . . . 
 It was at first only a feeling. It took a long time to 
 become visible. In the end though it was so over- 
 whelmingly real that material objects grew insubstan- 
 tial beside it. 
 
 That had been his experience and, naturally, would 
 be the experience of others. Antiks, anyone in the 
 house, must in time become aware of it ; faintly 
 aware, then more so, and at last, unable to think of 
 anything else. Yes, he must keep everyone out and 
 in order to do so he must be on the spot. 
 
 Pascoe should not succeed in letting the town know 
 that he had been put away justly, oh yes, justly ! 
 He would come, in time, to see it was hopeless. Gale 
 could -be as dogged as he 'was patient. They were, 
 after all, brothers, two of a kind, and he had always 
 taken the lead. Pascoe had often had to give in and 
 now again . . . but this was not Pascoe, not really 
 Pascoe ! 
 
 The spirit of vengeance ! A spirit that Pascoe, dy- 
 ing, had released. He was dead and by now rotten. 
 It was not he who lay, with circumstance, on the 
 settle ; who 
 
 No, he had not moved. It was the flicker of the 
 flames. 
 
 Gale, heating water for a necessary washing of plates 
 and dishes, began to clear the table. Hardly conscious 
 of the act, he tried to put aside a wineglass the bottom 
 of which was black with sediment. Long since, he 
 had made a hole in the turf fire, dropped in that glass 
 and left it to melt, yet it still stood on the table. He
 
 240 THE HAUNTING 
 
 was afraid lest, by accident, he might pick it up, 
 drink those dregs. Nonsense, of course, but nowadays 
 he had absurd ideas. 
 
 He put the plates and knives and forks in the dish- 
 pan. His fingers were numb, so numb that it was 
 difficult to realize the water was hot. 
 
 ii 
 
 A bare larder ! Though the store cupboard con- 
 tained rows of last year's jam, a man cannot live on 
 jam. He had known plenty of fellows who managed 
 for themselves ; ah, but how ? Where did they get 
 their food ? He could not but think that somewhere 
 in the shadows, there must have been a woman. They 
 had not admitted it, had been proud of being able to 
 do without help, and he had believed them. But he 
 was grown dubious. 
 
 The larder must be replenished. Not that he was 
 hungry, but that in order to keep well he must eat, 
 and in order to eat must have cooked food. Well ? 
 He wondered if he were. He supposed so, but he was 
 never hungry the fault, perhaps, of the food and 
 he slept badly. Yes, very badly and his dreams ! 
 Such dreams, full of tumult and violence and, once 
 or twice, of grief. In those last he had been a little 
 boy and his mother was dead. All those years dead, 
 yet he grieved as he had the evening they came to 
 tell him of the accident that had killed her. 
 
 When he woke, his chest was heaving and a band 
 seemed to be fastened tightly round his head. Gener- 
 ally there, when he woke, that band. After he had 
 eaten breakfast it loosened and as the morning passed 
 he would forget he had been troubled with it. To
 
 THE HAUNTING 241 
 
 him, night brought, not sleep, but hours of thought, 
 during which he swung from one explanation of the 
 haunt to another. When at last he dropped off, he 
 was whirled about, unrestfully, by the dreams. It 
 was, he thought, little wonder that he woke to that 
 tightness about his temples. 
 
 If he could only fix his mind on something outside 
 himself and his affairs ! If he could leave off worrying 
 about the haunt and its potentialities, think of why 
 not of his neglected business ? 
 
 The people of Stowe, their concerns, their troubles, 
 felt curiously far away and unimportant. He saw 
 them through a cloud of dust that some wind out of 
 clear skies had blown across his path. They were as 
 large, as vital, as compelling as ever, it was the dust. 
 
 He must not allow it to affect him, he must pull 
 himself together, force an interest. If he did, he 
 might hope presently to feel the old keen wish to be 
 of use. Meanwhile there was still that affair of the 
 Rabeys Carrie at home with her mother and he 
 carrying on with the girl at the Cornish Arms. Poor 
 Carrie, she was consumptive, before long she would be 
 out of the way and Rabey would be able to marry the 
 other woman. The marriage vow was till " death us 
 do part." It was horrible to think of them waiting 
 for that. Mr. Corlyon had been asked to have a 
 talk with Rabey, see what could be done ; but some- 
 one with less sentiment than he was attending to the 
 matter. So often the way . . . things arranged 
 themselves ! Yet sometimes one could help which 
 reminded him that Mrs. Rosewarne of Crug had asked 
 him to meet her at the market and that it was Satur- 
 day. She wanted his advice with regard to selling 
 that field on the edge of the town.
 
 242 THE HAUNTING 
 
 The fresh air might be good for his head. Ah, but 
 he had forgotten the house the possible visitors ! 
 Saturday on a Saturday everybody was busy ! If 
 he were to hurry there and hurry back . . . 
 
 The glare of day, the glitter of dancing water, hurt 
 his eyes and he pulled his hat forward. For weeks 
 he had lived in the half-dark of the house and it was 
 pleasant to be out. Mechanically he took note of the 
 weather. The wind had gone back into rainy country, 
 but for the moment the day was pretty enough. 
 
 Threading his way between the stalls, greeting the 
 farmers' wives, Mrs. Prin of Ludgian Veal, Phillipa 
 Old of Bosence, young Mrs. Rodda, his glance fell 
 idly on the wares displayed. Why here was food, 
 the cooked food of which he stood in need. Fresh 
 bread and cake for hussies who were too lazy to bake 
 their own, pasties, butter, eggs, cream. Bate and 
 Catley had ordered a boiled and bread-crumbed ham 
 from Mrs. Old, but she was willing to let Mr. Corlyon 
 buy it. She liked the handsome face of him, would as 
 soon he had it. 
 
 " Be 'ee goin' to carr' it in with 'ee ? " 
 
 He had not thought of that. " I suppose I am." 
 
 " Or shall I send it ? " 
 
 That would not do at all. " I'll take it, thank you." 
 
 " Better 'ave a frail. Gipsy Lee at the other end got 
 a plenty." 
 
 Mr. Corlyon, with some of the old graciousness, 
 raised his hat. He would buy the basket and, after 
 he had had the arranged-for talk with Mrs. Rosewarne, 
 would hurry home. Already he repented the impulse 
 that had brought him out. Who knew what might 
 not be happening within doors ? 
 
 He avoided French Street. If he were to go down
 
 THE HAUNTING 243 
 
 it he would not have the strength to pass the baby- 
 linen shop. Something would draw him over the 
 drexel, into the house. At the back of his mind was a 
 shadowy feeling that, at the worst, Morwenna might 
 in some way resolve his difficulties, save him from 
 not himself, but oh, the whole thing. 
 
 Absurd, that idea, for he was going to save himself. 
 He did not quite know how, had not thought it out, 
 had only made a beginning. The weekly market had 
 solved the difficulty of food, the fresh air had relieved 
 his headache. He could think of that growing devel- 
 oping haunt with a better heart. 
 
 That growing, developing haunt. . . . 
 
 In spite of himself, he almost ran up the path from 
 gate to door. 
 
 in 
 
 The market, the gossip he had heard, the change 
 of scene, had stirred him to a defiance of Pascoe. 
 That evening he resolved to have his supper as 
 usual in the kitchen. Setting the ham on the 
 table that table which, however defiant he might 
 feel, he could not clear he flanked it with the crusty 
 bread, the yellow butter. A better supper than he 
 had had since Antiks left ! It looked so good that 
 he could almost believe he was hungry. At any rate, 
 he would be able to eat. 
 
 He cut the ham no matter that the plate had been 
 insufficiently rinsed, that the knives were darkly 
 iridescent and the forks dull. He broke a crust off the 
 loaf and was spreading it thick with the butter 
 
 Surely he was not alone in the room ? A move- 
 ment .
 
 244 THE HAUNTING 
 
 It must be the fire. A fire made noises, threw 
 shadows. You did not live by yourself in a house 
 without knowing how er companionable a fire was. 
 Not daunting, no, companionable. 
 
 He turned back to his supper, put food into his 
 mouth, but that suspicion of movement . . . 
 
 The thick shadow of Pascoe lay on the settle. It 
 lay there day and night. It lay as the dead lie. The 
 dead do not move and yet Mr. Corlyon's knife 
 slipped from his hand, rattled on to the plate. If 
 Pascoe 
 
 The top layer of peat had hollowed gradually now, 
 breaking, it let out a flame. Shadows sprang up the 
 wall, a shadow was rising from the settle. 
 
 Pascoe ! 
 
 It rose, it came over to the table, it sat where Pascoe 
 had sat. Mr. Corlyon drew back. He was not afraid, 
 no ... but . . . 
 
 He did not want it touch him ! 
 
 If it were to put out a hand, brush his, oh, just 
 accidentally, something in him might give way. He 
 was, he felt, on the edge yet he had known that this 
 would happen. He ought not to feel so surprised, 
 so startled. A moment he would be all right in a 
 moment. 
 
 He sat back in his chair, sat as far as he could from 
 the dark semblance of Pascoe. He fixed his eyes on 
 that thick but not solid blackness. It was actually 
 there, and it would not go away ; it was there like 
 the decanter in the parlour, like the settle. It would 
 be eternally there. He, living with it, would have to 
 accustom himself to the change. He would, too, 
 but he must have time. 
 
 Yes, time. Even now he no longer felt afraid.
 
 THE HAUNTING 245 
 
 p 
 
 Nonsense, he had not been afraid. What afraid of 
 a shadow ? 
 
 The figure stretched a hand and a shudder shook 
 Mr. Corlyon, but the hand was stretched to something 
 on the table. Heavens it had picked up the glass, 
 the wineglass with that black sediment. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon pushed back his chair. This was more 
 than he could stand. A ghost moved, yes, he had 
 known they did ; but he had not known they could 
 move with a settled purpose. If this figure were to 
 re-enact what was done and finished with, it would 
 make of the past an undying present. 
 
 That must be what Pascoe intended ! His ven- 
 geance on Gale would be to let everyone know, every- 
 one who came into the house. Gale had countered 
 that by shutting his doors to all the world. He could 
 endure the sight of Pascoe of this thing that was not 
 Pascoe but made in his image could live with it. 
 Yes, it should not get the better of him. There was 
 nothing he could not, would not, endure, nothing. 
 
 He went into the parlour. There at least he would 
 be alone. As long as he had some corner of the house 
 to himself, he would be all right. He lifted the edge 
 of the peat, let out flames and heat. Ah, that was 
 better ! He settled down in his chair, began to read 
 but he found his thoughts straying. While he was 
 absent, what was the apparition doing ? He did not 
 want to know, but he must. It flashed upon him that 
 if the thing could move about the kitchen, take up a 
 glass . . . 
 
 Why there was no knowing where it might not go, 
 what it might not do.
 
 246 THE HAUNTING 
 
 IV 
 
 Another wakeful night, but he had got something 
 out of it. How if he were to destroy the house and its 
 unseemly inmates ? A leak of oil here and there and a 
 match ! The place was old and full of dry wood ; 
 it would burn like carpenters' shavings. How about 
 Pascoe and his vengeance, then ? 
 
 Not being insured, he was free to do as he liked. He 
 would wrong no man if he let the place go up in flames, 
 and he would be rid of the haunt 
 
 To be rid of it would be worth his home, his so- 
 called comfort, even the savings in the pigskin bags 
 worth the world ! With him it had come to that ! 
 Anything to be rid of this ghastly obsession. And 
 fire was cleansing. The house had been attacked by a 
 disease against which limewashing, spring-cleaning, 
 was of no avail. Drastic measures, then. 
 
 Arson ? Nonsense, a man had the right to burn his 
 own house. Mr. Corlyon would be careful to choose a 
 still day he did not want to endanger the warehouses 
 at the end of the road ! It would go up, the old 
 house, like a burnt offering, a spire of flame rising 
 into the blue. 
 
 Only after he had eaten his breakfast did it occur 
 to him that once before he had burnt something ah, 
 yes, the settle ! And though he had seen it crumble 
 into white ash it was still there. 
 
 He might set fire to the house but could he destroy 
 it ? The flames might eat wood and plaster, might 
 blacken the stone foundations, but could they touch the 
 spirit of the house ? When the burning was at an end 
 might not a frail outline persist, walls which though 
 dim as if seen through mist would yet be visible, walls
 
 THE HAUNTING 247 
 
 through whose transparency the story of Pascoe 
 might be played in the sight of Stowe ? 
 
 He was assured it would be so played trust Pascoe 
 for that. " I'll leave the town know." They would 
 not know what of black-heartedness on Pascoe 's part 
 had brought it about. They would see only what 
 Pascoe wanted them to see. 
 
 The burning of the settle had marked a stage in the 
 development of the haunt. He might have thought 
 it had released a force forces. If he were to meddle 
 again oh, better not. 
 
 One thing at least was certain. Never again would 
 he try to sit down to his meals in the kitchen. Pascoe 
 should have the place to himself. A dirty place it 
 was, too, but he could not help that. He must not 
 have anyone in to clean it. ... 
 
 As Antiks would have said, the room was " walkin' 
 from door to door." Good old Antiks, how comfort- 
 able she had made him ; how he wished he could have 
 her back, hear her moving about but he heard some- 
 one in the kitchen, oh, impossible, a wraith does not 
 make a sound ! But someone was there 
 
 He must bear it in mind that what moved about the 
 kitchen was not Pascoe. All that had been human of 
 his brother was dead. Utterly and for ever dead. 
 The haunt was not a man, it was not even a spirit. 
 He thought of it as having a sort of life, a life that was 
 malignant, that could not hurt him yet, but which 
 might, later on. 
 
 If only he knew how to deal with ... er ... 
 whatever it was. Clergymen existed there was one
 
 248 THE HAUNTING 
 
 at the Lizard who declared that they could exorcise 
 haunts. They did it for five guineas and it was cheap 
 at that. He had not hitherto had much use for par- 
 sons ; but if they could effectually banish ghosts they 
 had their uses. 
 
 How if he were to ask the Rev. Paul Bodrugan to 
 come over ? 
 
 If he did, he would have to explain the apparition. 
 It would then be Mr. Bodrugan's duty to hand him 
 over to the police. He linked his hands, clasped them 
 round his neck, tightened them slowly. It would 
 mean that. 
 
 He was beginning to think it did not much matter 
 what happened to him. Ah yes, one thing mattered, 
 always had, always would. For him to swing would 
 mean that Pascoe had got the better of him. That 
 he could not stand that. 
 
 VI 
 
 The primroses were a foam of pale yellow at the 
 foot of Gudda Hill. Mr. Corlyon, fetching wood one 
 evening from the shed in the garden, saw them and 
 realized that spring had come. A late spring that 
 year, a spring held in check by winds that nipped 
 plum and apple-blow, that lay dark over shivering 
 seas. 
 
 He looked longingly at the flowers. The smooth 
 bright surfaces of growing things were beautiful : 
 clean petals under a clean sun in the clean air. And 
 the earth out of which they came, into which they sent 
 fine brown roots, that too was clean. Everything, 
 except the foul and gloomy house in which he lived, 
 from which he could not escape.
 
 THE HAUNTING 249 
 
 With a sigh he picked up the wood. He loved 
 clean wholesome things, things that the dew washed 
 and the wind and sun kept sweet. But he must not 
 linger for it was growing late. 
 
 He took his load into the kitchen. 
 
 A curious thing, due, of course, to the room being in 
 semi-darkness, yet he had fancied 
 
 How could there be a second shadow ? 
 
 He lit the lamp with hands he had long since con- 
 trolled to steadiness, stood it on the table which ; 
 though clear of tangible objects, was cluttered with 
 the remnants of a meal, then looked about him. 
 Pascoe in the chair by the table but that was what he 
 had expected to see. A gust of fury made him long to 
 lift the blazing lamp, bring it crashing down on that 
 figure in the chair, but instinct had long since warned 
 him to keep himself in hand. Once he let himself go 
 and it was growing increasingly difficult not to he 
 might not be able to get back to the old deliberate self. 
 Hitherto, whatever he had done, had been done after 
 consideration. He must not depart from what had 
 been the habit of his life. He felt it to be peculiarly 
 necessary that he should not. 
 
 He stood, therefore, with his hand resting on the 
 table ; that it was clenched, the only sign of his 
 anger. 
 
 A man long buried, yet sitting at his table ! 
 
 The apparition had been leaning back. It turned 
 towards the door as if expectant, and Mr. Corlyon 
 found that he, too, was expectant. He looked, with 
 it, toward the door. 
 
 It was closed, but someone on the further side was 
 pushing with a foot, had pushed it back ; someone 
 who was carrying
 
 250 THE HAUNTING 
 
 Mr. Corlyon had known that he would carry a little 
 flagon, a little flagon half -full of wine. He was 
 looking a sensation of nausea gripped him he 
 was looking at himself. 
 
 VII 
 
 In the house on Quayside were two wraiths, the 
 wraith of Pascoe and the wraith of himself. They 
 moved, enacting a fateful drama, re-enacting it for 
 all to see. 
 
 All, that is, who were in the house. They acted 
 it where it had happened, reproducing every detail ; 
 and the live man amidst these vehement shadows 
 seemed the least real. 
 
 This last phase of the haunt had left Mr. Corlyon 
 momentarily unable to plan. He remained looking 
 on in a sort of dull maze. 
 
 The shadows were not only in the kitchen. A 
 wraith decanted wine in the parlour, dropped poison 
 into the mulling horn, carried out the brew. Shadows 
 wrestled, the one in a death agony, the other with a 
 face that Mr. Corlyon refused to believe was his. 
 He could not have looked so furious, so he would 
 not give the thing its name ! 
 
 Nor were the movements of these shadows all 
 that was happening in the house. Mr. Corlyon was 
 beginning^ to hear things as well as see. In Pascoe's 
 room were movements, also in his own ; steps came 
 and went on the stairs, a weight which he thought 
 of as a heavy body was dragged along the passage. 
 
 The house was no longer his. It had become the 
 setting of a scene, the scene of Pascoe's death. He 
 was a stranger in it, a stranger of whom the actors
 
 THE HAUNTING 251 
 
 took no notice, a stranger who wandered in and out 
 as might a lost dog. The haunt had pushed him 
 aside, was gradually making of him yes of him 
 a shadowy presence. 
 
 What could he do ? It was he who was being 
 ignored, not they. The rooms were theirs, the house 
 was theirs. Almost it seemed as if they were the 
 living, he the dead. 
 
 Over and over again the same drama, but growing 
 in clearness and sharpness. No one with eyes to see 
 could fail to realize that he had killed his brother. 
 
 They would not know why, but what did it matter 
 if they knew, everything . . . ? 
 
 VIII 
 
 Broken sleep during the early part of the night 
 generally meant for Mr. Corlyon hours of heavy 
 slumber towards dawn. Although this sleep was 
 deep, it was not often refreshing. One morning, 
 however, he woke out of black quiet into a world 
 of sun and breezes. A sail was flapping against the 
 mast no, it was his blind. He sprang out of bed 
 to find that the boats were dancing on a full tide, 
 and the gulls swooping and crying. A day full as 
 the tide, full of life. 
 
 Below him the house lay shuttered in a haunted 
 stillness, but without, in his little garden, the daffodils 
 of the new spring were dancing, the bluebells breathing 
 honey. He balanced the one against the other. 
 The house the flowers ! The air was blowing in 
 at the open window, the keen salt air ; but it was not 
 blowing for him. 
 
 He knew what he must do. 
 
 The haunt had been born of a disordered fancy ;
 
 252 THE HAUNTING 
 
 but for one tremendous moment the mists had been 
 blown apart, and he was able to see things as they 
 actually were. The haunt was a fungus, a monstrous 
 toadstool of the mind. 
 
 He had killed his brother. Pascoe had deserved 
 not perhaps death, but death had been the only 
 possible outcome of the situation, and, after all, 
 death, what was it ? The sacredness of human life ? 
 Pah ! The Force Behind killed with disease, with 
 cancerous growths, killed by accidents, through 
 carelessness, and with no respect of person. Man 
 was fodder, the appointed food of germs. He was 
 as much their meat as bullocks were his. Why then 
 all this fuss ? Nevertheless, as a matter of justice, 
 Mr. Corlyon was not so sure not with this wind 
 blowing that he had been in the right. If he had 
 killed Pascoe in cold blood, and after long considera- 
 tion yes ; but his blood had been hot. He had 
 been angered to the depths of a nature unable to take 
 things lightly, and while so angered he had struck. 
 He rubbed a bristly chin contemplatively. He had 
 felt too strongly, had put too much of himself into 
 the matter, and the result was that, in killing Pascoe 
 he had damaged himself, his mind ; and what he 
 saw and heard were part of the consequent sickness, 
 they were a sort of delirious vision. 
 
 They were imagined, they were not real. 
 
 The reality was mouldering flesh and white bones, 
 a dead man at the end of the fogou. 
 
 IX 
 
 He was sick, and he must get well. The conclusion 
 come to, he forgot the trawlers in the foreground, 
 the life on Quayside, the distant curves of Brown
 
 THE HAUNTING 253 
 
 Willhay and Rowtor. He looked beyond the hills, 
 wondering. The cure ! Was there no cure but the 
 one ? He stood for a long time with the wind blowing 
 on his head, on his body ; and every moment it 
 seemed to him that his need to escape was growing 
 more urgent. But he could think of only the one 
 way out, and that way . . . He turned back at 
 last into the room. Very well, then, he would do 
 as he must. 
 
 He shaved, he brushed his clothes. Then, without 
 further thought he ran down the stairs, out of the 
 front door. He had a feeling that if he did not run 
 he would be caught by what ruled the dark down- 
 stairs of the place. He shut his ears, therefore, he 
 almost shut his eyes, he certainly pulled the door 
 to behind him with a suggestive sharpness. It 
 fell into place with a resounding clap, and he, almost 
 feverishly, turned the key. 
 
 The faces of the folk were quietly intent on the 
 business of living. Mr. Corlyon marked the urchins 
 playing about the half-doors, the old men^on the 
 benches the children wholesomely grubby, the old 
 men, clean because life had done with them ! He 
 drew in deep breaths of air, drew in the goodness 
 of the commonplace. 
 
 He had turned up the street. As if acting on a 
 decision to which he had long since come, and about 
 which there was no question, he went to Morwenna.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE gate clanged irrevocably on Mrs. Liddicoat. 
 She walked slowly up the road, surprised to find that 
 she was hardly able to put one foot before the other. 
 She was tired, and life had gone out of her. She was 
 so tired that she was dizzy. When she reached her 
 house, she went into the kitchen and sat down on 
 the nearest chair. For a long while she sat there 
 in her outdoor clothes, numb, lost, hardly alive. 
 About her the night fell ; in time, the fire went out, 
 and she was alone in the dark. But she was without 
 the en?gy to move. Why should she ? It was 
 finished. 
 
 The faint starlight fell through the little window. 
 It had four panes, and the wood of the sashes was a 
 darkness between the squares. The squares moved 
 slowly, very slowly across the floor. Mrs. Liddicoat 's 
 eyes saw the dim lights, followed them without 
 knowing what she saw, without knowing anything 1 . 
 Life was over, and she had no feeling, not even grief. 
 
 The kitchen grew cold, and the little squares 
 brighter. A shudder shook her, and the numbness 
 began to pass. Light, real light was extinguishing 
 the stars. Life might be over for one, here and there, 
 but over by Rowtor the sun was rising. 
 
 254
 
 THE HAUNTING 255 
 
 ii 
 
 The house was no longer a shop. No need, then, 
 for her to sit in the public gaze, to sit behind her 
 counter, pretending and smiling. She might remain 
 in the kitchen, do what she would, leave undone the 
 foolish unnecessary things that, once upon a time, 
 had filled her days. Yes, when she had been happy, 
 and before, when she had merely been content. 
 Ah, but she had been happy longer than she would 
 have cared to acknowledge. For ten years she had 
 had his friendship had seen him once, at least, 
 during the week. Now she had lost even that, she 
 had lost everything. 
 
 She did not invent tasks for herself. Shutting 
 her door, she sat behind it with her hands in her 
 lap. Her knitting lay on a chair, and she let it lie. 
 He no longer wanted her to make stockings for him. 
 
 She had won him, but she had not been able to 
 keep him, and now that the episode was at an end 
 he would want of course he would, but how it hurt 
 he would want to forget that it had ever been. 
 His love had flashed for a moment, but because she 
 had had lines in her face and greying hair, it had 
 not strengthened into an enduring flame. A flicker, 
 and it had gone out. 
 
 The lines and the white hairs were outside, but 
 she, she who was inside, she was still young. About 
 the woman inside he knew nothing, yet it was she 
 who loved him, she who was sitting hopeless in the 
 dark.
 
 256 THE HAUNTING 
 
 in 
 
 Though Mrs. Liddicoat was a robust woman, she 
 lost appetite, lost strength. Jenifer, coming into 
 town, was surprised to find her actually ill, and the 
 consequent fuss caused Mrs. Liddicoat, in self-defence, 
 to make some sort of effort. It would have been 
 easier, more pleasant to drift from one depth to 
 another until the blackness covered you, but she 
 had not finished with life, only with love. 
 
 " Men and women are not the same," she told 
 herself, " a man's love blazes up fiercely, but 'tis 
 soon over, a woman goes on lovin.' ' 
 
 Nor was it as hard lines on the woman as it seemed. 
 Her heart turned to one man, broke into flower for 
 him, and went on blooming. Hers the delight of 
 that unfolding and opening and giving. It was for 
 him ; and sometimes he was able to take it, but very 
 often not. Even if he could not, she had had the 
 giving, the joy of it. 
 
 But also the aftermath of pain. Ah, well, and that, 
 you had to bear it. It was terrible that unending 
 ache. . . . 
 
 " I love'n," Morwenna told herself, " and he don't 
 want me, and I'm terrible sorry, but I'll love'n till 
 I'm under the turf. My heart do ache with longing, 
 but the longing'll be over one of these days, and I'll 
 still have the love. 'Tis sorrow and sighing now, but 
 I'll be better of it in time." 
 
 IV 
 
 Though Denny Manhire offered to dig over his 
 mother-in-law's garden and plant it for her, Mrs. 
 Liddicoat was of opinion that a little hard work 
 would be good for her , , , you don't break your
 
 THE HAUNTING . 257 
 
 heart if you are breaking your back. She would 
 set her own seed potatoes, sow her own onions, and 
 cabbage, and lettuce. It would give her something 
 to do. 
 
 She began to feel an interest in the pushing shoots, 
 and every morning, as soon as she had lighted the 
 kitchen fire, would walk up the flagged path with 
 its edging of violets, and scan the beds to see if any 
 yellow-green heads had broken through the clods 
 during the night. Though your personal life was 
 at a standstill, growth went on a world of plants, 
 busy each with its pushing and leafing. 
 
 If only the days were not so empty, and so full of 
 echoes. But you must not look in on that emptiness, 
 you must look out ; look at the buds on the pear 
 tree, the fat ones with their promise of fruit, the thin 
 pointed ones that would unroll into leaves, look at 
 Jenifer growing reconciled to life with her kind young 
 husband, at Jenifer who soon would have a new 
 interest. For Mrs. Liddicoat, too, there would be 
 the interest of Jenifer's child. Yes, yes, a little 
 patience. 
 
 Ah, easy to say . . . 
 
 " I wonder, Mammy, that you don't live at Carn- 
 rose now that you've sold the shop. Mrs. Morecambe's 
 take is up at Christmas, and you always said you'd 
 like to try farming." 
 
 Carnrose had come to her from her father. Loveday 
 had had the money, and she the land. She they 
 had been born in the old roomy house, spent their 
 youth on the farm ; but, could she go back ? 
 
 " Nothing to keep you in Stowe," Jenifer said. 
 
 Only the hope that she might get a glimpse of 
 him ! His voice on the street as he went by, his 
 R
 
 258 THE HAUNTING 
 
 shadow thrown on the drexel, the passing of that 
 spare knit figure nothing to keep her in Stowe ? 
 " Perhaps when Michaelmas comes, I may be able 
 to go." 
 
 If she went to Carnrose she would take Jenifer with 
 her ; Jenifer, and the child, and Denny. 
 
 " You'd like to have calves and chickens, Mammy, 
 and come in to market Saturdays." 
 
 Calves and chickens yes ; but she would not 
 like to come in to the market ! She would be hoping 
 all the time for a sight of Gale. Her heart would be 
 burning, and she would be eaten up with the fire of 
 it. As she was now ! No, if she went, it would be 
 to bury herself. She would turn her back on Stowe, 
 try to forget its lanes, the rooms in which he had 
 kissed her, the house in which he was still living. 
 
 "Well, my dear," she told Jenifer, "I'll think 
 of it." 
 
 And as she dug the dark garden earth, and scattered 
 seed, and weeded, she did think. 
 
 Living in Stowe was like having an open sore on 
 your face. The wind and the dust chafed it, it had 
 no chance to heal ; but if she covered it with space 
 between, if she went away ? Yet the hope that at 
 any moment, any divine moment she might see him ! 
 How could she give that up ? 
 
 See him ! She thought that if once more he were 
 to cross her threshold she would not be able to speak ; 
 she would sink on the floor, and lay her head on his 
 knee, and stay there, just stay there, silent, and 
 feel the pain draining out of her heart. Give up the 
 hope of that ? Oh, no, Not when Michaelmas came ? 
 
 Not as long as he lived.
 
 THE HAUNTING 259 
 
 Never had she had such a crop of violets. She 
 would gather a few, make-believe that she was 
 gathering them for his their breakfast -table. The 
 flowers had an early-morning smell of dew and earth, 
 but when the sun was stronger they would give out 
 their scent. She would put them in a bowl and place 
 the bowl where the sunlight coming through the 
 window could fall on them. Fresh, sweet, and for his 
 eyes. 
 
 She carried a loose handful into the kitchen, 
 began to set the thin stems one at a time, that all 
 should have their drink in water. 
 
 A hand pushed at the street-door, the door that 
 was never locked. Morwenna looked up from the 
 violets, and as she saw who was coming in, her heart 
 stood still, her body flushed with flame. 
 
 !V{r. Corlyon walked quickly through the outer 
 room. Without a word he took her in his arms, held 
 her close, held her as if never again would he let her 
 go.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 " DON'T look to me as if you'd had any breakfast. 
 Set down here," Morwenna led him to the sofa, 
 " and see me cook something for you." She did not 
 want, after all, to rest against him till the longing 
 had drained out of her, till she was full of new joy. 
 Why, she was full already, in a twink ; the sight of 
 him had been enough, and what she wanted was to 
 do something for him, spend herself, give. 
 
 She was brimming with glad energy, suddenly 
 full of life ; and she would cook him the best break- 
 fast ever man ate. 
 
 Mr. Corlyon took the corner of the sofa that was 
 nearest to the stairs. It commanded the linhay 
 and the kitchen, and would enable him to watch 
 Morwenna as she prepared his food. His woman 
 cooking his food ! The comfort, the righteousness 
 of it. Her pleasure to give, and his to take. And oh, 
 the relief it was to be with her. 
 
 He need not think of the Brown House and its 
 gruesome shadows, and of what was to come. He 
 might, and what was more, he would, live in the 
 moment. Here, he was a man, not a shadow, and 
 it did not matter what Pascoe did. 
 
 He, Gale, would save his soul. That was what 
 ultimately mattered. Your fellow men might mis- 
 understand, might condemn, might penalize you, 
 
 260
 
 THE HAUNTING 261 
 
 but they could not pass the defences of your spirit, 
 could not get at the real you. 
 
 Whatever happened now, he was safe from ultimate 
 disaster. 
 
 When Morwenna called him to the table, he ate 
 and drank as he had not since last he sat there. 
 
 " You are gone to skin and bone ; nothing but a 
 proper skintrell," she told him with a little break in 
 her voice. " My tender soul, what have you been 
 doing to yourself ? " 
 
 He must not tell her. " Working," he said. 
 
 " Then you must give over working for a bit." 
 
 His eyes, those eyes that were so tired, looked 
 kindly on her. " It will be for you to say how much 
 I do." 
 
 " For me ? " 
 
 " I have not^ brought my desk." 
 
 She saw the question in his eyes, but did not dare 
 to believe she read it aright. " No ? " 
 
 " I did not stay for a thing, I just came and " the 
 question was clear " and I am not going back." 
 
 She answered out of her full and happy, gloriously 
 happy heart. " That is all I want." 
 
 ii 
 
 " Where are you going ? " 
 
 " To do my marketing, there's nothing in the 
 larder." 
 
 " I will come with you." 
 
 She felt glad that Jenifer should have insisted on 
 retrimming her bonnet. She was going out with 
 him. All Stowe would see that she was with him, 
 and she must look her best. Ah, it was good to have
 
 262 THE HAUNTING 
 
 someone for whom you put on your finest clothes. 
 Yesterday, how little she had cared ! " You won't 
 mind waiting about ? " 
 
 " Not if you are there." 
 
 As they left the house, he turned up the street. 
 " You are going the longest way round." 
 
 " Any hurry ? " 
 
 None, of course, and anyway, he might do as he 
 would. It was not until they were in butcher Andrew's 
 shop and she was buying lamb for pasties that she 
 perceived a change in Gale. He was no longer the 
 good and genial listener to whom all the town could 
 talk. Andrew was showing her the little marbles 
 with which he shot his beef : " and afterwards I 
 take'n out of the brain, and wash'n and put'n by 
 for the next." The Gale with whom she had for so 
 long been familiar would have examined the marbles, 
 asked questions ; but this man glanced away. How 
 butcher killed his beef was for Gale a matter of no 
 interest. 
 
 Putting the parcels in her basket, she glanced at 
 him. Of what was he thinking ? He was looking 
 out of butcher's window at the sea. It was almost 
 as if the dancing glitter of the water fascinated him. 
 When she touched his arm, he moved, but as if in 
 a dream. 
 
 Useless to question him. He could talk of outside 
 impersonal things, but otherwise he had always been 
 dumb. His depths were like a well. She thought 
 of them as covered with a slab of blue Delabole slate. 
 Under the slab, deep under, what had been happen- 
 ing ? 
 
 Nothing in any way connected with her. Of that 
 she was, by now, pretty sure. He did love her, she
 
 THE HAUNTING 263 
 
 could not doubt that he did. Oh, yes, in his way, 
 but she must not expect too much. Enough that 
 he was hers to love. 
 
 But there was something the matter with him ! 
 He had some trouble ; was in some difficulty. She 
 could not guess what it was ; perhaps time would 
 give her the key. Meanwhile, she must look after 
 him, feed him up, see that he did not work too hard. 
 In the bright light of noon his face showed a scoring 
 of fine lines. He looked older and very thin, and, 
 yes, ill. Something about his eyes she thought 
 he looked more than ill. 
 
 in 
 
 That evening, after supper, Morwenna put chairs 
 by the linhay door. " We'll sit out here in the cool," 
 she said, " oh, the many evenings that we have sat 
 here." 
 
 He drew a deep breath. " The many evenings ! " 
 " One moment while I get my knitting." 
 He stood looking after her. It was almost, she 
 thought, as if he could not bear her to be out of his 
 sight. The house was in darkness, but she knew 
 where the knitting would be, and it was easily fixed. 
 A wad of straw, a stout pin. 
 
 " If you only knew what 'tis to me to see you 
 standin' there," and she put her arms round his 
 neck. 
 
 He drew her close. " Go on loving me " 
 
 They went toward the chairs. " 'Tis what I live 
 for. I have been ill since you were here. In bed I 
 was, and for quite a time." 
 " No ? I'm sorry."
 
 264 THE HAUNTING 
 
 " And while I was laid up, I learnt that 
 
 " What, dear ? " 
 
 " That 'tis what I live for to love 'ee." 
 
 He put a hand over hers. " Go on, tell me about it." 
 
 He had been with her all day, yet he had given her 
 no explanation either of his keeping away, or his 
 return. He had glanced at her, now and again, 
 as if he were not taking things quite for granted, 
 but he had not spoken, and she could feel for him 
 ... a dumb man ... If he only knew how little 
 it mattered ! 
 
 His staying away had had to do with something 
 other than love. She could not feel that anything 
 but love was of real importance, but that was a 
 woman's view, and men thought differently. Each 
 must do as was natural to her or him. Morwenna's 
 weeks a-bed had been a time of quietening-down, 
 of accepting. But she had risen convinced that live 
 as long as she might, she would love Gale. " All I 
 want," she said soberly, "is to spend my days 
 doing things for you." 
 
 " You'll take me as I am, Morwenna ? " 
 
 " Yes, sure I will." 
 
 Tempted, he went a step further. " Don't matter 
 what I've done ? " 
 
 She had put her other hand over his, and between 
 them his fingers, dry and chilly, were growing warm. 
 
 " No, don't make a bit of difference to me what 
 you done." 
 
 He felt her assurance as helpful, steadying, almost 
 he believed what she said. In this little garden, 
 the air of which was quick with the smell of growing 
 plants, of spring flowers, of violets, of gentle creatures 
 occupied with the business of living, he might rest
 
 THE HAUNTING 265 
 
 his spirit. With nothing to remind him of the haunt, 
 with all around ignorant of its existence, he might 
 forget it. Taking it to be a toadstool of the mind, 
 his forgetting would mean he had trodden it under- 
 foot, that it would not trouble him again. 
 
 He would turn his thoughts away from it, listen 
 to what Morwenna, his hand warm between hers, 
 was saying. 
 
 " I don't believe you know what love is." 
 
 He smiled, that half-smile that the moustache 
 hides, and Morwenna's eyes narrowed in under- 
 standing. The dear of'n, to think he knew ! His 
 thoughts were plain as print she could have hugged 
 the boy in him, the boy that was so wise and experi- 
 enced ! That he should be pleased with himself 
 and his little courtings, the courtings that had nothing 
 to do with love. 
 
 " Men don't love," she said, her soft voice seeming 
 to rise in spirals through the dusk, and again Gale 
 smiled. Not love ? That burning sweetness, a 
 craving more imperative than any other, and the 
 satisfying of which gave you supreme happiness ! 
 A simple thing, clean, clear, flaming ! A thing of the 
 body, but which yet gathered in the personality ! 
 Not love, he ? 
 
 " Men they go courtin'," pursued the soft voice, 
 " they are head over ears for the time, helpin' you 
 over all the stiles, and so careful over you ; but 
 after you are married, it is ' Take and get over your- 
 self.' They do their lovin' with the body for what 
 they can get, and after that, they'm tired." 
 
 Why, yes, of course. Love was passion, and passion 
 was episodic. She had hit the nail on the head. 
 Tired a man grew tired
 
 266 THE HAUNTING 
 
 "There's more to lovin' than that." They had 
 the evening, the rest of life in which to talk ; no need 
 for any sort of haste. " I know there is. I've a-got 
 to see that, since you turned me off." 
 
 " No need to think of that now." His arm went 
 round her shoulders. He could not have come a 
 day sooner . . . even now . . . 
 
 She tried to reassure him. " It isn't that, then, 
 for Gale, I see things in a different light these days 
 and I don't care if I am old ; no, nor if I ain't 'ansome 
 any more. My feelings for you have gone behind 
 that, deep down into my heart. It wouldn't make 
 a bit of difference whether you stayed away, or 
 whether you came back, I should go on loving you 
 all the time. Whatever you did, whether 'twas 
 black as night, would not trouble me not the 
 awfullest things in the world ! For you have got 
 my heart, and I should not think no more about 
 what you done, shouldn't blame you, nor worry." 
 
 Almost, he could have trusted her. 
 
 " Your face is butivul to me, but if I never cast 
 eyes on it any moor, I should go on lovin' it through 
 daylight and dark till I was put'n under the turf, 
 ay and after. Do 'ee see, dear, for good or for bad, 
 you are all the world to me. If you was to 'buse 
 me, or 'eave me to doors, or make a mock of me in 
 my own town, 'twould be all the same to me, and 
 that well, that is what I do call love." 
 
 Her voice died away, and silence, a lining to the 
 cloak of night, folded them close. His arm had 
 drawn her near, and the long kiss he gave, her expressed 
 him better than words. She felt in it the possibility 
 of a devotion less passionate but more serious than 
 lovers' love.
 
 THE HAUNTING 267 
 
 " I, too, have been ill," he said. " And now 
 I want just what you have been talking of. If you 
 give it me, I shall get well again." 
 
 " 'Tis yours, love, for the takinV 
 
 He had come to her in some way broken, and she 
 was to do the healing. She was not curious or not 
 very but she did wish she knew the how and when 
 and why. Still care, patience, delicacy of handling, 
 and in time he would be whole again. " And then," 
 she murmured, almost to herself, " then you will 
 love me." 
 
 Under the influence of the night and her warm 
 love, he was growing cheerful. " If I don't, what 
 has brought me here ? " 
 
 " Dunno for sure, but 'twadn't love." 
 
 " I care more for you than for anybody I've ever 
 seen." 
 
 Her voice was tranquil, reconciled. " It'll come. 
 It is bound to come. 'Tisn't for nothing you've 
 been Good Samaritan to the people all around. 
 You've a heart 
 
 "Well, I was fond of Pascoe." 
 
 Something in the tone made her feel it would be 
 
 safe to let him see what she thought of that one. 
 
 ' You put your affections on him like they put 
 
 clothes on a dummy. You'd nothing else, then." 
 
 His mind grasped at the explanation. That was 
 it. He had needed to love someone, and Pascoe had 
 been there. That love not the flaming of the body 
 but devotion was what Morwenna offered, what 
 she was seeking to arouse. 
 
 His heart, moved to tenderness, grew vocal. 
 
 ' You," he said softly, " you believed I minded 
 
 because your hair is grey and your face a bit wrinkled.
 
 268 THE HAUNTING 
 
 I was a liar, a ' bigger liar'n Tom Pepper,' dear. 
 'Tis something in you that draws me. All the rest 
 is wrapped round that something, and does not 
 really count ; but the something 
 
 She nestled closer. " Yes, sure Gale, and the 
 something ? " 
 
 " The something is you." 
 
 IV 
 
 Gale had come to Morwenna much, she thought, 
 as he must have come long ago to his mother. He 
 had not with him so much as a nightshirt ! Not 
 that it mattered. She had some old, clean, and 
 neatly mended, that her sons had left with her ; 
 but there were other necessary garments. " Perhaps 
 you would go in to-morrow and get them ? " 
 
 The look which, she had already learnt, was in 
 some way connected with his troubles, came to the 
 surface. " No ! no ! " he said. 
 
 " Perhaps you would rather buy new ones ? " 
 
 He caught at the suggestion. " We are beginning 
 afresh, we will have everything new." 
 
 She perceived that he did not want to go back, 
 not for any of his things. Very well, she would see 
 what she had put away. He must not be worried. 
 That was not the way to get him better. The poor 
 dear, how thin he was ! Ah milk ! It was getting 
 late. She would heat him a cup of milk, and he 
 should drink it last thing before going to bed. 
 " Dear," she said, with a little thrill that burned 
 through her, " will you lock the front door ? " 
 
 He went obediently. " The key won't turn," 
 he called back.
 
 THE HAUNTING 269 
 
 " Lock wants oiling, I expect." 
 " But you lock up every night, don't you ? " 
 She put down the saucepan she was holding over 
 the embers, and went to him. In the dark, by the 
 door, she would be able to tell him why that key 
 had rusted in the lock. 
 
 You ought to know, by a sort of love-instinct, how 
 many pillows the beloved required for his comfort, 
 but you did not, you had to ask. His little ways, 
 many of them, were new to you, as new as if he had 
 been a stranger. 
 
 Morwenna, after giving Gale the cup of hot milk, 
 had gone up to bed. When he had drunk it, he might 
 come. 
 
 " I don't sleep well," he had told her. 
 
 " Would you rather I made you up a bed here ? " 
 
 " I should not sleep at all then." 
 
 Except for the silks and satins and velvets of the 
 quilt, the bedroom was neat and chilly white ; but 
 Morwenna went about her undressing with a prescient 
 smile. She was seeing, not the orderly arrangements, 
 but an untidiness of added objects. Before long, 
 her looking-glass would have braces hanging from 
 one supporter, and a strop from the other. Over the 
 marcella cloth would be spread the contents of a 
 man's pockets ; and his clothes would lie in a loose 
 heap on the chair. Gale's traade ! It was to her 
 as if a lime-washed wall were about to be hung with 
 pictures. 
 
 She was absolutely happy. 
 
 Ah, yes, but shy rather. Such nonsense to be
 
 270 THE HAUNTING 
 
 shy. She had been married before. Not that she 
 remembered, time had washed her clean of memories, 
 had made her new. Ten years between then and 
 now but it was not the years, it was that she had 
 not known, no, never, what love was. 
 
 Downstairs, he was moving about, taking off his 
 boots. She got into bed, and lay, listening. Through 
 her ran little waves of warmth. His step on the 
 stair that step ! She was too happy, she was 
 fainting under her happiness. 
 
 He took his coming as a matter of course, as a 
 cheering fact that was almost a joke. " Never 
 slept with a woman in my life," he said looking at 
 her with dancing quizzical eyes, before which her 
 lids fell. 
 
 " But you there was 
 
 He seated himself on the edge of the bed. " Don't 
 you believe all you hear. Stowe is an awful place 
 for gossip." 
 
 She could not look at him, but she clung, encouraged, 
 to her point. " You old rogue, you. Think I been 
 livin' so near and haven't seen ? Take your tarra- 
 diddles to Bodmin, there is no market for them here." 
 
 He gave in to her with a laugh, and she listened 
 to it with a heart that seemed to turn over. His 
 laugh ! The laugh with a catch in it, the laugh she 
 had not hoped to hear again ! Oh, that laugh. 
 
 " Well, well," he said, " at least I never slept with 
 any of them. You can bake that in your cake." 
 
 In some ways, the ways that were of most import- 
 ance, she was to be first with him. Those transient 
 passions had not given him the domestic sharing 
 of board, of bed. Those intimacies, they had not 
 meant sharing a home. He was come new to her, as
 
 THE HAUNTING 271 
 
 she to him. " You " she was too much thrilled 
 to utter clearly her thought. " I wonder if you 
 will like it." 
 
 " Like what, my dear ? " 
 
 He was a tease. " Like sleeping with anyone." 
 
 " I shall like it all right." He got up, went 
 over to the dressing table, began to empty his 
 pockets. 
 
 Morwenna, high against hei three pillows, watched. 
 His coat came off. Not the first time she had seen 
 him in his shirt sleeves. When she had needed 
 help with the bales and packages, he had lent her 
 a man's strength. Standing back, she had watched 
 the play of his shoulders, the ripple of muscle, had 
 admired the beautiful poise of him. She had looked 
 on and longed, but not hoped, no, she had only 
 thought how wonderful it would be if he ever turned 
 to her. 
 
 Even now, it was almost impossible to believe 
 that she was not dreaming, that he, her lovely man, 
 was actually there in her room. 
 
 Worshipping, she hardly dared to look at him. 
 
 The shirt, a white gleam, was yet old and 
 worn. It needed a patch across the shoulders. The 
 dear had never had a woman to make and darn for 
 him, and he was all to larrups. She lost herself in 
 a dream. Ah, the hours, the blessed hours that 
 she would spend, setting stitch after stitch in his 
 belongings sewing love into them. 
 
 He pulled the shirt forward over his crisp hair, 
 and she saw his shoulders, his deep chest. 
 
 She forgot that such things as shirts, as loving 
 service existed. She was swept forward on a tide 
 of humble adoration. She had stood in the outer
 
 272 THE HAUNTING 
 
 courts, now the door of the sanctuary was opening, 
 that of the shrine itself. 
 
 She lost her breath, looking, worshipping. 
 
 VI 
 
 He slept before she did,slept uneasily, but still he slept. 
 
 She was content to lie beside him, take into her 
 spirit the fact of his nearness, listen to the soft, 
 regular breathing. She was more than content. 
 
 Her head was against his shoulder, his chest rose 
 and fell under her arm, his feet went down beyond 
 hers, into the depths of the bed. In spite of being 
 so tall, so strong, he was helpless as a babe. It felt 
 good to be awake while he, trusting her, slept ; to 
 lie beside him, guarding him from evil. 
 
 She knew that she would die sooner than that 
 any hurtful presence should come nigh him. Die ! 
 It would be easy now, for he was hers, her man. 
 Her heart had its satisfaction, and that, none, not 
 even God, could take away. Gale was her man, 
 and she his woman. 
 
 She was glad the night was not to be wasted in 
 sleep. She wanted to lie and brood over her happi- 
 ness, re-live what had happened, realize her lover's 
 presence. This was high water no, there would 
 be many such tides. Every night and all would be 
 spent with him. 
 
 The days would be for working in, working for 
 him ; the nights for the quiet thinking, the acknow- 
 ledging that she loved him ; they would be for the 
 feel of his arms about her, as she drifted unwilling 
 to lose a moment of her happiness drifted away. 
 
 She lay still, conscious only of the rise and fall 
 of his deep chest lay there, living her moment.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 LOVEDAY POLLARD, of the Ring o' Bells, at St. 
 Columb, knowing Mr. Corlyon well, approved her 
 sister's marriage. Very suitable. She and her 
 husband would come over for the wedding, and 
 Morwenna need not get in any wine, they would 
 see to that. 
 
 Gale had accompanied Morwenna when she went 
 to give in the banns. Marriage, as an institution, 
 worked for the good of the tribe. The indissolubility 
 of it gave each new generation a chance to grow in 
 garden earth, behind a protecting fence. He thought 
 it like the priesthood to have laid hands on it, to 
 have made the tribal recognition into a hard and 
 fast law. For him, the ceremonial, the undertaking 
 to do this and that, were unnecessary, but Morwenna 
 did not agree with him. 
 
 " Gettin' married is like putting the dough into 
 the oven. It comes out bread. It won't never be 
 just yeast and flour again." 
 
 ' You're my woman, sure enough, but it isn't the 
 going to church has made you that," and his eye 
 was quizzical. 
 
 Though she glowed under his look, behind the 
 
 physical answer lay another. The fire and sweetness 
 
 were too intense, however, to get that other spoken. 
 
 'Till I'm putt'n under turf I'm your woman, 
 
 2 73
 
 274 . THE HAUNTING 
 
 and and afterwards. Gettin' married make me 
 look on to that, to when we'm gone." 
 
 He mocked a little, tenderly. " You won't like 
 it," said he, kissing her throat, " when you've done 
 with all this." 
 
 " I won't, no, indeed. Every kiss I have of 'ee 
 go through me like a knife. I do feel as if I'll die 
 with the joy of it. I want no more than to go on 
 livin' here with 'ee."_ She drew a deep breath. " Oh, 
 my tender life and sawl, I be too happy." 
 
 He smiled at her. " We've many a year yet.'* 
 
 But she said again, " I be too happy." 
 
 " Well, well." 
 
 " That is why I want to go to church with 'ee, 
 and kneel down you and me 
 
 " But old Stokoe " He thought of the rector's 
 unimpressive figure, the choked gobble of his voice. 
 
 " Aw, 'tedn't him, Gale, 'tes behind him. I dunno. 
 I can't tell 'ee. 'Tes only what I do feel." 
 
 He was cupping her chin in his long hand, was 
 reflecting idly on the curve of the jaw. Presently, 
 he would bend to the lips, speaking so eagerly, that 
 crumple of soft lips, flowering, folding. He would 
 change eagerness into warmth. 
 
 " I can't think as we stop under turf. Them eyes 
 of your'n. Bright as stars, but there's things as they 
 can't see. Why, times out of number, when I been 
 settin' here, mindin' the shop, and there's been nobody 
 in, I've seen you. You in the Brown House, and 
 me here, but I've seen 'ee plain as print." 
 
 The explanation came without his looking for it. 
 " You imagined you saw me." 
 
 " One day, you had on a coat I had never set eyes 
 on. Grey 'twas, and your fancy being blue, I couldn't
 
 THE HAUNTING 275 
 
 believe I saw it. But when you came in that Thursday 
 you had it on." 
 
 He turned the matter over. Morwenna was sincere. 
 She spoke according to her belief. His doubts then 
 must be for the reality of her visions. He considered 
 her temperament. Not highly credulous. Her 
 religion was a matter of accepted belief, not of ex- 
 perience. " You thought you saw that tweed suit, 
 but I must have told you I was getting it, or Honey 
 told you that he was making it for me." 
 
 " No, nor you didn't, nor he didn't, and when I 
 see you that time, and see your arm in a grey sleeve, 
 I thought I was mistook. But I wasn't." 
 
 " But how ? I don't quite get you." Queer 
 things at Quayside, and now queer things here. 
 Perhaps, under the surface of life, queer things 
 everywhere, and he awakening to them by degrees. 
 He wanted to understand. He wondered whether, 
 perhaps, these mysterious things were not beyond 
 his grasp . . . whether mankind had not some way 
 to go before, like a mouse nibbling at a cake, it could 
 get through the crust, the outer crust of knowledge. 
 The attitude of stuffy people was " best not to know 
 too much." Having no imagination, they could not 
 see the riches that lay behind the hard crust. But 
 he, very decidedly, he wanted to know. 
 
 Morwenna's eyes expressed the difficulty she had 
 in explaining. " Lovin' 'ee, I did want to be with 
 'ee, and sometimes I was." 
 
 " But how ? " 
 
 " Well, 'twas dark and quiet in here, and the body 
 of me stayed there," she indicated the Windsor 
 chair, " and the other bit of me went to you." 
 
 The conclusion she could not put into words was
 
 276 THE HAUNTING 
 
 plain. " You think the other bit of you would 
 
 be alive, even if your body was under turf ? That 
 
 other bit- 
 Was there really a part of her, of himself, that 
 
 could function apart from the body ? The grey sleeve 
 
 that she had seen how could she have seen it ? 
 
 She could not unless what she said were true, had 
 
 actually happened. 
 
 He must believe that she thought she had seen it, 
 
 and that the seeing of it had convinced her. 
 
 A projection of herself, a discarnate projection. 
 
 He held the thought in his mind, considering it. 
 
 " I wonder." 
 
 ii 
 
 "I be too happy," Morwenna had said, and it 
 was true at times. 
 
 When Gale smiled at her, when his hand touched 
 her, when he grew prodigal of kisses, her spirit swooned 
 under its rich weight of joy. After the years of 
 hopeless quiet this. She looked back at days lived 
 in a sort of half-light. All round her people who 
 thought themselves alive, whose interests lay in 
 pounds and pence, in a streak of damp on the wall, 
 or a new bonnet for chapel. She, too, had lived a 
 poverty-stricken life of shallow hopes, a life that 
 had left her memories, thin as dried leaves ; but 
 now, oh, now life was as wonderful and unexpected 
 as a lucky bag. 
 
 Not every parcel, though, held a prize. 
 
 Gale was worried, kept it to himself he did, but 
 she knew ; and 'twas the worry hurried him up. 
 She wanted him to see doctor, but he said there
 
 THE HAUNTING 277 
 
 was nothing the matter that sun and dryth and the 
 oncoming summer would not cure. 
 
 " And you- 
 
 She ? But she was not an Elizabeth Brenton. 
 That one, now, a healer for sure. " I can't put meat 
 on your bones and quiet in your mind." 
 
 " You can, for you do." 
 
 He was thinking of a ring he had once seen. Brass, 
 it jutted from an old door, jutted, so that a man 
 seeking sanctuary, fleeing from his enemies, might 
 clutch it easily. His hand once on it, he would be 
 safe. 
 
 A brass ring, glittering in the sun. 
 
 The one in his pocket was of gold and thin, an old 
 ring. He took it out, detached it from the swivel 
 of his chain. " My mother's." 
 
 " I warn your mother loved the father of 'ee," 
 Morwenna said. Love must have gone to the framing 
 of him. In the Brown House was a print she had 
 seen it in years gone by of the grand place that 
 had been Mrs. Corlyon's home, the place from which 
 she had fled with Handsome Tom. She had loved 
 him more than the things of this world. She had 
 loved him it seemed impossible that as Morwenna 
 loved Gale. 
 
 " Take off that other ring." 
 
 Up till then, she had worn Peter's. It meant to 
 her not Peter, but Tristram, Edgar, and Jenifer. 
 Obediently, she pulled it from her finger. Her children 
 were grown up and had left her, she had only Gale. 
 
 " Now," he said, and kissed the plump hand with 
 its pointed fingers, fingers with a sure light clip 
 and grasp. 
 
 " Be I to wear your mother's ring ? "
 
 278 THE HAUNTING 
 
 " ' With this ring I thee wed.' " 
 
 A lovely thought of his to have given her this 
 ring which had already circled both joy and sorrow. 
 Death had parted the wearer from her lover, had 
 re-united them. Love, death ; but she believed in 
 a love after death. To love such as hers, nor man nor 
 even poor cold God, away there in the empty skies, 
 and ignorant of love, could put an end. 
 
 in 
 
 Was there anything in Morwenna's reasoning ? 
 A breeding-ground this earth, a nursery for young 
 shoots of life. The young shoot transplanted, set 
 in the soil of other planets might develop beyond 
 imagination ; the present stretch of human endeavour 
 might be to that development as green grass to an 
 oak might ! Yes, but you could not accept theories 
 of which there was no proof as facts. 
 
 Theories, Gale had been living among theories, 
 theories and shadows. 
 
 If Pascoe, being dead, yet lived, it was in order 
 to do harm, and surely a better fate than some sort 
 of demoniac existence awaited the soul ? Why, 
 though, should Gale imagine a world of good beings, 
 of angels ? Good and bad here, good and bad there. 
 
 Of that, if he could agree that Pascoe yet lived, he 
 had proof. 
 
 Whether or no he lived, the hatred he had felt 
 was still reaching after Gale. He was always conscious 
 of it ; yes, even here, in Morwenna's kitchen. 
 
 It pulled at him, sometimes it more than pulled. 
 He saw, not the chairs and table, the rug at his feet, 
 but
 
 THE HAUNTING 279 
 
 Darkness invaded his mind and, in the midst of 
 the night he would become aware of a gleam, not 
 a gleam of light, but of phosphorescence. Something 
 would begin to move figures, phosphorescent 
 figures. 
 
 He was, perhaps, remembering. 
 
 Of that he could not be certain. What was of 
 more importance was that he did not know when 
 the darkness would invade his consciousness. 
 Suddenly, like a loosed curtain, it would fall, and 
 blot out the day. 
 
 When he came out of it, it was to find that the 
 lapse of time had, sometimes, been considerable. 
 
 He had not known what was happening about 
 him, who came and went. 
 
 A time between times. A space of minutes during 
 which yes, it was a sort of unconsciousness 
 he was at the mercy of events. How if Morwenna, 
 who never intruded on his silences were, one day, to 
 be absent when the curtain fell ? How if others 
 strangers were to come in ? 
 
 They would think him mad. 
 
 "If I were er lost in thought," he warned, 
 " you would not trot off on some business of your 
 own ? I mean you would not leave me ? " 
 
 She hastened to reassure him. Always thinking he 
 was, thinking about the something of which he could 
 not, or would not, speak. "Leave you, Gale, why it 
 makes me happy to be with you." 
 
 " You wouldn't think I wanted to be by myself ? " 
 
 " Now you have told me, I never will." 
 
 " We'll be married soon." He heaved a sigh of 
 satisfaction. " That'll tie you to me for good and 
 .all. Are you willing, Morwenna?"
 
 280 THE HAUNTING 
 
 " Oh, love, of course I'm willin', I'm more than 
 willin'." 
 
 IV 
 
 The seedlings in Morwenna's garden were as great 
 a joy to Gale as to her. He spent most of his day 
 weeding, destroying slugs, raking ; and in the warm 
 showery weather the young things grew with gladden- 
 ing haste and vigour. Lettuce, onion, and a border 
 of sweetness, a border between the bushes and the 
 flagged path. Every morning, he went with Mor- 
 wenna to see what had happened during the night ; 
 every evening he took into the house the picture 
 of the dim paths with, on either si(Je of them, the 
 plants, the spread of brown mould. The garden 
 exercised on him a spell. Not once when he was 
 digging did the curtain fall between him and it. 
 
 It fell when he went into the dark of the house. 
 It fell when he was sitting quiet in the dusk. 
 
 He surprised Morwenna by his craving for light. 
 Her thrifty soul gave the extra lamp, the night-light 
 in a saucer, and gave without grudging, but she 
 wondered. 
 
 Was it part of his illness, or was it possible that 
 he was afraid of something ? 
 
 He never, by any chance, spoke of the Brown House, 
 would not let her. Had something down there got 
 on his nerves ? Would it help if he were further 
 away ? 
 
 " I s'pose you would not like to try farmin'. There's 
 Carnrose, and 'twill be empty at Michaelmas." 
 
 " Carnrose ? " 
 
 " The farm my father left me."
 
 THE HAUNTING 281 
 
 The dear woman was offering him his heart's desire. 
 Always his dream to rent a few fields and till them. 
 Carnrose ? He knew the farm, inland, but not too 
 far, and a sizeable sort of place. One hind would 
 be enough to run it, and there was Nicolle eating 
 his heart out in Stowe, he'd come. Corlyon saw himself 
 in cords and gaiters, a proper farmer, saw Morwenna 
 making butter, brewing, saltin' in. 
 
 But Pascoe. 
 
 Surely having left the house on Quayside, Gale 
 might take this further step. Surely 
 
 Leave the haunt to its own devices ? 
 
 What was it doing at this moment ? He got up, 
 went to the door. No, he would not look. As long 
 as he did not think of the apparitions they were not 
 there. He came back to Morwenna, put an arm 
 round her, held her as if anxious to be assured of 
 her flesh and blood reality. " Farming ? No, I 
 don't think I should like it." 
 
 Yet, times out of number, he had told her he hoped 
 to spend his old age on the land. Fear, a fear of 
 something beyond her grasp, stabbed. " Then we 
 must poddle along as we are." 
 
 Not until Gale had been with her ten days did 
 Morwenna admit to herself that he was not gaining 
 ground. During the first week, in spite of his lack 
 of appetite and broken rest, he had seemed comfortable 
 in himself, on the mend. He had talked and laughed 
 with her, had been like a boy out of school. Splendid 
 company he was. 
 
 It had not lasted. He was growing daily more
 
 282 THE HAUNTING 
 
 absent-minded. When he came out of a brooding 
 silence he seemed to leave behind a part of himself. 
 Also, he looked ill. His skin was losing its pale 
 clarity, his eyes were bloodshot, his expression- 
 she knew that the alteration in his expression was of 
 more importance than the lines and the troubled 
 look. It portended what ? 
 
 Sometimes, when she was sitting beside him with 
 her hand between his, he forgot that she was there. 
 
 Every morning she woke to an eager hope that he 
 would be better, more his old self. Day-long she 
 watched, still hoping, and at night, while he tossed 
 and muttered, she lifted her heart in prayer. 
 
 His safety, his health, his sanity ! 
 
 VI 
 
 " Mrs. Liddicoat ! " A voice was hailing them 
 from the street. Supper being over, Morwenna was 
 stacking the cloam on a tray. 
 
 " It will be Rebecca French with my share of the 
 week's takings." She opened the kitchen door, let 
 the warmth and light flow through the intervening 
 room, the room that was to have been Gale's office. 
 " Come along in, and set down." 
 
 " I want to pay you what I do owe you." She 
 came blinking out of the night. A lamp on the table, 
 candles on the mantel-board, and they courting ? 
 " Evenin', Mr. Corlyon." 
 
 Though Gale, from his seat on the sofa, made 
 courteous reply, her coming was unwelcome. Even 
 when he had Morwenna's full attention, it was 
 difficult to keep his thoughts fixed on her, prevent 
 them from straying down the street.
 
 THE HAUNTING 283 
 
 The kitchen in which he sat grew dim. He was 
 seeing a room in the Brown House. Locked doors 
 and shuttered windows and darkness, yet he saw 
 the room more clearly than that in which he was 
 sitting. How long would a turned key, a hasped 
 window suffice to wall in the shadowy occupants 
 of that room ? The time was coming he felt it 
 creeping towards him ... a black point in space . . . 
 Whenever he looked, it was appreciably nearer. 
 The time was coming when the shadows, jigging in 
 that confined space, would break through ; when 
 the walls would be as mist, and the shadows as strong 
 men. 
 
 He must not think of the future, of what would 
 be. Morwenna ... he must hold on to her, lose 
 himself in her love, in that long, swooning glance. 
 
 " How be gettin' on with your shop ? " 
 
 Rebecca liked to hear it spoken of as " her " shop. 
 Ringlets swinging, she drew up to the cleared table, 
 and opening her purse, took out a piece of gold and 
 some silver. " Not so very dusty." She had sold 
 so many yards of frilling, so much muslin for robes, 
 embroidery for trimming. So much left, and Mor- 
 wenna 's share would be 
 
 Under the business chatter lay her preoccupation 
 with the amazing couple. It did not seem very right 
 for Mr. Corlyon to come and live there before they 
 were married and she was surprised at him. But 
 there, men did not think nor they did not trouble. 
 Made you glad you hadn't got none to trouble you. 
 
 People had told her he was looking whisht and, 
 dear life, so he was. Would not, hardly, have known 
 him. Gone all to pieces. 
 
 She counted the money into Morwenna's hand ; and
 
 284 THE HAUNTING 
 
 Mr. Corlyon, rousing from his abstraction, prepared 
 to make out a receipt. But, no. " Then that will 
 be all right," Morwenna said. " We know how each 
 other stand and I shall be seeing you again on Mon- 
 day." 
 
 He wondered if this way of doing business answered. 
 Men put black upon white, but women depended upon 
 words and the character behind the words. To do 
 so must quicken the faculties, for unless you were 
 able to size up the people with whom you were dealing 
 you would lose. 
 
 Morwenna went with the other to the street door, 
 and stood there for a moment, hoping. Perhaps 
 Rebecca, who was so cute, would guess what she 
 wanted. 
 
 " Well ? " The other smiled to herself. " Driven 
 your pigs to a braave market, 'aven't 'ee ? " 
 
 " Don't mind for that." 
 
 " At your time of life to be scandling the parish." 
 
 " Parish might find something better to do than go 
 scandling about me ; I am old enough to look after 
 myself." 
 
 " Of course you'll do as you've a mind to. Always 
 have and, I suppose, always will." * 
 
 " Becky ..." It did not matter what Rebecca 
 said as long as she would talk things over. To go on, 
 with your fears shut up inside to feel there might 
 be something to be done if you only knew what it was 
 she could not stand it any longer ! " Mr. Corlyon 
 don' seem so well as I could wish." 
 
 Rebecca caught the note of anxiety, the anxiety 
 that brought folk to her for help. " You can't 
 expect it." 
 
 " Not expect it ! Why ? "
 
 THE HAUNTING 285 
 
 " You don't knaw ? " 
 
 Morwenna's mind fled from what the other would 
 have implied. " I'm doin' all I can for him new-laid 
 eggs and cream and chicken. If I could get him to 
 eat as he belong to, he'd soon get better." 
 
 " He can't get better whiles the wish is on him." 
 
 Morwenna's voice rang out sharply. " Don't 'ee 
 tell I that." 
 
 The witch shrugged bony shoulders. " Have it 
 your own way." 
 
 The other hesitated. The fear of witchcraft was 
 in her blood, and she must admit that queer things 
 did happen. After Elizabeth Brenton had charmed 
 the mole it had dropped off her cheek, no denying that. 
 
 Gale had nothing definitely the matter with him, 
 and yet was ill. She wanted to believe his getting 
 better only a matter of time, but under what she said, 
 under what she thought lay uncertainty, and under all 
 a black terror. The words and thoughts sailed over 
 that black pit. All day they went to and fro above it, 
 trying to forget that it was there ; but at night in 
 the stillness, you had to admit . . . 
 
 " Do 'ee think " she said to Rebecca. 
 
 " Think ? " the little woman's bright opaque eyes 
 w^ter-washed pebbles were scornful. " I knaw 'tis 
 true." 
 
 And to Morwenna it seemed so very likely. Almost 
 she believed . . . quite . . . 
 
 Ill-wished ! Who could have done it ? Never had 
 she known Gale do anybody a bad turn. Ah, but 
 they might think he had, and people who had " the 
 power " were easily vexed. So often it was a next to 
 nothing, such as Rebecca's wrath with Mrs. Maddicott 
 on account of her having baked old Spargo a loaf.
 
 286 THE HAUNTING 
 
 Yes, they ill- wished you because they fancied things. 
 
 " But who'd witch'n, Rebecca ? He's loved by 
 everybody." 
 
 " Dunno who 'tis, but I could find out." 
 
 " I should be pretty and glad if you would." But 
 she could not unless Gale were willing and Morwenna 
 knew he did not hold with such things. " Mr. 
 Corlyon don't altogether believe in witchcraft." 
 
 Rebecca stepped off the drexel. " Well, 'tisn't 
 nothing to me. I didn't offer to help you and I 
 don't want to, but he edn't half the man he used to 
 be." 
 
 The black terror drove out little fears and tremors 
 with an irresistible sweep. Gale might deride but 
 she did not care. He must do what was best for him. 
 " Not half the man ? No, he isn't," she cried, " he's 
 a proper wreck. Nothing but bones pokin' through 
 his skin. When I look at'n I grieve my life out, 
 I do, but ' she looked anxiously at Rebecca, 
 " but it wouldn't be any use tellin' him he'd been 
 witched." 
 
 " Aw leave it to me." 
 
 " I can see so well as you do he edn't well and it 
 worry me to death." 
 
 " 'Tis so plain as a pike-staff." 
 
 " What's plain, Becky ? " 
 
 " That he'm witched. Haven't I seem 'em scores 
 of times ? Don't sleep well by night, do 'e ? Seem 
 to be hurried up in his dreams ? " 
 
 " Yes, 'tis awful. Cry out 'e do and make such 
 moans." 
 
 " And don't eat enough to keep a sparrow alive ? " 
 
 " No, that's true. I coax'n and coax'n, but I 
 can't make'n eat scarcely anything."
 
 THE HAUNTING 287 
 
 " And wastin' flesh daily ? Aw, I know ! Got 
 every sign of it." 
 
 " Whoever can it be ? " Morwenna's voice was a 
 shivery whisper. 
 
 " Would you like for me to tell you ? " 
 
 " I wish to goodness you would. I'd do anything 
 to get him better." 
 
 " Well " the time seemed to her ripe, " if I was 
 to show him who had witched him 
 
 " Yes ? " 
 
 " What 'ud you give me ? " 
 
 " If I could, I'd give you the two eyes out of me 
 'ead." 
 
 " Pretty lot of USQ they'd be to me." 
 
 " What do you want ? " 
 
 " Don't want more than the old lace collar and if 
 everybody got their own it belong to me, so I'm doing 
 this, you might say, for nothing." 
 
 Morwenna did not hesitate. What was a mere bit 
 of decency when Gale's health, perhaps more than his 
 health, hung in the balance ? " You are welcome to 
 that one." 
 
 " Very well, then." She turned back. " Bring me 
 down the little old looking-glass that hangs to your 
 wall and I'll tell'n." 
 
 Gale, when Morwenna left him, had tried to concen- 
 trate his mind on the vexed question of replacing the 
 street cobbles with asphalt smooth, dry, lasting 
 or with flags from the Poldinnick quarry. He was in 
 favour, he thought, of the paving-stones. They 
 would be cheaper, yet would last nearly as long. To 
 begin with they might be tried on French Street. 
 He saw them beautifying the crooked thoroughfare, 
 running on
 
 288 THE HAUNTING 
 
 They would go past the Brown House, not past, no. 
 They would end at the further wall. 
 
 He forgot the paving-stones 
 
 " You have been a long time away ! " He looked 
 at Morwenna reproachfully. She had declared she 
 would not leave him to himself ; but when he needed 
 her, the strong feel of her hand on his, she was not 
 there. 
 
 " Been tellin' about you, Mr. Corlyon," interposed 
 Rebecca. " Mrs. Liddicoat say you don't believe in 
 witchcraft." 
 
 " To believe I must have proof." He had risen, a 
 tall figure with hair in which the grey was yielding 
 ground, which would soon be white ; and Rebecca, 
 glancing at the aquiline features, the brilliant eyes 
 below level brows, hardly wondered that her cousin 
 was foolish over him. After all, if you had to have a 
 man in the house, might as well have something worth 
 looking at. 
 
 " No difficulty about that," she said. " I will give 
 you as much proof as you do want." 
 
 He smiled, courteous but sceptical. " As you 
 please." 
 
 Morwenna had brought the old round mirror from 
 her room, and the other, giving the surface a rub with 
 the black sleeve of her gown, handed it to him. " Look 
 in there hold it steady, so, like that." She tilted it 
 till the dazzle of the lamp filled it, like a pool, with 
 light. " Now look until you see a face." 
 
 " Until I see a face ? Whose face ? " 
 
 " Aw never mind, wait till you do see'n." 
 
 A month ago and Mr. Corlyon would not have 
 humoured the woman, but during that month much 
 that was incomprehensible had happened. His beliefs
 
 THE HAUNTING 289 
 
 were no longer fixed. ., Behind the surface manifesta- 
 tions of life, powers at present undreamed of might 
 be hidden. Sir Isaac Newton had confessed himself 
 a child picking up a pebble or so of knowledge on the 
 shores of its ocean. This woman, what did she know ? 
 Her eyes were piercing, uncanny. She might be able 
 to give her thoughts shape, project them on to this 
 ^shining surface. She might be able to solve some 
 of his problems. No harm in testing her and he could 
 pretend he was doing it for his amusement. 
 
 He stared at the mirror and staring grew dreamy, 
 forgot Rebecca, forgot the place in which he stood. 
 He seemed to be passing out of time into a world 
 transfused with light, which was all light, nothing 
 but light, when he was caught back by a change in the 
 pool. It had grown cloudy and in the centre was a 
 darker spot. His interest wakened. In the spot, 
 which had spread a little, something was taking shape 
 the shape had an outline, features Gale was looking 
 into a furious blood-suffused face, the face of Pascoe 
 when he realized that he was being done to death. 
 
 " Pascoe ! " he cried and the mirror fell from his 
 hand. The glass in the old gilt frame smashed scatter- 
 ing over the floor. " I I was thinking of him." 
 
 " Ah," said Rebecca, thrusting forward her eager 
 face, the face that seen beside Morwenna's was as 
 glittering metal to a flower. " Ah, but seein's 
 believin'! " 
 
 He realized the need for caution. They must not 
 be allowed to think there was anything peculiar in his 
 having seen his brother's face. "What do you want me 
 to believe?" He was conscious of the hard glitter of 
 Rebecca's eyes. The sort of woman, that, for whom 
 he had no use ; of whom, had he been other than 
 
 T
 
 290 THE HAUNTING 
 
 Gale Corlyon, he might almost have been afraid. 
 
 " You've seen with your own eyes and you must 
 bring your mind to bear on what you seen." 
 
 He forced a smile. " At your service ! " 
 
 " Aw, now there's no doin' anything with you." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Can't you see you'm wastin' away and that 'tis 
 'e that 'av done it ? Your own brother, 'tis 'e 'av< 
 ill-wished you." 
 
 Morwenna had swept up the fragments of broken 
 glass, had seen Rebecca out and come back to Mr. 
 Corlyon. She stood looking anxiously at him, noting 
 without appearing to do so, the dryness of his skin, 
 the troubled eyes, and the fact that his hair was differ- 
 ent. It was not unkempt, for she had watched him 
 brush it, but it stared. Long ago, she had watched 
 a mad dog run down the street, and she remembered 
 that its coat had been starey. Gale was ill, but she 
 was used to illness, only well, there was something 
 strange about this illness, something that frightened 
 her. Why should his brother have witched him ? 
 What lay behind it all ? 
 
 Whatever it was though, she would help in any way 
 she could, yes, any way, every way. 
 
 " She say Pascoe have ill-wished 'ee ! Can't be 
 anything in it ? " 
 
 He did not answer, but she was used to his silences. 
 They told her as much as another man's spreading 
 talk. 
 
 " What 'av 'ee done for 'e to ill-wish 'ee ? " 
 
 He stared at the red and black of the mat, warm
 
 THE HAUNTING 291 
 
 beneath his feet. Let her guess, ay, even if she did 
 get a glimpse of the truth. 
 
 " Was it money ? " 
 
 She waited for a denial, but he continued to stare 
 at the mat. So that was it ? The brothers had 
 quarrelled. Pascoe had made unconscionable de- 
 mands and when Gale refused to let himself be robbed, 
 the chap had witched'n. She had always known that 
 Pascoe had it in him to play dirty tricks. 
 
 First Jenifer, now Gale. 
 
 A black-hearted fellow, Pascoe, a real bad lot ... 
 and for him to have ill-wished Gale ! 
 
 " Aw, my dear life A little come out about 
 
 money and for Pascoe to have turned nasty. Sinking 
 down beside Gale she looked at him anxiously. It 
 was no laughing matter. 
 
 " I am not afraid." 
 
 She was, she was very much afraid ; but, in the 
 midst of her alarms, she was able to adore his im- 
 munity. 
 
 " I am not afraid of anything on earth or or off 
 it." 
 
 She turned the matter over, seeking the way of 
 escape. That he was not afraid might be a help. 
 " Pascoe'll be in Jamaica ? " 
 
 " He is gone out of our reach." 
 
 " Can't we get to him no way ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 Her clasp of him tightened. Not even Rebecca 
 could take off a wish, unless she were able to confront 
 the ill-wisher. Pascoe could send this devil of 
 mischance across sea and land, work his will on his 
 brother ; and they 
 
 " Can't we do nothing ? "
 
 292 THE HAUNTING 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 But they would. She sat up, tilting her chin, 
 staring with mother-fierceness. " We'll fight it 
 you and me you'm stubborn as a pig and I have a 
 strong will of my own. We'll fight, dear life."
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE WEDDING GUEST 
 
 " THE day '11 be showery," Loveday Pollard said as 
 she stepped into the gig. " But Wennie may be 
 thankful, seein' the time of year, that she 'aven't got 
 Cousin Jack's weather." 
 
 " Prince'll get there between the drops," said 
 Pollard. 
 
 As the marriage was to take place at eight o'clock, 
 they were starting betimes. The drive across moor- 
 land and countryside was all of twelve miles, but 
 Prince would make nothing of it. Pollard would 
 stable him at the Farmer's Arms and, with his wife, 
 go straight to the church. Did not look well to have 
 too much fuss when you were middle-aged. Getting 
 married at any time was sort of foolish and when you 
 were ripening to fifty, the less show the better. 
 
 Get the thing over, that was it. Pollard had busi- 
 ness to do in Stowe. When he was through with it 
 they would have dinner and a bottle of wine, all 
 hunky-dory, and he and the Missus would drive off 
 home again. His sister-in-law had a bit of money and 
 Corlyon was spoken of as well-to-do. Pretty and 
 sensible of them to put their odds and bits together. 
 Besides, the chap had been going there up in teens of 
 years best to get married. 
 
 293
 
 294 THE HAUNTING 
 
 ii 
 
 On stepping with Morwenna out of her house, Gale 
 Corlyon had stepped into a brightness of early morning 
 sun. He had not noticed that the wind was from the 
 south-west and that it drove before it heavy, reluctant 
 clouds ; but when they reached the church the clouds 
 had been flung across the sky and the bridal party 
 stepped from grey air into gloom. 
 
 The little old church had coloured windows. The 
 people who had built it slept under its flags. It 
 spoke not of life, but death, and Gale found himself 
 unwilling to enter. Darkness and he did not like 
 the dark ; it sent his thoughts to Quayside. Only 
 the fact that Morwenna's hand lay on his arm, that 
 she, dear soul in her quick, taking-for-granted man- 
 ner was going forward, prevented him from stopping, 
 from turning back. Before he could decide not to 
 go on, he was through the porch and walking up the 
 aisle. Too late, then. He pressed the hand on his 
 arm, the warm, strong hand, and went on. 
 
 But the chilly gloom into which he had been plunged 
 made him uneasy. He had left the grey of the house 
 for morning sun, for the light in which he trusted and 
 which, hot and clear, dismissed his visions as unreal. 
 He had stepped from the healing blaze into a shadow- 
 pool. On the edges of it was a night of dim stone 
 tombs, of vaulted darkness, of black air. Walking 
 up the aisle, he looked eagerly at the eastern window. 
 The outer blackness was pressing towards him, but the 
 jewel of darkly-coloured glass in its surround of stone, 
 would be his salvation. Through the red wounds of 
 its Christ the light would flow. 
 
 He had forgotten that the sky was full of the July
 
 THE HAUNTING 295 
 
 rains, that a grey opacity masked the sun. The 
 window hung agate -dull on the darker wall and Gale 
 remembered. 
 
 He had come thither with Morwenna because oh, 
 for several reasons. 
 
 He had said, " What day of next week, my 
 umuntz ? " 
 
 " 'Twill be give out Sunday for the last time," she 
 had answered, calculating. " And I'd like I think 
 we better go to church Monday." 
 
 " You are in a hurry." 
 
 " Once we'm wedded they can't throw it up to me." 
 
 He had been amazed. Throw it up to her ? Yet 
 there were people for instance, if Pascoe had been 
 alive . . . 
 
 Pascoe would have snatched at the chance to make 
 Morwenna suffer. Yes, if he knew that she had 
 delivered Gale out of his hands he would be bitterly 
 angry with her. Throw it up ? He would do more 
 than that. 
 
 Being dead he could not know. That is, if there 
 were no life after death and if the haunting had not a 
 life of its own. 
 
 The sepulchral coldness of the church was affecting 
 Gale. He shuddered and it seemed to him that not 
 only he but his convictions were a-shake. 
 
 Was Pascoe dead ? The flesh of him was moulder- 
 ing but the spirit ? 
 
 " I, Gale Corlyon, take thee, Morwenna Liddicoat 
 ..." but he did not realize what he was saying. 
 He was listening, not to the parson's voice, but to a 
 sound that came from a distance, a sound as of an 
 opening door.
 
 296 THE HAUNTING 
 
 in 
 
 When the bridal party newly married couple and 
 witnesses reached the porch, a plump of rain was 
 falling between the black spires of the cypresses that 
 bordered Deadman's Way. The blue of the estuary, 
 the blue of the day, were veiled, a grey world and 
 out of the greyness arrows of rain. As Mrs. Gale 
 Corlyon's bonnet was new and Mrs. Pollard's had a 
 freshly curled feather, they decided to wait for a little. 
 The shower would pass. 
 
 The women drew back from the splashing drops. 
 Jim Pollard, wondering if he might smoke, began to 
 stuff his pipe, and Gale, the chill of the stones 
 striking through his soles, stood looking down the 
 straight path between the trees. 
 
 And presently he saw that for which he was looking, 
 that which he had known must come. 
 
 IV 
 
 Up the path, dim as yet because of the grey rain, 
 walked a man. From far away he was recognizable. 
 The rolling gait, the sailor rig, Gale knew him at once. 
 He saw, too, that the fellow had something in his 
 hand. That something, yes, of course, Pascoe would 
 not have forgotten to bring with him the proof. He 
 must be able to show the glass, the dregs of the wine. 
 
 This, then, was how he intended to "leave the town 
 know ! " Before Jim Pollard and his wife, before the 
 rector now coming out of the church, before Morwenna, 
 he would denounce his brother. 
 
 He would stand before them, careless of mortal 
 rain, and tell the story.
 
 THE JHAUNTING 297 
 
 With stabbing finger he would point to Gale. " You 
 poisoned my drink. Let 'em search the house my 
 traade is in the cave ! Let 'em go on, down the old 
 run-way, and they'll find what's there." 
 
 And the rector, Mr. Stokoe, would question him. 
 
 " But why should your brother " he would lean 
 on the " brother " " why should your brother have 
 done this ? " 
 
 " To prevent me taking what was mine." 
 
 The dead people would say do not lie. Ter- 
 geagle, the dead steward, the man whose wickedness 
 was a household word, had come from his grave to 
 bear witness and his testimony had been accepted 
 without question. 
 
 Short-sighted folly ! Because he died, a bad man 
 did not become good. But the rector, the Pollards, 
 the townspeople, would believe what Pascoe chose to 
 say, take his version of the story for truth. Not 
 Morwenna, she knew what Pascoe was like. 
 
 Ah he had her on his side. Everyone else, everyone 
 
 in Stowe might turn against him, but not Morwenna. 
 
 If he told her he had killed Pascoe she would say, 
 
 ' You had good reason," and " it make no difference 
 
 to me." 
 
 The three weeks with her had opened his eyes. 
 Love o' women . . . such love . . . and he had been 
 blind to it all his days ; but it was not too late. He, 
 too, could give. He had not known that he could, but 
 a spring was rising from the depths. 
 
 When he got Morwenna alone, he would sing 
 her his song of love, tell her what he had done. 
 Yes, but Pascoe must not be allowed to be beforehand 
 with him, to stand on the church drexel and shout his 
 story. What the others thought and did was of
 
 298 THE HAUNTING 
 
 secondary importance. It was Morwenna now. She 
 was his wife queer word that, sort of solemn. Yes, 
 the solemnization of their union had lifted it on to 
 a different plane. A time-worn ceremony, slavish, 
 impossible promises, but behind these things, the warm 
 sacredness of their love. She had long been his ; 
 she was his, now, but in a different sort of way. 
 
 So far, no one had caught sight of the graveyard 
 figure rolling up Deadman's Way coming nearer and 
 nearer but at any moment they might. 
 
 Pascoe had been a shadow, looming through veils 
 of mist ; now Gale could see his face. It was the face 
 of a dead man, waxy ; but his eyes were open and the 
 spirit that looked out of them had a strange staring 
 life. 
 
 Neither lock nor shutter nor the stony bosom of 
 Gudda had been able to keep him where he belonged. 
 He had escaped from the fogou, from whatever spell 
 had kept him jigging from parlour to kitchen, acting 
 and reacting the drama of his death. He was free 
 to range the streets of Stowe, to dog his brother 
 
 A black hopelessness held Gale for a moment, but 
 only that. For the sake of the hand on his arm the 
 hand with glinting ring he must act. " We won't 
 wait any longer," he said, and Morwenna waking out of 
 happy dreams, stepped at once and willingly into the 
 rain. 
 
 Loveday saw them move, the tall absorbed man 
 and her eager sister. " I'll stay on a bit," she called 
 after them. They might be glad to be by themselves 
 and, anyway, the rector was talking to her husband 
 and it would not be manners to interrupt. 
 
 She walked to the doorless opening and stood looking 
 down the path between the cypresses. The end was
 
 THE HAUNTING 299 
 
 closed by a lych-gate. By way of it the dead came to 
 their resting-places. Up that path she had followed 
 Peter Liddicoat the coffin carried breast high, her 
 sister walking behind it and then, in proper order, the 
 family. When the rain ceased she would go across 
 to his grave, see if it wanted trimming, if the rosebush 
 were still alive. 
 
 The shower was nearly over ; before long the sun 
 would be out, would be shining on Gale and Morwenna 
 . . . " lucky the bride." 
 
 As Gale held the swing-gate for Morwenna to pass 
 out of the churchyard, he looked back ; looked care- 
 fully along the winding neatly-gravelled path. His 
 heart leapt. Yes, he had succeeded in turning Pascoe 
 from his purpose. The porch, that little hood on the 
 face of the church, still held the Pollards and the 
 rector ; the murmur of voices in innocent conversation 
 was audible ; the peace of a soft dropping brooded 
 over the place. 
 
 Pascoe had stepped from Deadman's Way on to the 
 daisy-bordered path by which the living came to offer 
 their weekly worship. He was following Gale. 
 
 Would he follow him through the town ? 
 
 " Gale," said Morwenna dreamily, " I be Mrs. 
 Corlyon." She leaned on the sweet syllables. " 'Tis 
 a lovely name," and she repeated it bringing out the 
 music. " Mrs. Gale Corlyon 1 'Tis mine now for 
 ever. They'll put'n on headstone when I'm in under." 
 
 He glanced over his shoulder. Pascoe was on the 
 side-walk. He seemed to be smiling to himself. 
 
 'Tis a long time " Morwenna's voice rippled
 
 300 THE HAUNTING 
 
 pleasantly on, " 'tis a long time since I was Morwenna 
 Strongman, driving into Stowe with my father on 
 market-days. Marryin' so quick I've always seemed 
 more Liddicoat than Strongman. Pittery-pattery 
 sort of name, Liddicoat. But now," she paused, 
 smiling to herself, " I have got a name that is worth 
 havin'." 
 
 He spared her a quick glance. " The years we've 
 missed, my girl." 
 
 It went through her like silver fire that he should 
 call her " my girl." " We'll make up to one another 
 for they years." 
 
 " Blind ! " he said, " I've been blind." 
 
 " Love," she did not want him to reproach himself, 
 *' when you stepped over the drexel, the night you 
 came again, you put me in your debt for as long as I 
 live. A woman can't be more than happy." 
 
 He smiled down on her. " 'Twill be hard lines if I 
 can't keep you that." 
 
 As long as she had him, no need to trouble. " I 
 only want to be let love 'ee." 
 
 They had come by the turning that brought them 
 into French Street opposite the Farmer's Arms. He 
 paused to look back and she supposed he was looking 
 for the Pollards. 
 
 ******* 
 Yes, she thought that, even she, who so loved him ! 
 
 " What do you see ? " he asked her as she, too, 
 glanced up the road. 
 " Nobody." 
 " Nothing ? "
 
 THE HAUNTING 301 
 
 " Sun's in my eyes." 
 
 " You don't see anyone coming . . . there by 
 -corner shop ? " 
 
 She saw the sharp turn of the road, the rain-washed 
 cobbles, the shine of Mrs. Julian's parlour- window. 
 Nobody in the street, not a soul. 
 
 " Don't 'ee trouble. People come when they've a 
 mind to, not before." 
 
 Though it was evident she did not see him, neverthe- 
 less Pascoe had come. He had chosen the hour of his 
 coming, set it by the clock of their lives. He had 
 waited for the wedding. 
 
 VI 
 
 Throughout the walk home, Pascoe kept at the 
 same distance. The light passing through him, yet 
 framed a dark outline, showed it thick if not solid, a 
 shape that was yet a shadow. Details were curiously 
 distinct and Gale could see that the skin over the skull, 
 shrinking, had pulled the dry lips into a grin. 
 
 When Pascoe grinned it meant that he had been 
 playing a trick on someone. Dead, he was playing a 
 last trick. 
 
 It was as if a flash of lightning had illumined the 
 country of his mind. Gale perceived that if Pascoe 
 had denounced him in the sight and hearing of Stowe, 
 it would have been the end a trial, a hanging and the 
 end. He was not ready for that not yet. 
 
 Living, Gale was an orange that could be squeezed 
 and squeezed again. After the last drop had fallen 
 there was always another. Pascoe would keep him 
 alive.*.
 
 302 THE HAUNTING 
 
 He saw his troubles as scarlet drops on a black 
 malodorous thread. He saw Pascoe, shaping them 
 and laughing, slipping them on the bit of gut. A tooth 
 for a tool h a life, ah, more than a life. 
 
 This haunting, it was not accidental, fortuitous. 
 Pascoe had planned it, had carried out his plans, but 
 Gale had been blind, had not realized the purpose in 
 what was happening. He saw it at last Pascoe had 
 broken up his good business of an auctioneer, had 
 separated him from friend and acquaintance, plagued 
 him with ghostly bedevilments ; Pascoe, finally, had 
 driven him from the Brown House. 
 
 His home and Pascoe had made it hateful to him. 
 
 His life had fallen about him like the shards of a 
 broken pot, of a pot that had been smashed by a 
 malicious hand. 
 
 VII 
 
 Morwenna gave him the key of the house -door, 
 waited for him to turn it. 
 
 " Go in quickly," he said. 
 
 " You won't lock it against Loveday ? " 
 
 " Not against Loveday." Yet as soon as she was 
 over the drexel he had shut it on them, shut it sharply 
 as if to prevent others from squeezing in, had, she 
 fancied, turned the key. 
 
 She went through the house into the linhay, went on 
 light feet. It was amazing how young and morning- 
 fresh she felt. Might have been only seventeen. 
 
 Her wedding-day. She looked back at Gale, 
 smiling at him, trying to make him feel as blithe. 
 But he was looking anxious. " I shall be glad when 
 to-day is over."
 
 THE HAUNTING 303 
 
 " And we arc by ourselves again ? Oh, yes, I'll 
 be glad too." She had the dinner to cook, the best 
 damask to get out, the glass to polish. " Won't you 
 set out in the garden, love ? " 
 
 " I'll stay here." 
 
 He was on the sofa in the kitchen. He would have 
 preferred to be in the garden, but he had to remain in 
 the kitchen. He had to wait. 
 
 Her work did not altogether absorb her. When- 
 ever she came into the dark kitchen, she stopped and 
 leaned over and kissed him ; and, patiently, he kissed 
 her back. 
 
 Only when, passing him, she would have fetched 
 china from a wall cupboard in the outer room, did he 
 stir. 
 
 He must remain between her and the street-door. 
 He must or 
 
 Danger to her ? 
 
 Could Pascoe get at her ? Not if he, Gale, stood 
 between them. 
 
 The sweat was cold on his forehead, a chilly breeze, 
 dank and mouldy, was blowing through the keyhole. 
 What would be Pascoe 's next move ? But he need 
 not ask himself, for he knew. 
 
 VIII 
 
 The knocking of a stick on the door, brought 
 Morwenna, running. " They are in nice time, for 
 dinner is just ready." 
 
 " It isn't your sister." 
 
 " Must be. Nobody else to come in on us." 
 
 " I'll go see." 
 
 He was quick on his feet, but to-day they dragged.
 
 304 THE HAUNTING 
 
 So many paces to the door and each step echoing back 
 to him from the empty room. He did not want to 
 open the door, but he must. Yes, in spite of what he 
 knew would happen. 
 
 Voices outside, the voices of people pleased with 
 themselves and the world. He must open. 
 
 Jim was carrying a frail out of which stretched the 
 gold-foiled necks of bottles, Loveday bore a ham. 
 Their jollity filled the dark spaces, broke on the wall 
 of Corlyon's spirit. 
 
 He let them in, shut the door after them and secured 
 it, followed them to the kitchen. 
 
 Loveday, having loosened her bonnet-strings, was 
 helping Morwenna dish-up, Jim had gone into the 
 linhay for a cork-screw. They were all busy as bees, 
 and Gale, standing in the doorway, was unobserved. 
 
 He looked where he must look at the sofa. 
 
 On it sat the uninvited guest. 
 
 IX 
 
 Pascoe was watching Morwenna. When she went 
 to the cupboard, his head turned, his glance followed 
 her. 
 
 Gale, from the shadow of the doorway, watched 
 him, appraising the glance. Pascoe owed her a 
 grudge . . . not quite that, or at least . . . 
 
 Yes, he did owe it and he was glad to. It provided 
 him with an excuse, helped him to a plan. He would 
 torture Gale through Morwenna. 
 
 Her happiness would be another orange for his 
 squeezing. 
 
 The violent wrath Gale had not known since he 
 sought sanctuary with her, swept down on him. He
 
 THE HAUNTING 305 
 
 wanted to smash, to tear. The crash of glass and 
 china, the cracking of wood and of heads, would have 
 been calming. To fight . . . 
 
 But here was something he could not fight. A 
 black wave rose out of the depths, extinguished the 
 flames, engulfed him. He was helpless. 
 
 An appeal ? His thoughts were an appeal, but the 
 wraith of Pascoe, grinning, continued to look at 
 Morwenna. 
 
 Gale's soul was an intense concentrated plea. He 
 was so lost he hardly heard Morwenna's voice. " Draw 
 up your chairs. Loveday, you sit on the bench and 
 carve the ham and I'll cut up the chicken." Appor- 
 tioning the work, she gave her husband the task of 
 cutting bread. The dear of'n was too absent-minded 
 to be trusted with anything else, but he could manage 
 that. 
 
 And Gale, standing, had sliced half the loaf before 
 she stayed his hand. 
 
 For round that table were not four people but five. 
 Loveday and Morwenna were at the ends, Jim oppo- 
 site, and between himself and Morwenna the wed- 
 ding guest. 
 
 In the grey air of the room, a shadow, a darker 
 shadow than was thrown by the people, the furniture. 
 They had shadows that were obedient to light, that 
 gave place, but not this. 
 
 Between himself and Morwenna ! Corlyon would 
 have pushed him away if he could a phantom chair 
 and on it the wraith of a dead sailor but he knew the 
 uselessness of attempting that. His hand would pass 
 through cold air 
 
 The Pollards were talking of their morning in Stowe. 
 They had not sensed that alien presence ; but Mor-
 
 306 THE HAUNTING 
 
 wenna glanced it seemed to Gale that she glanced 
 uneasily at the space which was not mere space. 
 She did not see Pascoe, not yet, but . . . 
 
 Undoubtedly, she would in time. 
 
 " Set down, dear love." 
 
 " In a minute I will." 
 
 He had brought Pascoe in, he must take him out, 
 yes out of her life. 
 
 He must. Though every fibre of him was in revolt, 
 he must. 
 
 He looked down on Pascoe, " Come," he said. 
 
 " Where be goin', Gale ? " 
 
 His glance swept the table, the faces, but he could 
 not look at her. " Go on with dinner. I I shall be 
 back in a minute." 
 
 She turned, put her hand on his arm, lifted her face. 
 " Don't 'ee be long," her voice pleaded, her eyes he 
 could not bear it ! " My tender sawl, don't 'ee be 
 long." 
 
 He took her hand from his arm, looked at Pascoe 
 to make sure that he was following and went out.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 BIT by bit Pascoe would filch from Morwenna her 
 happiness. 
 
 Gale Corlyon had lived through long-drawn-out 
 suffering, a torture that was always as great as he 
 could bear, that when he had adapted himself to one 
 set of strains, wrenched at him from a fresh angle. 
 The thumb-screw, the rack, splinters in quick of the 
 nail, those were physical, but the agonizing of a 
 soul . . . 
 
 Of Morwenna's soul ? No, that was the bit over, 
 the unendurable . 
 
 Standing with the bread-knife in his hand, cutting 
 slices as automatically as the reaper cuts a swathe, he 
 had hardened his heart. Nothing he could not do. 
 Nothing of which he was afraid. This ? It was an 
 adventure. 
 
 He must cling to that thought of the adventure, 
 must not let his mind slip away, back must not think 
 of Morwenna. 
 
 When he laid down the knife, his eyes were a sword- 
 grey, his chin a stiffness below the line of lip. When 
 he took Morwenna's hand from his arm, a thread of 
 scarlet ran from the lip. 
 
 37
 
 308 THE HAUNTING 
 
 ii 
 
 Mr. Corlyon walked down the street. He passed 
 along Quayside until he came to the Brown House, but 
 he did not go in. He looked over the latched gate at 
 weedy path and deserted home. A house of the dead. 
 
 Pascoe was behind. The fellow had understood and 
 was waiting to follow where his brother led, accepting 
 for the last time his dominance. 
 
 A long while since, on an impulse, he had killed 
 Pascoe, so long he had almost forgotten . . . had the 
 provocation been so bitter, so intense ? Pascoe had 
 wronged him, taken his money, but what of it ? 
 
 Money yellow metal in a bag. They had quar- 
 relled, as boys quarrel over marbles. " Yours mine. 
 I'll jolly soon show you." He had seen red a 
 momentary madness and then the blow. To think 
 that out of that madness should have come this 
 egregious coil. To-day it seemed to him to have been 
 all about nothing. 
 
 Yet he had to untie, no cut it. 
 
 in 
 
 The tide was making, but the path at the foot of the 
 cliff was still firm and dry. Gale Corlyon, having 
 assured himself that Pascoe was following, turned 
 towards the sea. Round one bluff, round others, 
 till he was stopped by a ripple of water, of flat pale 
 water, on the edge of which grey and white sea-birds 
 were playing a game. They ran forward, let a film of 
 water spread over their quick brown feet, then all 
 together they ran quickly back. Many the time he 
 had stood to watch their antics, and again he watched.
 
 THE HAUNTING 309 
 
 The shadow of the dragon lay on the rippled sand 
 and he remembered that it was waiting. It had been 
 waiting since the river ran into the sea. 
 
 From the land towards which it looked, he had come 
 to it and Pascoe was coming. 
 
 The birds, rising suddenly, flew out over the shallow 
 sea, and Gale realized that his feet were wet. He 
 could smile at that. The mists that came up from the 
 water, the rain that fell, the damps of autumn, they 
 had no longer any power to harm. 
 
 Round the dragon rock, a wave came with a spread- 
 ing swirl. It poured through the opening of the cave 
 and Gale, rousing himself, called over his shoulder. 
 " Come," he said, " or the tide will be in." 
 
 As the water drained away, he sprang for the open- 
 ing under the trails of weed. The sand gave beneath 
 his foot. He swung himself over the edge into water, 
 water that was sinking, running out ; swung himself 
 into warmth and a riot of colour. 
 
 Through slits high in the weed the sun was pouring 
 into the cave. It glowed on the yellows and metallic 
 peacock tints of the wall, on the blue of the escaping 
 wave, on the rock-basin. 
 
 Drip, drip, drip-er-drip. Drip, drip, drip-er-drip. 
 Light on that dimple of water, light that turned the 
 rose-red lining of the bowl into flame. 
 
 His own place and it offered him this welcome of 
 fierce, hot colour. 
 
 Pascoe had followed him into the cave. Corlyon 
 looked for him, but the rock-hollow, blazing with the 
 sun of early afternoon, was shadowless. Pascoe must 
 have gone on. 
 
 Ah, yes, Pascoe understood, he too, that it was a 
 life for a life ; no more than that, no less. The final
 
 310 THE HAUNTING 
 
 settlement of their accounts had brought him here. 
 They had come in by a door the tide was closing and 
 Pascoe knew. 
 
 Something in Gale Corlyon stirred, breaking against 
 the grip of his will. Morwenna would be looking out 
 for him, waiting . . . 
 
 He had spent his days serving the community, but 
 at long last he had stretched out his hands to take. 
 
 The clamour of his desire rose to the brazen skies. 
 
 Something for himself, this one thing . . . 
 
 IV 
 
 The dark weeks through which he had passed a 
 nightmare rout ached through his mind. Shadows 
 growing into fiends, obsessing him, torturing ; a hell's- 
 broth of boiling memories. Hell it had been that ! 
 
 Morwenna would have shared hell with him, ay, 
 done it gladly. 
 
 The water was swirling cold about his feet. He 
 went deeper into the cave, stood by the bowl of dimp- 
 ling flame. 
 
 Morwenna would wait for him till the stars fell and 
 the night was black. 
 
 It might be true that he would see her again then ; 
 or it might not. 
 
 But he must wait to know, here where the sea 
 was closing the door. 
 
 PRINTED BY GARDEN CITY PRESS, LETCIHVORTII, ENGLAND,
 
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