THE LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 

TIME AND THOMAS 
 WAKING 
 
BOOKS BY 
 MORLEY ROBERTS 
 
 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY 
 
 MAITLAND 
 THORPE'S WAY 
 RACHEL MARR 
 DAVID BRAN 
 GLOOMY FANNY 
 THE MAN WHO STROKED CATS 
 THE WONDERFUL BISHOP 
 THE BLUE PETER 
 THE PROMOTION OF THE 
 
 ADMIRAL 
 CAPTAIN BALAAM OF "THE 
 
 CORMORANT" 
 PAINTED ROCK 
 
 ETC. 
 
 EVELEIGH NASH, LONDON 
 
WARING 
 
 A STUDY OF A MAN 
 
 BY 
 
 MORLEY ROBERTS 
 
 LONDON 
 EVELEIGH NASH 
 
 1914 
 
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD 
 AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS LONDON 
 
THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED 
 
 TO 
 
 MY MANY FRIENDS IN THE 
 MEDICAL PROFESSION 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 THE operating theatre was lighted from the north end 
 by a large window which was also partly a skylight. Under 
 the window stood radiators. The chief aspect of the place 
 was one of intense and scrupulous cleanliness. The 
 walls were of white and gleaming tiles : bright metal work 
 glittered. On the left there were standing basins of white 
 ware against the wall. The floor was of a close grey 
 concrete. Near the standing basins there was a brass 
 structure. By this were boilers of nickel with cold and 
 hot sterilized water in them. To the right was a glass 
 cupboard with shining instruments in it. Above it in 
 the wall an electric fan was running. 
 
 On the other side of the room there was the big sterilizer. 
 Puffs and jets of steam rose from it but did not reach far, 
 for the temperature of the room was almost eighty degrees. 
 On a shelf nearer the window were large bottles of disin- 
 fectants : perchloride of mercury, coloured blue with 
 methylene ; and biniodide, coloured pink with eosin. 
 They gave a strange note of colour, though there was 
 something sinister about them. In the very middle of 
 the room, closer to the window, stood a long narrow 
 table with a folded blanket and rubber sheets on it. It 
 was made of shining polished copper, which gave it a 
 peculiar aspect. This was the operating-table, with its 
 screws and adjustments. At its head there stood a stool 
 for the anaesthetist. 
 
 7 
 
8 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 Though the great lightness and exceeding cleanliness 
 of the place endued it with all those visual qualities 
 which marked it as curious and singular, it was its smell, 
 clean, acrid, pungent and penetrating, that mostly struck 
 Thomas Waring when he came in. Though he had had but 
 little experience of such things, this smell was most pecu- 
 liarly the odour of a hospital. It was the odour of death, 
 or possibly the odour of life. It was the sense mark of 
 danger and suffering and experience, of knowledge, and 
 now for the first time he fully understood it. Once the 
 problem had been far off, though curious and interesting 
 to a journalist. It had not been unpleasing ; it was a 
 matter of curiosity ; but now it came home to him fully. 
 It struck him in the face like a blow. Deep in his mind 
 he seemed to make notes, as if he wished to remember 
 that what one sees as a spectator is something wholly 
 different when one comes upon the stage as an actor. This 
 was an odd fact, although he would have assented to it 
 freely long ago. 
 
 " I must remember that," said Thomas Waring. 
 
 Up to this time, in spite of all the doctors and surgeons 
 had said to him, he had not realized utterly the immediate 
 danger in which he stood. He knew now, with a sense of 
 alarm which was highly repugnant to his natural habit 
 of courage, that here, in this very strange white room, 
 there might be death his own death, not the death of any- 
 one else. The threat lay there in the intense whiteness 
 of things : in that narrow, dreadful table. It was curiously 
 visible in the extreme cleanliness of the whole surroundings. 
 Those who dealt with life and death daily esteemed cleanli- 
 ness wonderfully. It gave them not only a professional 
 sense of safety for themselves and their patients, but it 
 added to their self-respect and helped them in their work 
 as it does a priest. He remembered a High Mass which 
 he had seen performed by an Order, where all the priests 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 9 
 
 were clad in white. The ceremony had seemed more strik- 
 ing than with other dominating colours. He could not say 
 why this was, for he was not conscious of the workings 
 of his mind. He was only conscious that it worked 
 eagerly, strenuously, and with a rapidity that was very 
 strange. 
 
 Nevertheless, though he saw everything, he saw it 
 blurred. His mind was dazzled ; he was conscious that it 
 suffered, as it were, from halation. Nevertheless in his 
 under mind he took in every little detail, photographed 
 it, developed it, seemed to see it grow as a photograph 
 grows in the red light of the dark-room. He saw more 
 than death ; he saw its very means. He noted the in- 
 struments in the glass cupboard. The blue and pink 
 colour of the disinfectants in their big bottles affected 
 him curiously ; he noticed the reflections from them in the 
 bright steel and nickel things beneath. He understood 
 sensuously, almost voluptuously, that the main odour he 
 smelt was compounded of ether and chloroform ; ease and 
 peace and possible death. He had a keen sense of smell, 
 and distinguished among the other odours that of iodoform. 
 He had smelt it many years before. 
 
 It pleased him to name and distinguish the odours. 
 He had a sense of intellectual gratification, a touch of 
 superiority. He knew more than most people who were 
 not professionally interested in these things. And then 
 he was important, very important. That gave him a 
 sense of gratification which went through the dread that 
 worked in him. He was the chief actor. All these pre- 
 parations, all this cleanliness, were now for him. At 
 that time undoubtedly he was the most important person 
 in the whole house. There was no other than himself 
 in immediate danger of death. As he stood for a moment in 
 the doorway he drew the odours into him. He dilated his 
 nostrils visibly. Then he turned his head and looked 
 
10 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 round again almost mechanically, and caught the crepita- 
 tion of bubbling water. All these things were for him. 
 There was no speck of disorder there : not a speck of dust, 
 not a speck or spot of blood. 
 
 " Naturally there would not be," he said, " but pre- 
 sently " 
 
 Between the white-draped narrow table and the shelf 
 where the disinfectants stood there was the white-draped 
 theatre nurse. She was not one of his own nurses. She 
 was very tall and pleasant, fair-haired and gentle, and yet 
 obviously capable. She smiled at him now in a friendly, 
 encouraging way ; but it was not a smile obviously meant 
 to encourage him, and he was glad of that. It did not 
 unduly minimize the risks, or so it seemed to him. He was 
 very glad that she smiled in that way and no other, and he 
 felt curiously friendly towards her till she touched some- 
 thing among the tins. Then some instrument jingled, 
 and the sound jarred him a little. It made him a little 
 angry with her. 
 
 He had a great desire to see what instruments would be 
 used, but he could not ask to be shown them. He had to 
 speak to those who had been waiting for him. First of 
 all he looked at his own doctor, a very tall, clean-shaved, 
 strong man. He smiled at Waring, and Waring nodded 
 mechanically, envying him with a curious internal savage- 
 ness. All the same he was glad that he was strong. It 
 was good to see a strong man there. He wished his new 
 friend Campbell had been able to come, too. 
 
 On the other side of the table was the surgeon, whom 
 Waring had only seen three or four times. He was rather a 
 little man, but very powerfully built. He was the only 
 person in the room who was in black ; he had not yet 
 taken off his coat and put on his operating overalls. Some- 
 how this black made a jarring note for Waring. He did 
 not quite like it, and did not know why. For the first 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 11 
 
 time he was a little sorry that another acute emergency 
 case was in the other theatre. He knew that as a rule 
 patients were anesthetized there and wheeled into the 
 bigger room. Nevertheless, even in spite of Renshaw's 
 black clothes, he was on the whole glad to see everything 
 there was to be seen. If he had taken the anaesthetic 
 outside he would have missed something, some experience. 
 This might be the end of his life, and he desired to miss 
 nothing, to suffer all things, however strange or bitter they 
 might be, as long as he possibly could. 
 
 He looked at Renshaw, and saw him differently with 
 a kind of blur on him, it might be, for nothing was quite 
 clear. Waring had never noticed before what a strong 
 jaw Renshaw had, what a curious breadth of face. There 
 was something in his appearance of a clean, cold ruthless- 
 ness in spite of his smile. 
 
 Then he noticed Renshaw's hands, as he had done 
 before when the surgeon hurt him as he lay upon the 
 couch in his consulting- room. He had had those strong 
 fingers inquisitive about his very entrails. Renshaw's 
 hands were not long-fingered and slender ; they were 
 perhaps a little short and pudgy. But they were extremely 
 capable, perhaps intelligent as intelligent as the man 
 who used them. But if he was intelligent, why was he in 
 black ? This black was very disagreeable to Waring. 
 It annoyed him. It looked out of place. It would have 
 been better to see everybody in white, although presently 
 what was white would be stained. He closed his eyes, 
 saw Renshaw in white, and saw that he would be 
 splashed. After the operation the overall would be put 
 aside and again sterilized. By that time what would have 
 happened ? 
 
 On the little shining seat at the head of the table was 
 seated another man, whom Waring had not seen before. 
 He was another doctor. By his feet was a box, or some- 
 
12 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 thing like a box, which Waring could only partly see, but 
 his mind told him swiftly what it was, and who the man 
 was. This, then, was the anaesthetist who was to take 
 away his consciousness. He was a little dark man, with 
 a bristly moustache, and keen, humorous, introspective 
 eyes. He smiled, and half nodded at Waring, and Waring 
 smiled at him, perhaps a little blankly. He looked past 
 him out of the window and stared at the trees, half uncon- 
 sciously, and half with the intention of losing nothing 
 of life that he could grasp at. They were lovely, alive in 
 their spring green. He looked above them through the 
 skylight, and saw a patch of sky. 
 
 When the anaesthetist had begun his work, he would not 
 see the sky for some time. Perhaps he would never see 
 it again ; never see the green leaves dance, never see the 
 brown leaves fall. He went back in his mind into the 
 country, to one spot that he loved, where he had been with 
 her whom he loved most dearly. 
 
 He had never been under an ansesthetic before, not 
 even gas. He wondered what the process of going under 
 would feel like. His mind worked with the problem, 
 searching it out. He tried to remember how he felt when 
 he fell asleep, and of course could remember nothing. 
 The present was always immeasurably short. It was 
 a little line of light, or sometimes a little line of dreadful 
 shadow between the past and the future. The psycho- 
 logists said that cognition of the present included a little 
 of the immediate past. But when a man was falling 
 asleep he had no specious present. There was always 
 something dreadful about falling asleep when it was 
 thought of, something awful. Waring had sometimes 
 felt this tremendously, had felt an amazing reluctance 
 to lose that hold upon the objective world which was life. 
 Now he resented the possibility of death, the consciousness 
 of the certainty of not being able to think. He wanted 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 13 
 
 to think as much as possible while he could. Whatever 
 life was really, he knew it by the working of his mind. 
 The more his mind worked, the more stimuli it answered, 
 the more life was in him. He thought of his work, and 
 wondered if he was ever going on with it again. It was 
 very interesting, for he was a journalist, a publicist, a man 
 not without importance in foreign politics. Foreign 
 politics ! how far they were away from him, and yet 
 there were few men who knew so much of the inside of them. 
 It was very curious to think that if he died upon the table 
 certain things he knew would never be known to anyone. 
 They would go out. They would be lost. And yet they 
 were certain things necessary to the real understanding 
 of history. He wondered what was going to happen 
 in some countries that he was interested in : Germany, 
 for instance. It was almost absurd to think that he 
 might never know what the Berlin authorities with 
 some of whom he was very intimate would think of 
 his last article, only just now published under another 
 name. 
 
 There was his wife, he might never see her again. 
 He was sorry for her, but not for himself. He did not love 
 her, he never had ; and what was more, she had never 
 loved him. He knew that. It was not that she was not 
 fond of him. He admitted that she was fond of him, but 
 then she did not know what love was. Perhaps few men, 
 and almost as few women, knew. He knew, and had 
 known years before he met her. He saw that green 
 country again with its deep woodland. He was there 
 with the woman he had loved. Nevertheless his wife was 
 downstairs now, waiting with his daughter. He loved 
 his daughter Joyce dearly ; it was strange that a man 
 could when he cared so little for the mother. He wondered 
 how it was, and why, and felt that there was some explana- 
 tion over and above that which would be ordinarily given, 
 
14 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 if he could only get to it. He wished he knew. He 
 wished he had time to find out. He might never see the 
 girl again. He had been very hard on her, although he 
 loved her. She was very unhappy. That love story 
 of hers he wished he had not been so hard about it. 
 And then there was his son, who was driving a taxi-cab 
 in the streets of London because he had made a fool of 
 himself with a worthless servant in his father's* house. 
 And Waring thought of Jennie, the other dear woman in 
 his life. 
 
 " I ought to have been kinder," he said. " I have not 
 been so very moral myself." 
 
 He wished he had made it up with his son, but he had 
 told nobody of what was coming on him till the very last. 
 And now his wife, Milly, was downstairs in the waiting- 
 room where so many had waited, where he himself had 
 waited for a little while. The room had all the qualities 
 of a waiting-room : its barrenness, its glitter, its bareness 
 and cleanliness : the pictures, which were null and empty : 
 the stale periodicals on the table : the flowers which had done 
 their turn upstairs with the patients and came downstairs 
 to die. In his mind he saw Milly there. He objected 
 to her dress. There was something perpetually dowdy 
 about her. She was ruthlessly careful, a perfect house- 
 wife, economical to fanaticism. He wished she had spent 
 a little more on dress, that she had had some taste, and love 
 for colour, even though she had been as barbarous in the 
 matter of headgear as the usual woman. But she sat 
 there fiddling with her fingers on the polished wood, looking 
 like a puritanical housemaid. He hated to think of the 
 poor woman like this. He had never done so before, but he 
 knew that under some conditions the underlying complexes 
 of thought came out, with all their hidden implications as 
 clear as day. She had always been very rigid about 
 morality, and once he had thought it right, but he did not 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 15 
 
 think so now. It began to seem foolish to him to be 
 rigid about anything. He was in a very serious position, 
 and little things like morality did not matter. Perhaps 
 if it had not been for her he might have given in about 
 Joyce. He wondered. 
 
 And all the time that he thought, or as his mind worked 
 and his brain spurted and sparkled, lifting itself up like a 
 windy, broken fountain, playing strange patterns in that 
 curious wind of fate that smote him, he was still moving, 
 going forward with his own nurse by his side, she who had 
 looked after him so far and would be all things to him for 
 a little while when the operation was over, if indeed he 
 survived it. .He liked her very much. She was a sweet 
 woman, and though strong looked delicate. She was 
 certainly pretty. Her ordinary uniform suited her well, 
 as a uniform suits most women by restraining their un- 
 regulated instincts. Now she was in white. He thought 
 she had a very nice figure. He wondered why it was that 
 he seemed already to have formed for her a very curious 
 human affection. He wondered what Milly would think 
 if she knew it, whether she would be sympathetic. 
 That was not likely. She never had been sympathetic ; 
 on the contrary she had done her duty. But this nurse 
 was kindly and cheerful, and had real sympathy. She 
 was encouraging in the proper way ; perhaps she had 
 learnt to be. It was so easy to give encouragement 
 which was alarming. There was real encouragement in 
 the touch of her firm hand upon his arm at this very 
 moment. He turned a little and smiled at her and shook 
 his head, almost jocosely ; yet his smile was wan and steady. 
 She smiled back at him again with grave and pleasant 
 eyes. He knew more of the world than she did, but she 
 knew the gates of life and death better than he. He 
 wondered how many she had seen die, how many come 
 into this strange world. He himself was over fifty, and 
 
16 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 he had lived a full life, but he had seen no more than 
 two people die in the whole of his life. 
 
 He remembered his brother's bitter, wandering smile : 
 his strange and unintelligible, awful sneer, the risus sar- 
 donicus which often follows on the pinched and anxious 
 Hippocratic face of Death. And there was another 
 death that he remembered, the death which had altered 
 his very nature, had made him what he was, infinitely 
 less responsive to the world, to love, or friendship. This 
 was long ago, and yet, though it was so many years since 
 then, he remembered every instant of her passing. He 
 saw all things about her now. If he was to die too he 
 wished to die remembering her, not only deep in his under 
 consciousness where she dwelt for ever, but also in that 
 consciousness which made him what he was to the outer 
 world. In him she lived and still endured. It was a bitter 
 thought that when he died few, if any, would remember 
 her, and none would love her greatly. For none had known 
 her none could know. 
 
 All the time that he was thinking, whether it was about 
 the room, or about the doctors, or the nurses, or his old 
 life among books, she was the dominating under thought, 
 the foundation of all things. And all the time he was 
 amazed at the way his mind worked, at its variability, 
 at its complexity, its almost insane want of connexion. 
 His mind was many-coloured, rapid in motion, magical. 
 Stimuli sprayed upon him from without and within, and 
 he answered with inconceivable rapidity. He thought 
 not of one thing at one time, but of all things at once. The 
 complexes of his life and character interpenetrated each 
 other. They were like nets laid on nets ; they were 
 infinitely reticulated. In the time he took to move one 
 step he seemed to have time for eternal thought. Time 
 in his processes was slackening. But then time was the 
 processes of the mind ; when they ceased time was not. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 17 
 
 A man sleeps and in his sleep he has lost hold of the hours. 
 So it would be in death when he had forgotten her whom 
 he loved. Was there any answer to the earth riddle ? 
 What answer ? The bitter smile of some who died averred 
 that there was none. Would he have this expression on his 
 face as he died ? He wondered if those had it who died 
 during anaesthesia. He wished to ask, but it would seem odd 
 to the doctors. Perhaps they would think it a pose, a 
 foolish affectation of courage. Yet he was very curious to 
 know ; there was so much to know about it. How was it 
 that people avoided so interesting a subject ? Now he 
 would never know any more than he did already. And 
 then he heard his own physician speak : 
 
 " Hullo, Waring ! " 
 
 He had known Heathcote for many years. But Waring 
 found it difficult to answer. It seemed to him that he had 
 not opened his mouth for a very long time. His tongue 
 stuck to the roof of his mouth. When he spoke, it was a 
 little thickly. 
 
 " So you did come, doctor ? I thought that you 
 mightn't have the time." 
 
 But still he thought of her who was dead ; and of 
 his wife downstairs ; of his daughter and Jenny and 
 his son ; of life ; of death and the vain hopes of immor- 
 tality. 
 
 " Oh, I made time," said Heathcote. " You know our 
 friend here ? " He touched the arm of the surgeon. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Renshaw ? of course," said Waring. He 
 smiled, half dreamily. 
 
 Then Renshaw said, " And this is Mr. Barratt." 
 
 Barratt was a surgeon at Renshaw's hospital. He often 
 worked with him, especially when there was anything big 
 to do. Waring and Barratt shocks hand, but neither 
 spoke. Then Heathcote introduced Bent, the anaesthetist. 
 He got up from his little shining seat. 
 
18 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " You want to listen to my heart," said Waring with 
 a smile. 
 
 So much of the routine he knew, though he forgot how 
 he knew it. He bared his chest, and Bent listened with a 
 binaural stethoscope. Waring heard his own heart beat, 
 and all the time he thought of other things, his mind 
 spraying like a fountain in a great wind. But he heard 
 some of the words that Bent spoke to Heathcote : 
 
 " Oh, all right. Yes considering very good." 
 
 His nurse took away his dressing-gown, but he still 
 found the room warm ; he knew that it must be nearly 
 eighty degrees. He was very sensitive to heat and cold, 
 especially since this last illness. He knew the warmth 
 was pleasant to him, although he did not understand quite 
 why the room was kept so warm. He touched the table 
 and found that it was warm too. Underneath the blanket 
 and sheet there was hollow brass filled with hot water. 
 It was a strange bed. Hs wished to ask questions about 
 it. There were a thousand things he wanted to ask 
 questions about. Little things came up to him strangely : 
 little things of history, questions of literature. He re- 
 membered he had meant to look up the etymology of a word. 
 Now he would probably never learn it. He wondered 
 if any of the doctors knew, but was ashamed to ask them 
 though to ask would put off unconsciousness. He was 
 still eager to know, even more eager than he had been. 
 By now there might be a telegram on his desk about that 
 German business. It would be in cipher. His secretary 
 did not know the cipher. He ought to have written a 
 testimonial for his secretary before he came there. It 
 was great neglect on his part. 
 
 Before he came upstairs in the lift he had been partially 
 prepared for the operation. His skin had been shaved 
 and rendered tolerably, or even completely, aseptic. 
 Now he got upon the table. Heathcote and Barratt 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 19 
 
 helped him. They stripped him and clad him afresh. He 
 had blankets about him, but much of his body was bare. 
 He raised his head and looked at the big brown patch 
 of iodine with which his nurse had painted him the night 
 before. They drew down the upper garment to keep 
 him warm, and drew up the lower one till only the operation 
 area was visible. That they covered with a sterilized 
 towel. He understood he was now to take the anaesthetic. 
 He resented taking it, and had a subdued sensation of 
 anger deep within him, but he felt that he was not so 
 nervous as many would have been. 
 
 He heard Bent say, as he kept his finger on his radial 
 pulse, " There's no need to give any alcohol." 
 
 Then Waring beckoned Heathcote. He spoke in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " I am not so nervous, after all," he said. " You under- 
 stand, Heathcote, if I go under you will do what you can 
 for all of them ? Give them my dearest love." 
 
 But his dearest love was for his daughter, and for the 
 dead. He might go where she had gone, where Hadrian 
 and Augustus went. 
 
 Then he said to Renshaw, " Shake hands, old 
 chap." 
 
 That was curious, for before this he had always been 
 quite ceremonious with Renshaw, although the surgeon 
 was no stickler for ceremony. He nodded to Barratt, 
 and smiled at his nurse, who looked very sweet, he thought, 
 though there was a furrow between her brows which he did 
 not admire. He wanted to tell her not to look so serious. 
 
 " All right, I'm ready," said Waring. 
 
 Overhead the sun shone quite brightly. He saw the 
 blue sky again ; it was not so pale. Renshaw did some- 
 thing ; he did not know what. He was looking at his 
 instruments. He was still in black. 
 
 " I wish he'd put the white things on," said Waring. 
 
20 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 He would do it presently. Bent put something over 
 the patient's face. 
 
 " Breathe deep and easy, Mr. Waring," he said. 
 
 And Waring breathed deeply and easily. 
 
 " Breathe out well," said Bent. " The breathing in will 
 take care of itself." 
 
 Out of the corner of his eye he saw Heathcote's face. 
 He wondered how long it would take to go under the 
 influence of the drug, probably a long time. Downstairs 
 poor Milly sat. He saw his first wife, the wife that Milly 
 knew nothing of. He smiled to think that perhaps only 
 one living soul knew he had been married twice. He 
 forgot Milly and remembered the dead. He clung to her. 
 How did anaesthesia come on ? He still breathed deeply, 
 and suddenly felt the table sway. It seemed to him to 
 rise. That made him smile. He heard his own breathing 
 now ; it sounded deep, loud, unnatural, almost alarming. 
 But still he smiled. The sky the dear dead woman 
 how strange everything was ! By God ! it was humorous. 
 He laughed a little, and heard Bent say in a voice which 
 was strangely loud, and like soft thunder : 
 
 " He's taking it very easily." 
 
 What was he taking ? He thought he called out. He 
 seemed to hear himself speak the dear name that few 
 knew. He struggled to know what he was taking, he 
 wished most violently to know. It was a problem, some- 
 thing for his mind to struggle with. He was accustomed 
 to fight. What was he taking ? It was a cursed outrage 
 that he could not know more. That was all he did know. 
 Even she had gone now. The world was a jest, and this 
 was very humorous, curiously humorous, damnably 
 humorous. He smiled to think of the gross, gigantic, 
 colossal absurdity of something which he could not name, 
 wondered what it was which was so absurd, so monstrous 
 and extraordinary. Then he laughed. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 21 
 
 " I'll ask them," he said. He sighed it, sighed it un- 
 heard. 
 And then sleep came. 
 
 II 
 
 THE day, which had begun brightly, and had been still 
 bright when Waring entered the theatre, now began to grow 
 darker just at the moment that the patient lost conscious- 
 ness. The period of excitement which almost always 
 occurs during the induction of anaesthesia was short and not 
 violent. Waring made a little struggle that was easily 
 restrained by Barratt and Renshaw, but his eyes opened, 
 and he glared as strangely as though he saw something not 
 visible to the others. Then he cried out in a lamentable 
 voice, " Evelyn Evelyn ! " and after that fell back and 
 needed none to hold him. 
 
 Heathcote, who was there as the patient's usual physician, 
 had nothing to do, and stood well back out of the way and 
 watched. He had known Waring for very many years, 
 and indeed loved him, though he was in many ways a hard 
 and peculiar character : not easy to love, obstinate, full 
 of himself, proud, reserved, and at times curiously intolerant, 
 Yet somewhere underneath his outer crust he had a great 
 power of affection, and Heathcote knew it. But who was 
 the " Evelyn " that Waring called to ? Heathcote knew 
 his circumstances, knew his wife, his daughter, his son. 
 He knew, too, that Waring's marriage had been something 
 of a failure. Mrs. Waring lacked understanding and 
 passion ; she had been no real mate for the man now upon 
 the table. Heathcote was even aware that as the result of 
 this his friend had a mistress, for he had attended her 
 himself. But her name was not Evelyn. 
 
22 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " I should like to know who she is," thought Heathcote. 
 
 He watched Renshaw take off his frock-coat, the official 
 garment that he wore even when it was wholly out of 
 fashion. While he was doing so Barratt painted the 
 operation area afresh with iodine. Then Renshaw washed 
 his hands with extraordinary care in a disinfectant. He 
 scrubbed them hard, using ethereal soap. He dried them 
 on a sterilized towel handed him by the matron, who 
 helped him on with his overalls and tied them for him. 
 Once more he washed his hands before he drew on the 
 sterilized rubber operating gloves. By now the sky 
 was very dark. It irritated Renshaw to see the light 
 get so bad ; he made them turn up the electric lights, 
 and then cursed the double illumination that he had asked 
 for. After that he said nothing for some time, though he 
 was a man apt to talk during an operation, as many 
 surgeons will, though some are sombre, absorbed, utterly 
 occupied, and lost to all outside influences. 
 
 He had often worked with Bent, the anaesthetist, so 
 they knew each other well. He hardly needed to ask 
 about the condition of the patient, but he spoke once or 
 twice. 
 
 "Is he going on all right ? " 
 
 Bent nodded easily, and smiled. The operation began. 
 
 There was a possibility, as all knew, that this might 
 only be an exploratory operation. In such a case the 
 trouble might well be more than desperate ; it might be 
 wholly inoperable. Nevertheless Renshaw did not believe 
 that this would prove to be the case. He had faith in him- 
 self, faith in the knife, and his knowledge of anatomy 
 had become intuitive and wonderful. He met emergencies 
 easily. But Heathcote, standing back against the wall, 
 had his doubts. He always had his doubts of surgery. 
 He dreaded the knife and hated the surgeon in his heart ; 
 it was a confession of failure for a physician to call one in, 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 23 
 
 And still he knew that if something were not done, and done 
 quickly, Waring must inevitably die. The operation, if it 
 were successful, might give him a year or two. It was 
 conceivably possible that the disease might not recur, 
 and yet it was even more possible that the man would 
 die upon the table, or shortly afterwards, although the 
 operation had been a success, as surgeons say if the patient 
 is taken from the theatre alive. 
 
 Heathcote watched Renshaw working, watched him with 
 almost unfriendly eyes. And yet he knew how skilful the 
 man was, and in essence how kindly, in spite of a certain 
 tinge of callousness which sometimes comes to surgeons. 
 He knew Renshaw liked Waring, though he had only 
 seen him three or four times. He was interested in him, 
 interested in his work, interested in foreign politics. He said 
 that Waring really knew his business, and that, Renshaw 
 declared, was the rarest thing on earth, whether a man was 
 a surgeon or a sweep, a divine or a doctor. But he said 
 he knew his own, and it did not take him long to make his 
 decision when the time came. He spoke aside to Barratt, 
 and Barratt nodded. Then he beckoned to Heathcote, 
 who came up to the table. 
 
 " You see ? " he said. 
 
 " I see," said Heathcote. 
 
 " There's only one thing to do carry it out completely," 
 said Renshaw. 
 
 " You've never done a complete colectomy at one 
 sitting, have you ? " asked Heathcote. 
 
 " Never," said Renshaw, " but I'm going to do it now. 
 I can't let Guthrie Lloyd have all that to himself. I'll 
 do it if you have no objection ? " 
 
 " I've no objection," said Heathcote. 
 
 He reckoned Waring as good as dead, but yet after 
 what he had seen he knew that if nothing were done the 
 man was doomed without any doubt. If Renshaw did 
 
24 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 what he proposed Waring had a chance, a dog's chance, 
 as men say, but still it was a chance, and that was all that 
 any could affirm with certainty. Renshaw went on working. 
 
 With many surgeons there are many methods, but with 
 the great surgeon there is always ease : the ease which 
 comes from power, from knowledge, from experience. 
 
 " We do that best which we do easiest," said Heathcote 
 as he watched. He was quoting a great dead physician. 
 
 He lost his temporary and strange dislike of Renshaw. 
 After all, Renshaw was a big man, he said, a very big man. 
 Certainly he knew his business, though many in the pro- 
 fession declared he tried to do and to know too much. He 
 worked with such extraordinary ease that his work at times 
 seemed careless, but he rarely made a mistake. Few 
 indeed made less than he. Occasionally this ease of his 
 translated itself into a peculiar jocularity, a running com- 
 ment. Sometimes he was quite incapable of doing serious 
 work without a jest, and a jest that was not of the most 
 seemly kind. But now he worked for the most part with- 
 out a word. It would be a long operation at its swiftest, 
 and every moment lost was one less chance for the man 
 under the knife. 
 
 Heathcote indeed grew more absorbed than the operator. 
 It was the first time for many months, as it happened, 
 that he had watched a great major operation. He had seen 
 no operation for years upon a personal friend. He found 
 that it was a different thing to see Waring under the knife 
 than to see any casual person on the table. He could 
 not have joked. He loved Waring very much, and often 
 wondered why. The man was often trying, and of late 
 years almost impossible. He had the faults of a genius 
 without being one. Heathcote had once told him that. 
 But then such faults are the faults of a man's nervous 
 system. A fool can be as trying as Shelley. 
 
 Renshaw, who had held his tongue for a long time, 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 25 
 
 spoke at last. He looked up and smiled at Heathcote 
 somewhat sombrely. 
 
 " You haven't such a bad opinion of us now, Heathcote," 
 he said. He went on working. " You, and your ceaseless 
 talk against surgery ! By Jove ! I wish you'd seen what 
 I saw the other day." 
 
 " What did you see ? " asked Heathcote. 
 
 There was a long pause. Renshaw worked on, and 
 spoke to Barratt, before he answered Heathcote. 
 
 " I went into St. Jude's and saw Wallingford murder 
 a man." 
 
 " What was he doing ? " asked Heathcote. 
 
 " Extirpating a poor devil's larynx, confound him ! " 
 said Renshaw. " By the Lord ! he made a muck even of 
 the tracheotomy. And his technique oh, it fairly made 
 me sick ! There he was, pecking at the chap like a crow 
 as uncertain as a poet at mathematics. Before he 
 was half done he was sweating like a bull, and shaking. I 
 wanted to cry out, ' Murder ! Police ! ' " 
 
 He fell again into silence, and Heathcote seemed to 
 see poor Wallingford operating under Renshaw's nose. 
 Renshaw ought to have gone out and let him do his work 
 without such critical eyes upon him. He remembered 
 that Renshaw had once said, " If I didn't see a bad piece 
 of surgery sometimes, I should never know what a good 
 surgeon I am." 
 
 After another long silence, during which Renshaw and 
 Barratt were working very deeply, Renshaw spoke again. 
 
 " How's he standing it, Bent ? " 
 
 Bent said the man was all right. But he knew that 
 no one knows what a man stands under an anaesthetic, or 
 what his inner brain does, or thinks, or feels. Yet Waring 
 breathed easily, his pulse was strong, and his feet warm. 
 
 Renshaw spoke again, in little jerks and spurts of 
 talk, half as if he were talking to himself. 
 
26 
 
 " Wallingford thinks he knows the larynx I'm only 
 a common general surgeon if I didn't know it better 
 I'd eat my hat. I skipped out went to the London saw 
 Lampert do the very same thing. That was a pleasure to 
 look at. He's a great operator. This is a big business 
 I've more respect for Guthrie Lloyd than I had. Heard 
 you say you're glad you're not a surgeon I'd as soon 
 be a chemist and druggist as a physician. This is rather 
 a score for you to say nothing of me after what old 
 Jenkin said. I always told you Jenkin was an ass I 
 don't believe he'd know malignant multiplex adenoma 
 from a common cold ! " 
 
 He worked again in silence, and then spurted out with : 
 " If you went to a meeting of the B.M.A. and shut your 
 eyes and fired off a gun, the chances are you'd hit a fool. 
 Oh, but Jenkin ! " 
 
 To what extent he was really thinking of poor Jenkin 
 is a matter of doubt. He had an extraordinary capacity 
 of mind. He seemed to work with both lobes of his brain 
 at once. No doubt he did, for he was ambidextrous. 
 But his work was wonderful, and Heathcote knew it. 
 
 The time ebbed swiftly. Heathcote looked at his 
 watch ; he had been in the operating theatre already for 
 an hour. He held his watch in his hand, as he thought, 
 for a minute, or two minutes, or it might even be five 
 minutes and then he saw to his surprise he had been 
 there watching Renshaw for an hour and a half. A great 
 sense of fatigue came upon him fatigue rising out of 
 protracted involuntary attention, when time is not, when 
 the organism does not reckon it up. But Renshaw seemed 
 unconscious of fatigue or strain. He was smeared and 
 splashed with blood, and sweated a little with the heat 
 of the room, so that once he asked Nurse Smith to wipe 
 his forehead. He said something in a low tone to her 
 which Heathcote did not hear. But the nurse said, 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 27 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Renshaw ! " and Heathcote understood, for 
 he knew what Renshaw's ways were. And from that he 
 would have known the operation was nearly over if he had 
 not known from what he saw removed. 
 
 " Good God ! " thought Heathcote, " it's a big opera- 
 tion. I can't see how a man can live through it, or survive. 
 If he does, I'll take off my hat to Renshaw. Poor old 
 Waring ! I wonder who Evelyn is." 
 
 For a moment Renshaw stood up to fill his lungs. Then 
 he worked again with more absorption. 
 
 He spoke : " I'll be done in a quarter of an hour, Bent, or 
 less. How's he doing ? " 
 
 " Very well," replied Bent, " considering " 
 
 " Ah, considering," said Renshaw. " Well, we'll do 
 more this time than get him off the table alive, or I'm a 
 Dutchman ! " 
 
 Now that all the difficulties of the operation were sur- 
 mounted and they were many, for there was much deep 
 dissection Renshaw felt happy. It was a good piece of 
 work a great piece of work. For although he himself 
 had not originated the operation, still he had done it in 
 less time than any one else so far as he knew. He believed 
 he had done it well. He would like the man to recover, not 
 only for the sake of his own reputation. Gradually Waring 
 became a little more to him than a subject. He looked at 
 his face once when he rose, a thing he had not done yet. 
 
 " Waring has a fine skull, a very fine skull indeed," 
 said Renshaw. " Ferguson, the craniologist, would have 
 liked to measure it. A fine face too." 
 
 But it was now very grave and white. He must have 
 been a strong man, for even at the age of fifty he had big 
 and strongly marked abdominal muscles. Well, it was 
 over. Renshaw straightened himself. 
 
 " Sew him up for me, Barratt," he said. " Upon my 
 soul, I really believe I'm a little tired," 
 
28 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 And taking off his operating gloves, he washed his 
 hands. He put his arms up in the air and threw them 
 back, opening his chest and yawning as he did so. 
 
 " What's his chance ? " asked Heathcote. 
 
 " What you know," said Renshaw. " I've cleared 
 out the whole lymphatic area and gone as deep as I 
 dared. I believe I've got it all, or hope so. But we 
 shan't know for years, even if he gets over this. So there 
 we are." 
 
 " Yes, there we are," said Heathcote with a sigh. 
 
 And all this time Barratt was putting the sutures in 
 the abdominal wound. Renshaw took off his smeared 
 overalls and put on his frock-coat. He lost, bit by bit, his 
 air of preoccupation and absorption. He began to look 
 pleased, almost jovial. 
 
 " You might go down and tell Mrs. Waring, Heathcote," 
 he said. And Heathcote, after standing a moment by 
 Waring, left the room. 
 
 Then Renshaw turned to Barratt and Bent. " Heath- 
 cote won't talk so much against heroic surgery now," he 
 said. 
 
 And then the nurse, and the porter, who came in, 
 wheeled Waring white, and almost like marble out of the 
 theatre back to the lift. Renshaw and Barratt went with 
 them. Together they got him into bed, and then Renshaw 
 and the other surgeon went away. 
 
 " Keep the salines going," said Renshaw as he left. 
 " I'll be in again this afternoon." 
 
 For a little while the matron and the nurse both stayed 
 with Waring. 
 
 " Watch him carefully," said the matron at last, " and 
 send for me the moment you want me." 
 
 So Nurse Smith sat quietly by the bedside and listened 
 to Waring's breathing, and sometimes felt his radial pulse, 
 which on the whole was quiet and fairly strong not faster 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 29 
 
 or slower than might have been looked for, and without 
 any marked irregularity. He looked strangely calm and 
 peaceable. And yet, who knows what they suffer, whose 
 brains cannot give any report ? 
 
 Ill 
 
 WAKING'S day nurse sat by his bedside reading a book 
 which neither excited her nor gave her any inclination to 
 sleep. It was one of those books which take a kindly, 
 childish, and gentle view of life and all its awfulness. If 
 things were not for the best God would presently make 
 them so. But these things she only touched with her 
 inner mind. She kept her thoughts on her duty, and watched 
 the patient until his special nurse should come. And still 
 she read with her eyes about the goodness of God. 
 
 For a long while Waring did not ascend from the deepest 
 depths of ansesthesia from which no suffering mind or brain 
 or body has yet returned with any report. Personality 
 lies in distinctions, in the sense of differences, in the relation 
 between the perceiving brain and the things perceived. 
 He registered no such differences. Time is only the 
 successive register of impressions. Of the growth of life 
 and death, of the rain of stimuli, of the motions and the 
 processes of the intellect he knew nothing He did not 
 even know that he existed. Perception of self is the 
 shadow of that which is not self. This did not exist. 
 
 How long it was before he came out of the great and 
 silent depths of total unconsciousness he knew not, and 
 would never know, for he would not have believed what 
 any told him. But now at last he was on the borderland 
 of consciousness ; without any motion of the intellect or 
 
80 
 
 any emotion rising from his instincts. And yet he felt. 
 But it was not Thomas Waring who felt. It was not any- 
 one in particular. It was not a body, nor a mind. That 
 which felt had neither mind nor any processes of menta- 
 tion. Nor was it extended. It had no quality of exten- 
 sion. It was a point, a point of strange fire, a live speck ; 
 something infinitely small in which was concentrated 
 immortal, unmeasured, and infinite suffering. 
 
 This speck, although it was of unutterably small dimen- 
 sions, seemed to move in itself. It was a fiery revolving 
 speck of consciousness. But to him who felt this begin- 
 ning of things there was no beginning. This awful speck 
 of pain, of intense and burning fire, had lasted for seons, 
 for long unmeasured eternities, for ever and ever. Thought 
 could not measure these eternities ; nor could thought or 
 the taking of thought compute the eternities of pain. 
 Here was neither hope nor any power of looking forward. 
 And all the power of looking back that this speck of fire 
 possessed, if indeed it had any such power, was a sense 
 of an infinity of pain stretching far out beyond all 
 imagination, beyond the fatal beginning of things. There 
 was no release, nor any relaxation. Nor at first was there 
 any rhythm in the concentrated anguish of this mortal 
 speck of fire. He, or it, or the one dim cell in that dull 
 and silent brain which burned with inextinguishable 
 anguish, neither knew nor could hope for relaxation. 
 Pain was immortal. It had lasted for ever, and 
 would last for ever. It must last ; and there was nothing 
 but pain in the universe, in the world, in life, in conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 And then that concentrated anguish became less con- 
 centrated. It began to spread. It took on extension. 
 It filled something which was not space, but was im- 
 measurably and immortally infinite. In this increase 
 there grew at last a sense of rhythm. Tho pain, the 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 81 
 
 amount of pain, remained constant, for when it extended 
 it was still itself, and when it contracted the anguish was 
 no less and no more. It lived and endured in slow, eternal 
 systole and diastole ; but the speck of suffering life knew 
 but itself and nothing else, for there was nothing else to 
 know. And still time went on immeasurably and for 
 ever ; without ceasing, for pain moved with it. There 
 was no end. 
 
 And presently the special nurse came in, and Nurse 
 Smith spoke to her, and rose and left the room quietly, 
 carrying with her the comfortable little book which spoke 
 soothingly of God. 
 
 After everlasting eternities the registering cell of fire 
 within the man's brain still endured. But it grew ; it took 
 on certain new powers. It may be that other cells com- 
 muned with the first cell that knew this anguish. The 
 pain was no less and no more. It was inconceivably 
 awful, and yet it was not awful at all. How could that be 
 awful which had no measure and no comparison, and was 
 beyond all computation, or thought of anything that 
 differed from it ? But now the speck of fire was many 
 specks. They revolved about each other in a slow and 
 rhythmic dance. Signs of regularity, as of organization, 
 grew up in them. There was a sense of difference within 
 them, their own differences. To perceive differences is the 
 beginning of knowledge. The specks advanced in agony, 
 perceived themselves to be the victims of fate, of destiny, 
 of the nature of things. They were the nature of things, 
 and that nature was pain. 
 
 They were all that existed, all that ever had existed ; 
 immeasurably small but infinitely large ; without exten- 
 sion and infinitely extended ; less than a point, and more 
 than infinite intellect could grasp. This was existence : 
 
32 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 inconceivable pain. In its essence it was life. The 
 dancing specks knew this, though they did not know 
 what life was. They suffered in fire, but fire and the pain 
 of fire were all they knew. In the immortal anguish 
 of a wakened mind there came surcease of thought ; in this 
 immortal anguish there was no relaxation. This was pain 
 itself, absolute pain : exquisite, deep, imperishable, 
 everlasting. 
 
 The special nurse laid down her own little book, which 
 told a pleasant tale, and felt Waring 's pulse, and listened 
 to his breathing. She nodded, was satisfied, and resumed 
 her watchful reading. 
 
 But time goes on, even for immortal anguish, for the 
 original fire of things, for the pain out of which the world 
 and all humanity have sprung. The specks of fire existed 
 no more as they had been. They were not now their 
 own illumination. They were dimmed in a new and 
 growing light, which came from nowhere, from a little 
 white speck which was nothing. It had no body, no 
 place ; it was a mere whiteness, an abstract notion. 
 But nevertheless it was there as a whiteness, as a lamp, 
 and under it the universe began to assemble itself. The 
 whiteness was the perceiver. The red fire of pain had 
 gone out in the light, but all the anguish endured in that 
 little colourless speck which at last perceived differences. 
 It grew. It at last became perceptible to itself. It was 
 differentiated from what it lighted. It had dimensions, 
 was extended, but, properly speaking, was without form. 
 And yet it had form, for it thrust out processes, was jagged, 
 moving like a speck of live protoplasm. It felt for things 
 blindly, and yet saw. It perceived that the universe was 
 there. This universe was an infinitely small portion of 
 a great white sphere. The white light was about it, 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 33 
 
 another white light, as it crawled in anguish on the curved 
 surface. 
 
 And consciousness grew in the speck. The processes 
 of protoplasm differentiated themselves and, going through 
 innumerable ages of evolution, became, as it were, organs. 
 It seemed to be all eyes. It could see immeasurable 
 distances, out into space, down the immense curves of the 
 sphere. There came a grotesque horror in what it saw. 
 The surface on which it anguished and moved was no more 
 smooth but rough, as if it were rough-cast plaster. But 
 it was not plaster. The moving speck knew what it crawled 
 upon the universe was steel ; for it shone, though it was 
 rough and like cement, and as hard as adamant. And 
 it perceived this world was a constructed thing. There 
 was a sense of grotesqueness in the beginnings of mind 
 within it. A notion out of its old dead world rose up : 
 an idea, a notion, as of a brick. The universe was con- 
 structed of bricks, and of some strange cement. It was 
 mechanical, and mechanically made, constructed by 
 itself, empty of everything and all life save the growing, 
 still formless, creature that apprehended dimly and with 
 shrinking its appalling horror. The horror was partially 
 loneliness, essential loneliness, the absolute loneliness that 
 the soul may know. But the pain endured for ever. 
 
 And yet the growing creature on that roof of the world, 
 that blind, soulless, Godless universe, became more con- 
 scious of itself. It was still small, most infinitely small, 
 but it had form and shape, a suggestion a horrible sug- 
 gestion of limbs that were fleshly processes, footless, 
 handless, headless. It crouched in an awful crevice and 
 shivered. It became afraid, conscious of loneliness, con- 
 scious that it was companionless and could have no com- 
 panion. And time passed. For now the awful creature 
 on that roof and apex of the world knew time ; measured 
 it and found it immeasurable ; considered it as a problem 
 
 o 
 
34 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 and knew it insoluble. For it had a brain. It reached out 
 and apprehended things, and searched for causes, for a 
 cause, searched vainly and found nothing. It knew that 
 itself was all that lived, that endured, that registered. 
 It was itself the universe : one cell, a suffering cell. And 
 the white light grew about it, and was perceived at last as 
 light. 
 
 And as the nurse read and watched, she heard Waring 
 groan, and laid down her book and looked at him, and 
 touched his wrist again, and wiped his lips and brow. Then 
 she rose up, renewed the saline, and afterwards went on 
 reading. 
 
 The thing that lived, and felt, and knew itself different 
 from its environment, sought anew for expression, sought 
 it for an infinity of time, without haste and yet desperately. 
 For expression had not been invented. Words were not. 
 Thought existed necessarily without them. Thought was 
 profound, painful, passionate, and awful. This thought 
 assumed forms. It was like a fountain which wavered, 
 broke into spray, took on form again and lost it : was 
 conscious of form, and again unconscious. Words are 
 signs for the forms of the fountain soul of energy. They 
 come late in life, in the evolution of life, and are often 
 wholly vain. He struggled ; for now the creature was 
 more than it had been, was not a single form, but was 
 like suffering humanity that mass of crawling, aching, 
 living protoplasm that spreads over the world and thrusts 
 out its processes in a passion of pain and hope. He 
 perceived, without perceiving, and as a great and terrible 
 discovery, that he was human. He knew it without 
 perception he was humanity, purely humanity, and all 
 humanity was intolerable. He was humanity suffering, 
 and the suffering could not be imparted. He suffered for 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 35 
 
 all, and through all, and was not callous, for their suffering 
 was his. But he went on growing ; becoming. 
 
 Whatever it was that still dwelt in infinite barrenness 
 where all things were white and the colour of death, it 
 still grew and grew, and felt immortal pain. But the pain 
 took on a new quality. For all the millions of years and 
 aeons that this speck of fire, this speck of pale whiteness, 
 had suffered, it could not distinguish between qualities of 
 pain, whether it were anguish of the mind or purely anguish 
 of the flesh ; for indeed these are the same, and sometimes 
 the body knows it. But now the suffering, sometimes a 
 point, and sometimes wonderfully diffused, was that of 
 physical pain and mental anguish with it. These were two 
 sides of infinite torment. He seemed to revolve, to have 
 an upper side, a lower side. He revolved swiftly ; and 
 when he revolved swiftly the pain was one. But when he 
 revolved slowly the pain seemed sometimes mental and 
 then physical. And with this great advance in knowledge 
 and in growth the other brain cells woke, and the cells 
 which had first suffered took on something of the awful 
 aspect of the human mind. The cells communed together 
 and reasoned. As Milton's creatures of hell communed 
 wisely on the burning marl of the pit, they too reasoned 
 and drew conclusions out of their infinite pain. Nothing 
 was. Nothing existed. Nothing was as it had been 
 imagined to be ; all things were different. No ancient 
 conclusions, however sacred or greatly confirmed, even by 
 revelation or the blood of martyrs, were valid. Nothing 
 existed but energy in the stress and strain that men call 
 matter. The soul and mind were its products. There 
 was no mercy in matter, nor could it beget God. 
 
 But still Nurse Smith in her little room upstairs read 
 about the dear God who had made the world, and sent His 
 only begotten Son to save man from his sins. 
 
36 
 
 As the anaesthetic withdrew its magic from each separate 
 cell, it was like the imagined mercy of God withdrawing its 
 benefaction from a band of martyrs. Man was being 
 created anew. He lived, and he only. He was one, and 
 only one, through all the cycles of creation, all its pain 
 and all its anguish, all its griefs, its woes unutterable that 
 the mind strove to utter. He grew, and became a man ; 
 and groaned ; and saw an empty universe, light, but 
 without life. And still he was a sufferer, suffering now 
 with the flesh. But though sharp pain went through 
 him like lightning, the pain that was physical was nothing. 
 He could have rejoiced in it as he groaned. He saw the 
 white light, saw it plainer, and knew that it came through 
 a window, though he could not name the place through 
 which it entered. For the light was not what it had been, 
 nor was the mere window what it had been. Even though 
 he could not name it, this was a house ; but a house was 
 a different thing from anything he had known. He was 
 in a room, and the room was a little walled-in portion of 
 space. He struggled with an infinite sense of difference 
 in him, difference from what he had been. And at last he 
 turned his head a little and caught the profile of the nurse 
 as she sat reading her book. 
 
 There was, then, another human being in the universe. 
 That was strange and awful. He struggled to understand 
 it, but could not. And now his mind began to use words. 
 The words seemed to mean something, but he did not know 
 what they meant. He used them again and again, and 
 seemed to hear something in himself use them. And then 
 he began to understand them. He heard his mind say 
 to him, " I couldn't go through it again for anything." 
 
 Now he was conscious of his body, conscious where 
 the pain lay, knew that he had limbs, that he was shaped, 
 that he had a head and features ; but he did not now know 
 where he was, or what he was. He shut his right hand, 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 37 
 
 clenched it, felt the flesh of the palm. He looked again at 
 the nurse, and suddenly something in himself made him 
 reach out and catch her by the arm just above the elbow. 
 He squeezed her flesh most terribly, and she cried out a 
 little and loosed his fingers. The touch of her flesh on his 
 was strange and awakening. He said " Ah ! " and loosed 
 his grip. Her arm was black where Waring grasped it, 
 but she was a good nurse and made no complaint. Perhaps 
 she understood a little a very little. 
 
 And Waring spoke. He spoke sensibly ; he used a 
 word instinctively, though he had not used a word for a 
 million years or more. 
 
 " Nurse, nurse ! " 
 
 " Yes ? " said the nurse. 
 
 He looked at her piteously, with strange, blank, staring 
 eyes which indicated depths beneath that no one knew. 
 
 " Nurse," he said again in a whisper. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Waring." 
 
 He struggled in his mind, struggled with time and with 
 eternity the eternity he remembered, that had burnt his 
 flesh and brain. 
 
 " I couldn't I couldn't " 
 
 " Couldn't what ? " she asked gently. 
 
 " I couldn't go through it again for anything," 
 said Waring, and the tears ran down his face. 
 
 IV 
 
 RENSHAW came in again in the afternoon. He had his 
 doubts about Waring. Although he had spoken once or 
 twice, he had relapsed into unconsciousness. Late in the 
 evening his pulse was 140. That night the special nurse 
 
38 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 and the night nurse, together with the matron, fought for 
 Waring' s life. At one time his pulse was up to 150, and 
 nothing but brandy, strychnine, and the continuous 
 administration of saline brought it down again. Renshaw 
 saw him again at midnight, for it was an anxious case. It 
 was the first time he had done this particular operation. 
 He would rather have lost a thousand pounds than have 
 lost Waring. Nevertheless, after staying there an hour he 
 went away more comfortable about his patient, and hence- 
 forth Waring made steady progress. 
 
 For many hours he had been on the very shores of death. 
 When at last he recovered consciousness again he did not 
 remember that he had waked before, had caught the nurse 
 by the arm, and had said to her, " I couldn't go through it 
 again for anything." But that thought was dominant in 
 him : he whispered it to himself. When Nurse Smith was 
 in the room with the special she heard him speak, and went 
 over to him, thinking perhaps that he wanted something. 
 But he looked at her with strange eyes, and said piteously : 
 
 " I couldn't go through it again to bring to bring 
 to bring anybody back." 
 
 She wondered what he meant, for she knew nothing 
 of his life. She was on surer ground later in the day, when 
 he whispered to her : 
 
 " If I had known what it meant, I wouldn't have had 
 it done." 
 
 But she encouraged him, knowing that was what most 
 patients say. They forget the protracted sub-acute misery 
 of the time before the operation, and while the shock lasts 
 most acutely they are full of regrets. 
 
 " You will feel differently to-morrow, Mr. Waring," she 
 said. 
 
 It was a strange thing for him to hear his name, to think 
 that he had a name. He was still in a strange way that 
 creeping, shapeless, nameless creature on the outside of a 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 39 
 
 steel and adamant universe. He was still that little red 
 immortal speck that suffered, and it was strange that that 
 little speck which seemed to be most truly himself though 
 it was now deeply hidden in his body or his brain should 
 have a sign attached to it that men called a name, a sign 
 that marked him out from others and told him that other 
 beings like himself, whether they suffered or not, still 
 existed. It was a kind of comfort to hear that he had a 
 name, that he was some one, although it was very odd, and 
 not to be explained. Yet it was of no importance. Truly 
 nothing was of importance since some one was dead, and 
 since he had been through all those millions of years of 
 suffering. 
 
 The feeling that the world was mechanical endured. 
 Somehow it now seemed to originate not in his brain but 
 in the region of the operation. There was no quiet ease 
 or rhythm there, but a great internal wound, ligatured, 
 turgid, unnatural. His sensations seemed to grow up from 
 it like a tree. His mind was no longer like a spraying 
 fountain ; it was a structure of steel and adamant. The 
 peculiar sensation of it affected his taste ; he tasted the 
 metal of which the universe was made. It was an absurd 
 notion, but he did not smile at it. The rigidity of his mind, 
 and of the wound, carried itself to the muscles of his face. 
 They set themselves rigidly. He kept one expression for 
 hours ; it was embittered, perhaps a little dangerously like 
 the Hippocratic face. All things had a taste to him. He 
 tasted these facts, the facts about himself. 
 
 He was little more living than the house, than the walls, 
 than the window. There was something odd about con- 
 structed things ; he was no more alive than they, or they 
 were as alive as he was. It was one whole solid piece of 
 cursed mechanism. This feeling reached out infinitely. 
 It went out beyond the walls, to the other houses, to the 
 square outside, to the city. He had a feeling as if he was 
 
40 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 rigidly attached to it all, that it all had a little consciousness 
 like him, a consciousness of strain and discomfort, as if 
 existence in any form, dead or alive, was essentially dis- 
 comfort and strain and stress ; perhaps that strain and 
 that stress were the beginnings of consciousness in matter. 
 
 He had in him something of the metaphysical mind. 
 These things were compounded of his ancient metaphysical 
 and physical thinking, of his discomfort, his post-operative 
 rigidity. And then he smiled a little, and the smile seemed 
 to hurt the muscles of his face. It broke up their carving. 
 It was a strange smile. His face went back to vague 
 solemnity. 
 
 Renshaw was in twice that day, in spite of being fear- 
 fully busy. He did two major operations at his own 
 hospital and another one, which was long and trying, at 
 a patient's house. All the same he found time to see 
 Waring, and was more satisfied, although he was suffering 
 from shock. Waring looked at him wanly, and with a 
 certain hostility combined with appeal. He wanted to 
 live, and he did not want to live. He was perfectly con- 
 scious of the division in himself. His mind or brain seemed 
 to have no desire of life, but his body, his wounded and 
 broken body, passionately hoped for it. His body hated 
 Renshaw for having wounded it ; but nevertheless his 
 mind clung to Renshaw in spite of its desire not to live. 
 Out of this came the look of hostility combined with appeal 
 that surgeons sometimes see. 
 
 " I wouldn't have had it done if I'd known, Renshaw," 
 said Waring. 
 
 The surgeon touched his hand kindly. 
 
 " You won't feel that in a few days, old chap. You'll be 
 all right." 
 
 " Did you take it all away ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " Every jolly scrap," said Renshaw. " You'll be a 
 credit to me." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 41 
 
 Waring considered that laboriously, and raised his brows 
 a little. 
 
 "Shall I?" he asked. "Oh, you think I'll be all 
 right ? " 
 
 " Quite right," said Renshaw. 
 
 And Waring whispered, " I wouldn't go through what I 
 went through before I came out of the anaesthetic for 
 anything, Renshaw." 
 
 Renshaw, who did not understand, smiled, and en- 
 couraged him. 
 
 " I dare say not," he said. 
 
 And with that the surgeon went away, on the whole 
 quite satisfied, though it was obvious that Waring was 
 still suffering greatly from shock. He was not yet interested 
 in life, not even in his own. Everything was wholly un- 
 natural. He perceived dimly that this was so. He saw it 
 first, or saw it most acutely, with regard to the nurses. His 
 special nurse was perhaps not a very remarkable woman ; 
 still she was a woman and not a creature made out of 
 machinery. Waring's mind worked a little fantastically 
 and cruelly. He remembered some pictures of the Cubists 
 which he had seen in an exhibition in Paris. There were 
 two or three suggestions of feminine figures constructed 
 curiously out of triangles and angle iron and pieces of steel. 
 In some way, in spite of her reasonably pleasant exterior, 
 he looked upon this nurse as a Cubist might have done. 
 She was metallic, like steel, wholly mechanical. He did 
 not perceive anything like beauty in her. He had lost all 
 power of appreciating it for the time. His day nurse, or 
 she who would be his day nurse when the special left 
 him, was certainly beautiful. She had a curious, almost 
 saintly look. Nevertheless he did not see that she had 
 any loveliness, either of body or spirit. Beauty did not 
 exist. There was none in his universe. It was an 
 entirely different universe from that which he had known, 
 
42 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 even though he had never had any very acute sense of 
 beauty. 
 
 As he lay quietly during the day he struggled with the 
 world as he saw it, and compared it with that which he had 
 known before he got upon the table. It certainly was very 
 different ; much had gone out of it. The old universe 
 that he had known was full of life, and suggestions of life. 
 It had, as it were, little flowers opening on it. It was 
 coloured, and opalescent, and had a sparkle. There was 
 fire in it, and warmth, and sunlight. These things were 
 kindly ; they had human associations, almost human 
 implications. They answered, and they appealed. They 
 were part of himself. They warmed his blood, and were 
 warmed by it again, and warmed by his breath. They 
 returned what he gave them. But now he would not have 
 been surprised to see a steel man enter his room, a surgeon 
 of steel. Why, was not the nurse compounded and com- 
 pacted strangely of horrible matter that was not flesh ? 
 
 The whole world was mechanical, concrete, shining metal. 
 The sky was brass, or it was rusted iron. People moved 
 not through any spirit or any imagined soul such as he 
 had clung to in his old days when the memories and preju- 
 dices of his youth were not analysed and destroyed. There 
 was no such thing as a soul, and moreover there was no 
 such thing as a God, although he had formerly thought, in 
 a curiously abstract manner, that there was. Renshaw, 
 whom he imagined when he was away as a mechanical 
 surgeon of steel armed with knives, had dissected God out 
 of him when he had him on the table. Waring felt intoler- 
 ably acute and certain of his conclusions. He seemed to 
 feel out through all things. He felt to the very ends of the 
 universe. God was not to be felt anywhere in existence. 
 He was something created by man : a thought, a hope, a 
 delusion. 
 
 And other things were delusions too. The people who 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 43 
 
 walked up and down the streets outside were not really 
 living, as he understood it ; and they paced streets of 
 metal. They moved inevitably and mechanically through 
 squares wherein steel trees grew. The houses were con- 
 crete, unfinished, horrible inside. The matter of which 
 they were constructed was such as he remembered on that 
 strange outside of the world where he had crawled in his 
 strange evolution of fire and pain, in that everlasting and 
 most awful nightmare during which he had travelled up 
 the whole road of evolution from the monad to the man, a 
 billion years of exquisitely awful creation. It had been a 
 nightmare that was the quality of it. Those years of 
 experience, those seons of horror had all the quality of a 
 nightmare. He knew they had altered him profoundly. 
 In a certain dim way he had enough knowledge of physiology 
 to perceive that they had probably disturbed the natural 
 and healthy metabolism of every cerebral and nervous 
 cell within him. He even supposed that this was what 
 people called shock. He lay wondering how long he could 
 endure such a mechanical world before he blew his brains 
 out. He moved his lips as if he tasted things. The taste 
 of everything was something that he could not endure. 
 
 He thought of his wife. Their relations had never been 
 satisfactory. He had never loved her ; though she, 
 perhaps, had loved him to the extent of her capacity. 
 He wondered how she was taking what had happened. 
 He fancied he knew. He saw her doing her duty, perhaps 
 not without tears ; but for her tears he had no pity. 
 They did not seem warm to him. He wondered if he could 
 ever care for passion again. He forgave her, curiously and 
 very coldly, for her natural coldness. After all he had not 
 loved her. Perhaps she had never been waked up, although 
 she had borne him two children. He had certain regrets 
 that he was a father. Those who had sprung from him 
 would have to endure life, to go through its cruel shining 
 
44 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 avenue, that awful road which led nowhither. In his mind 
 was a strange parody of Hobbema's picture of the road 
 lined with poplars. He saw an endless road lined with 
 metallic trees that shone and glittered. The grass outside 
 the road was grey and sharp ; it would cut the feet of 
 those who walked upon it. 
 
 He went back to his own affairs. He spoke to himself : 
 " I couldn't go through it again to bring Evelyn back." 
 
 For Evelyn, the only woman he ever loved, had been 
 dead these twenty-three years. There was a strange 
 rhythm in great remembrance. Now, although he had 
 married, and begotten children, and seen them grow up, 
 he went back to the old time when he was really happy. 
 It seemed like yesterday and like a million years ago ; for 
 all that period of suffering lay in between the now and 
 then. 
 
 He had needed love which had the power to create it in 
 him, and had not found it again ; had not been able to 
 find it, though he had sought for it painfully. It had 
 seemed to him that perhaps some woman bore the sacred 
 torch yet unlighted ; he knew not who she was. He had 
 dealt with many, seeking, but not theirs was the torch, or 
 any sacred fount at which a man might drink and be 
 satisfied. He looked back upon some parts of his life with 
 a certain cold astonishment. He saw himself like a child, 
 a lost child, seeking for help from some woman who was, 
 or could be, a real lover ; she who held in her the passion 
 of a child and the passion of a bearer of children. It was 
 all folly. The only one who could love was dead. And 
 yet there was that other woman in his life one that few 
 knew anything about, save old Heathcote, who had been 
 very good to her and her lover. 
 
 He knew now that although he did not love his mistress 
 he was very fond of her. She did not seem so cold and 
 cruel, or hard, as any of the other women. There were 
 
T/IME AND THOMAS WARING 45 
 
 great feminine qualities in her. His wife would not suffer 
 if he died ; or if she suffered, it would be the mere breaking 
 of habit. She would get over it ; she might even marry- 
 again if some other provider came to her. But Jennie 
 truly was a little different. Although he did not love her 
 as he understood love, she loved him. He was fond of 
 her, glad to see her, glad to be with her ; but he knew that 
 he never paid her back for her love and thought of him. 
 What pleased him most was her absence of what folks called 
 " moral sense." She loved him simply, and when he was 
 not with her spent her time with books and birds. She 
 did not whine about her sins, and did not ask him to marry 
 her when his wife died. 
 
 This attitude of hers pleased him, and yet, curiously 
 enough, at one time it had shocked him. He had the 
 remains of conventional morality in him ; once he would 
 have considered it nobler for her to shed an occasional 
 tear over her immorality. But now he thought he under- 
 stood. He wondered whether women ever did shed real 
 tears for their immorality or their sins. Perhaps they 
 mostly shed them about their social position. But Jennie 
 never thought of her position, and he was now quite content 
 that she should not weep about her sins. The first actual 
 sign that he showed of coming back to life was the desire 
 he had to see his mistress. Presently they would begin to 
 let him see people ; he would be very glad to see Jennie. 
 Passionless as he felt, his heart was warm towards her, 
 even warmer than it had been, for somehow he did not 
 blame himself as he had done before. 
 
 And then he began to think of his daughter Joyce, her 
 troubles, her unhappy love affair, which had given him and 
 his wife so much anxiety. It had indeed brought them 
 nearer together than anything had ever done, for Mrs. 
 Waring was a moral woman. She was full of ancient 
 prejudices and moral finger-posts. She knew with certainty 
 
46 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 what was right, and what was wrong. She had a formulated 
 rule for every occasion. A thing was right and proper, or 
 it was not right, and not proper ; that settled it. He too 
 had ideas, or once had had them, which dealt with life in the 
 same ancient rule-of-thumb method. Anything which led 
 to trouble or anxiety, or the taking of new decisions, was 
 not proper, it was to be deprecated. Once he had called 
 this morality, as so many did. It was, however, based, as 
 he now began to feel, upon his objection to trouble. He 
 had so much to do with foreign politics that the domestic 
 politics of his house worried him. He wanted them to go 
 mechanically, easily. He had no desire to use his brains in 
 such matters ; they were better employed in dealing with 
 his work. 
 
 But presently he began to think of Joyce in a different 
 way. She was his flesh and blood, and more than his 
 flesh and blood. Her very existence was more to him 
 than the mother knew, than the daughter herself suspected. 
 She was quite aware that her father loved her. But he 
 knew that his love for her was something quite extra- 
 ordinary, something unlike anything of which he had ever 
 heard. She was the daughter of his wife, but something 
 more. By his first wife he had had no children, though he 
 and Evelyn had passionately desired them. Now, by some 
 curious working of his mind, some travail of the deep under- 
 lying consciousness, Joyce had become, not the daughter of 
 his wife who was now alive, but the daughter of her who 
 was dead. As it seemed to Waring, Joyce was little like 
 her real mother. But she had some strange and subtle 
 likeness to the woman he had really loved, who had been 
 his second cousin. There was some of the same blood in 
 Joyce and Evelyn. 
 
 Waring now believed he used to think of this when he 
 looked at his first wife's portrait, which he kept hi secret, 
 in a little room which was part of an upper floor that he 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 47 
 
 had rented in the Adelphi. There he had his working 
 library, and all the notes and papers which were necessary 
 for his profession. There too he lived another life. At 
 times it seemed to him that his first wife was still with him. 
 And Joyce was her daughter. He knew that if anyone 
 in his own house really loved him it was his daughter. He 
 had his doubts about the others, even about his son ; for 
 he had been a hard man, and now knew he had not been 
 wise with regard to him. He determined to be wiser, 
 to be kinder. 
 
 But still mostly he thought about his daughter. It was 
 a great pity that she loved a man she could not marry. 
 She had fallen in love with a married man who was separated 
 from his wife. This woman, who was not mad enough to 
 be certified, was certainly mad, and given to paroxysmal 
 drinking. She was violent and ill-bred. Her husband 
 could not live with her, and they had been separated for 
 years. His name was Robert Hardy. It was through 
 Waring that Hardy had known the girl. Waring liked him 
 very much ; he was a man of strong physique combined 
 strangely with the air of a bookish man. He was a partner 
 in a firm which dealt mainly with books and manuscripts 
 and antiques. He had bought certain manuscripts for 
 Waring ; it was through that they came to know each 
 other. Although he was desperately in love with Waring's 
 daughter he had behaved in a manner beyond reproach, or 
 so it would have seemed to some. Yet when Waring found 
 out that his daughter felt as her lover did, he had forbidden 
 Hardy the house. 
 
 Waring felt that he had done right in this ; nevertheless 
 he suffered when he saw his daughter suffer. His anger 
 with himself translated itself in a kind of way into anger 
 against his wife, who had taken a very rigid view of the 
 matter. And yet he felt his wife was right, both morally 
 and socially. But Joyce had refused to give her father any 
 
48 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 kind of undertaking not to write to her lover and not to see 
 him. He had accepted her refusal without anger or any 
 violence, though he was capable of violence. Nevertheless 
 this had fed to a rift between him and the daughter whom 
 he loved so much. He was not happy about it. He waa 
 less happy now, when he wanted her badly. He began to 
 wonder whether he was right, and he was not accustomed 
 to have such doubts. He felt himself saying, "Poor 
 giri ! " and stranger still he heard himself say, " Poor old 
 Hardy! I believe he's a very good chap. It's all a 
 tragedy. Ifine has been a tragical house." 
 
 That was true. It had been a very tragical house, where 
 each had lived for himself, where there had been some 
 affection, but no great love except that between himself 
 and his daughter, which things now seemed to threaten. 
 He thought of his son, a promising boy whom he had turned 
 out of doors in a rage on account of a foolish intrigue with 
 one of the servants. He had been violently angry, pre- 
 posterously unwise. Hie had at last attempted to strike 
 the boy, who had taken up his hat and left without a word. 
 Now he was in the streets of London driving a taxi-cab. 
 Once his father had seen him doing it. 
 " A tragical house," said Waring. " A tragical house !" 
 Presently he fell asleep. UTufeynH^fl^ liia mind was 
 always working. It had new *""1 to work with, and 
 new methods; he would come to new conclusions presently. 
 The nurse who was with him saw that he slept peacefully. 
 She was pleased with his progress, and so was Henshaw when 
 he came in and went away without waking him. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 49 
 
 WABDTG slept without any drag, and when he woke again 
 he felt a deep peace in him. Yet it was the peace of 
 intense loneliness and utter separation. He was aloof 
 from the world, and from all that lived. 
 
 For a little while he felt infinitely removed, even from 
 Joyce, and from Jennie, and from his son. He knew that 
 whatever happened things would not be again what they 
 were. He wondered at himself. Every one seemed 
 different and yet perhaps they were the same. He saw 
 the truth : it was he who was different. 
 
 " I see," murmured Waring, ' : I see. Nothing nothing 
 is so important as I thought it was. That's it." And he 
 slept again. 
 
 Yet when he woke once more, it seemed that he had 
 slept but a little while. He said again, " Nothing is impor- 
 tant." He kept on repeating it. For everything had once 
 been very important. He knew now that he had been a 
 hard man in his previous life, which came to an end upon 
 the table in the operating theatre. He had not been wholly 
 selfish, perhaps, but apt to domineer. He was accustomed 
 to think that he was right, accustomed to feel sure of it, 
 and those within his house had mostly yielded to him. 
 
 He thought this was right. He was the master ; he 
 worked hard for them, he wrote hard. For the purposes of 
 his work and the paper upon whose staff he was he travelled 
 hard. He was continually abroad : in Berlin, in Paris, in 
 St. Petersburg, even in Belgrade and Bucharest and Sofia. 
 He was acquainted personally with all the great politicians 
 and diplomatists of Europe. His opinion was valued. He 
 was welcomed at all the European capitals. At the 
 
50 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 English Foreign Office he was a persona grata ; the Foreign 
 Minister sometimes sent for him. He went abroad not 
 infrequently by special invitation. He had a great sense 
 of himself. It was not an undue sense, he thought, but 
 still he knew that he was somebody and much respected. 
 He had power, the power of knowledge, the power of right 
 analysis of a difficult situation, and something of the power 
 of sympathetic prophecy. These things reacted upon him 
 quite normally. He felt he was a man born in a way to 
 rule, at any rate over his own house. He was lord there. 
 
 But now as he lay upon the narrow bed in the nursing 
 home and heard the mechanical rumble of the traffic in the 
 great mechanical city, he was part of the new mechanical, 
 soulless world ; and he said, " Nothing is of importance. 
 I am of no importance. My opinions are of no importance. 
 I suppose I shall be very different when I get up." 
 
 And as he lay in the white bed in that quiet room, with a 
 little gleam of fire and the shaded lamp illuminating it, he 
 said to himself, " My poor boy, Jack ! I wonder what 
 he is doing ? " 
 
 When he had lived in his little old world, that world 
 which was yet warm and full of suggestion, he had under- 
 stood nothing or so it seemed to him. It was extra- 
 ordinary to him that he now began to understand more. 
 He did more than doubt his own wisdom, he began to see 
 that he had been wrong. The world was still mechanical 
 and ghastly to him, as he lay there quietly in bed, but he 
 occupied a new position in it. He was part of it, and almost 
 as mechanical. There were perhaps some springs of 
 volition left in him still. He himself seemed to have in a 
 measure the power to do or to refrain, but he felt that no 
 one else had. He sat in the position of a poor little god in 
 a universe that could be no other than it was. All things 
 but himself were the victims of immediate fate. He was a 
 little removed from that, for he perceived ; he understood. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 51 
 
 He could be other than he was ; he could act differently ; 
 but his son could not, his wife could not, his daughter 
 could not. 
 
 He found that his old resentments, dislikes, and hatreds 
 became less and less. They died, they vanished, they 
 melted like snow. His rivals, if indeed they existed, were 
 no longer his rivals. Position seemed nothing, success a 
 foolish word. These were purely human notions, the 
 strange illusions of the world, and he had got entirely 
 beyond them. And so he got beyond priding himself on 
 his attainments, his knowledge, and his power. The things 
 that he had dealt with greatly or successfully were little 
 things indeed. The affairs of empires and great kingdoms 
 were like the play of little flies in one sunbeam in a great 
 darkness. All things passed and vanished. The world 
 itself would vanish like a burnt scrap of paper. He saw 
 the universe flicker out and be no more. If big things were 
 really nothing, what were the little things that human beings 
 made so much of ? 
 
 " It is a strange world," he said, " a very strange world. 
 I fear I have been very wrong, and unkind, and cruel." 
 
 He heard the traffic in the streets, and listened to its 
 rumble and rhythm. His son might now be among that 
 very traffic. Well, did that matter ? Suppose the boy 
 drove a cab, and drove it well, and did his work, and died 
 what more could a man do ? In the end, in the sum of 
 things, was it much less to drive a cab than to drive an 
 empire ? He had admired Bismarck, Cavour, and other 
 great men of that order. Now they seemed but little 
 creatures to him, and as much the children of fate as any 
 worker at some poor mean trade. And yet, nothing was 
 mean ; all things had the mighty significance of meaning 
 nothing. That was the essential tragedy of life, a tragedy 
 that could not be made less or greater yet which could 
 be made greater, and was made greater by men who 
 
52 
 
 held to savage little notions that he had once thought 
 precious. 
 
 There was his daughter. She was doubly his child 
 the child of his wife, and the mind-child of the dear woman 
 who had died childless. He loved her dearly, and all the 
 more now that he was prepared to sacrifice things he had 
 held dear. But now it was no sacrifice, it was easy. He 
 wondered if he would find it easy when it came to action. 
 He had been a stickler for morality in spite of his conduct, 
 in spite of Jennie ; he had accepted current morality and 
 thought it good for other people. It seemed right, right and 
 proper, as his father used to say. But he remembered that 
 he had written many articles hi his time about morality in 
 its relation to the action of states and kingdoms. The 
 morality of a city, he knew, was not that of a man. The 
 morality of classes differed from that of individuals, the 
 morality of a family from that of its members. He had 
 known so much, and had held up his end against those 
 moralists who maintained that individual morality was the 
 morality which should rule even in diplomacy. Now he 
 wondered whether the basis of morality as he himself had 
 understood it for individuals was sound or right. Was it 
 not mostly prejudice and pride and ancient folly ? 
 
 " I have been a hard man," he thought, " a very hard 
 man. I didn't mean to be. I was doing my duty. What 
 is duty ? " 
 
 He dozed for a little while, and waked again, and found 
 himself saying, " What is duty ? " 
 
 It was a strange thing for a man like him to ask. He 
 had known it with such certainty before. He had been so 
 sure of the path. But now he found that he knew nothing, 
 and was on a strange pathless plain without a beacon. 
 This uncertainty was painful ; he wondered when it would 
 pass, if it did pass. Nevertheless he said to himself, " I 
 shall never be the same again, whatever happens. I shall 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 53 
 
 never get back to the old world that I lived in and loved. 
 The sunlight won't be the same, nor the day, nor the night, 
 nor any living thing. I have been stripped stripped ! " 
 And tears ran down his cheeks. 
 
 He felt mentally very cold : that was what he meant by 
 saying he had been stripped. He had lost his natural 
 conceit of himself, his ancient pride, his certainty, his 
 decision, his inherited morality, his dim, unfounded per- 
 ception of God. And yet there was a little pride in him 
 still. He was the only thing like God alive in the universe, 
 a weak god it is true, and yet one who was pitiful. He 
 understood poor humanity, and desired, however vainly, 
 to help it, or if he could not help, he desired now to put no 
 obstacles, or his own pride, in the way of others. He desired 
 to assert himself no more, but he seemed to understand, 
 and he was a little proud of understanding. It was the 
 last pride left in him. 
 
 And as he lay thinking so he said to himself, " Men have 
 made a God whom they did not understand, and who did 
 not understand them. I think I do understand a little 
 now. I am sorry." 
 
 He slept most of the day, though he waked at intervals. 
 In one of them he saw Renshaw, and smiled, and fell asleep 
 again and thought he had dreamed of the surgeon. The 
 night came. He woke up, and found the night nurse in his 
 room. She was a tall woman with a beautiful walk. It 
 seemed to him that she floated round the room, and in his 
 abnormal state this characteristic of hers was exaggerated. 
 She seemed to be disembodied, to be a dream. She was 
 not now so mechanical as she and others had been. She 
 was less metallic, less hard. Her dignity pleased him. She 
 spoke very little, and that was good. But she was beauti- 
 ful, and had a somewhat -mystical smile which stood for 
 great wisdom. She seemed not wholly human ; she was 
 something imagined. Nevertheless, for the moment she 
 
54 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 was more pleasing than anything he had yet seen, even if 
 she were a little mechanical. Her mechanical ways fitted 
 in with his new enduring notions of the world. But he said 
 to her, after she had given him something to drink, and 
 had beaten up his pillows to make him more comfortable, 
 " Tell Nurse Ballantyne I'd like to see her." 
 
 Nurse Ballantyne was the one nurse in the house he had 
 known before his operation. She had been in his house the 
 only time that his wife had ever been ill. He knew she 
 was very friendly with his daughter, although personally he 
 did not like her. 
 
 " You can't see her now," said the night nurse, 
 smiling. 
 
 " Oh, yes, if she likes," said Waring. 
 
 " It's four o'clock in the morning," said the nurse. 
 
 " Is it ? " said Waring. He wondered what four o'clock 
 in the morning meant. " Tell her I'd like to see her. 
 I have something to say to her. I want to give her a 
 message." 
 
 And he fell asleep again. 
 
 VI 
 
 IT was soon obvious to Renshaw, and to Heathcote, who 
 came in sometimes, that the patient had pulled through the 
 worst and was going to recover. Yet there were times 
 when the surgeon seemed to feel that his patient was, as it 
 were, bleeding nervously. This was due to his late appre- 
 hension of the crisis that Waring had gone through after the 
 operation. It puzzled Renshaw a great deal. At times he 
 thought that the patient was not wholly sane. Heathcote 
 at first almost felt as the surgeon did, but he had more 
 
55 
 
 psychological insight and got nearer to his old friend's 
 mind. He perceived dimly an enormous change. Waring 
 was not what he had been. 
 
 The only one, however, who really came to understand 
 what had happened was Bent ; for the anaesthetist was 
 more of a student of the mind than the other men. Waring 
 asked for him several times before he came in. He wanted 
 to ask him things. Bent found the patient very quiet, 
 with his hands locked together outside the bed. He had 
 a fairly good colour, and looked quite calm. There was, 
 however, a strange aloofness in Waring's eyes. They 
 hardly lighted up when Bent came into the room, but still 
 he smiled wanly, and flickered a kind of welcome with his 
 eyelids. He spoke in a very low voice, the voice of a man 
 who had gone through a desperate crisis. 
 
 " I wanted to see you," said Waring vaguely. 
 
 " Yes," said Bent. " I came as soon as I was allowed." 
 
 " I suffered," said Waring, looking up at him. 
 
 " I know you did," said Bent. 
 
 " It was under the anaesthetic," said Waring. " Do 
 people suffer like that ? " 
 
 " Like what ? " asked Bent. 
 
 " Like like hell," said Waring, with bitter introspective 
 eyes. 
 
 " I don't understand," said the anaesthetist. 
 
 " Like hell," repeated Waring. " Millions and millions 
 of years of it. Tell me, do they all suffer like that ? " 
 
 " I never heard anybody say so," replied Bent. 
 
 " It was appalling," whispered Waring. " There aren't 
 any words, doctor. Millions of years ! Oh, don't you 
 think ? " 
 
 " What ? " asked Bent. 
 
 " That it's awful that one may go through so much in a 
 few minutes ? " replied Waring. 
 
 " Through what ? " asked Bent. 
 
56 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Such suffering," said Waring. " It has changed me 
 altogether. Don't you see ? " 
 
 " It's only the shock of the operation," said Bent. 
 
 Waring woke up a little. 
 
 " Words words ! " he said, with a bitter smile. " You 
 men use words and call it shock. What is shock ? Is it 
 being in hell without knowing it, or being in hell and know- 
 ing it, as I did ? Do you think I'm sane ? " 
 
 " Certainly you are," said Bent. 
 
 " As sane as anyone can be who's gone through what 
 I've been through," said Waring. " I wanted to tell you 
 about it but I can't. I thought it would be interesting, 
 scientifically, you know. It ought to be interesting 
 scientifically. If I could put it into words I could tell you 
 something about what you men call shock." 
 
 " I should like to hear it," said Bent, who was very 
 curious. 
 
 " Yes," said Waring, " but I can't tell you ; there aren't 
 any words. Before you came in, I thought I had it. You 
 know it's more than the mind, it's all the body, it's all the 
 senses. Do you know, Bent, it's a taste ? " 
 
 Bent shook his head. 
 
 " I'm afraid we don't know much about it." 
 
 " No ? " said Waring. " Well, I tried to tell Renshaw, 
 and he said ' Oh,' and ' Ah,' and ' Yes,' and ' Very interest- 
 ing.' I don't think you men know much about the mind." 
 
 " I don't think so either," said Bent. 
 
 He knew that a description of pain was nothing. He 
 had seen that written ; he had even said it himself. And 
 yet he knew it was mere words. All healthy men are 
 strangely narrow. A doctor once wrote, " A grain of 
 realization is worth a ton of other knowledge." He meant 
 book knowledge, objective knowledge ; but out of real 
 knowledge came the power of imagining. Thus men learned 
 to put themselves in another's place. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 57 
 
 " I suppose it's imagination," said Waring. " I I 
 myself was a speck of fire for millions of years. I suppose 
 you'll say I'm mad when I tell you that I don't believe in 
 anything that I believed in before the operation ? " 
 
 He spoke quite quietly, and so low that Bent had some 
 difficulty in hearing him. 
 
 " I dare say not," said the anaesthetist. " I can credit 
 any change after a big shock. We don't know enough 
 about it." 
 
 " You talk words about it," said Waring bitterly. 
 
 And Bent knew he was right. He and his fellows talked 
 of " low blood-pressure," of " profound modification in the 
 structures of the nerve and brain cells," but they did not 
 understand how this translated itself into concentrated 
 wretchedness, a wretchedness allied pathologically to that of 
 melancholia. Shock was thus not the mere poisoning of 
 the blood stream though doubtless some of the blood 
 cells died it was the failure of the functions of the cells of 
 the brain. They were poisoned intracellularly and cleared 
 themselves with pain of that which hurt them. 
 
 " You mustn't talk any more," said Bent. " You are 
 not strong enough yet." 
 
 " No, I'm not," said Waring. " Some day I'll try to 
 tell you all about it. You men ought to know. You don't 
 know enough." 
 
 " That's true," said Bent, smiling. " You should try to 
 put it down for us." 
 
 " I should like to," said Waring, " but there aren't 
 words. It was kind of you to come and see me. Come in 
 again if you are here. And if I have to have another 
 operation " 
 
 " Oh, you won't have another," said Bent cheerfully. 
 
 Waring looked at him. 
 
 " If I do, I want you to be the anaesthetist." 
 
 " Oh, of course I will be," said Bent. 
 
58 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " I want you to to " 
 
 " To what ? " asked the doctor. 
 
 Waring contracted his brows. 
 
 " I want you to wake me up as quick as possible after the 
 operation. Don't let me lie and suffer. If you could only 
 get me awake a minute earlier than otherwise if you could 
 only get me awake one little minute earlier, it might be a 
 million of years. I wonder what time is time ! " 
 
 He looked away from Bent and lost himself, and the 
 anaesthetist slipped out of the room. 
 
 " Time," said Waring, " time ! Time and Thomas 
 Waring. A name's an odd thing Thomas Waring was 
 the name of that little red speck." And he fell asleep. 
 
 When he woke again it was an hour later. Nurse Smith 
 was with him. He said to her, " Where is Dr. Bent ? " 
 
 " Oh, he left you a long time ago. You have had a good 
 sleep," said the nurse. 
 
 " I'd like to see Nurse Ballantyne I I want to talk 
 to her again." 
 
 But Nurse Smith shook her head. 
 
 " You can't see more than one person a day just now, 
 except Mr. Renshaw," she said. 
 
 " Can't I ? " asked Waring as meekly as a child. 
 
 " It's best not," said the nurse. And Waring sighed. 
 
 " Well, when you'll let me, I want to see Nurse Ballantyne 
 again. I want to talk to her about something." He added, 
 " And I suppose I ought to see my wife." 
 
 " You shall see her to-morrow," said the nurse. 
 
 " When was it that I saw Nurse Ballantyne ? " he asked. 
 
 " You haven't seen her this time at all," said Nurse 
 Smith. 
 
 " Yes," said Waring, " I saw her. I told her to tell 
 somebody it would be all right. I hope she did it." 
 
 " Of course she did it if you told her," said Nurse Smith ; 
 but she knew quite well that he had not seen Ballantyne. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 59 
 
 Then he fell asleep again. 
 
 As a matter of fact the patient was not allowed to see his 
 wife, or any but his own nurses, for two days longer. He 
 varied strangely, but when at last some of his functions 
 more or less resumed their activity, he began most obviously 
 to recover so far as he ever would recover, considering the 
 inevitable fear that there would be a recurrence of the 
 original trouble. Renshaw, who did not understand his 
 patient's mind not being much interested in the mind for 
 that matter, as few surgeons are was still interested in the 
 man himself. He learnt of his anxiety to see Nurse 
 Ballantyne. It was a little strange, for as a rule a man 
 who had gone so far on the road to death as Waring seldom 
 betrayed any desire to see any but those about whom his 
 affections were most deeply centred. Thus Renshaw found 
 it rather odd that Waring was always asking with anxiety 
 for this particular nurse. At last he said, " Why do you 
 want to see her ? " 
 
 Waring answered, " I want to tell her something that I 
 can't tell my wife." 
 
 " Can't you tell me ? " asked Renshaw. " I'll tell her 
 for you." 
 
 " I don't think it would be any good," said Waring 
 simply. " You don't know all about it, and Nurse Ballan- 
 tyne does. I used to hate her Because she does. But you 
 might tell her something if you won't let me see her. Tell 
 her that it will be all right now do you understand ? 
 it will be all right now." 
 
 And Renshaw, who did not understand in the least, 
 promised to do as he was asked. Finding she was in the 
 house, he sent for her and told her what Waring said. 
 
 " Do you understand ? " asked the surgeon. 
 
 " I'm not sure," said Nurse Ballantyne. " I can hardly 
 believe it. It's very extraordinary." 
 
 " I suppose I mustn't know what it is ? " asked Renshaw. 
 
60 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " I oughtn't to say," answered the nurse. " When do 
 you think I could see him ? " 
 
 " Perhaps to-morrow," said Renshaw, " but don't let 
 him agitate himself." 
 
 " Is he doing well ? " she asked. 
 
 " Very well," said Renshaw, " couldn't do better, con- 
 sidering. I'm quite pleased with myself." 
 
 The next morning after Renshaw had seen him he said 
 to Waring, " Well, you can see Nurse Ballantyne to-day for 
 a minute, but you mustn't agitate yourself. You under- 
 stand ? " 
 
 Waring nodded and smiled. 
 
 " Perfectly. But I'm not worrying now about anything. 
 I see my way, Renshaw, perfectly clearly. Life used to be 
 so difficult, and now it's very simple." 
 
 " I wish it was," said Renshaw. 
 
 " It is, if you only knew it," said Waring. " It's quite 
 simple quite simple." 
 
 And though Renshaw wanted to ask for an explanation 
 he refrained for fear of worrying his patient. But truly 
 Waring was not agitated or worried. He accepted things, 
 for the time, like a child. He was glad to think that he was 
 allowed to see the nurse. It was kind of Renshaw to let 
 him. He expected no kindness ; he did not look for it. 
 The world was still mechanical to him. He still had that 
 harsh metallic taste in his mouth, and in his very mind. 
 Renshaw was a mechanism among others. The whole of 
 the processes of life were the processes of a machine, they 
 were purely physical and inevitable. 
 
 When Nurse Ballantyne at last came in to see him and 
 sat by his bedside so that he could talk with her easily, he 
 was really glad to see her. This showed him how much he 
 had changed. He had hated her when she was in his house 
 looking after his wife, when she had become Joyce's friend 
 and knew all about the house and its troubles. Then he 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 61 
 
 had resented bitterly anybody knowing his affairs, or the 
 affairs of his people. Besides, he thought then that Nurse 
 Ballantyne had a baneful influence on his daughter. 
 Perhaps she had no morals : that was what he thought 
 then. But now he did not dislike her. He was glad to see 
 her, though he knew that this feeling of gladness in him was 
 a mechanical property of the matter of which he was 
 constituted. 
 
 But he really liked her when he saw her. She looked 
 different from what she had been. She was more different 
 than any of the others. There was a strange charm about 
 her. She was naturally kind, he saw that. She had for- 
 given him for his rudeness, for indeed he had practically 
 turned her out of his own house. He was sorry for that, 
 very sorry. She was a nice woman, and seemed less a 
 machine than the others. Through her he began to come 
 back to humanity. He did not feel superior to her ; it was 
 an odd thing that he had felt exceedingly superior to all the 
 others, even to Renshaw and Heathcote and Bent. They 
 could do certain things, but they did not know much after 
 all ; and what they knew was in a narrow line. They were 
 specialists ; they had knowledge, but no wisdom. He 
 himself had never seemed so intellectual or so able. The 
 others were less able than they had seemed before his 
 operation. Perhaps his own intellectual power had in- 
 creased, or, at the expense of some awful sacrifice, he had 
 greater insight into certain things. 
 
 Mary Ballantyne had certainly altered ; the strange thing 
 was that she had improved. This was his understanding of 
 her ; he seemed to have solved her ; she fell into her proper 
 place. Before, she had been an alien, an intruder, some- 
 thing of an influence which disturbed the working of 
 his house and home. He remembered meeting her in the 
 hall and looking at her sourly, even savagely. This was the 
 day before he had turned her out of the house. He recalled 
 
62 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 what he felt. He did not wish to see her. He did not wish 
 her to know any of his people. For then she had been 
 moved by strange motives, motives alien from his mind, 
 motives that angered and disturbed him. In the profound 
 process of simplification that the mind had gone through, 
 he knew that he had simplified her. He saw that her 
 motives were right, because they were in accordance with 
 the only godlike thing left for him in the universe, and that 
 was kindness. 
 
 " This woman is kind," said Waring. " That is all that 
 is left, and all that one wants." 
 
 He reached out his feeble hand to the nurse. He let it 
 remain in hers, and she, with a feminine impulse which she 
 could not resist, was very sorry for him. She forgave him. 
 The tears came into her eyes. They had no business to 
 come she was a nurse. But she was also a woman, and 
 loved Joyce Waring, and that he knew now. Waring saw 
 her tears, not with any surprise. He understood. It 
 pleased him to understand ; he was glad to understand so 
 much. He felt so wonderfully simple himself that he 
 carried this feeling of simplicity into all he did and all he 
 thought of others. 
 
 For a moment he almost forgot the mechanical nature of 
 things. It was the first time for six days that he had not 
 felt the underlying, enduring horror and ghastliness of the 
 universe. He had felt it even with Nurse Smith, and with 
 Renshaw and Heathcote, kind as they were. Now he began 
 to feel that this peculiar sense of the mechanism of things 
 would presently pass away from him, that it would not 
 persist or at any rate would not persist in standing in 
 front of everything. He had looked through a grate at the 
 world. Though his power of solving things on his new 
 theories would never depart, it seemed possible that the 
 universe would once more clothe itself, as a tree after winter 
 clothes itself in the leaves of spring. They would not be 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 63 
 
 like the leaves he had known, but they might at least be 
 green and not grey. There would be something beyond the 
 bare framework with which he had lived since he came up 
 out of hell. 
 
 " I'm glad you've come," he said. " I've been trying 
 hard to get Mr. Renshaw to let me see you." 
 
 " I am glad to come," said Mary Ballantyne. 
 
 " I thought you hated me," he said almost pathetically, 
 " I was rude to you I was cruel. It was wrong of me ; 
 cruelty is hateful. But I'm changed. Will you forgive 
 me?" 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Waring, of course I will," she answered. 
 
 " Did Mr. Renshaw tell you what I said ? " asked 
 Waring. 
 
 " You asked him to tell me that it would be all right," 
 said the nurse. 
 
 Waring nodded two or three times, and looked at her 
 with wide-open eyes. 
 
 "So it will." 
 
 " Did I understand ? " she asked. " I wonder if I 
 understood ? " 
 
 " Of course you did," said Waring. " I meant about 
 Joyce." 
 
 " Yes," said the nurse, " I thought so, but I wasn't sure." 
 
 He still held her hand, and as he spoke did not look at her. 
 
 " I've changed," he said. " Did Nurse Smith tell you 
 anything about me ? It's difficult to explain things are 
 different. They're very horrible. One oughtn't to make 
 them any worse. The world isn't what it was. It's not 
 what you think it it's not what I thought it. We've got 
 very little time very little so we mustn't be cruel, 
 I want you to see her. You tell her it will be all right when 
 I'm well. But you mustn't tell her mother she mustn't 
 tell her mother." 
 
 " I understand," said Mary Ballantyne. 
 
64 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 Indeed she understood Mrs. Waring quite well, for she 
 had sympathy and understanding. 
 
 " I shall have to speak to her myself," said Waring. " I 
 shall have to fight it out for Joyce. It will be very hard, 
 but I shall do it. I can't be cruel, but I must do it. I want 
 you to tell Joyce it will be all right." 
 
 " I'll tell her," said Mary Ballantyne. 
 
 " Thank you," said Waring. " Don't go yet." 
 
 He still held her hand, and closed his eyes and opened 
 them again and smiled and said : "I couldn't go through 
 it again, nurse, for anything but perhaps it will be all the 
 better for Joyce." 
 
 And after a little while he let her go. 
 
 VH 
 
 HE knew that his wife and daughter had called at the 
 home twice or even three times a day. He found he had 
 a curious reluctance to see his wife. He was ready enough 
 to see Joyce, for he knew that she would understand 
 every change in him. But Milly had never been his com- 
 panion. Her intellect was negligible : she was a bundle 
 of reasonable instincts, which did not translate them- 
 selves greatly into emotion. They were concerned chiefly 
 with duties. Her duties were connected with the children, 
 with the house and its cleanliness, with the servants and 
 their moral conduct. She was concerned to keep expenses 
 down, and to save money out of her allowance. She had 
 little obvious softness in her, save for the boy who was now 
 driving a cab. For the greater part of this last year she 
 and her husband occupied adjoining rooms ; they had done 
 so for a long time. If she had any passion in her it had 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 65 
 
 never been awakened ; what sexual instincts she had were 
 wholly satisfied by the possession of children. 
 
 She was by nature the manager of a house. She had 
 never been very much to Waring, and now she was less, 
 in that he had left her behind in all things. Once they had 
 shared the current morality, and something of the current 
 or common religion. She said she was a churchwoman, 
 and went to church once a month. Waring said he was 
 a churchman, and stayed away from church with the 
 utmost regularity. Her morals were the common morals 
 of the times ; they would have commended themselves 
 to the ethical department of a religious Nonconformist 
 journal. She believed in them firmly and acted on them. 
 Waring had, up to the present time, believed in them for 
 other people, on a reasonable apprehension of the dis- 
 comforts that might arise from infraction of the common 
 rule. Now he said to himself that he believed none of these 
 rules, and was doubtful of their wisdom. Any ancient 
 religion that he had was wiped out of him. He had a curious 
 feeling in him that the whole of dogmatic religion in any 
 form whatever was nothing but a savage survival. 
 
 He remembered hearing one of his friends state as 
 much. Edward Harman appeared from his talk to have 
 reached this conclusion by study of many kinds. Waring 
 had made now a short cut to the same conclusion. And 
 yet it was not a short cut ; he had reached it after that 
 period of most intolerable and endless suffering. Now 
 he had not even any dim religious feelings or what folks 
 call religious feelings to give him the mere semblance 
 of sympathy with anything that his wife believed in. 
 She was farther away than ever. He was afraid to see her, 
 perhaps might have refused to see her for many days had 
 it not been for the boy Jack. He had not only forgiven 
 him, but had discovered that he had nothing to forgive. 
 After all, he wished to remain on good terms with his wife ; 
 
66 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 he wanted to please her. The only thing that would 
 please her was his forgiving his son and taking him back into 
 the house. 
 
 " But I mustn't tell her that there's nothing to forgive," 
 said Waring. 
 
 He smiled curiously and dryly as he thought so. Even 
 on the very point that he was likely to be at one with 
 her he was compelled to have reservations. And yet she 
 was his wife, and the mother of his children. He thought 
 of Jennie, to whom he told most things. He thought 
 of his first wife, to whom he had told everything, finding 
 universal sympathy and comprehension. 
 
 " It's a very strange world," said Waring, " stranger 
 than I ever thought it stranger than I can believe. But 
 I'm getting better. I think of more things, and of more 
 people. ..." 
 
 It had seemed to Waring, as illness rose like a flood, 
 that his friends had disappeared one by one, until at last 
 only a few survived as peaks in a great wilderness of waters. 
 But as he recovered, so the flood went down, and one after 
 another the peaks showed themselves. Waring showed 
 his preferences very simply. 
 
 " I will see my wife to-day," he said to his nurse. " I 
 ought to see her before I see my daughter, I suppose." 
 
 And Nurse Smith understood. 
 
 But there was more life in his eyes, and not so much 
 blank speculation. The doctors were pleased, and Ren- 
 shaw was delighted : the operation was a success, and the 
 patient had not died. It would be much if Waring had a 
 year or two of good health, and it was even possible that 
 he might have more. 
 
 "Let him see anyone he wants to see," said Renshaw, 
 " provided he doesn't tire himself. But don't let any 
 damned emotional cats come and weep over him. If his 
 wife starts to snivel, hustle her out." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 67 
 
 But Nurse Smith had seen Mrs. Waring, and knew 
 she was not likely to snivel. Besides, she had talked 
 about the family with Nurse Ballantyne, and knew more 
 or less vaguely how things were. 
 
 Milly Waring came in that afternoon. She believed, 
 as all believe, that she was a person of great feeling. Any 
 feeling greater than her own was morbid and hysterical. 
 She felt that the exhibition of feeling in others was not 
 really proper ; it bordered on immodesty. Milly Waring 
 was, as she told a friend of hers afterwards, very much 
 upset. But, indeed, she was more puzzled than disturbed ; 
 although for her to be puzzled was a disturbance. 
 
 Her husband looked at her with strange eyes, and a 
 very steady but almost far-off gaze. The look made her 
 uncomfortable. He seemed to look through and into her. 
 She could not have phrased it so, and would not have under- 
 stood it if it had been so phrased to her, but she had known 
 in her own way that Waring' s had been for the most part 
 a synthetic mind. And now it was analytic ; it took things 
 to pieces. It took her to pieces. 
 
 She had never seen more than the outside of him. Now 
 she saw a little of the inner man, and was almost frightened. 
 This she put down to his look of illness, his strange pallor, 
 his quietude. His eyes were very big, his hands curiously 
 white and quiet. It was enough to alarm anybody. For 
 she had not believed the operation was really dangerous. 
 Waring had minimized it to her, so had Heathcote. But 
 now for a moment, at any rate, she felt they had deceived 
 her. She had been in danger of losing him. 
 
 He was very essential ; he was the master, the man of 
 the house. She was accustomed to his presence, accus- 
 tomed to his temper. For years she had found a religious 
 satisfaction in putting up with him. Once a month at the 
 very least she told God so in a public church. There 
 was no outburst of Waring's and his outbursts were not 
 
68 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 infrequent which did not give her a higher claim on 
 heaven. She owned, as in duty bound, that she was a 
 miserable sinner ; but as the Church admitted the glory of 
 good works, she laid meekly on the altar specimens of her 
 husband's misbehaviour and her own self-control. She had 
 even been so much mistress of herself that she had not been 
 more than reasonably angry with him for being ill. She had 
 a native and natural detestation for illness ; she was 
 singularly healthy herself. On more than one occasion 
 during the youth of the children she had corrected them 
 for having a temperature. People had no more right to be 
 ill than they had to be immoral. 
 
 Though she now forgave her husband all his sins with 
 regard to illness she felt that soon she would be able to 
 point out to him that after this operation he ought not 
 to allege that want of health was at the bottom of any 
 display of temper. But she would not do that now. 
 On the contrary she behaved with the utmost propriety. 
 She was distinctly sorry, and distinctly glad that he was 
 better. She believed that she was very fond of him. She 
 took his hand, and called him " My dear Tom " ; but did not 
 cry. She did not really want to, but nevertheless she put it 
 down to the credit of her self-control. 
 
 Waring took her hand, and then she kissed him. He 
 felt friendly towards her, and sorry for the trouble that he 
 had caused. He understood her native attitude towards 
 sickness, but she could not help her nature. 
 
 " I am glad to see you, dear," he said at last. 
 
 She looked at him with the puzzled eyes of a small 
 intelligence in face of a problem. She felt that there was 
 a great change in him, and in a way resented it. She 
 had got accustomed to him, to his temper, to his sharp 
 and sometimes bitter speeches. And now he looked soft, very 
 gentle, and self-absorbed in a way which differed greatly from 
 the self-absorption in work to which she was accustomed. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 69 
 
 " You've had a bad time, Tom," she said. 
 
 She did not appreciate the badness of the time, but 
 it was the sort of thing that one said in similar circum- 
 stances. 
 
 " I've been through hell," said Waring as if he were 
 speaking to himself. 
 
 She did not like him to mention hell. She contracted 
 her brows a little. It was impossible to go into domestic 
 matters with a man who spoke of hell. She wished to 
 give him a few details concerning the house, the servants, 
 and one of the tradesmen who had tried to cheat her with- 
 out success. She restrained her desire to speak of these 
 things. 
 
 " But now you will be better, Tom." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Waring, " perhaps." 
 
 " They are all sure of it," said Mrs. Waring, with some 
 natural and encouraging severity. " Mr. Renshaw and 
 Dr. Heathcote say that you will, and of course they know." 
 
 " Yes," said Waring, " I hope I shall be. I want to see 
 Jack, Milly." 
 
 She was much astonished. Though she had not wholly 
 approved of his conduct with regard to Jack, she felt there 
 was much to say for it. Waring's moral indignation on the 
 subject of his son's lapses had been gratifying to her. She 
 was glad to feel that he was such a moral man. Truly 
 she had had no doubts as to his moral behaviour, in spite 
 of the fact that they had not lived together as man and 
 wife for many months before he went into the nursing home. 
 The coldness that was natural in her she also attributed to 
 him. This morality of his was indeed the thing which 
 pleased her most in him. 
 
 But now her husband said he wanted to see Jack ; that 
 meant he wished to forgive him. If that meant anything 
 it meant that he had altered greatly. She did not quite 
 like it, although her maternal instincts were pleased. 
 
70 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " You really want to see him, Tom ? " she asked. 
 
 And Waring nodded. 
 
 " You said you never would," said Mrs. Waring. 
 
 " I have said a great many things that I didn't mean," 
 replied her husband, " and what I meant then, perhaps 
 I don't mean now. Tell the boy to call and see me in a 
 day or two. But I'd like to see Joyce first." 
 
 " Ah, Joyce," said Mrs. Waring. " I wanted to talk 
 to you about her. I am not satisfied with her. I think 
 she is meeting that man again." 
 
 "Yes?" said Waring. 
 
 " I feel sure of it." 
 
 " Ah," said Waring, " I'll talk to her about it." 
 
 " Yes, please do," said his wife. " She will not listen 
 to me. Young women nowadays have no respect for 
 their mothers. If I had said hah* to my mother that 
 Joyce says to me she would have shut me up in my room 
 and fed me for three days on bread and water." 
 
 This was a kind of ancient survival and legend in Mrs. 
 Waring's mind, owing to the fact that some such thing had 
 happened to her great-grandmother. 
 
 " Never mind," said Waring, " tell her to come and see 
 me." 
 
 And then Nurse Smith opened the door and beckoned 
 to Waring's wife. 
 
 " I mustn't stay, Tom," she said. " Here is the nurse 
 asking me to go." 
 
 " Good-bye, my dear," said Waring. 
 
 She bent and kissed his forehead. 
 
 When she was outside she said to Nurse Smith, " He 
 seems changed, nurse." 
 
 " That's the shock of the operation," said the nurse. 
 "He'll get over that." 
 
 Indeed Nurse Smith thought so. 
 
 " I didn't talk to him much," said Mrs. Waring. " In 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 71 
 
 fact, I didn't tell him anything that I had in my mind. 
 But of course I didn't want to worry him." 
 
 " Of course not," said the nurse. 
 
 And Mrs. Waring went away, pleased that she had not 
 mentioned anything domestic. It was greatly to her 
 credit that she had refrained. She wondered what he 
 would say to Jack, and what he would do. It was strange 
 that he wished to see him, very strange. It puzzled her. 
 Nevertheless, she was quite sure that whatever he said 
 to the boy he would be very severe to Joyce. She felt 
 much happier, for never having known what real love 
 was, she had never missed it ; nor did she ever suspect, 
 when her housekeeping, and her cooking, and her after- 
 dinner coffee were approved, that she had missed the 
 greatest thing in life. 
 
 Waring lay thinking of her and his children, of whom 
 he was very fond, although he had never told them so. 
 He saw his wife quite clearly. He had no illusions about 
 her whatever, and yet he was not sorry he had married 
 her. He had his children, the children that his first 
 wife had not borne to him. 
 
 " Poor Milly," said Waring, " she was an accident. But 
 many women are accidents, and do not know it." 
 
 He wondered when he would see his son, and Joyce ; and 
 then he turned his mind quite naturally and easily to 
 Jennie, his mistress, whom perhaps he did not love, but of 
 whom he was very fond. He made a great distinction 
 between love and fondness. He was pleased to be with 
 Jennie, for she was an anodyne, a pagan in her thoughts, 
 and very simple, the born mistress rather than the wife, a 
 woman who seemed not to desire children but only the lover. 
 Now he wondered if that was so. She moved about him 
 when he came as if he was all her life, as if she had slept 
 while he was away. 
 
 She had no consciousness of wrong-doing, or so it seemed ; 
 
72 
 
 but he had, or used to have, though he had kept his life 
 and his thinking quite apart. He was a man who had 
 read and thought much, but, like so many, had only gone 
 half-way to conclusions. A little he feared conclusions, 
 because to come to a new one meant a new conflict, and 
 a new arrangement of the pattern of his thoughts. He had 
 held from his childhood the ordinary and accepted view 
 of the validity of conscience, but had never analysed it 
 fully. Thus he felt that he had done wrong. He had 
 no right to a mistress ; perhaps he had even injured Jennie, 
 as well as himself. He had often recognized a fatality, 
 a necessity in all his acts, and yet had blamed himself for 
 acting as he had done. But now he was aware of a truth 
 noted by many philosophers, Leopardi among them : 
 a man had but a limited power of self-control, especially 
 when he was working hard. Waring, when he worked, gave 
 himself to it utterly. Sometimes in his library and among 
 his books, he became the devoted and disembodied spirit 
 of diplomacy, consumed, or half consumed, in the fire of 
 intense labour. Afterwards he went back to the earth, 
 to the little garden of Eden where Jennie tended her 
 roses. 
 
 He had not found at home those consolations that some 
 men find. He had not those gifts of cultivation which can 
 make a garden and paradise in any wilderness ; and his 
 wife had been content, because she knew no better. But 
 there was in him a demand for actual passion <*nd 
 response. He had had his few short years when he found 
 it ; he remembered the ancient fires at which he had 
 warmed his hands. Though he now seemed cold and 
 restrained, he needed fire the more by which to sit, and 
 he never found it at home. There was little fire in the 
 common type of the average English middle-class woman. 
 He knew that they had about them a certain dreadful 
 nullity. They appeared complex, but were not worth 
 
73 
 
 solving for their complexity. They were farther from 
 nature than those beneath them, and farther from nature 
 than the classes above, who came back by another way 
 to the earth. These women were misunderstood, and 
 resented it ; but they did not know that the script they 
 offered their lovers was often meaningless and jejune when 
 it had been deciphered with labour and tears. 
 
 Many years before this, when Waring had been greatly 
 exhausted by labour and travel and had returned to the 
 cold fire of his legal hearth, he came across the orphan 
 daughter of John Vale, one of his colleagues whom he had 
 known very well for many years. When Jennie Vale was 
 little more than ten she had sat on Waring' s knee and had 
 gravely proclaimed her intention of marrying him. He 
 now discovered that she had had no practical training 
 and was left poorly provided for. Waring helped her 
 during years without a thought of the way he drifted, 
 though perhaps the girl knew better than he, as any 
 woman might. Through his kindness and her solitude 
 she loved him. He had an air of strength. In her were 
 the elements of real passion. She expressed her loneliness 
 to him with great simplicity. Her letters to him showed 
 her natural passion and capacity for companionship. 
 
 They often went out together ; and Waring found 
 her affection for him almost pathetic. He had, as he 
 thought, firm moral views, but Jennie had none. She 
 was a child of earth, of a simple and strong nature. She 
 desired to live, and life for her was love and protection ; 
 love that came now, and was not to be waited for, as so 
 many waited for it in vain. Now he knew at last that all 
 women with passion in them were infinitely wise. Any 
 man was a child compared with them ; he was their 
 victim when they cared to reach out their warm hands. 
 Jennie held out her hands to him. 
 
 She, indeed, had always been sorry for him. She had 
 
74 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 seen his essential loneliness, a loneliness which she believed 
 could be cured. She did not in the early days understand 
 what was the spring of that loneliness, nor did she see 
 that when he fell into morbid thought, or into reverie, he 
 was living in the years that had been dead so long. Yet 
 things fell out as they were destined to fall. She lived for 
 a while on his bounty, as though she were his child, and 
 rendering him little in return, fell into melancholy. When 
 he perceived it, he was conscience-stricken, or so he would 
 have said ; but he recognized she had passion in her, and 
 he was a much older man, and was pleased , for there was no 
 flattery like that of passion for a man who found the years 
 were passing swiftly. Yet he had been faithful to his wife 
 since his marriage ; and knew not wholly what he had 
 missed till Jennie put her arms about his neck and cried, 
 and told him that she loved him. 
 
 After this Waring lived more than he had done for many 
 years, and took hold of life and yet blamed himself, and 
 sometimes half desired to break away. Jennie went by the 
 name of Mrs. Guy Waring, and had a little house with a 
 rose garden on the borders of Hampstead. Yet her lover 
 was the man who had driven his son out of the house 
 penniless, to work or not to work, as fate might befall. He 
 had not considered that he himself was not an upright 
 judge. His instincts were angry, and he acted. He 
 believed that his own lapse was a moral crime ; and yet 
 he was to be excused. He could make a thousand excuses 
 for himself but could not find one for his neighbour. 
 
 And now, when Waring lay in his bed considering these 
 matters, he was astonished by a strange phenomenon in 
 himself. Already he had forgiven Jack, and was wholly 
 without any anger against him. Much of the underlying 
 bitterness in his mind with regard to his wife had been 
 washed away in the flood of his new thoughts, and he saw 
 that presently he would be without any that still remained. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 75 
 
 He had indeed forgiven her for being what she was, and had 
 accepted her as something inevitable, to be reckoned 
 with, even tenderly. The strange thing was that he 
 discovered that he had now forgiven himself. He found no 
 more moral rules, no more rigid opinions, no more set 
 paths in him. They had been swept away, wiped out in 
 the great cataclysm. All these were part of the garments 
 of time, that had been stripped from him while he was 
 beyond time. There was no outside judge. There was no 
 almighty internal monitor. There was none in the universe 
 that was either spirit or flesh that had the right to impute 
 wrong to him. Such notions were the merest vanity, the 
 creation of man ; they signified nothing in the great sum 
 of things. 
 
 He came back by a weary and blood-stained path to the 
 simple doctrine of simple nature ; even though nature had 
 yet no warmth for him, and was still a mechanism and 
 without colour. He thought of the roses in Jennie's 
 garden for a while, yet they were without scent and without 
 colour. Where had he heard, in what book, of grey roses ? 
 
 " But if I'm fond of Jennie," he said, " I am fond of her. 
 It was fate that I loved Evelyn, and Evelyn loved me. I 
 am what I am. These things cannot be helped." 
 
 Yet deep within him there was still that faint sense that 
 he and he only possessed some remnant of those powers of 
 volition with which many vain philosphers had credited 
 mankind. The power to do or to refrain was still partly 
 his own. He held to it under no theocratic system of the 
 religionists. This power was very little, but others had 
 none of it. He perceived the rest of the world acted 
 wholly through destiny ; they moved not of themselves, 
 but were played on. But he stood on his own basis, un- 
 related, solitary, peculiar, and in some deep way that his 
 mind strove to fathom, originative, almost divine. 
 He forgave others, for he perceived their utter subjection 
 
76 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 to fate ; but out of his own abundant mercy he also forgave 
 himself. And even as he did so, he perceived the irony of 
 things and smiled. It was the first time he had really 
 smiled since he lay in that bed the act of smiling broke 
 up the sombre, carved immobility of his common aspect. 
 
 He made the nurse write a letter in his name to Mrs. 
 Guy Waring, and fell asleep saying, " I shall see poor 
 little Jennie to-morrow." 
 
 VIII 
 
 EVERY time that Waring made any decision he felt stronger 
 and more himself. He knew that he was in an abnormal 
 condition, and was quite sure that this abnormality would 
 remain that he would never be what he had been. Yet 
 he now began to taste life a little. The mechanism of 
 things retreated ; it was hidden. Being clothed itself 
 anew upon its awful skeleton. Never again would he feel 
 that it had any strange and wild spontaneity. Though 
 he would never think again that actions sprang out of 
 man's will, the fatal necessity of things was not so much 
 before him. 
 
 He had received his wife quietly and calmly, if without 
 any pretence of great affection, but in the two days that 
 intervened before he saw Jennie he made a great and strong 
 advance. Renshaw was delighted, for he had had con- 
 siderable doubts as to his recovery. The operation at 
 its mildest was severe, but Renshaw had dealt radically 
 with the lymphatic area and the mesentery. He had not 
 hesitated at any measure which he thought might prevent 
 recurrence. Like most patients, especially those engaged 
 in arduous affairs, or those who are filled with dread of 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 77 
 
 malignant disease, Waring had let the matter go too far 
 before he had seen a surgeon, and his physician, though an 
 able man, belonged to the old order of physicians whose 
 jealousy of the surgeon was extreme. But now he ob- 
 viously began to recover. There was a better colour in 
 his face, he spoke with more resonance, at times he began 
 to be a little authoritative with the nurses, to prefer 
 things being done in this way or that. He no longer 
 accepted their ministrations without remonstrance. 
 
 He was glad that he felt better, for he had much to do, 
 and much to think of. There was his son, there was his 
 daughter ; and there was Jennie. He had not made any 
 proper provision for her if he died. If he died without 
 making any, she would be very poor. He did not mean 
 that this should happen, and yet it had nearly happened. 
 He determined that to-morrow or the day after he would 
 send for his solicitor and make some arrangement in a way 
 that would prevent his wife knowing anything about it. 
 He would not tell Jennie, or he would tell her very little. 
 But he wanted to see her. His natural affections began 
 to grow again, there was more strength in him. He 
 thought of her little house, and of the roses. They began 
 to cease to look grey, or mere grey-green buds. He fancied 
 they had colour. He tried to smell them in his mind, and 
 found that his smell was almost as much vitiated, or perhaps 
 more so, than his taste. Nevertheless, as he tried to recall 
 the scent of a rose in his mind, he could at any rate feel its 
 coolness. It was fresh, and covered with dew. It was a 
 live flower, not anything carved out of steel. It had a 
 possibility of growth in it : it had seeds, and life. 
 
 In the morning of the day following his wife's visit 
 Jennie came to see him. She was a slender woman, supple, 
 agile, and strong. Even now she was but twenty-five. 
 She had had great respect and love for him when she was a 
 little girl. Waring reminded her sometimes that as she 
 
78 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 sat upon his knee she had put her hands up to his cheeks 
 and had turned round to the others in the room, saying, 
 " I like this man I think he is a very nice man." 
 
 He was over fifty, and she was the only creature living 
 who could make him seem less than that, who could take 
 away the years and show the eternal child that lives in all 
 men, even though it may be smothered by a thousand 
 bitter growths of life. He was her lover and her brother ; 
 her father, her protector, her playmate. There was some- 
 thing about her at times almost fantastic. He was her pet, 
 and she loved pets. She had a cat called Thothmes III 
 there had also been a Thothmes I and Thothmes II and 
 Waring indeed, when he demanded to see the great Egyptian 
 king, often spoke of these feline dynasties with a certain 
 respect. Like her he seemed to be a worshipper of the 
 cat goddess, of Pasht she who was glorified in the sacred 
 city Bubastis. 
 
 With his wife there was no getting away from reality, 
 or what she called reality those hard and tasteless things 
 of life which were there all the time. She spoke of trades- 
 men, and of prices, and of the polishing of furniture ; of 
 servants, and their strange, abnormal, and immoral 
 desire to be loved for themselves by the poor people who 
 brought fish or vegetables or meat to the house. These 
 and her children were the whole of her world ; they were 
 the things she took into account ; they were reality for her. 
 But Jennie had a warm and fertile spirit in her and lived 
 in another real world, one that Waring knew was made of 
 roses, of beautiful things, of books that were houses for 
 the imagination to dwell in. Mrs. Waring was, as it were, 
 but a photographer. She took things in black and white ; 
 there was no colour in her soul. But Jennie was an 
 artist ; and so in a measure was Waring's daughter Joyce. 
 And though Waring was not an artist himself, yet he had 
 some pleasure in art, and could perceive colour and the 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 79 
 
 beauty of form when Jennie spoke of them, in spite of the 
 labour in which he spent himself. 
 
 Jennie had a beautiful way of moving ; she appeared, 
 rather than came in. Suddenly she was with him, and went 
 swiftly and knelt down by the bedside, and put her hands 
 on his, and looked him in the face and said : " Oh, my 
 dear, dear Tom, you told me wicked lies ! If you were 
 not ill I would beat you." 
 
 He smiled at her at first a little vaguely as he pressed her 
 hand. But his mind was no longer withdrawn upon itself, 
 reduced to a point. It now spread out, reached forth its 
 protoplasmic processes, and was life again. 
 
 " Dear Jennie," he said. 
 
 His talk with his wife had been without any emotion. 
 What she deemed emotion was nothing more than a little 
 extra rigidity ; their few words might have been of business. 
 When she went she passed from his mind, or would have 
 passed, had it not been for the curious nascent feeling of pity 
 that he had for her. But he had no pity for Jennie ; she 
 did not need it, or ask for it. She looked at him eagerly, 
 curiously, with the eyes of a child, with the eyes of a 
 woman. She had qualities in her, qualities of originality. 
 There were times when he thought she had something like 
 genius, the genius for life that only the rarest possess. She 
 made her own life, her own talk, into an art, and never 
 knew it. 
 
 " You went away," said Jennie, " almost as if you were 
 going to pay sixpence to have your hair cut or perhaps 
 you might have been going to have your soul drilled by a 
 horrid dentist. And here I find you laid in a narrow little 
 bed with nurses round every corner. Have you got one 
 under the bed, sir ? " 
 
 She did not mean that he should answer, and she stroked 
 his cheek. He had been shaved that morning by a man 
 who came in from the outside. 
 
80 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " They shave you better here, dear sir, than you shave 
 yourself. But I wish I could shave Thothmes he does 
 get in such a tangle. And I have awful things to tell you 
 of Thothmes." 
 
 " What is it ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " I lost him, as you know," said Jennie, " and only 
 yesterday he turned up again. Oh, I was glad " 
 
 " So am I," said Waring. 
 
 " But a dreadful thing had happened he came home 
 with kittens." 
 
 " With kittens ! " said Waring. 
 
 " Yes he was a she," said Jennie pensively. " You'll 
 have to tell me what was the name of the wife of Thothmes 
 III, because I think it very improper for him or her to 
 go round with the old name. It sounds immoral, doesn't 
 it?" 
 
 " I suppose it does," said Waring. 
 
 " You don't mind my chatter ? " asked Jennie. " Oh, 
 I have been so silent while my dear man was away, having 
 his hair cut ! " 
 
 She bent down to him and laid her cheek against his. 
 
 " Don't mind the way I talk, dearly beloved. It's 
 been a dreadful time but you've come back to me." 
 
 " Yes, I've come back," said Waring slowly, " or I am 
 coming back. I shall have a lot to tell you, Jennie, when 
 I am strong enough to talk. I think I am changed so." 
 
 She sat up again in her chair, and looked at him 
 straight. 
 
 " Not not to me ? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh yes to you," said Waring with a faint smile. 
 " Very much to you." 
 
 She bent over him, seemed to look into his mind. And 
 then she smiled. 
 
 " I think you are gentler," said Jennie. "Is it all 
 having an operation ? Because if it is, it would be the 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 81 
 
 grandest thing to make most people have one. I wonder 
 if I had one if I should become good with a big G ? " 
 
 " I don't want you to change," said Waring. " Stay 
 as you are. But I have no regrets now, Jennie." 
 
 " No regrets ? " she asked. 
 
 " None, even about you and myself." 
 
 " I'll send the surgeon some roses," said Jennie. " It 
 always was sad, the way you worried about my morals and 
 your own. And it was so unnecessary ; because I meant 
 you to love me, from the time I was a very little girl." 
 
 " I don't think it matters now," said Waring. " I 
 think my friend, Renshaw, took away my old morals, 
 Jennie." 
 
 " What will They think ? " asked Jennie. 
 
 She never spoke of his wife, but when she said They, 
 or Anyone also with capital letters she meant Mrs. 
 Waring. 
 
 " That will be the trouble," said Waring. " But they 
 don't know yet." 
 
 She knew how he was worried about Joyce. 
 
 " Does the little girl know ? " she asked. 
 
 " I sent her a message," said Waring. " I'll tell you 
 about it when I get better. What have you been doing all 
 this time ? " 
 
 " I've been trying to read some of your wise books," 
 sighed Jennie, "all about history people. Why are they 
 so unkind and cruel ? They never seem to do anything 
 in history because it is nice or kind. It's all chopping 
 people's heads off, and going to banquets after war. No, 
 I don't like history people. Am I a fool, Tom ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Waring. " But it doesn't matter." 
 
 " I suppose," mused Jennie, " if somebody wrote a 
 history of me they would put down nothing but my bad- 
 ness, and make a chapter out of my greediness for straw- 
 berries and quite forget how decent I was to Thothmes 
 
82 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 when he became a she. It was a most awful moral shock 
 to me. I felt like a Puritan mother whose unmarried 
 daughter had come home with a large illegal family. But 
 I didn't keep her on the doorstep I behaved very nicely. 
 Yes, I am a fool, dear sir do forgive me. I've dusted all 
 your books, and I'm reading ' The Rise of the Greek 
 Epic.' I thought you knew it by heart and I found one 
 chapter uncut ! " 
 
 She bent down again, and laid her face against his. 
 
 " I wonder what our uncut chapters are like ? " said 
 Waring. 
 
 " You'll never be like a history person, although you 
 are so awful diplomatic, and quite wrapped up in treaties 
 when you're not with me," whispered Jennie. 
 
 " I shan't be like that so much now," said Waring. " I 
 wish I was twenty-five, Jennie." 
 
 " I don't," said Jennie. " You know I hate young 
 men. They should be driven away into far-off countries 
 to live with savages. I read the other day about a man 
 that said a woman was not worth looking at after she was 
 thirty, or worth talking to before she was thirty. And 
 I dare say that's true, because after all you're very silent 
 and don't talk to me much, though you listen so nicely. 
 But I think a man isn't even worth looking at till he's 
 thirty, and most of the poor dears are not worth talking 
 to even when they're fifty. Why do they say the same 
 thing again and again, and never discover to-day that they 
 said it three times yesterday ? " 
 
 " I give it up," said Waring. 
 
 "It's strange," said Jennie. "Now, there's the baker. 
 If there are three fine days he gets into the habit of saying 
 ' It's a fine day, ma'am,' and it takes him three wet days to 
 get out of it." 
 
 She looked at her watch. 
 
 "I've been here twelve minutes now, and your seven- 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 83 
 
 teen nurses round the corner said I was only to stay ten. 
 May I come to-morrow ? " 
 
 " In the afternoon," said Waring. " Good-bye, child." 
 
 So she kissed him, and went away out of the room 
 smiling, and closed the door, and found Nurse Smith out- 
 side. Then she laid hold of the nurse, and looked at her 
 with strange, wild eyes, and said, " Did he nearly die, 
 nurse ? " 
 
 " Very nearly," said Nurse Smith. 
 
 " Did you take care of him all the time, nurse ? " 
 
 " A great deal of it," said the nurse. 
 
 " You are a dear thing," said Jennie. 
 
 And she went away crying softly. And Nurse Smith 
 watched her go down the stairs, and wondered. But then 
 she knew something of life. 
 
 IX 
 
 ON the tenth day after the operation Renshaw removed 
 some of the stitches. It was then that Waring spoke to 
 him seriously about his prospect of life. 
 
 " How long will you give me, Renshaw, when this is all 
 over and I am up again ? " he asked. 
 
 " My dear chap," said Renshaw, with a smile, " with 
 luck I'll give you the life of any other man of your age. 
 I dare say you'll last till seventy." 
 
 " I shan't do that," said Waring. " You've given me a 
 little time, but I don't think you can give me much." 
 
 " I shall be damnably annoyed if you don't live twenty 
 years," said Renshaw. " I shall consider it a reflection on 
 me. You've got to make up your mind that you're going 
 to do well and be an honour to me." 
 
84 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " I don't want to pull down your average," said Waring. 
 " I've seen the kind of table that you men draw up, and 
 the notes put to the cases : ' No recurrence after two 
 years,' and so forth. Well, that's all right. If it hadn't 
 been for you I shouldn't have had a year and I think a 
 year will do, though two would be better." 
 
 " Oh, come," said Renshaw, " you shall have three 
 or four if you're good. If you really want to do me a 
 service you'll come to my funeral, and I hope that won't 
 happen for a long time, for I've a frightful lot to learn yet." 
 
 And at that Waring smiled oddly, and said, half to him- 
 self : " That's the trouble that's the trouble ! Somehow 
 or another I feel as if I had no more to learn as if I had 
 learnt it all." 
 
 When Renshaw went away he wondered what the man 
 meant. Truly it seemed to Waring that he had learnt too 
 much, for he had learnt that nothing mattered, and the 
 feeling still endured for him even though he had seen 
 Jennie. If nothing mattered, truly there was nothing 
 more to learn, or nothing worth learning. It was possible 
 that mankind would at last come to such a stage. And 
 then they would at any rate be able to devote themselves to 
 living. 
 
 "Nevertheless," said Waring to himself, " I must have 
 a little time to clear things up. Life used to seem endless, 
 but now I know that I died years ago." 
 
 Yet every day his physical condition improved. He 
 began to put on weight ; the old grey colour of his face 
 disappeared, and some of the tints of health returned to his 
 skin. His muscles were stronger ; his mind more active. 
 His affections spread themselves a little ; he thought, not 
 unkindly, of some of his colleagues men whom he had 
 utterly forgotten during his worst time. Vague hints 
 came to him of a return of the natural passions of man, 
 save indeed ambition. That was to him remarkable, for 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 85 
 
 ambition had played a large part in his life ; it had made 
 him at once strong, self-centred, hard, and, as he knew 
 too well, selfish. 
 
 He looked back with a curious detachment on all those 
 years that had elapsed since Evelyn had died and cold 
 ambition had been born in him. He had desired to be 
 powerful and had desired to know. He had worked, as only 
 journalists can. Yet he was not only a journalist ; he 
 was also a man of letters, and, in his own branch, a his- 
 torian ; his knowledge of the history of Europe since the 
 Peace of Utrecht was almost unrivalled. He might have 
 written history, and have made what mankind calls an 
 enduring name. For a man in his position he had read 
 astoundingly, and not only history. Once he had had more 
 than a competent knowledge of the classics, and this still 
 remained with him. He knew most of the European 
 languages, and had read the best of their literature. 
 
 To all this reading he had added what many men of 
 letters lack, a knowledge of men and women. He had dis- 
 cussed with the great politicians matters in which they 
 were specialists. Yet he regarded all this work now as of 
 no great importance ; it was no more enduring than that 
 which died with the day's paper. He had a different view 
 of time, a different view of life. It had been something 
 which endured for ever ; it was now something that passed 
 in a day. Compared with the length of the hours that he 
 had spent before his blurred senses returned to him, the 
 longest life of man was but a momentary sparkle on the 
 ocean of eternity. Man's life was a bubble, a shining dew- 
 drop on a magic tree. It hung for a swift moment over 
 the dark abyss ; it sparkled with the swift motion of the 
 sun, it fell off and dropped'and died. 
 
 At times he had a wonderful power of historical imagina- 
 tion ; he was able to visualize the rise and development 
 and the decline of all the nations whose history he knew. 
 
86 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 Even now, as life came back to him, he thought of these 
 things and saw the passing of nations. They were as fragile 
 and as evanescent as the life of man. They were like 
 yeast ; they rose in great bubbles, and fell, and rose again, 
 and died, and were replaced. As he thought of them the 
 sun fled away and time shortened. He perceived a thou- 
 sand years as a day, a day as one tick of the clock. And 
 again he smiled to himself, a smile with bitterness in it. It 
 resembled strangely the wondering aspect of the dying. 
 
 And yet these feelings left him, or if they did not leave 
 him they sank deeper as he began to take an interest in 
 the world. He was alive for a little while, and still had 
 much to do. As he now began to look forward again 
 tentatively and almost timidly, so he looked back. He had 
 much to look back on ; more than most people knew. His 
 life had been strangely full. None but Jennie knew that 
 he had been married before he had married the mother of 
 his children. Strangely enough, or so it would have seemed 
 to some, Milly did not know it. When they first met she 
 had naturally assumed he was a bachelor ; he had allowed 
 her to go on thinking so, and had not corrected her mis- 
 take when he got the marriage licence. His early life he 
 rarely spoke about to a living soul, but in it lay the causes 
 that made him what he was. 
 
 He was a very young man when he first married. At 
 that time he was a journalist in the provinces ; he had 
 not yet shown any of those qualities which gave him the 
 position he now held. He knew well that if his first wife 
 had lived he would have had no more ambition than the 
 normal man who desires vaguely to do his duty, to bring 
 up his children and go the way of his fathers in peace. 
 But his wife died in childbirth and the child died with her. 
 The shock to Waring had been extreme. It was a thing 
 he had not anticipated for a single instant ; there had been 
 no warning. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 87 
 
 After a long time he had begun to think that he loved 
 Milly. He knew that he was fond of Jennie. And 
 indeed in a measure he was fond of them both ; but 
 he was well aware that his love for Evelyn had been some- 
 thing which outpassed most immeasurably such love as 
 he had for others. She had indeed been his very soul ; 
 and when she died he thought the end had come net only 
 to her but to the whole world. Life was no longer a clear 
 running stream ; it wasted itself in a strange and 
 poisonous morass. It was like the Nile when it runs out 
 of its lofty hills into those plains where it wanders in a 
 waste of reeds ; where poisonous exhalations and fevers 
 dwell, and strange beasts ; where man and the works of 
 man cannot remain. And yet life was strong in him, and 
 the power of work, though nullified and deadened, still 
 endured. 
 
 An old friend of his, who had worked with him on a 
 northern paper but had left it on inheriting money, which 
 he, in his turn, left to Waring when he died, came to him 
 at the right time and took him away. As it happened 
 there was at that time trouble in the Balkans. His friend 
 had been interested in foreign politics all his life, and knew 
 something about them. He took Waring with him to 
 Belgrade and Sofia and Bucharest and Constantinople, 
 and slowly, very slowly, the influence of the new scenes and 
 their new interests took hold upon Waring's mind. He 
 came back at last, not to himself for his old self was dead 
 but to a new self : Waring the journalist of foreign 
 politics, the man who knew personally the politicians of 
 the East. Once he had been soft and tender ; too soft, 
 and too tender, perhaps, to deal adequately with the things 
 that now interested him. But the new Waring was a 
 different man. His affections seemed to have perished. 
 He cared for no one ; he was infinitely cold. He deserted 
 the people who had been his friends ; they became mere 
 
88 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 acquaintances. Then he dropped his acquaintances, and 
 spoke most easily to strangers. 
 
 During that year abroad for his friend, who was a wise 
 old man, kept him there for a year he developed a capa- 
 bility of analysing the minds of other men, as though he 
 were a surgeon of the mind and had their very spiritual 
 organization on the table before him. Then he first became 
 a student of history and of life. But, although this was 
 outwardly the new Waring, he preserved a secret chamber 
 in himself where she had dwelt, and where she still dwelt. 
 Never a day passed, or a night, but he entered it, as some 
 solitary priest might enter the temple that he served, 
 opening the sacred shrine at midnight or at dawn. 
 
 Yet on his return to England, and soon after he had 
 begun to make a name, he married once more. He found 
 solitude more than he could endure. He chose his wife with 
 care, for his marriage was no motion of passion. He wanted 
 some one who would prevent him from being solitary, 
 who would sometimes prevent him thinking, who would 
 look after his house ; and he found her. He also desired 
 children, for he knew Evelyn had desired them. He had 
 no fervent belief, although the remains of religion stayed 
 with him. He would have said he believed in immortality, 
 and yet it was nothing but a vague hope. Yet Evelyn was 
 immortal while he lived ; she lived in his mind. He begot 
 his children for her ; or sometimes that was in his mind, 
 although he never declared it, even to himself. There 
 were hours now when his essential solitude was lightened 
 by the fact that one at least of his children seemed the 
 spiritual daughter of the beloved dead. 
 
 It was such notions, abnormal though they were, and 
 vague, that drew him really more towards the old religion 
 than he had ever been drawn. But for that, in the passing 
 of time, he would have left all dogma, or remains of dogma, 
 behind him ; what he felt was but the strange after-glow 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 89 
 
 of bliss that had set long long ago beneath the horizon of 
 his world. Now, as he began to look forward, so he looked 
 back, but he looked back as a different man. Evelyn was 
 there with him still ; and yet he did not believe he would 
 see her again. So far as she lived, she lived within him, 
 or within those few who remembered her. Immortal she 
 was not, nor was he he knew that now, after all he had 
 been through. For even the after-glow of his childlike 
 religion died in the sky for him. He stood alone in dark- 
 ness, and smiled, because he understood death and knew 
 that it meant peace. 
 
 Thus it was that he looked back more easily on the 
 happiness he had known, a happiness that had ended in 
 so prodigious a catastrophe. He felt that much that he 
 had suffered when he had suffered after the operation was 
 due to what had happened in his early life. It had been 
 buried slowly during the long years, as a great city dies 
 and is buried by the blown sands of centuries. Now a 
 cataclysm had happened, and the buried city had been 
 uncovered. These were not things that had happened 
 long ago ; they had happened yesterday. She died one 
 day at three ; she died every day at three. She died upon 
 the first of the month ; she died monthly on the first. It 
 was Monday that she died ; he had passed no Monday for 
 many years without remembering. 
 
 And still, though she had died, so she had lived. He 
 remembered her in her life ; her thoughts, her words ; and 
 knew that she was so much more, so infinitely much more 
 than all she said or all she did. Though he remembered now 
 those moments of exquisite and most horrible pain, yet he 
 remembered his happiness also. He recalled, strangely 
 enough, that sometimes in his dreams there had been awful 
 moments of anguish which reminded him of the immeasur- 
 able infinities during which he had lately suffered. And 
 even so, he remembered too that sometimes he had waked 
 
90 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 most happily, and knew not why, though he felt that he 
 had dreamed of her and had forgotten what he dreamt 
 before the dawn. 
 
 " I suffered for her," he said, " and with her I have 
 sometimes rejoiced, though she is dead." 
 
 He went through his old life step by step, and almost 
 day by day. Now it was not as if he violated a beloved 
 tomb in some strange horror of passionate loss, but as 
 though he walked quietly in her church and cloisters. So 
 a little peace came to him, the peace that blesses him who 
 spends a quiet hour in holy ground, in some secluded 
 Campo Santo of the saints. And then he thought of Joyce. 
 By some strange miracle, if it were a miracle, she was like 
 her. And yet Joyce did not know how much he loved her ; 
 nor, if she had known, could he yet have told her why. 
 But to-morrow he was to see her. 
 
 ALTHOUGH Waring had bidden Nurse Ballantyne tell his 
 daughter that it would be all right, he now found certain 
 difficulties in himself. As he grew better these for a time 
 increased rather than diminished. For days after his 
 experiences under the anaesthetic everything had seemed 
 utterly simple, as simple as it was mechanical. He had 
 perceived no uncertainties. All he understood was that he 
 had come wonderfully to definite conclusions, conclusions 
 that nothing mattered, that he and all the rest of the 
 world were poor fools who allowed to things a significance 
 which they did not naturally possess. But these con- 
 clusions of his had not been got at by reasoning. They 
 were the pure projected results of his suffering. There 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 91 
 
 had been no philosophy at the back of them ; they were 
 intuitive, or seemed so. He could not explain them ; he 
 could only say simply, " I now feel that it is so." 
 
 When he spoke to Nurse Ballantyne he was still at that 
 stage. But as he began to recover, he became more 
 complex, more open to the reasoning, futile or wise, which 
 affects mankind. He perceived the real difficulties of his 
 daughter's situation. He even renewed some of his 
 sympathy for his wife. Nevertheless he was infinitely glad 
 that he had put any retrograde decision out of his power 
 by speaking to the nurse. He knew he had been right, 
 was sure that all his doubts were foolish and had no real 
 relevance to the question. But in spite of that he now 
 began to feel the need of a philosophy to hang his decision 
 upon. He had by nature a logical mind ; he reasoned 
 out everything. His power in his own profession had 
 been due to his capacity for taking in the whole of a 
 subject. He sought for his philosophy painfully, and 
 presently perceived that it began to grow. 
 
 As he believed, he had lived through much more than 
 any other mortal ; this seemed a certain thing to him. 
 Every living creature was no doubt an epitome of its past. 
 In every nerve-cell and brain-cell were printed the passions 
 and pains of the whole of evolution. These things, for 
 most, were subconscious ; they dwelt beyond the thres- 
 hold ; but by accident he had been bitterly privileged, 
 in that he had lived outside the common consciousness. 
 He felt what mankind had endured ; and what his remotest 
 ancestors had suffered, even down to the primordial cell. 
 And what was greater, he had suffered more than they ; 
 he had lived beyond them ; he had passed the present and 
 reached out into the future. As mankind had grown by 
 suffering in the past, so it would grow and become wiser 
 in time to come. It would become " What ? " he 
 asked. And then he saw the beginnings of his natural 
 
92 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 scheme of philosophy, the way he would think while he 
 lived. 
 
 In its essence it was nothing new, for it was toleration 
 and simple toleration was nothing but real understanding. 
 The troubles of the world had mostly been for lack of 
 intelligence, for lack of imagination. People had not under- 
 stood either themselves or others. They had tried to make 
 others think as they thought, they desired to dress alien 
 souls as they dressed their own. But this was all the 
 sheerest vanity. It was founded, no doubt, on a deep 
 necessity of human nature. All men felt that their type 
 was the type. They endeavoured to propagate themselves 
 not only physically but mentally. They were the immortal 
 pattern of humanity beloved by God, known from afore- 
 time and prophetic. 
 
 But now Waring knew that man was the creature of 
 circumstance, and that none knew what the future type 
 would be. If any knew, he knew, and even he was not 
 sure. There was humility in him for all the certainty that 
 he seemed to have reached. One could not force one's 
 thoughts or plans or philosophy upon the world or upon 
 others, and some day folks would recognize it. There 
 were those who recognized it already. One should be 
 merciful, kindly, simple, thoughtful of the day and almost 
 careless of the morrow. After all, what was a man that 
 he should believe himself not only the centre of the universe 
 but the star and exemplar for his fellows ? 
 
 They who made time, which was but the measure of 
 their sufferings and joys, believed they were the children 
 of eternity. And yet men would live but a little while in 
 the history of the universe. They rose up, and would come 
 to a culmination, and pass and fade and perish. No man 
 knew for what he was born, or why he died. He knew not 
 whence he came nor whither he went, in spite of the creeds 
 those little shelters that mankind creates from the 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 93 
 
 pitiless storms of the universe. Men and the children of 
 men were only creatures of a little time. Their hour was 
 now, and soon would be no more. Life was beautiful and 
 bitter. It could be made more beautiful ; for the most 
 part it had been made more bitter. Out of the strange 
 passions of mankind had come all cruelty. Out of their 
 hearts in the end there must come kindness, thought for 
 others, and tolerance. 
 
 " What is evil in the world ? " thought Waring. 
 " Nothing but cruelty. What is good ? Nothing but 
 kindness." 
 
 Law was the framework of society. It was not justice, 
 it was a mark of the way people had grown up ; and so 
 was morality, the ethical law. Out of law and religion and 
 ethics had come the great cruelties of the world. And yet 
 they had helped in their time. Often they had only helped 
 the strong ; sometimes they had helped the weak a little. 
 There was in law at any rate a faint shadow and hint of 
 justice. In religion there gleamed some suggestion of the 
 real god that grows in human hearts. In the moral law 
 there was at least the faint adumbration of human kind- 
 ness and toleration. 
 
 " I said nothing mattered," thought Waring. " In a 
 way I was right, and in a way I was wrong. Cruelty 
 matters. Kindness matters. Kindness is the whole duty 
 of man, and cruelty is the only sin." 
 
 He thought these things out at odd intervals, in moments 
 of the night, or in the day. He spoke to the nurses, and 
 lost himself, and came back to them smiling, knowing a 
 little better where he was and how he stood. The world 
 was truly mechanical and strange, and even yet of an evil 
 taste. Still, it grew sweeter, and a little more alive ; he 
 felt gentler, and understood things better even under- 
 standing cruelty more than he had done, for he was sorry 
 for the cruel. 
 
94 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 Thus it was that he came back again to what he had felt 
 in the beginning. He had no more doubts. His duty was 
 plain, he had to deal with the things that came to him 
 not because nothing mattered, as he had thought, but 
 because certain things mattered infinitely. He had often 
 been cruel, because he had not understood, because he had 
 lacked imagination ; but now he did understand. He 
 understood because he had suffered. He had imagination, 
 because he had been through all things. He almost 
 understood how it was that mankind had made their 
 gods suffer for, truly, what should happy gods know 
 of man ? 
 
 He said to his nurse : " Nurse, are you a religious 
 woman ? " 
 
 And Nurse Smith seemed a little puzzled, but she 
 answered : 
 
 " I hope I am, Mr. Waring." 
 
 " Would you rather be very kind or very religious ? " 
 asked Waring. 
 
 " I should like to be both," said Nurse Smith. 
 
 " And if you couldn't be both, which would you rather 
 be ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " If I was religious, I think I should be kind ; and if 
 I was kind, I think I should be religious," said Nurse 
 Smith, obstinately. 
 
 " Did you ever hear of a theological gentleman named 
 Calvin ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " I can't say I have," replied the nurse. 
 
 " He burnt an eminent physiologist called Servetus who 
 did not agree with him," said Waring. " He managed to 
 be highly religious without being particularly kind." 
 
 " When did he live ? " asked Nurse Smith. 
 
 " Over three hundred years ago," said Waring. 
 
 " Ah," cried Nurse Smith, " things have improved since 
 then. But I suppose, if I had to choose between being 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 95 
 
 one or the other, it would be much better for me to be 
 kind than to be religious." 
 
 " Especially as you are a nurse," said Waring. 
 
 That afternoon his daughter Joyce came to see him. 
 She was a slender creature, and looked delicate. This was, 
 as he knew now, the result of unhappiness and the stress 
 and strain of an abnormal situation. She was very like 
 her father, although Waring did not know it. For indeed, 
 in a way, he was a good-looking man and had been actually 
 handsome in his youth. If it were true, as Waring believed, 
 that she resembled in some almost magical way the woman 
 whose death had conditioned all his remaining life, it was 
 due to the fact that Evelyn had been a remote relative of 
 his own. Certainly she was not like her mother. Mrs. 
 Waring was short, inclined to be plump, and year by year 
 grew more shapeless. She had that air which comes from 
 daily dealing with the common things of the day and with 
 nothing else. 
 
 But Joyce had inherited from her father a love of books. 
 She had a strange little library which she had bought with 
 her own money. She really read. She knew a great deal 
 of history, far more than Waring suspected, for there was 
 for ever a barrier between him and his children, as there 
 is in ninety-nine out of a hundred English homes. She 
 read poetry, and knew much of it by heart. Of late she 
 had taken a great deal of interest in pictures. This, no 
 doubt, was due to the influence of her lover, who was a 
 connoisseur. 
 
 Waring had always looked at her with curious, affec- 
 tionate, and ignorant eyes. Now he knew he was ignorant ; 
 he had not known it before. In spite of all his love for her 
 he had rarely showed it, except occasionally in the clumsy 
 way natural to an undemonstrative man. She had certain 
 intuitions, and was perfectly aware that he was fond of her. 
 
96 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 She even suspected that he thought more about her than 
 anyone in the house. She understood that the marriage 
 of her father and mother had not been a success. She 
 would have known this even without her father's too 
 common exhibitions of temper, for her passion for the man 
 she loved had taught her what was lacking in her own home. 
 
 And yet, although she felt her father loved her, she had 
 bitterly resented his attitude to her. She knew it was a 
 natural attitude, and yet it meant misery. If he had only 
 been sympathetic, and had showed his sorrow for her, it 
 would have been very much better, for she was essentially 
 gentle and responsive. But that fatal crust that seemed to 
 dominate all the relations of the average English home had 
 never been broken through. He was her father, and he 
 was fond of her ; those were elemental facts that meant 
 much, and meant nothing. She had never confided in him, 
 nor had he spoken to her with his heart. She did not go 
 into his room naturally or without fear. She never sat 
 upon his knee and caressed his hair, and showed that she 
 loved him. Often and often she had desired to do these 
 things, and yet there was the crust the fatal wall that 
 nothing could throw down. 
 
 There was the same wall, the same inevitable hostility, 
 or something which was like hostility, between her and 
 her mother. Her mother had followed a set path, and had 
 succeeded in life. She had married, and had borne 
 children ; she had a house, an over-ornamented drawing- 
 room, and three servants. Her housekeeping allowance 
 was ample ; she saved money by economy in dress. But 
 she did not know her children, and her husband did not 
 love her. She dreaded passion, and did not understand 
 her daughter. 
 
 Now, when Joyce came into her father's room, she 
 entered it with her heart full, wondering what the message 
 meant that had been given her, and wondering what kind 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 97 
 
 of man her father was, whom she had never known. There 
 was a chance that now she would get through his crust and 
 break down the hedge of thorns that divided them. 
 Indeed he looked at her strangely. He was a different 
 man ; he had suffered a change. There were still barriers, 
 strange barriers of habit, and custom, and fear ; but now 
 they did not seem like a strong defence. The obstacle was 
 perhaps in her that she felt very strongly. She had the 
 habit of want of confidence, the habit of fear, the habit of 
 that awful respect which destroyed the life of many that 
 respect behind which the elders of a family hid their 
 essential barrenness. But she felt there was much to 
 know in her father she had always felt it and now, 
 perhaps, if she could but break down the inhibitions in 
 herself, she would get to know him. For he had held out 
 a hand and had sent Nurse Ballantyne with a great gift. 
 
 She came to him swiftly and bent over the bed, and 
 looked at him with tears in her eyes, and kissed his fore- 
 head. He put up both hands to her face and drew her 
 down and kissed her more than tenderly, and yet with a 
 certain strange hunger, and said : " My dear little girl ! " 
 
 She took his hand and cried upon it. He felt her warm 
 tears. When he spoke, he spoke almost to himself, and 
 still it was to her : " It's very difficult. It has always 
 been so difficult, Joyce so very difficult." 
 
 She seemed to understand. It was difficult to speak 
 the truth, difficult to be oneself, difficult not to pretend 
 that the outworks were the keep, difficult to pretend that 
 barren words were not the spirit. Waring knew it was a 
 great thing to belong to some races ; for every race had 
 its own qualities, and some had great qualities. There 
 were qualities that achieved material success, but 
 achieved it at a great sacrifice. Nothing was got in 
 this life that was not paid for, paid for with blood 
 and tears, paid for at a price that is awfully heavy. And 
 
98 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 so Waring felt that the qualities in him that had made for 
 what folks called success had been paid for at an awful 
 price. Seeing that he had so loved this child, not only 
 because she was his child, but because she reminded him 
 of the dead, he knew now all he had lost in her childhood. 
 He might have been her friend. Now he remembered that 
 he had never played with her. That was a strange thing 
 in much, in almost everything, he had lost the best of 
 fatherhood. It was easy enough to beget a child, but one 
 had to beget love, to create it, to feed it, to keep it alive, 
 to help it to grow. 
 
 " I wish " 
 
 " What, father ? " she asked. 
 
 " I wish I'd known you better when you were a little 
 girl. But it's difficult." 
 
 Even now the difficulty was great. He might have cast 
 down the walls, and yet there was the wreck of all he had 
 cast down between him and her. 
 
 "I've been through a great deal," said Waring, " a very 
 great deal." 
 
 " I know it," said Joyce. 
 
 He was not the same man who left the house to go to 
 the nursing home. He was other ; he was different. He 
 was infinitely older, and infinitely younger. He looked at 
 her with different eyes. They were eyes that sought to 
 understand. They were pathetic eyes too, eyes that asked 
 for help. She had never seen him look like that. She had 
 always seen him as able, immensely strong, capable, 
 sufficient for himself a man who gave little, and asked for 
 nothing. Now he seemed ready to give much, but what 
 was better for her woman's heart, he seemed to ask for 
 more. Deliberately he discrowned himself. He stood no 
 longer upon the monstrous pedestal of the English home. 
 He was on the earth beside her, and she knew what the 
 strange spirit of womanhood in her said ; for that was 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 99 
 
 indeed a god which said : " Ask, and it shall be given to 
 you." 
 
 " Oh, you've had a bad time," she said, " a bad time ! " 
 
 " Some day I'll tell you about it, but not now. All I 
 want you to know, Joyce, is that I'm not what I was, and 
 that I'm on your side now." 
 
 She clutched his hand, and he felt her tremble. 
 
 " On your side," he went on. " I understand now 
 I don't want to be cruel." 
 
 She felt the barriers melt away. 
 
 " You mean it, father ? You mean it ? but mother ? " 
 
 " Do not trouble," said Waring, " it will be all right. 
 Say nothing till I come back, but try and be happier 
 you're so pale, child. You can tell Robert what I say, 
 but I don't want to see him yet. I was very rude to him 
 last time we met I'm sorry now I'm very sorry. Do 
 you understand ? " 
 
 She understood, but could not speak. And yet he knew 
 that all the time life was coming back to her. She had 
 come to him in fear. It might be that the nurse had mis- 
 understood him ; and yet the mere hope that she had not 
 misunderstood was like dawn to one who lived in darkness. 
 Now the sun shone about her. She had not only the love 
 of her lover, but the love of her father to whom a thousand 
 instincts bound her instincts which now flowered in their 
 natural emotion. She felt strangely rich with love. 
 
 She meant some day, perhaps, to tell him how near she 
 had been, and even then was, to breaking with them all to 
 join her lover. And yet she knew that if she had done so 
 at the price of hurting her father it would have been a 
 bitter price to pay for joy, and that her joy would have 
 been darkened. Whatever her mother thought, now at 
 any rate he would be on her side, and she would have no 
 bitterness towards him. As a girl she had lived an almost 
 loveless life, although her mother would have professed in 
 
100 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 a drawing-room of middle-class mothers that she had 
 sacrificed everything for her children. Now that her father 
 was with her she felt clearly what had before been a dim 
 instinct. Her mother might have acted rightly according 
 to her religion, but she had not acted rightly according to 
 the deep laws of nature. She felt that her mother ought 
 to have been on her side. She was a woman and should 
 have understood. That her father had not done so was 
 intelligible, for the ancient history of her race, which was 
 in every cell and every fibre of her being, told her that the 
 man who understood women beyond the limits of use and 
 wont was the rarest creature in the world. 
 
 But now, and here, her father understood. It was 
 very strange ! it was miraculous ! She wondered if 
 Robert would have understood so much, and with one of 
 those little flashes of illumination and criticism that come 
 even to those who love, she wondered whether Robert 
 Hardy were as big a man as she thought him. She hoped 
 he was, but she did not know, and she knew now that her 
 father was a very big man. 
 
 Waring spoke again after a little pause, spoke with a 
 certain shamefacedness. 
 
 " I wish, Joyce, I could have shown you how fond I 
 always was of you. But you understand it's been 
 difficult. I couldn't ever explain things to you. Some- 
 times I wanted to. I'd like to tell you some day about my 
 early life. No one knows anything about it not even 
 your mother." 
 
 She still held his hand, and kept her eyes fixed on his. 
 
 " Don't tell her anything I have said. She's a good 
 woman, but she wouldn't understand. I've learnt to 
 understand or I'm learning. Are you happier, Joyce ? " 
 
 She knelt down by the little narrow bed and put her 
 arms under his neck, and laid her face lightly upon his 
 shoulder. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 101 
 
 " Daddy ! " she said. 
 
 With his left hand he stroked her hair. He felt wonder- 
 fully happy, happier than he had done for many, many 
 long years ; and he knew it was because he had broken 
 through that crust and wished to make her happy. 
 
 XI 
 
 IT was the best part of three weeks before Renshaw and 
 Heathcote were quite free of anxiety on Waring's account. 
 He had periods of very great depression, followed by 
 hours of comparative exaltation. When he was depressed 
 it seemed as if he were bleeding to death mentally. His 
 experiences had renewed the anguish of his ancient healed 
 wounds ; he lived wonderfully in the long past. But when 
 the first three weeks had passed by he settled down both 
 mentally and physically and made a rapid progression. 
 By now the world had a little renewed itself for him, 
 though he still felt in it that mechanism which had seemed 
 to him so appalling at the beginning. Even yet at certain 
 hours, especially at night when he woke up, he had the 
 sensation that the whole universe consisted of processes 
 and growths from himself. He still retained the memory 
 of that strange taste which seemed to be a kind of touch- 
 stone by which he judged all things, even the things that 
 lived and spoke, and helped him. 
 
 Yet that awful rigidity in everything began to pass 
 as the rigidity of his internal and external wounds dis- 
 appeared. These feelings had a physical basis. He 
 understood something of the nature of shock independent 
 of his experience, and now he saw that he was recovering 
 from it. Yet he knew with certainty that he never would 
 
102 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 recover. People did not really recover from anything ; 
 everything left its scar. All experiences tended to death, 
 even those which promoted growth. Energy went out 
 of a man and was partially, but never wholly, renewed. 
 The healed scar was yet a scar and a weakness. The 
 cell that replaced its destroyed ancestor inherited the 
 seeds of destruction and knew something of the ways of 
 death. 
 
 Waring was awfully conscious how much of human life 
 was waste, and how much of hope was vain. If good 
 intentions paved hell, the bravest hopes of mankind 
 were dust upon the road that humanity trod. And yet 
 so much waste was needless. Men fought against each 
 other, and fought against themselves ; the essence of the 
 body and mind was after all but a strange conflict. He 
 had heard some of his doctor friends declare that the 
 republic of the body was a difficult balance of opposing 
 forces ; of stimuli, of inhibitions, of desires that drew on, 
 and fears that repelled. Each organ would be dominant, 
 and the others again denied it dominance. Every gland 
 did its own work, and again inhibited or controlled the 
 work of the other glands. At the best of times in health 
 all the body's organs were in a state of armed neutrality. 
 It was the same in life, and in an organized society. 
 
 Till now he had understood little of physiology, although 
 in his casual and varied studies he had read much of 
 it. In the old times such things had interested him as 
 far-off problems ; they did not come home to himself. Now 
 he knew that every problem that the world displayed was 
 paralleled by some problem in his body or his mind ; it was 
 for ever a case of the macrocosm and the microcosm. 
 Once he had been accustomed to say that a man was 
 master of his own fate, yet this was nothing but a certain 
 outside hardening in him after his great loss he thought 
 it was true and yet knew it was not. If he were master 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 103 
 
 of his fate he was only master of the fate that remained 
 to him. He had had to remake himself, and had found 
 the process bitter. Now once again he had been softened, 
 softened in a great and awful fire. 
 
 For many years he had refused to think of himself with 
 that self-pity that so many feel. Perhaps he had earned 
 his disaster. Perhaps he had slain her he loved. It had 
 been written since then : " All men slay the things they 
 love." Perhaps there was some truth in that. He had 
 loved much, had been exigent, greedy of love. He had 
 demanded it and had been given it freely. The whole 
 of his life had been an ordeal, an ordeal even when he was 
 in paradise. It had been a period of suffering even when 
 he was happy for how, indeed, should happiness last ? 
 
 He found now in his mind, in his heart, all that he 
 had been learning. It was as though he had died, and had 
 found beyond the grave a peculiar resurrection. And he 
 had indeed died ; he had not only died but he had been 
 down to hell. He had had his immortality. If indeed 
 there were any life after death there was no ground for 
 supposing that it would last for ever, any more than life on 
 earth. The gods themselves had had their day. They 
 were the imagination of man, his vain projections ; they 
 passed, and an immortality would pass too. He knew 
 his had passed, for he was a creature of time once more. 
 
 In this he rejoiced. It was good to think that the end 
 would come, however soon, or however late. If it came 
 soon it was well, if it came late it would still be soon, and 
 it would be well. She whom he loved was sleeping was 
 not immortal but sleeping. She slept a very long, un- 
 awakening, endless sleep, and those she loved would be with 
 her. His happy time was coming, for he would sleep too 
 and be very still. But before he slept there was much 
 to do. He wished to work himself out utterly. Some- 
 times he had thought a desire for immortality as he had 
 
104 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 seen it in his fellows was but their consciousness of grave 
 futility, their knowledge that they had not lived, and had 
 not worked. They had not used their energy, had husbanded 
 their strength in vain, had done nothing, had wrapped 
 their talent in a napkin and buried it in the unresponsive 
 earth. If he could achieve all that was in him he might 
 meet death very very easily, or so it seemed to him. 
 
 What was it that he could do ? He felt that he had 
 something to say, very much to say, but he knew that he 
 would say little. He knew that he might end in speaking 
 only to those who were nearest his heart. He desired to do 
 things for every one yet if he did a little for his daughter, 
 and something for his son, and made them a little wiser, or 
 prepared them a little for wisdom, he would be doing 
 very much indeed. He had a sense of power in him, the 
 sense of great wisdom, of enormous energy but he recog- 
 nized not only his own limitations for imparting it, but 
 the natural and even beautiful limitations of those whom 
 he wished to teach. He seemed to hear the young cry 
 out : " Not yet, Lord, is the hour for us to be wise. 
 Give us a little time yet before wisdom comes to us." 
 
 " I could teach," said Waring, " and shall not. I shall 
 never write what is in me, or say what I feel. All I can 
 do is to make things better for one or two. It is a strange 
 thing that he who desires to benefit the world may destroy 
 himself and yet die happy that he has helped one. I can 
 see that now." 
 
 So his thoughts turned easily and quietly to his daughter 
 and to his boy, Jack, the boy he had thrown out of the 
 house for a little, common, natural, sexual transgression. 
 Now he looked forward to seeing him with a curious eager- 
 ness. He was anxious about him, about his life, about 
 his future. More than all was he anxious to get on good 
 terms with his son, to get the boy to understand him a 
 little. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 105 
 
 Even if understanding were impossible there was still 
 sympathy. He had the sympathy now which he had 
 lacked, and when he looked back upon his life with his 
 own father he felt certain that natural sympathy would 
 be on his side. In his own youth the impulses of his mind 
 had been rejected and repelled and trampled on a thousand 
 times. He must have done the same to his own son. It 
 was the fatal English habit, the custom of the cold family. 
 But perhaps it was not too late he hoped it was not. 
 He knew he was very near his daughter's heart now, and 
 desired to be as near to his son's if it were possible. And 
 yet it could not be possible for him to get so near Jack 
 as he was to Joyce. He had had a struggle to get through 
 the crust with her, but she had helped him. There was 
 probably more to get through to get to his son. He 
 wondered if he would succeed. 
 
 He was glad he was not very strong ; he knew that 
 as strength returned to him it would be even more difficult, 
 for old habits grew again and became strong and fatally 
 impossible to overcome. If he were to get his son back 
 he must do it now. He wondered how he could do it 
 without seeming too weak, or too foolish, or mawkish, or 
 silly. Young people were difficult to deal with, difficult to 
 understand. They had their own thoughts, and he had 
 not followed them from their youth. He did not know 
 the country that he was to explore. His son was nearly 
 a stranger, and perhaps more than a stranger. That 
 was a cruel thing to think of. Again he felt that he had 
 lost so much time. He might have been like Jack's big 
 brother, and instead of that he had been nothing but the 
 reserved father, lord of the house, master of the money ; 
 dominant, hard, inaccessible. 
 
 And then his nurse came in and asked him if he would 
 see Mr. John Waring. 
 
 " Oh yes, let him come in," said Waring. 
 
106 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 For the second time in his life he felt a strange little 
 nutter of the nerves at seeing his son. Now he was very 
 anxious as to what would happen ; it might be some kind 
 of a re-birth for him and Jack. Till now he had never 
 realized how much had grown up between him and the 
 boy. He had often resented the fear which he himself had 
 inspired. He had forgotten the sensibility of his own 
 childhood. But now he could understand what his own 
 father must have felt. The old man must have died 
 knowing those infinite regrets which come to those who have 
 rejected love. But Waring knew he loved his boy, and 
 wanted Jack to know it there was the difficulty. His eyes 
 brightened as the door opened and his son entered the room. 
 He was a fine-looking young fellow, tall and slim, but 
 strongly knit. He had made no change in his working 
 dress, which fitted him like a uniform. He had a fine 
 figure ; he stood upright ; his face was brown. Waring 
 felt physically proud of him he had begotten a man. 
 He was glad that Jack had not changed his clothes. After 
 all, the boy had been strong and brave, and had taken his 
 broken career with courage. 
 
 " But it shan't be broken," said Waring to himself. 
 " We'll mend it again." 
 He lifted up his hand and smiled at Jack. 
 " Sit down, old chap," he said. And Jack sat down. 
 He looked bewildered, he did not know why. He did 
 not understand this strange, white, altered man. There 
 was something confusing in his father's aspect. In the 
 old days his father could have thrashed him, for then 
 Waring was a powerful man and quick for one of his 
 years. Never before had Jack seen him weak ; it was an 
 astounding thing ; it was against all knowledge. And 
 then there was something in his father's smile that he had 
 never known before something wistful, almost pathetic. 
 It was perhaps apologetic too. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 107 
 
 " My boy," said Waring, " my boy ! " 
 
 He reached out his hand. For the first time in his life 
 Jack held his father's hand without any fear. But a 
 little while ago the man had been a terror to his own house- 
 hold. He was the kind of man who inspired respect ; 
 he had a way of looking at weaker people which stopped 
 argument. But now he was very gentle. He must have 
 been through something awful, and Jack knew it. The 
 boy had not been told the whole truth ; but now he felt 
 that the old man, as he sometimes called him, had been 
 through the dark valley. His own heart softened ; he 
 wished, with a strange little spurt of emotion, that his 
 father had been more like this in his old days just a very 
 little more like it, a little less what he had been, so that 
 he could have loved him. The children of men need to 
 love as much as they need loving. There is a great partner- 
 ship in love ; it exists not by itself. There is no such 
 thing as love unless it is returned in great abundance. 
 
 " My boy ! " said Waring again, and once more he smiled 
 and again looked at Jack a little sadly, with an inward 
 thought in which he saw very much of the past. 
 
 " Oh, sir ! " said Jack. 
 
 They did not speak again for a little time. Waring 
 was afraid to speak. Relatively his emotions were stronger 
 than they had been, the old guards^ against them were 
 weakened and broken down. He felt tears in his heart, 
 and he knew that he must not give way, or break down, 
 or show too much what he felt. He could not judge 
 Jack by himself ; the boy had not been remade, wholly 
 altered, strangely converted. He had only been through 
 some of the commoner experiences of humanity those 
 which make a man more capable, but not necessarily any 
 wiser. Waring knew now that silence might be better 
 than speech. It would give Jack time to take in what he 
 saw. Indeed Jack needed time ; he was confused in his 
 
108 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 mind. He felt all the old fears, but knew now that they 
 were baseless. It seemed as if the whole of his childhood 
 he had feared something without reason. For, after all, 
 this was his father. And yet he was not the same man 
 who had turned him out of the house. He wondered 
 what his father thought of that now. It had happened, 
 the very last time they had seen each other this strange, 
 white, weak creature who smiled at him from a little 
 white narrow bed, had threatened to throw him down 
 the steps of the house if he did not leave inside of an 
 hour. 
 
 " He could have done it too," said Jack. 
 
 He had a certain amount of pride in him that his father 
 had been so strong. It was good to have a strong father, 
 and to feel that he was strong himself. He wondered 
 what the old man would say presently. He was very 
 glad he was not so uncomfortable as he thought he would 
 have been. He had come there with his old thoughts, his 
 natural fears, with odd reluctance. He had feared his 
 father would perhaps " jaw " at him, seeing that he was 
 unable to do anything else. 
 
 " But he doesn't look as if he wanted to," thought 
 Jack, with great gratitude to all the gods. 
 
 He almost formulated the thought within him that he 
 wished " the old man " had been more like this always. 
 But the thought lay dormant, it did not show itself. And 
 then Waring spoke. 
 
 " I wanted to see you, Jack. I have seen your mother 
 and Joyce, so I am glad you have come. I know you have 
 been working hard that's good ; I sometimes wish I 
 worked a little with my hands, I have seen it do a lot for 
 many men. They get nearer to earth, Jack, nearer to 
 reality, whatever that may be and most of us live in a 
 strange, concocted world, don't we ? But there I'm 
 talking philosophy, or something like it ; you won't care 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 109 
 
 much for that. Look here, my boy, I want you to come 
 back home." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Jack. 
 
 " Don't say you will, and don't say you won't," said 
 his father. " I want you to think it over. I want my son 
 to do well. It's not too late for you to go to Cambridge, 
 if you'd still like to go ; and if you wouldn't, I think I 
 could put you into an engineering firm in Coventry that 
 would make your future secure. You always did like 
 machinery, and you must know something of it now." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Jack, " I still like it cars, you 
 know." 
 
 " I dare say you're a pretty good driver," said Waring, 
 who wanted to refer to what the boy was doing. It seemed 
 to make things easier. " That won't do you any harm ; 
 it might be useful. And I want you to come back home 
 for a bit ; I'd like things to be a little different, Jack." 
 
 He wanted things to be different ; he wanted to be 
 different himself. He wanted to be able to say what he 
 wished to say, and even now it was all dammed back within 
 him and could not get through. And yet he felt somehow 
 that it trickled, like a little stream in the base of a great 
 dam, like the seepage which comes through and heralds a 
 great release of waters. 
 
 " There's a deal I'd like to tell you, Jack," he said 
 after another pause, " but I can't do it now. I dare say you 
 understand. I've been through a lot here." 
 
 " Oh, sir, I can see it," said Jack. 
 
 " But they tell me I'm getting well," continued his 
 father. " It will be a long pull up, but I shall be well for 
 a time anyhow, and I'd like you to come back if you can. 
 Think of it." Then he asked, " You can come back ? " 
 and the boy knew well he referred to the woman about whom 
 the trouble had arisen. 
 
 Jack looked down and examined his hands, which of 
 
110 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 course showed signs of heavy work. He fiddled with his 
 fingers, and then said, as if he was a little ashamed of him- 
 self, " Oh yes, sir, that that's all right. It's all over. I 
 don't think it was my fault, but it's all over. She she 
 left me." 
 
 Waring understood. He knew what the boy felt. It 
 seemed wonderful to him that he did know in the old 
 days he had known nothing of what was in the boy's mind. 
 But now he knew that Jack had really suffered, though 
 he could not be sure what form that suffering took. He 
 hastened to speak : 
 
 " I was quite wrong," he said quietly. " I took it all 
 in the wrong way. I wasn't wise not at all wise. I 
 ought to have remembered I was once a young man. I 
 don't want to say anything more about the poor girl, but 
 I know fathers ought to help their sons more in these 
 matters. My father never helped me. You never knew 
 your grandfather when I was very young I always wanted 
 to be friends with him, but he wouldn't let me. He kept 
 me off, put a wall round himself. Instead of being my 
 father he was a kind of ogre, Jack, who sometimes looked 
 over the wall and said in a loud voice, ' Don't ! ' But I 
 know now that he loved me very much, only he couldn't 
 show it. There's something in most of us that makes 
 us ashamed of showing it. And we're fools about these 
 things that you and I had trouble about. Just before I got 
 
 111 I came across a big saying in a book I picked up. You 
 may not think much of it, but it's a big saying all the same. 
 He wrote : ' We trust nature too little, to say the least of it.' 
 We ought to help our sons, and our fathers ought to help 
 us. That's all I want to say now. I told you I had been 
 through a great deal some that you wouldn't quite 
 understand but you can understand that while I have 
 been lying here I have been back through all my life, and 
 through all my own childhood, which came to me wonder- 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 111 
 
 fully. And I wondered, after all I went through as a 
 child, that I was so like my father." 
 
 He got it all out with infinite difficulty, but was glad 
 he had said it. The boy was confused, troubled ; still 
 he understood, or his father thought he did, and Waring 
 was glad that his own emotions had broken down some of 
 those bitter bonds about his own spirit. Jack would 
 understand it presently. 
 
 So Waring held out his hand, and his son took it. 
 
 " I think most of it was my fault," said Jack. 
 
 For now it seemed to him that he had not thought enough 
 about his father. 
 
 " Nothing is anybody's fault," said Waring. " All we've 
 got to think of, my boy, is not to be cruel. And I have 
 sometimes been cruel, I know it now. But there, we'll say 
 no more just now. I soon get tired, Jack." 
 
 " I don't suppose I ought to stop, sir," said his son. 
 
 " I don't mind if you do go now, my boy, provided you 
 come back again," said Waring, with a strange wistfulness. 
 
 " Oh yes, sir, I'll come again," said Jack eagerly. " You 
 know I've been here several times, but they wouldn't let me 
 see you. I'm awfully glad to have come, and to find you 
 better." 
 
 He stood up, but did not go. He seemed uneasy in his 
 mind, and Waring saw it. 
 
 " Is there anything else you want to speak of, my boy ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " I don't know, sir," said Jack. " I've been worrying 
 a little, and I don't know whether I ought to speak of it or 
 not. You see, sir, it's about Joyce." 
 
 " What about her ? " asked his father. He knew quite 
 well what it was. " You can tell me anything." 
 
 " I suppose I ought to," said Jack. " I don't like to, but 
 I think I should. Well, the fact is, sir, I saw Joyce the 
 other day in Bond Street with that Hardy." 
 
112 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 He was obviously hostile to Hardy. He had all the 
 young man's natural desire to confine his sister to the 
 most rigid paths of virtuous conduct. 
 
 " Ah, Hardy," said Waring, " Hardy you saw Joyce 
 with him ? " 
 
 He seemed to take it very calmly, and Jack wondered. 
 
 " Of course I don't want to worry you about it, sir." 
 
 " No," said Waring, " of course not, but don't you 
 trouble about it. I've made up my mind what is to be 
 done. It will be all right, Jack." 
 
 He could not help smiling, as he said so. Jack and Joyce 
 would put different interpretations on the same words. 
 
 " I didn't want to speak to Hardy myself," said Jack, 
 " because I might have got angry, and it would have been 
 very unpleasant for everybody for us to have a row." 
 
 " There must be no row," said Waring earnestly. " You 
 leave it to me, Jack. Don't forget, this is my business. 
 You must trust me to do the right thing." 
 
 " I'm sure you will, sir," said Jack. And he shook hands. 
 Something in his softer nature bade him stoop and kiss 
 his father's brow, but he was very much a young English- 
 man, and restrained himself. 
 
 " Come in and see me whenever you like," said Waring. 
 "I'm really getting better they tell me I shall be out in 
 another week or so." 
 
 And Jack went away in a very strange state of mind. To 
 his surprise he seemed to fear his father no more. He even 
 began to remember how fond he had been of the old man at 
 certain times when his father had relaxed a little, and played 
 with him, and jested. Though he could not say so to himself 
 he knew that deep within him he had an affection for his 
 father. It was not now a great affection, but still it was 
 something which moved him, and might grow very greatly. 
 
 " He gave me beans about poor Sally," said Jack, " but 
 after all Oh in a way he was right, or I suppose so. I'm 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 113 
 
 glad I told him about Joyce and that Hardy fellow. Damn 
 him ! he ought to be kicked." 
 
 XII 
 
 WARING now found things going easier with him. He had 
 made certain decisions ; and he understood why he had 
 made them. His new philosophy was something with 
 strange categorical imperatives in it. He felt that he was 
 obeying the biggest laws he knew, and he saw that the 
 bigger the laws that a man submits to, the easier he is in 
 his mind. 
 
 He was a man of very wide reading, even if it were not 
 deep in any department but that of history. He had 
 found all things human interesting ; but till now he felt 
 that only his historical knowledge had been organized. 
 That indeed made an organic pattern he knew where to 
 put new knowledge without disordering the old. But his 
 general knowledge of humanity, of books, of science, and 
 the revolutionary thought of the world, had been scattered ; 
 it had no pattern, it meant nothing. He was like those 
 who have read folk-lore and have no theory on which to 
 hang the marvels of mankind's prehistoric imagination. 
 Then it may be that they hit on a clue, or find a master, 
 and their knowledge organizes itself. Thus sand upon a 
 plate vibrating musically collects in nodal lines and makes 
 definite figures. 
 
 So it was with Waring. He discovered after the age of 
 fifty that he had been a revolutionary all his life. He 
 found his old scorn of common opinion had a real basis. 
 This scorn went deeper than he knew until strange expe- 
 riences had come to him. Renshaw's knife had taken away 
 
114 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 more than Renshaw handled ; it had cleared away those 
 masses of dead opinion which stunt the living mind 
 those dead opinions which are prejudices and degenera- 
 tions, the fatty degenerations of the soul. He saw things 
 in a dry light. A revolutionary, he had gone through a 
 revolution. But it was more than a revolution he felt a 
 better man, kinder, gentler, more thoughtful, full of an 
 infinite pity of humanity. Though he believed no more in 
 the vain projection of men's minds that is worshipped in 
 the churches, he knew he had been converted. He was 
 more religious, for these things were the real essence of 
 religion. 
 
 Once he had heard a man say : " We shall never be 
 religious till we forget religion, and never worship any god 
 until we do not think of him." It seemed a strange saying 
 to him, and yet now he knew it was true or as true as 
 any truth can be, for he understood that truth was, like a 
 god, a projection of the mind. He began to be a little 
 happier. He was still conscious that the world was a 
 mechanism, but he himself felt less mechanical. His 
 attachment to things seemed no more as if he were held to 
 them by strange steel rods. There was a give-and-take in 
 matter. An elasticity grew in him. He seemed to 
 approach normality, or as near normality as he would ever 
 get. 
 
 He knew the greatest and most perfect type of natural 
 humanity was that of a simple and kindly peasant who 
 questions nothing. Towards such a type humanity tended, 
 but when it reached it the world would be on a higher 
 level. Questions would be solved, and being solved would 
 be proved to matter nothing in the scheme of things. The 
 future race, if mankind endured upon the earth, would live 
 beautifully for the day, and die at last in the strange ease 
 of some healthy, happy bird upon the wing. But now 
 mankind strove through and in a strange and bitter 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 115 
 
 conflict ; through ill-health physical and mental. It knew 
 not what to do, nor where to turn. The old gods endured 
 no more upon Olympus. The God of the Hebrews was sick 
 in some far paradise. The rules and laws of conduct were 
 in a flux. Half the philosophies of mankind were no more 
 living ; upon their tombs was not inscribed so much as 
 " hicjacet." They were forgotten, save by belated disciples 
 who themselves were dying in secluded cloisters. Time 
 begot them, and time destroyed them ; they served their 
 purpose, and man remembered them no more. 
 
 All ideals, and all philosophies, were but generations 
 in the passage of the thought of man. Their history was 
 but a short hour ; they died and were forgotten, even as 
 man's far ancestry. In their time they had been great, 
 it might be as great as kings, but the kings that were 
 remembered were few. There were geniuses before Homer, 
 and gods before Isis and Osiris ; but they had done their 
 work when they begot others. So all that Waring had been 
 through left him what he was. He half forgot what he had 
 thought in the old days. Much that he had then believed 
 true was wiped out utterly. 
 
 But he was glad the world was a little more pleasant 
 to him ; glad that he felt better ; that his maimed body 
 functioned ; that the green of the trees outside his window 
 seemed sweeter ; that the air as it came in through the 
 window was kindly though it was the air of a city. He 
 began to think cordially, and with wakening affection, or 
 something which was dimly like affection, of many of his 
 old friends. Presently he would see them. He talked 
 with Renshaw quite cheerfully, and with Heathcote, and 
 once or twice with Bent, who came in to see him. 
 
 It was through Bent indeed that he got the idea of 
 " pattern " being applicable to all things, including life : 
 for all things must have form and shape and symmetry. 
 According to Bent life itself depended on symmetry ; a 
 
116 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 lop-sided, unsymmetrical evolution could not progress, it 
 must necessarily come to an end. They had been talking 
 about shock, and Waring had at last got out a pretty satis- 
 factory account of what he felt while emerging from the 
 realms of anaesthesia. Bent was much interested, for 
 he was no little of a psychologist and something of a 
 thinker. 
 
 " What you went through," said Bent, " was due to a 
 certain amount of cell destruction in your cortex, and to 
 cell poisoning, if you understand what I mean." 
 
 " Oh yes, I think I understand," said Waring. 
 
 " What you tell me," went on Bent, " about your 
 feeling differently comes in with all that. Some of your 
 later developments, what you call your brutalities, got 
 shaken up and destroyed and rearranged. No one's 
 the same after illness, madness, or any shock. Under some 
 circumstances a man will rearrange himself, or be re- 
 arranged, religiously. He may come out of trouble with 
 religious mania. That's conversion." 
 
 Waring smiled. 
 
 " And I have come out with no religion, or no dogmatic 
 notions," he said. " And yet I think I used to believe 
 dogma of all sorts. I've been converted the other way." 
 
 Bent nodded. 
 
 " If looks like it, but after all religion is often like some- 
 thing advertised as ' supplying a long-felt want.' A man 
 cannot make a symmetrical pattern of his mind, and he 
 fills out the drawing with dogma to comfort his uneven 
 little soul." 
 
 " Most of you men are agnostics, are you not ? " asked 
 Waring. 
 
 " I suppose that's so," said Bent. " We see so much 
 more than the average man. We don't go into the wards 
 of the world howling about evil spirits or about good ones. 
 The old vitalism is dead, although every now and again it 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 117 
 
 kicks feebly, and the religious make desperate attempts to 
 resuscitate it even in science. Humanity, whether it is 
 good or bad, is sufficiently wonderful, Waring. It's all 
 the more wonderful to think, and believe, and to know, 
 that its wonders are the flowers and foliage of what we call 
 the flesh. Indeed, when one's cup is full of life, one 
 doesn't need to fill it up with spirit." 
 
 " How do you account for the fact," asked Waring, " I 
 mean, how do you account for it physiologically, that I 
 don't believe a score of things I thought I believed before 
 this operation ? " 
 
 " Man alive, I've been explaining it," said Bent, " or 
 trying to ! During your life for one reason or another you 
 built up little delicate theories on the top of your brain to 
 account for this or that, and they more or less accounted 
 for what you wished to account for. You always can 
 account for everything if you only make a complicated 
 enough hypothesis that's the way of the theosophists. 
 They are like the old astronomers with their system of 
 cycles and epicycles and then Copernicus came along and 
 knocked their whole pretty structure endways. You'd got 
 all these pretty structures more or less working, and then 
 you had an earthquake and they were shaken down. The 
 latest constructions were the first to go. They didn't 
 prove themselves ; they couldn't stand the brain-quake. 
 But now, so far as I can understand from what you tell 
 me, you seem to have shaken your notions into a real shape. 
 I think you have got a sounder pattern about you now 
 than you had before ; there's a great deal in your theory 
 of kindness and cruelty. Of course it doesn't settle wholly 
 what kindness is, and what cruelty is. One may have to 
 be cruel to be kind, and that's where the man comes in, 
 that's his test, that shows him. Even with the soundest 
 formula in mathematics one may have to do a lot of work 
 on paper, Waring." 
 
118 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " That's so," said Waring. " I shall have to do some 
 figuring myself when I get up." 
 
 " That won't be long now," said Bent. " You've done 
 jolly well. Renshaw's as proud of you as if he'd made you." 
 
 " Ah, a surgical Frankenstein, and I'm his horrid 
 monster," said Waring. " I'll pursue the beggar for the 
 rest of my life and tell him he's got to keep me and my 
 family." 
 
 " Upon my soul," laughed Bent, " I really think you 
 could earn a pound or two by going round to medical 
 associations." 
 
 " It's well to have even that up one's sleeve," said 
 Waring. " At any rate, I certainly am feeling better 
 physically, and I suppose mentally, though all you people 
 are so strangely different to me. Upon my word, Bent, at 
 odd times I seem to feel you're all wound up like clock- 
 work." 
 
 " Quite right," said Bent, " we are wound up. And 
 presently we run down, and then we're scrapped, and it's 
 all over. But in the meantime I suppose we do some 
 work." 
 
 " A little," said Waring, with a sigh. " Do you remem- 
 ber the epitaph that Professor Clifford wrote for himself ? 
 ' I was not, and was conceived ; I lived, and did a little 
 work ; I died, and am not.' ' 
 
 " Sounds a bit melancholy," said Bent, " but it repre- 
 sents the pattern of truth to me, and if it's not truth, why, 
 so much the better or so much the worse, as the case may 
 be. Well, you'll be out in a week, that's what Renshaw 
 says and when you are out, don't overdo it. Renshaw 
 wound you up again as far as he could it's quite possible 
 that the whole of your future depends largely on yourself, 
 Waring. Take it easy, and don't worry." 
 
 "Ah, 'don't worry,'" said Waring. "What a lot of 
 dears you are ! " 
 
119 
 
 " Damned fools, eh ? " said Bent. " But we must say 
 something, and after all it's true. An engine that primes 
 or strips her steam is on the way to a breakdown." 
 
 " Ah, an engine," sighed Waring, " what did I tell you ? 
 We're all a lot of damned queer machines." 
 
 " Don't work that brain of yours too much," said Bent, 
 and with that he went away, leaving Waring curiously 
 cheerful for him, and with a still more certain feeling of 
 pattern in his universe. 
 
 Bent had helped him not a little. Certainly it was true 
 that if the world were mechanical it was not the less 
 miraculous for that. It was even more miraculous. 
 During his ordeal ancient theory and precept had died, 
 leaving only the essential framework. He knew that from 
 some points of view his egoism would seem monstrous. 
 It was none the less defensible for that. This re-education 
 of his, his solution and recrystallization, left him different 
 but more human. If his theological leanings and pre- 
 judices had disappeared, so much the more was he thrown 
 back upon poor humanity. He came again to the earth 
 and sat naked in a ploughed field. If he was harder, he 
 was softer too. Hardness in him seemed interpenetrated 
 with a peculiar meekness, an odd humility. He felt a 
 strange new pride in being meek. He was right down upon 
 the earth these were all new things to him. 
 
 He had never reckoned he had any capacity for being 
 humble. He had never humbled himself before God, as 
 religious people say, in spite of what he had called belief. 
 He had indeed revolted against humbling himself before 
 another personality, however greatly imagined. Yet he 
 did not revolt now against humbling himself before the 
 final and simple nature of things, and with this humility 
 there came new strength. No doubt religious people were 
 in a sense right ; if they had a great capacity for belief 
 and could bow down before their imagined deity, they felt 
 
120 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 all the stronger for it. By such relaxation of tension there 
 came the power of reshaping and altering themselves. A 
 man had only a certain amount of strength ; it could be 
 wasted in keeping up an attitude of independence. After 
 all, one had to be dependent on realities or unrealities. 
 Perhaps it mattered little whether they were one or the 
 other. 
 
 He had never really believed in God, and yet had never 
 trusted nature. His old attitude was that of a man who 
 juggled with himself, who spent his strength balancing him- 
 self upon a peak. Now he was down upon the safe earth 
 and could let himself go. He could even let his affections 
 go. Up to now he had never been able to be outwardly 
 affectionate. He had never been able to let himself go ; 
 he had never done it since the death of his first wife. He 
 knew he had never commanded the natural affections of his 
 children. Now he knew outwardly, as he had long known 
 inwardly, and without acknowledgment, all that he had 
 lost. 
 
 He had not only given up a year of his son's companion- 
 ship, he had destroyed twenty years of it. Now he remem- 
 bered seeing a father and son a man of fifty and a boy of 
 twenty both strong and simple men, who played together 
 like two children. He recalled the fact that a dull, strange 
 pang of unformed, half- understood regret had gone through 
 his heart when he saw them together. 
 
 He saw that he was now another man, in some ways more 
 like what he had been in the wonderful old days locked up 
 now in his memory. He had suffered, and he realized 
 things, and it is the realization of things that is knowledge. 
 He felt strangely old and strangely wise, and very sorrow- 
 ful. He knew he had been slow to learn, but then most 
 people learnt nothing, or if they learnt it they could not 
 express it in action. The progress of the mind towards 
 freedom was most incredibly slow. But knowledge itself, 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 121 
 
 and the joy of knowing, were little if indeed that know- 
 ledge did not lead to bigger comprehension, to greater 
 pity and kindness in the service of humanity. 
 
 Perhaps he was more an egoist than he had been, for 
 before this he had never been conscious of egoism. But if 
 so he was one who sorrowed at what he saw. If the 
 phantasmagoria of the world, and all the worlds, swung 
 round about him in his new fantastic anthropocentric 
 theory, he was the more pitiful, and for all his new meek- 
 ness and humility, the more godlike. If the kingdom of 
 heaven was within a man, so also was the godhead. If 
 religions failed when their dogmas perished the essence 
 of religion remained. The growth of the whole man 
 implied the growth of what the folks of creeds called 
 the soul, which was but a hidden, recondite, and beau- 
 tiful effect and power of nature, the last fine flowers of 
 man. 
 
 Thus it was that the world reclothed itself for Thomas 
 Waring, as health came back to him and he perceived the 
 passage of the hours. There were still things for him to 
 do. He was still a creature of time. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Now Waring began to take hold of the outer world. He 
 read the paper in the morning. He was quite comfortable ; 
 the old physical suffering had disappeared. He had almost 
 forgotten the steady and monstrous aching in his back 
 during the first days after the operation. But now he 
 could move ; he began to think of getting up. It was an 
 absurd idea, no doubt he realized the immense absurdity 
 of doing anything at all. The things that had been worth 
 
122 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 doing were worth doing no longer. Most of the activities 
 of man were futile and absurd. 
 
 Still he knew that the time must come when he would 
 leave this harbour of refuge and his nurses, who had become 
 his friends. When he was a young man he had done some 
 climbing in Switzerland and Tyrol. He remembered how 
 he had felt towards his guides ; they were not only his 
 friends, they were his brothers. He had put his arm 
 affectionately round the neck of more than one, had called 
 him " old chap," and tried to teach him better English. 
 He felt towards the nurses something as he had done 
 towards his old mountain friends. They, too, had guided 
 him through difficult places, and through many dangers. 
 
 He was peculiarly friendly with Nurse Smith. She 
 understood pain, not only by mere intellectual inspection 
 but in her nerves, for she too had had a serious operation. 
 She possessed brains and the tact that comes from sym- 
 pathy, together with the knowledge which is wisdom and 
 not instruction. He knew that the nurse was born, even 
 like the poet. He felt that she more or less understood 
 him, and now he liked to be understood ; though for the 
 last twenty years he had never cared whether anybody 
 understood him or not. Nurse Smith was kind : the 
 patients were not only her patients, they were for her 
 maternal spirit almost like children. Waring had got so 
 far as to know that for any woman a man is but a boy. 
 When they were by themselves women talked of their sons 
 and husbands as if they were all boys of sixteen hard to 
 manage, and yet kindly and amenable creatures if treated 
 properly. Of course they were troublesome. They were, 
 in fact, like the pig in the undergraduate's parody of 
 Thucydides, which ran : " The pig is an animal hard to 
 drive ; especially when there's a lot of them ; very." 
 
 This Waring quoted to Nurse Smith, but, true to her sex, 
 she did not acknowledge what she knew to be the truth con- 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 123 
 
 cerning the race of men. If he was a boy, still he was one 
 who suffered. She was sorry for him, and talked with him 
 intelligently and listened even more intelligently when he 
 talked. He sometimes read her a little thing out of the 
 paper and commented on it, for it had occurred to him 
 with a certain great wonder that there was such a thing 
 as foreign politics. This was a great discovery ; for the 
 first time the nurse heard him laugh. He told her the reason 
 of his merriment. 
 
 " I like to hear you laugh," she said. "It is the first 
 time you've done it since you came in. You're doing more 
 than sitting up and taking notice, Mr. Waring. This after- 
 noon you'll have to begin to learn to walk." 
 
 " To what ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " To learn to walk," said the nurse. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that I can't walk ? " asked 
 Waring. 
 
 " If you got up, you'd fall down," said the nurse. 
 
 " Good heavens ! I never thought of that," said Waring. 
 " I give you my word it never occurred to me." 
 
 " You certainly couldn't stand," said the nurse. 
 
 " Amazing ! " said Waring. " I suppose it's true. But 
 there that shows how little one knows. To think that a 
 great, deep, monstrous, natural fact like that never 
 occurred to me." 
 
 He pondered over it for some time. If he had to re 
 educate his legs he knew it was the same with his mind. 
 But indeed he had been re-educated while he lay in bed. 
 He wondered now what one of his clerical friends would 
 think of his conversion. 
 
 " I shall tell him I'm a very religious atheist," said 
 Waring. " I suppose the man will have a fit ! " 
 
 But then there are clergymen and clergymen, as even 
 Waring knew. Some might comprehend what a religious 
 atheist was. Even the world, or that part of the world 
 
124 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 which thought of philosophy and religion, had begun to 
 perceive that there might be such a thing as religion apart 
 from all dogma. 
 
 Most conversions narrow a man, but there are those 
 that broaden him. Waring was not concerned now in any 
 sense with the salvation of his own soul. A man's self was 
 but a little province of the great world. There might be 
 much to do in his own province, but now he had a bigger 
 philosophy. Up to this he had never conceived the world 
 as one in all its manifoldness, but now its different aspects 
 were facets of a very wonderful jewel. He had to learn 
 to walk ; to walk physically, to walk mentally. Physically 
 he had to walk in the old ways, even the roaring ways of 
 Fleet Street, but mentally he was on a new path, and with 
 him went the spirits of pity and understanding. 
 
 Yes, he had to learn to walk, though he might walk for 
 but a while. Little as he knew medicine or surgery he had 
 not been deluded, as many patients are for their good, 
 when Renshaw promised him the full life that might have 
 been his under other circumstances. He knew how 
 desperate the operation had been. He believed the trouble 
 would almost certainly recur. He was not, like most 
 patients, ignorant of that fact. No doubt their ignor- 
 ance helped ; they got renewed hope, and hope was 
 a tonic it helped the defence of the body and re- 
 newed it. 
 
 The nurses got him out of bed and into a chair that very 
 afternoon. He found it took two of them to do it. He 
 certainly could not stand up. He had tea before he went 
 back to bed. He saw the room from a different aspect, 
 and saw the nurse from a different aspect too. Since the 
 operation he had seen the whole world, and his room, 
 which was most of his world, from one angle. It was ex- 
 ceedingly curious to see things from another. It was quite 
 wonderful to him to think that getting out of bed and 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 125 
 
 sitting in a chair assumed something of the aspect of a 
 great adventure. 
 
 He laughed at himself ; laughed, as it seemed to him, 
 almost prodigiously. Until this nothing of the absurdity 
 of things had struck him ; his sense of humour had never 
 been highly developed. Now it seemed to him that humour 
 came back to him. Of course he believed he had a great 
 sense of humour, although he denied it to most of his fellows 
 and all the opposite sex. Now he felt that the deepest 
 essence of humour was a recognition, not of absurdities, 
 but of absurdity ; of the native absurdity in life, in all 
 existence, even when a man understood the pathos which 
 also inhered in things. It was, after all, nothing but one 
 form of knowledge, perhaps the greatest knowledge of all. 
 
 " I thought I could walk," said Waring. " I wonder 
 whether I've been suffering from the same delusion with 
 regard to my brain." 
 
 Nevertheless he had gone far in his mind, and felt certain 
 of his progress. But he knew quite well, and did not blink 
 the fact, that his hour was short. He had always prided 
 himself on using his knowledge, on speaking the truth and 
 not blinking facts. He had sometimes been unpopular on 
 that account, for most men shirked the truth when it did 
 not please them. He used to call such folks romantic 
 thinkers. For the romantic hated reality that was why 
 romantic thinkers, among whom stood the dogmatic 
 religionists, always loathed a man like Machiavelli. In 
 some ways Waring had been the Machiavelli of diplomatic 
 journalism. He had recognized things as they were. He 
 recognized things as they were for him now. 
 
 He had little time, but that time must be filled with work, 
 not now for himself but for others. And yet it would be 
 for himself, for the deep satisfaction of the whole man. 
 His pattern was made out. He knew himself ; there were 
 no gaps ; he believed he understood himself and others. 
 
126 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 He could no more blame himself or anybody else ; he 
 accepted himself and his nature calmly. The struggle was 
 over whether for good or evil, he knew what he was, and 
 what he would be. Nothing mattered but his doing what 
 he must do. That was very important, his passing was 
 unimportant. He said again that soon he would go the 
 way that Hadrian and Augustus had gone ; but before 
 they left the throne they did much work. 
 
 He saw his wife and daughter, and Jennie, once or twice 
 during the next week. He was quite proud to show them 
 that he could stand up now ; there was an odd physical 
 pleasure in standing up. He looked at them all a little 
 queerly when they praised him, but he was glad that it was 
 only Jennie who cried. He understood, or thought he 
 understood, what she felt ; he felt very wise to think he 
 knew. He was like a boy to her, like a child. Sometimes, 
 though rarely as he believed, she wanted a child. She was 
 the only one who seemed to have any understanding of the 
 fact that his return to life would be short. He saw it in 
 her eyes, but saw it in no one else's. He wondered if he 
 was right in what he thought about her. He experimented 
 with a certain sorrowful brutality upon her, and said : 
 
 " Jennie, your little boy begins to walk." 
 
 That was when she cried, and he was very sorry. He 
 took her in his arms. The world was a very sorrowful 
 place. 
 
 Many of his friends, journalists, men of letters, and others 
 came and called on him and left cards. He did not see any 
 of them, and until now had hardly asked who came. One 
 day he found their cards in a pile on the mantelpiece. 
 While he had tea by himself he sorted them out into two 
 piles as if he were playing with them. Even now many of 
 his old interests were under the flood that had overwhelmed 
 him. 
 
 When Nurse Smith came in he said to her : "I have put 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 127 
 
 these cards in two packs I could put them in three or four. 
 Do you know why ? " 
 
 Perhaps the nurse had seen such things before. She 
 answered rightly. 
 
 " One pile is of those you take no interest in," she 
 said. " The other is of those you have some kind of 
 feeling for." 
 
 " What a clever nurse it is ! " said Waring. " You are 
 quite right. It wouldn't worry me if most of them were 
 dead and many of them I used to like. Perhaps I shall 
 like them again presently." 
 
 " Of course you will," said his nurse. 
 
 " I was thinking of putting the big pile in the fire," 
 said Waring, " but I'll keep them and look them over 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " What for ? " asked the nurse. 
 
 " Now you are not so clever," said Waring. " To see if 
 I'm better, of course." 
 
 XIV 
 
 FROM the time that Waring began to show he possessed 
 some sense of humour he made very rapid progress. Little 
 by little he lost most of the depression that had come to him 
 at certain times. He was aware the operation had done a 
 great deal for him. The profound poisoning and inhibitions 
 of his natural functions due to his disease were now removed. 
 His body and his mind worked better ; he got to the point 
 of being glad of it. But still the world was his new 
 mechanical world ; it would never get back to what it had 
 been. He did not want it to get back. He had more 
 responsibilities now, not only for his own, but for others. 
 
128 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 He thought not wholly as an individual but as one and a 
 powerful part of a great whole. 
 
 Many would have said that his views were still those of 
 depression. No doubt they were due to his mental re- 
 arrangement, but he thought the results good. They had 
 been paid for, but they were worth it. His mind worked 
 more easily ; it took in the bigger things and ignored the 
 lesser. He was essentially a bigger man. He felt that he 
 was ; he felt it with humility. He knew now the heights 
 and depths to which humanity can attain. Even death 
 itself was a great and legitimate incident in the drama. He 
 knew how humanity as a body looked upon death, indeed 
 how mankind refused to look upon it. But it was a great 
 and simple fact, and not wholly awful when it was divested 
 of the trappings of horror with which a million years of fear 
 had invested it. The thought of it, when it was considered 
 in its proper proportions, added a great dignity to the 
 simplest life. The time would come when it was good to 
 die, good to enter on the long, endless, unawakening sleep 
 that should come to those who had lived and worked and 
 suffered to their greatest capacity. 
 
 Yet these things now sank into the background of his 
 mind. They took their place, they stood in their due order. 
 The nurses found him cheerful and friendly. They per- 
 ceived he was essentially a different man from the Waring 
 who had come into the nursing home and spent three or 
 four querulous days with them before the operation. Then 
 even Nurse Smith, the sweetest and most gentle creature, 
 had hated him, and had gone down into the nurses' sitting- 
 room saying, " Oh dear, I do wish somebody else had 
 No. 9 ! " Now he showed a genial curiosity in her life and 
 history. He told her stories, tales of his own life and the 
 lives of others whom he had met in far-off countries. 
 
 Sometimes when he was having tea two or three of the 
 other nurses came in and sat with him. He was as happy 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 129 
 
 with them as he had been in the old days with his guides, 
 when they sat on a rock in the sunlight on the slopes of a 
 great mountain and ate one of those repeated luncheons that 
 all guides consider necessary to keep up their strength. He 
 found a certain analogy between the guides and his nurses 
 even in that respect. They were perpetually proposing to 
 give him something in a cup. He did not now reject it with 
 scorn, even though he argued against the necessity of his 
 being treated like a Strassburg goose. He began to be 
 sorry not only that he had to face the world, but that he had 
 to leave the nurses. No doubt they looked upon him as a 
 patient, and as part of their work, but still they were human, 
 as soon as he got human himself. When it was arranged 
 that he was to leave the home in a few days he began to 
 feel that his departure would be a calamity. Yet, after 
 all, it was only one other disaster added to the many he 
 had known ; and the fact that he looked upon it as such 
 showed that he was better. He had thrown out a few roots 
 even in these alien surroundings. 
 
 Like most patients, he developed a desire to see the 
 operating theatre once more. When he had entered it he 
 believed that he had seen it clearly ; it seemed to be 
 photographed on his mind. He wished to verify his 
 impression. Strange things had happened there, and he 
 had not known them. It had been a great battle-field 
 where he had been wounded. He had his notions as to 
 how Renshaw and Heathcote and Barratt and Bent had 
 behaved they were strangely different from the reality, 
 but that he could not know. The matter had been so 
 serious to himself that he could not have imagined Renshaw 
 cracking jokes over him as he worked. He told Nurse 
 Smith he wanted to see the place again, and that afternoon 
 she took him up to it. 
 
 It was an adventure to get outside his own door. The 
 very landing seemed different ; he asked whether it had 
 
130 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 not been newly painted and done up, but the nurse told 
 him it had not been touched since he had been in the house. 
 It seemed, however, brighter and cleaner and smaller than 
 he had imagined it. He saw it more sharply, and noticed 
 everything. He sat down while he was in the lift and had 
 only a yard or two to walk till he came to the theatre door. 
 He sniffed a little curiously, and was conscious that the 
 odour of ether and iodoform hung about the place. The 
 door opened, and Nurse Ballantyne, who was acting as 
 theatre nurse, as the usual theatre nurse was away on a 
 holiday, came out of the room. He shook hands with her. 
 
 " I've come up to see you and the theatre," said Waring. 
 
 " Yes," said Nurse Smith, "Mr. Waring is like the rest 
 they all want to see it." 
 
 " A blood-stained battle-field ! " said Waring. " Isn't 
 it natural for an old veteran to go back to the field of battle 
 and see where he was laid out ? tortured and mutilated by 
 General Renshaw and our other savage friends." 
 
 He went in with them, and stared, and then turned round 
 to the nurses. 
 
 " But this isn't the place ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Oh yes, it is," replied Nurse Smith. 
 
 " It looks it looks smaller," said Waring. " Very much 
 smaller." 
 
 Perhaps Nurse Smith hit the truth when she said with 
 a smile, " Don't you think you feel bigger, Mr. Waring ? " 
 
 " Ah," said Waring, " perhaps that's it. I was shrunk 
 into myself then, and now " 
 
 Now he felt bigger. His personality had expanded ; 
 his interests were not contracted, or not so contracted as 
 they had been. They were not fixed on the shining copper 
 couch, though he looked at it curiously. His thoughts 
 spread out to the walls and beyond them . He was certainly 
 conscious that he was bigger, that he had grown. He was 
 sure that he was bigger than he had been. He knew many 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 131 
 
 more things with certainty, and they were bigger things. 
 He was part of them, not alien, not separate. 
 
 " All the same it's very odd," said Waring, " very odd ! 
 I thought it was a large room a very large room. I 
 remember the whiteness of it, and the cleanness of it. It 
 shone just as it does now." 
 
 " You can be sure it would shine when Ballantyne's here," 
 said Nurse Smith. 
 
 But indeed any theatre nurse would consider her character 
 lost for ever if a speck of dust was found anywhere. 
 
 " It must have an odd effect on you to work in so clean 
 a place," said Waring. " You live up to a high ideal of 
 sterilization I hope it doesn't sterilize your minds." 
 
 He went round the room and looked at everything : the 
 sterilizer, the drums, the beautifully coloured disinfectants, 
 the glass cupboard with the shining instruments in it. And 
 again he went and stood by the table, the operating table. 
 Last time he stood there Renshaw in his frock-coat had 
 greeted him. 
 
 "Mr. Renshaw is doing another operation here this 
 afternoon," said Nurse Ballantyne. 
 
 " Is he ? " asked Waring. " Is it anything serious ? " 
 
 But they said it was not serious. 
 
 " A good chap, Renshaw," said Waring. 
 
 " And so funny," said Nurse Ballantyne. 
 
 " Awfully funny," said Nurse Smith. 
 
 " When is he funny ? " asked Waring innocently. 
 
 " When he is operating," replied Nurse Ballantyne. 
 
 " Indeed," said Waring, " that's odd, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Oh no," said Nurse Ballantyne, " some of them are. 
 But he's an awfully kind man. We all love him here." 
 
 " Ah, and he's funny when he's operating," said Waring 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 It was curious to think of. But of course it was quite 
 right when he did think of it. Why should not Renshaw 
 
132 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 be amusing about his work, and while he was working ? 
 A man who could be amusing then was certainly likely to be 
 a man who knew his anatomy. He was used to it ; it was 
 his daily task. 
 
 " Was he very amusing when I was here ? " asked Waring, 
 touching the copper table. 
 
 " I don't remember," said Nurse Smith. " But I'm 
 sure he was he always is, you know. Unless, of course, 
 some accident happens." 
 
 She had seen one or two " accidents," as she called them, 
 when Renshaw was certainly not amusing. 
 
 " It's an awful pity," said Waring, " that I couldn't 
 hear him. Next time I have anything serious done I'll ask 
 them to give me stovaine, so that I can take it all in. I 
 missed a lot that was one of the reasons I hated to take 
 the anaesthetic. I shouldn't like to take another." 
 
 He went to the window and looked out on the roofs below. 
 He hardly saw them. Something seemed to tell him that 
 his time would come to take another anaesthetic it would 
 probably be in this room. 
 
 " I hope I shall not suffer as I did when I came out," he 
 thought, " if I do come out." 
 
 He said no more, but looked round the room very 
 curiously, and after shaking hands with Nurse Ballantyne 
 went back to his own room. He sat down in his chair and 
 smoked a cigarette while the nurse arranged some things 
 in the room. 
 
 " I shall be up there again, nurse," he said at last. 
 
 " You must not say so," said Nurse Smith severely. 
 " And I don't know why you should say so. You're getting 
 on wonderfully Mr. Renshaw is as proud of you as if he 
 were your great-grandfather so you shouldn't worry." 
 
 " Oh, I'm not worrying," replied Waring, " I'm not 
 worrying in the least. But I know I shall be up there 
 again and what's more, I mean to have No. 9 with my 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 133 
 
 own nurse, if I have to come into the place with a gun and 
 turn some confounded interloping patient out of it." 
 And he smiled at her as he spoke. 
 
 When she met Nurse Ballantyne in the nurses' room a 
 little later, she said, " Really No. 9 is rather a dear thing." 
 
 " He has changed tremendously," said Nurse Ballantyne. 
 
 " He's got the notion in his head that he's coming back 
 here again," said Nurse Smith. 
 
 " Oh, he'll come back all right," said Nurse Ballantyne. 
 
 " Did you hear Mr. Renshaw say anything ? " asked 
 Waring's nurse. 
 
 " He did say something which made me think Mr. 
 Waring's right," replied Nurse Ballantyne. " But if he's 
 going to be a little nicer than he used to be, I hope it won't 
 happen." 
 
 " Well, he's quite a nice thing, anyhow," said Nurse 
 Smith. " I shall be sorry to lose him to-morrow. I do 
 hope I shan't have another Jew I wonder why it is they 
 always think they're going to die ? " 
 
 " I know," said Nurse Ballantyne. " They're afraid 
 they'll miss that house in Park Lane." 
 
 " Have you seen Miss Waring lately ? " asked Nurse 
 Smith. 
 
 Ballantyne nodded. 
 
 " She's a dear thing, if you like," she said. " And I'll 
 tell you what I think of Mr. Waring when he's been out for 
 a few months." 
 
 Above their heads in No. 9 Waring sat quietly. On the 
 morrow he was leaving this harbour of refuge. It had 
 become a kind of paradise of rest to him, and yet now there 
 sprang within him vague desires for work, for life, for action ; 
 for opportunities to discover whether he had indeed changed 
 or whether, after all, he was essentially the same, and his 
 new philosophy no more than the shadow of his suffering. 
 
134 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 XV 
 
 WHEN the hour came for him to leave the nursing home 
 Waring felt amazingly reluctant to go, and yet he had the 
 notion in him that he would soon be strong, even though his 
 strength might only last for a time. But when he went 
 downstairs he knew he had over-estimated his strength and 
 energy. He felt that was so even before he left his room, 
 when he put his hands on Nurse Smith's shoulders and 
 kissed her affectionately on both cheeks. He said nothing 
 but, li You have been very good to me." 
 
 Joyce went with him to Brighton. Mrs. Waring, then in 
 the middle of an urgent and overpowering spring-cleaning, 
 had been unable to induce herself to desert it. All the same 
 she did her duty in the matter of her husband's housing ; 
 for she went down to Brighton herself, and took rooms for 
 him at Hove at the extreme west end of the town. She 
 came back the same day with a headache, of which she was 
 duly proud she had got it by doing her duty. She went 
 on seeking salvation with vacuum cleaners and perpetual 
 soap. It was her firm belief that she loved her husband, 
 but her real passion was for No. 88, and its proper cleanli- 
 ness. She was quite satisfied to let her husband go away 
 with Joyce ; it would at any rate take the girl away from 
 London out of the reach of Hardy, whom she was convinced 
 her daughter still met at times. 
 
 When Waring looked out of his window and saw the sea 
 and the waves upon the beach of shingle he felt that he was 
 coming back to life. With each breath of the sea air he 
 drew in courage. His mind worked easier ; he got away 
 from himself. There was something of the universal about 
 the sea, and he had been living in strange and bitter 
 particularities. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 135 
 
 He made rapid but irregular progress. Sometimes he 
 woke at night and felt intolerably lonely, as if he were lost. 
 As had happened in the nursing home, there were times, 
 when he was only half awake, that he did not know who he 
 was. It was a strange and awful feeling not to be able 
 to give himself a name. He remembered how his brother 
 now dead for many years had told him he had been 
 through the same experience some weeks before he died. 
 Waring wished to have somebody in the room. He missed 
 the night nurse. Now he could not ring the bell and be sure 
 that she would presently sail into his quiet room and stand 
 at the foot of his bed and smile encouragingly, with her air 
 of angelic aloofness. He found a little bitterness in his 
 heart against Milly she might have put aside her per- 
 petual lustration of the house and come away with him. 
 He was almost bitter against his daughter. If she had had 
 the courage to follow her instincts she would have been 
 with her lover, and then Jennie would have been with 
 him ; he was happiest with her, and knew it. 
 
 But the days went on, and he grew stronger. Presently 
 he was able to sit in the gardens a little removed from the 
 sea. At first he could only stay there an hour, and went 
 straight back to bed with an infinite relief ; but little by 
 little his hour became two, and even three. It grew less 
 fatiguing to talk ; he began to think of newspapers ; he 
 asked for them, looked at them, dropped them from his 
 hand and sat thinking, thinking. 
 
 When he did talk with Joyce he spoke no more to her 
 of what was in her heart, but he was still sympathetic. He 
 saw how hope grew in her. Sometimes he saw her reading 
 letters which she did not show him ; he knew they were 
 from her lover. He was glad that they were ; she was 
 getting something ; and although at times he felt within 
 himself a little of that natural jealousy which many fathers 
 feel, he did not resent the fact that Robert Hardy was her 
 
136 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 lover. He wanted the girl to have a life of her own he 
 had seen too many who had not lived. He had had his own 
 life, it was probably nearly over, but he had lived almost 
 to the full. He was not conscious of unsatisfied desires 
 that rankled in him, those desires that die and poison a man 
 like some dead parasite. It was a bitter thing to look upon 
 the world and see so many men and women who had no 
 courage to be themselves. 
 
 He thought a great deal of his new philosophy. He 
 saw that he would never get over the feeling which had 
 come to him after the operation ; the mechanism of the 
 universe and its strange inevitability still possessed him. 
 But now he did not feel that the mechanism was of itself 
 malignant : it was nothing but a strange destiny that 
 marched to some unknown end. He knew that he and 
 every one only exercised the powers and the faculties that 
 they possessed in accordance with the overruling necessity 
 of nature. As his strength came back these feelings 
 sank away from him, although they remained in full life. 
 He lost more and more of that appalling sense that the 
 world was a thing merely mechanical, of steel and concrete. 
 'He tasted it no more ; the taste had gone out of his mouth. 
 The world had a little play in it ; it was not now so rigid as 
 it had been. 
 
 But he was under no delusion about the play of his own 
 mind. He was under no delusion as to free will. But 
 under the stimulus of the sea and the air he saw that his 
 mind grew again and budded : it was like the green things 
 that grow in the spring. He liked to see things growing. 
 One day Joyce found him examining curiously nothing 
 more extraordinary than a common daisy in the turf. He 
 said he had never looked at one closely before. He begged 
 her not to bring him any cut flowers, so she bought him 
 something growing in a pot. He smiled at her, and at 
 himself. 
 
137 
 
 Joyce found him much easier to get on with than she had 
 feared. She was instinctively less frightened of him. 
 Now sometimes her father had a strange childlike air which 
 was pathetic to notice he had once been so strong and so 
 sure. He had been a puzzle to her even as a child ; an 
 awful, far-off, aloof problem. Now he seemed very simple. 
 He told her what he wanted, and often said things that 
 were really his thoughts that about the daisy for instance. 
 In the old days he seemed to expect people to find out what 
 he wanted, and very rarely said what he thought when 
 it was pleasant. 
 
 He had lived in his work, and deeming it of infinite 
 importance had conceived that others should think of it as 
 he did. It had become a fetish, a kind of Moloch : work 
 was My Lord the King. He had expected even his children 
 to sacrifice themselves. Now he got the notion that in the 
 end it was oneself that should be sacrificed. Perhaps that 
 was the one deep truth in the whole savage and awful 
 doctrine of sacrifice. He sometimes felt now that nothing 
 which man conceived was without some truth at the back 
 of it. 
 
 And although Joyce did not understand all that she saw, 
 yet she saw the results. He was a stranger, and much more 
 lovable therefor. At times she thought he was a little 
 like her brother Jack, when Jack was sweet and brotherly, 
 which sometimes happened. He was less the man she had 
 known and more the father she had wished for, and in his 
 rare moments of tenderness had thought she had found. 
 He was curiously ready with excuses for people, whereas 
 in the old days he had been brutally ready with condemna- 
 tions. Now, if he heard of a crime he sometimes said of the 
 criminal, " Poor devil ! " If she did not understand it, 
 she thought that he was strangely softened, and this 
 softness did not disappear as he grew better. 
 
 She was glad of that, for she had often wondered during 
 
138 
 
 the last few weeks whether he would really hold to what 
 he had said. She told her lover everything, but his reply 
 was, " You mustn't rely on it, Joyce. Your father's been 
 through a bad time. Perhaps he doesn't know what he 
 really does think and how are we to know that he'll go on 
 thinking as he does now ? " 
 
 " I believe he will," was her answer. 
 
 But nevertheless Robert still bade her not rely on it too 
 much. 
 
 " In the end you'll have to rely on me," he said, " for 
 this can't go on. It can't." 
 
 She knew it couldn't, and sometimes she hoped that 
 her lover would take her by force, or by some trick, whereby 
 her conscience should be clear. But Hardy, though strong, 
 was a bookish and contemplative man, not ready in action. 
 Nor did he understand that in a woman. 
 
 They had been a whole month at Hove before her father 
 mentioned Hardy's name. By now he was looking very 
 much better. He could walk to the beach without assist- 
 ance, and often sat upon the shingle when the weather was 
 fine. While they were there together he said one day, 
 " Joyce, I think you'd better ask Robert Hardy to come 
 down here, I'd like to see him." 
 
 "Yes, father," said his daughter. " I'll I'll ask 
 him." 
 
 He saw she trembled and was shaken, yet she looked 
 happy, and almost glorified. There was something strange 
 in her eyes. Waring seemed to think he understood what 
 it meant. He smiled a little grimly. 
 
 " I dare say you thought that I shouldn't keep to what 
 I had promised ? " he said presently. 
 
 Instinctively she hastened to deny that she had felt 
 that, but then she caught herself up and said honestly, " I 
 did think you might not, after all." 
 
 " I am more on your side than I was," said her father. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 139 
 
 " I think it's all a matter of understanding. You write to 
 him and ask him to come and see us." 
 
 He saw the tears run down her face and took no notice. 
 After all they were happy tears, and he had sometimes made 
 her weep those which were not happy. He remembered 
 beating her when she was a little girl it made his heart sore 
 to think of it. 
 
 Presently Joyce said, " Don't you think you're getting on 
 wonderfully ? " 
 
 " Oh yes," replied her father, " there's no doubt about 
 that, my dear." 
 
 " But you said you'd never be what you were ? " 
 
 "I hope not," he answered. "I'm a little wiser and 
 although youth's a great thing I don't think anyone who 
 was really sure he was wiser would give up that wisdom 
 for a few more years of life." 
 
 Thus it was that Robert Hardy came down to Hove on 
 the following Saturday and found the father of the girl he 
 loved out upon the beach. After he had spoken to Joyce 
 in the house he went down to the sea and found Waring 
 lying on the shingle. 
 
 Hardy was a man of a little over thirty, but he looked 
 older. He had the air of one who had had much experience, 
 and indeed anyone who had lived for the better part of 
 ten years with a woman given to drink and violence was apt 
 to have such a look. Even Waring knew that he had done 
 everything possible for the woman who bore his name. At 
 the time of his marriage he was a schoolmaster, but he had 
 to give up the business and become his wife's nurse and 
 keeper for many years. When he was at last forced to 
 leave her he put the money that remained to him into the 
 business in which he was now a partner. 
 
 W T hen Waring heard the footsteps of some one on the 
 shingle he turned to see who it was. Even on the first 
 glance Hardy was aware of great changes in him. In one 
 
140 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 sense his youth seemed renewed, but it was like the youth 
 of some other man. Hardy remembered their last talk 
 when he had been forbidden to see Joyce again. Waring 
 had been violent. His voice was harsh, his aspect for- 
 bidding, his words brutal. Now he was curiously gentle ; 
 obviously less wrapt up in himself, less proud. These 
 things Hardy saw at a glance. They were not hidden any- 
 one could have seen them when Waring smiled. 
 
 " You mustn't expect me to get up, Hardy," he said, 
 " that's still a little labour, as you can guess." 
 
 " Of course you mustn't move," said Hardy, and the 
 two men shook hands. 
 
 Then Hardy sat down on the shingle half facing Waring, 
 and for a little while neither of them spoke. But both 
 of them thought, and Waring said to himself, " This is the 
 man that I nearly kicked out of my own house and I 
 thought I was doing right ! " 
 
 Presently he spoke, and what he said was, with a little 
 flicker of his eyebrows, " Queer, isn't it, Hardy ! " 
 
 " Very queer," said Hardy, "very queer ! " 
 
 " I'm changed, I suppose ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " I think you look better, and younger," said Hardy. 
 " There's more likeness between you and your daughter 
 than there was." 
 
 " Well, that's another queer thing," said Waring. " They 
 put me through it, you know did some alterations and 
 repairs, no mistake about that. Ever read your Aristotle, 
 Hardy ? " 
 
 Hardy shook his head. 
 
 " Can't say I ever touched him," he answered. " I 
 don't think I ever got farther than Xenophon so many 
 parasangs, you know." 
 
 " Good things in old Xenophon, all the same," said 
 Waring. " But according to Aristotle, the chief function of 
 tragedy was a purification the purification of the mind, or 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 141 
 
 the soul, or the spirit, or whatever you like to call it. A 
 good many of the scholars, Hardy, quarrel as to what his 
 word katharsis means, and what he meant by it. Those who 
 don't know never went through a tragedy, though they 
 might have seen some and read more. Those whom tragedy 
 doesn't kill and doesn't spoil, it purifies. And there are 
 all kinds of tragedies, mental and physical. However, I 
 suppose Joyce has told you what I told her ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Hardy nervously. 
 
 " I meant her to, of course," said Waring. " I dare say 
 it surprised you ? " 
 
 " I suppose it did," said Hardy, " and yet somehow it 
 didn't. I suppose a man can get in a state of mind that 
 a miracle wouldn't surprise him. But yes, it did surprise 
 me. You see, the last time " 
 
 " Oh, don't talk about that," said Waring hastily. 
 " I remember. I suppose I was a brute. I was the normal 
 man, I suppose English father, and all that kind of thing 
 doing my duty making everybody infernally miserable. I 
 dare say I thought I should live for ever then though for 
 that matter I was beastly ill and that I should always 
 feel the same. It's all a matter of morality. I suppose 
 you've thought of our morality, Hardy ? " 
 
 " If I haven't, who has ? " he asked bitterly. 
 
 " Well, <5ne thinks one knows," said Waring, " and one 
 doesn't. You remember ' I wish I was as cocksure of 
 anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything ! ' 
 
 And Hardy laughed. 
 
 " Then you're not cocksure now, sir ? " he asked. 
 
 Waring nodded. 
 
 " Oh yes, I'm cocksure that being cocksure is wrong," 
 he said with a smile. "It's a savage characteristic, being 
 cocksure, so I suppose Macaulay was a good old typical 
 savage. Have you ever read much anthropology ? " 
 
 But Hardy could not say he had. 
 
142 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Savages are tabooed a foot thick," said Waring. 
 " Their life is taboos. They mustn't do this, they 
 mustn't do that, they mustn't do the other. And they 
 must do this, that, and the other ; or else the whole universe 
 will tumble to pieces, the corn won't grow, they won't have 
 any children, the animals will have no young, and the very 
 gods will crack up like plaster in a fire. We think that 
 we're civilized ; and what we call civilization is having our 
 set of selected taboos which are right, and knowing that all 
 other people's are wrong. Oh, we're still savages, Hardy ! " 
 
 " I never doubted it," said Hardy, " though I think I 
 know more of the outside of books than I do of the inside." 
 
 " I read it all years ago," said Waring, " and having a 
 memory like a rat-trap I couldn't get rid of it, but I didn't 
 understand it, and now I do. What I understood in the 
 old days was a set of facts, and now it seems that old 
 Renshaw's set my logic mill going. I've been drawing 
 conclusions. A queer kind of school I've been to I 
 hadn't any idea when Renshaw got his analytic knife to 
 work on me that he was such a teacher. What the devil he 
 took away I really couldn't tell you it was something to 
 do with the colon. It would be a dashed odd thing if the 
 colon turned out to be the fountain of taboos, wouldn't 
 it?" 
 
 He spoke half to himself, and as a matter of fact Hardy 
 hardly followed him. 
 
 " You say I look younger," said Waring after a moment's 
 pause. 
 
 " You do, really," replied Hardy. 
 
 " A mistake, my son," said Waring. " I'm now about 
 ten thousand and so unutterably wise you wouldn't 
 understand it if I explained it for a fortnight. How's that 
 wife of yours getting on ? " 
 
 Hardy's brows darkened, and he shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Just as usual," he replied. " Nobody'll certify her 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 143 
 
 they say she's got nothing but a violent temper. Perhaps 
 if she had every one in the country bowing down to her 
 she'd be all right." 
 
 " There's no possible chance of your ever going back to 
 her, I suppose ? " asked Waring, staring him straight in 
 the face. 
 
 But Hardy shook his head. 
 
 " You need make no mistake about that," he replied. 
 " I'd rather cut my throat, or hers or both ! " 
 
 " I dare say," said Waring, " I dare say." 
 
 He wanted to go on talking about Joyce, but there 
 were strange difficulties in the way. It always seemed that 
 there were such when one did anything fresh, anything not 
 commonly done. These were the obstacles put in the way 
 of anything new ; it was the natural deadly conservatism of 
 the mind, the numbing influence of habit and custom. It 
 seemed as if the mind thickened about anything that had 
 been done, and as it crystallized became incapable of 
 motion. He knew that he would have had a difficulty 
 in talking about the girl if Hardy had not been married, 
 and had come there with the usual proposition. He found 
 a difficulty in talking about his women-folk. It was a point 
 of instinctive delicacy, and perhaps of instinctive savagery. 
 It was almost easier for him to say, " Look here, Hardy, for 
 God's sake take her and go away, and let's hear no more 
 of it," than to talk quietly. But he had not the energy to 
 speak on an impulse that died out before it came to words. 
 It translated itself into a kind of irritability. 
 
 " How long have you felt as you do ? you understand," 
 said Waring sharply. 
 
 " It's more than four years now," said Hardy with a 
 kind of aloof air, as if he were talking about something that 
 did not matter, " more than four years. Oh, I stick to it, 
 sir. I shan't change." 
 
 Waring was glad he did not mention Joyce's name, or 
 
144 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 say "her." He was grateful to him for making it easy, 
 perhaps by instinct. 
 
 " I can believe that," he said abruptly. " Look here, 
 Hardy, if you behave badly supposing things go as I hope 
 they will I think I'd crawl after you if I were dying, and 
 kiU you." 
 
 " There's no chance of your wanting to," said Hardy 
 quite simply. 
 
 " My asking you to come and see me shows you what I 
 mean," said Waring. " Of course it's a hard thing to do I 
 wouldn't have done it a little while ago but I see it's 
 right. I dare say you've never seen anybody get ill and go 
 under you don't want to see it, either. I don't want to 
 see it again. Joyce doesn't look too well." 
 
 And Hardy did not answer, but sat staring at the shingle. 
 
 " If it comes out," said Waring, " I suppose people 
 will howl at me. I shall be told I'm the most this and the 
 most that who ever lived. However, they'll say I was ill 
 and crazy and if they abuse me it will be all the better for 
 you." 
 
 " Aren't people getting more sensible than they used 
 to be ? " asked Hardy. " It seems to me they are. We're 
 not all clergymen and old maids and religious lunatics 
 nowadays." 
 
 " Oh, they've changed a little," said Waring. " We're 
 changing fast enough in some ways, but it's still very slow. 
 Men like ourselves think we're the world because we 
 represent the intellectual side of things. When you get off 
 your track you'll recognize the change is only in a few. 
 Religious lunatics, you say why, only the other day I 
 heard of some important fool declaring publicly, with 
 religious tears in his eyes I suppose they'd be a pa'le and 
 watery blue that such a thing as an atheist was an 
 impossibility, and didn't and couldn't exist. That was a 
 public and representative fool. However, as I said, I shall 
 
145 
 
 get the blame but they'll make excuses for me, and 
 perhaps attend my funeral." 
 
 " Oh, come," said Hardy, "that's postponed indefinitely." 
 
 " Only for a bit," said Waring. " You know, I've got 
 to talk to my wife about this." 
 
 " I understand," said Hardy reluctantly. " I suppose 
 you must, although it's a pity in fact, I think you ought 
 to." 
 
 It was a bitter concession for him to make, but still, 
 although things were going his own way, Hardy felt that 
 even now Waring was not normal, and to rush his decision 
 was perhaps not wholly fair. He wanted to be fair. 
 
 " It'll be a bad business," said Waring, " but I must 
 speak about it, although it would be wiser to present her 
 with something which couldn't be altered. I think I might 
 have done it a little while ago if I'd felt as I do now. Look 
 here, old chap, I'm tired I can't talk. I don't want to say 
 any more except that if things come to the worst in any 
 way, and I can't help you, you'd better take matters in 
 your own hands. Now, that's all I want to say." 
 
 Hardy got up. 
 
 " Is Joyce in the house ? " asked Waring, with a casual 
 air as though they had not been speaking of her. 
 
 " I believe so," said Hardy. 
 
 " You'd better go and talk to her, Robert," said Waring. 
 " I'll see you before you go, just for a few minutes." 
 
 It was the first time he had ever called Hardy by his 
 Christian name. 
 
146 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 XVI 
 
 WARING was glad when his talk with Hardy was over. 
 He disliked the feeling of awkwardness and shame that 
 made him avoid speaking of Joyce. He began to look upon 
 his past customs of thought with resentment however 
 differently his intellect worked the old taboos clung to him 
 all the time. They were old pensioners and parasites 
 suddenly disinherited and disendowed. They screamed 
 behind him like a crowd of angry beggars. 
 
 It was, he thought, curious that some of the things he had 
 said to Hardy had never occurred to him before he spoke 
 of them. They came up into his mind out of the depths ; 
 he was always finding new opinions. In the old days he 
 had read enormously. But though he had had the know- 
 ledge, and had drawn conclusions unconsciously, they had 
 been drawn in the air, put down on some academic black- 
 board ; they were not those conclusions which determined 
 action. 
 
 Now he discovered that he was drawing those con- 
 clusions. He had taken his photographs and had kept 
 them in the dark-room of his mind ; but now they were 
 developing. It seemed to him that a man with brains was 
 always full of unborn opinions and conclusions. He was 
 in a perpetual state of mental gestation. Waring began to 
 anticipate other changes in himself. He knew he would 
 get used to things the crowd of angry taboos would no 
 longer pursue him like a flock of foul birds. It occurred to 
 him that some day soon he might find himself staying in 
 Hardy's house with his own unmarried daughter with 
 Hardy's mistress, in fact and would accept the situation, 
 as he proposed to accept it now. It seemed curious to 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 147 
 
 think of. Part of his old self might still be talking, still 
 babbling old and futile moralities, ancient outworn rules, 
 the dead taboos of the dead. 
 
 He found himself thinking of Milly. Now he was very 
 sorry for her. She would have a bad time. She was a 
 little household doer ; she did things neatly, could hem 
 handkerchiefs like her grandmother, was good with marking- 
 ink. Born a haus-frau she became a house demon, a 
 polisher of furniture with a particular passion for polished 
 steel in the fender. " How can those know wisdom whose 
 talk is of bullocks ? " So said the Wisdom of Solomon. 
 Waring had been a Conservative, and in some ways was one 
 still. He had heard little squires settle the affairs of the 
 nation with a determined anticipation of disaster because 
 their opinions were not adopted. His wife belonged to the 
 same order. All her politics of the house and the family 
 would be disorganized. Her sacred places were to be in- 
 vaded, her idols destroyed, her groves of worship cut down. 
 
 For a moment he was grieved that he had changed so 
 much, that he had become tolerant, that tolerance was his 
 god, replacing the dreadful shadow of the Hebrew mind 
 upon the skies of nature. If he could only feel now as he 
 had done he could have crushed his wife's opposition and 
 crushed her with it. He felt that he was doing right, but 
 had all those sensations of doing wrong which accompanied 
 the revolutionist who was also a thinker. Oddly enough 
 he found that there were less worthy motives influencing 
 him in the same direction, motives which made him almost 
 reluctant to act as he proposed. There was a certain 
 horrible inclination in him to get, as it were, even with 
 Milly. In her unselfish devotion to the house and his 
 interests she had been appallingly selfish he felt, some- 
 how, that he had been weighed against a spoonful of dust 
 and had kicked the beam. 
 
 He had the detached man's dislike of furniture and 
 
148 
 
 property, whereas Milly was a parasite, and a victim of 
 things : things which were concrete : things in which one 
 could see one's face. She was capable of scrubbing an old 
 master with powerful soap. So she made illusions for 
 herself and lived in them, lived in her secluded house far 
 from reality, because her realities were things. Now she 
 would be thrust suddenly against a reality that was not a 
 thing but a thought, a state of mind, a human instinct, 
 greater than those instincts of mere property and posses- 
 sion. 
 
 It annoyed Waring when he thought that in doing right 
 he would satisfy an unworthy feeling but perhaps there 
 was worse than that behind. He was capable of wishing 
 Joyce would run away with Hardy and have done with it, 
 for then he could go away with Jennie, could get on a 
 steamer and go down to the south of Spain, which Jennie 
 wanted to see, and take her to Algeciras, to Gibraltar, to 
 Ronda. And when he was well enough they might go on 
 to Granada. Jennie was one who did not care about things 
 or furniture. 
 
 And even as he thought these things Waring found it 
 rather odd to think that he was not now so utterly un- 
 sympathetic even about furniture as he had been. His 
 wife's taste was by no means impeccable, but at times she 
 did buy rather good things. After all, it was her passion, 
 and if she got something which made life worth living out 
 of soap and furniture polish there was no more to be said. 
 It behoved one to be tolerant, even sympathetic. He dis- 
 covered that the thing became humorous and not without 
 its pathos. 
 
 So one day when he and Joyce drove into Brighton and 
 took a little walk on the front, they stopped outside an 
 antique furniture shop, and Waring said : " Another of 
 your mother's hunting-grounds, my dear that's not a 
 bad sideboard either." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 149 
 
 " Mother would like it," said Joyce. " There's heaps 
 to polish in it, isn't there ? 
 
 Naturally enough Joyce, whose passion was not for 
 polish, had certain bitter remembrances connected with the 
 subject. She remembered those awful days in which her 
 energetic mother had turned herself and the whole family 
 loose on the furniture with soft rags and a bottle apiece, 
 and had kept it up for solid hours. During this labour, 
 for her an immense delight, she related passages of her own 
 youth in which her father, from whom she professed to 
 inherit her desire for cleanliness and furniture in which one 
 could see one's face, had also gathered together his family 
 not even excluding reluctant visitors and saying, " All 
 hands to the pumps ! " had polished for dear life. 
 
 " Yes, she would like it,' J said Waring. " And, after all, 
 it's not bad. Let's go in and see how much it is if we 
 can get it for less than twenty pounds we'll have it sent 
 to her." 
 
 And sent it was, seeing that Mrs. Waring's birthday was 
 that very week. She received it with a softened heart, 
 shed tears of joy on it, and immediately set to work with 
 polish and polishing rags. When one of her friends, who 
 knew good stuff from bad, declared that it was worth at 
 least thirty or forty pounds, she polished it again. 
 
 After all, from her point of view, life was well worth 
 living. Tom was away, getting well, no doubt, after being 
 so inconsiderate as to be seriously ill. Her own health was 
 perfect, and she resented illness in others. Joyce was far 
 away from the evil influence of that Hardy, and Jack was 
 at home for a while before he went to Coventry. Previous 
 to her son's return she had discharged her maids, who were 
 not without good looks, and had hired two that Jack 
 described as dug-up mummies. Thus she guarded against 
 any possible domestic disaster, though she regretted to 
 find that her new servants, like the old ones, preferred the 
 
150 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 modern cinematograph to polishing furniture in their spare 
 moments. However, the fact that the two elderly and 
 unattractive women whom she called girls were obviously 
 safe and obviously virtuous the result, no doubt, of a 
 solid experience of their own unattractiveness allowed 
 her to spend the end of the week at Hove, where she 
 bustled round, did an amazing amount of superfluous 
 dusting, and made Waring's landlady almost ready to 
 throw them all into the street. 
 
 " And now, my dear," said his wife, " I suppose you'll 
 be able to get to work very soon ? " 
 
 " Why, mother," said Joyce, " father won't be able to 
 work for months yet ! " 
 
 " Nonsense, my dear, nonsense ! " said Mrs. Waring. 
 " He's got over the operation immensely well haven't 
 you, Tom ? " 
 
 " Very well indeed, my dear," said Wearing. " All the 
 same I shan't work yet the doctors won't let me." 
 
 Now Mrs. Waring naturally enough, being so extra- 
 ordinarily healthy, loathed the medical profession and 
 considered them a set of unnecessary parasites. As she 
 never suffered from nerves she understood no one who did. 
 She put everything of that kind down to hysteria, which 
 she regarded as a moral blemish, to say nothing of a religious 
 crime. Anyone who was ill she suspected of neglecting 
 their religious duties. 
 
 " I don't care what the doctors say," replied Mrs. 
 Waring, " your father's looking very much better than 
 I've seen him look for a long time." 
 
 She spoke of him while he was there as if he were a 
 thousand miles off. 
 
 " It's a bad thing," she added, " to get out of the habit 
 of work especially when work is so necessary." 
 
 Of course she thought work more necessary than it 
 really was. Her husband had never told her how much he 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 151 
 
 had, or what his income was independent of his work. He 
 never meant her to know for more reasons than one, but 
 one was sufficient : he had provided, and had always 
 meant to provide, for Jennie in case of his death. 
 
 " Don't worry, Milly," he said at last. " It will be all 
 right. Besides, presently I'm going to Spain, partly on 
 business. I dare say in another month or two I shall be 
 able to go to work. It's beginning to come back to me 
 you see, I read the papers." 
 
 His expenditure on newspapers had always been a bitter 
 point with his wife. She herself would have been content 
 to hear the weekly news on coming out of church on Sunday 
 morning. The fact that her husband spent a shilling a 
 day at least on ordinary newspapers, to say nothing about 
 the weeklies, gave her acute anguish. He had tried to 
 explain to her a dozen times, sometimes in the secret 
 watches of the night, that newspapers were the breath of 
 life to a journalist, and that two or three words in some 
 unconsidered telegram from Berlin or the East might mean 
 the price of many pots of polish. 
 
 " Yes, I see them," said Milly, " and, of course, I can in 
 a way understand why you should want them when you are 
 working, but why, when you are not working, you should 
 have seventeen newspapers, I really can't understand, 
 Tom." 
 
 " There are not seventeen," said Waring. " As a matter 
 of fact, my dear, there are only seven." 
 
 " Seven, or seventeen, or twenty-seven, it's all the same 
 thing," she said. " I should have thought a halfpenny 
 Daily Mail, when you were ill, would have been quite 
 sufficient." 
 
 " I've got to keep up with the procession," said Waring. 
 " I can't go back to work, my dear, without knowing what's 
 been going on. Would you like to have a look at the 
 Tagliche Rundschau, or the Diario of Madrid ? " 
 
152 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Sometimes, Tom, I think you're a positive fool," said 
 his wife. " You know I don't read German or Spanish. 
 When do you think you are going to Spain ? " 
 
 "I'm going next week, I think," said Waring. " I shall 
 get some real sunlight there. And I want to see what's 
 going on in Barcelona there's going to be trouble there 
 again. However, you haven't told us how you liked that 
 sideboard I sent you." 
 
 " I wrote about it," said Mrs. Waring. 
 
 " Did it take a good polish ? " asked her husband. 
 
 " Splendid," said Milly. " Jack helped me polish it." 
 
 " Without being asked ? " inquired her husband. 
 
 " Oh no, I asked him, of course," said Milly. " But 
 he was very good about it. Mrs. Mackintosh says that it's 
 worth sixty pounds how much did you pay for it ? " 
 
 " Sixteen, my dear," said Waring. " I'm glad you like 
 it, and glad it was a bargain. It will be a piece of property 
 long after you and I are where polish will be no good." 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't talk that way," said his wife, 
 who could hardly imagine any paradise without shining 
 furniture. Indeed, the description of heaven given 
 authoritatively in the Book of Revelation appealed to her 
 astoundingly. It seemed to promise a long eternity in 
 which selected saints would be responsible for the proper 
 glitter of the gold and precious stones of which that 
 paradise was mainly composed. 
 
 On the whole she went back to London to take up her 
 duties in her fight against the London smuts with a cheer- 
 ful heart. Tom was better, Joyce obviously getting over 
 the Hardy affair, and Jack, conscious of his misdeeds, was 
 saving her much money by his skill in carpentering. 
 
 That night Waring said to Joyce : " When you have a 
 home of your own, my dear, don't polish your man out of 
 it. Your mother's a dear good woman, but upon my word 
 there have been times when I felt like getting up in the 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 153 
 
 night and scratching all the furniture with a fork. I don't 
 suppose my sense of smell is extremely acute, but I re- 
 member years ago I could always smell my own house 
 when the west wind blew as I came home from Fleet Street. 
 There's no sense of home when the odour of polish pre- 
 dominates it gives the whole thing a shocking air of 
 publicity. I used to feel there were painters round the 
 corner ; and the peculiar ubiquity of oily rags, which I 
 used to find stuffed on the top of my books, annoyed me 
 furiously. Even now there are some of them which recall 
 to me the epochs and eras when a certain kind of polish 
 predominated. And if you ever shut windows to keep 
 smuts out, I'll cut you off with a shilling." 
 
 The next week they went over together to Dieppe, for 
 Waring began to feel he must have a change. He was now 
 able to walk short distances without great fatigue ; his 
 strength was certainly coming back to him. 
 
 It was the first time Joyce had seen a foreign country. 
 Her interest in it was so extreme that Waring regretted he 
 had not taken her before. Perhaps he had been partly 
 discouraged when his wife had accompanied him to Paris 
 and Vienna. Milly had taken no particular interest in 
 anything that she saw except by way of criticism. She 
 was peculiarly insular, and every difference in habit and 
 custom approached, if it did not actually attain, the awful 
 distinction of immorah'ty. For instance, although she was 
 well accustomed to occupy a different room from her 
 husband, owing to his journalistic custom of coming to 
 bed at unearthly hours, she regarded a room with twin beds 
 with a peculiar and inexplicable horror. She certainly 
 could not explain it, and Waring gave up hoping to under- 
 stand it after a prolonged cross-examination which at any 
 rate afforded him some insight into the feminine mind 
 when it was more than commonly limited. 
 
 She cared nothing for art except in the shape of furniture. 
 
154 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 The only effect of Paris on her was a profound depression, 
 due to the fact that she could not purchase one particular 
 piece in the Louvre. Pictures appealed to her not. La 
 Gioconda, which at that time still hung in the Salon Carre, 
 was, as she said to her husband, obviously an immoral 
 woman. 
 
 " She looks as if she was gloating over something not fit 
 to be told," said Mrs. Waring. " And she looks pleased 
 that those who ought to know it, don't." 
 
 In its way this criticism was extraordinarily acute, 
 however much out of place. It gave Waring a hint of the 
 fact, of which he had previously been comparatively 
 ignorant, that even the biggest fool of a woman at certain 
 times may be fatally expert in spotting the weak point in 
 other women's characters. But to carry morality of that 
 kind into art criticism gave Waring a shiver. 
 
 By now Waring was certainly recovering his phj^sical 
 strength. He had always been sceptical as to his entire 
 recovery, and he was by now perfectly aware that he 
 would never feel as he had done. Once he had been a man 
 without nerves, a good and bold horseman, a very passable 
 fencer, a fine shot with a pistol. Now he knew that he 
 would never ride a horse again ; he would fence no more. 
 Any little shock or surprise still made him start. It 
 seemed to make his heart stop. He had certain night 
 terrors, such as sometimes characterize profound nervous 
 exhaustion or neurasthenia itself. His reluctance to be 
 left alone at night was sometimes extreme. He found now 
 that he was apt to leave the shaded lamp by his bed alight 
 all night. 
 
 It was at night that he was especially conscious of the 
 extreme fragility of life. Once he had held it with an 
 extraordinary grip, but now it seemed ready to slide away 
 from him. Sometimes he fell asleep thinking that he 
 would die in the night. He had no real reason to allege 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 155 
 
 for this, but still he felt it. It is true that his heart did not 
 work with the old certainty ; he became conscious of it, 
 and heard it beating as he lay on the pillow. Sometimes 
 he turned on his back to lessen the sound. Altogether he 
 was infinitely more conscious of his body, and infinitely 
 more conscious that his body was himself. All remains of 
 the old vitalism which still vitiated so many of the con- 
 clusions even of science, had been swept out of him. He 
 felt certain that the workings of his brain were what he 
 had called his soul, or his spirit. Now he knew that these 
 strange, deep workings had, as it were, a certain shadow 
 or projection, and that projected shadow was what he 
 called his mind, the live strange automatic registration of 
 the wonderful pulsating and palpitating protoplasm of his 
 cerebral centres. 
 
 All he had read of science came back to him under a new 
 aspect. It was no longer words or barren conclusions, no 
 longer the play of logic merely : his conclusions clothed 
 themselves. And even so he perceived the wonder of it 
 all, and was peculiarly astonished that men still clung so 
 strangely to the old savage doctrines of some internal 
 moving mannikin that did the things that the live man 
 himself could not do. Thus they removed the difficulty 
 a step farther away, and having removed it beyond their 
 sight were satisfied. They called in the soul to explain a 
 miracle. They called in the soul which they did not under- 
 stand to explain the miracle they did not understand, and 
 having given themselves two difficulties instead of one, 
 believed that the problem was solved. 
 
 In the old days he had accepted these theories without 
 believing them. He had thought he believed them, that 
 was all. So he had accepted immortality. So he had 
 received that Brocken spectre of the lofty hills that men 
 call God, and believing in a simple childlike way in spite 
 of his strong adult intelligence, conceived that these were 
 
156 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 explanations. But now there was no explanation. The 
 thing was so. His body and nature worked ; he felt the 
 onward rush and roar of time, and knew that time, too, was 
 but the shadow of the workings of the universe, its strange 
 and terrific evolution. At hours the thing stood still for 
 him ; at other times it moved, so that he perceived the 
 generations rise and pass like a reaped wheatfield of many 
 seasons. 
 
 Thus life once more showed itself to him as a bubble : 
 miraculous, many-coloured. It was a drop of sparkling 
 water, a dewdrop on some bending blade of grass. It was 
 deposited, it grew, it sparkled, it fell ; and after that 
 joined the great flood that went no man knew whither. 
 And the hour came when no man could work. When he 
 conceived these thoughts within him, he regretted that 
 what power he had had not been turned in other directions. 
 He had done good work, he knew. Once he flattered him- 
 self that he had been no inconsiderable factor in the 
 preservation of European peace. If that were true it was 
 something ; yet now when he recognized as he had never 
 done before the intense and awful fragility of life, he 
 desired strangely and wistfully a little more immortality 
 for his work. It was true that such immortality was 
 nothing ; the greatest passed almost as soon as the least : 
 but still mankind had those illusions. He might perhaps 
 have written books. And then he laughed for what were 
 they ? dust upon the wind. Perhaps they lived a little 
 longer than a man and did their work. After all, a man's 
 work was not what he wrote, nor what he did, but how he 
 affected others, directly or indirectly. 
 
 He perceived that the hour of his belief in himself had 
 passed by. Perhaps, after all, even the greatest only 
 masqueraded on a lighted stage for a moment. Few 
 of them knew it. That he himself knew it now gave 
 him a certain feeling of greatness. He stood outside 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 157 
 
 humanity, and yet was more human than he had ever 
 been. 
 
 " Immortality," said Waring, " what is it that men 
 should desire it ? I shall be very tired when my time 
 comes to die. I hope I shall be exhausted, worked out, 
 finished. If there is any terror in death I think it must be 
 the feeling that one has not used oneself." 
 
 It was during such hours that he readjusted himself to 
 his altered universe. There were hours when he felt 
 strangely cold and lonely, but presently he saw a stranger 
 and rarer beauty arise in the swept and garnished temples 
 in which he had worked and worshipped. Instead of 
 worship he found pity ; instead of ritual, reverence ; 
 instead of pride, understanding. He perceived the simplest 
 of his fellows was as interesting as those who bore great 
 names. His daughter noted with surprise that he would 
 sit down by the sea and talk for an hour with some old 
 fisherman. He said he found talking with people who were 
 close to the earth, or smelt of the sea, more encouraging 
 than tonics. 
 
 Then he added with a smile she did not understand, 
 " You've got either not to think at all, or to carry things 
 out to their logical conclusions. The very wise man, and 
 the simple fool perhaps at last become brothers. It may 
 be that they both mean the same thing." 
 
 During this time with her father Joyce had become 
 conscious that he really loved her. What was better, he 
 understood. In the old days he had been a hard and 
 dominant man, a person of importance, but a person to be 
 avoided. Now she recognized as she had never done 
 before that there was a certain touch of greatness in her 
 father, and she knew enough to discover that what made 
 him great would never have made him successful. Now 
 he understood without words, and she saw that he did. 
 She knew that he smiled at a curious distaste she some- 
 
158 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 times showed for children. She flushed a little when she 
 saw this, but she was presently aware that he knew she 
 would love her own if she ever had any. Once he said to 
 her, apropos of almost nothing : " You see, my dear, a 
 woman's own children are different from all others. The 
 great difference is they are hers there could hardly be a 
 bigger difference." 
 
 When she saw him into the train for Paris, she left him 
 with reluctance, and with actual tears. 
 
 " You'll take care of yourself, won't you, father ? " 
 
 " Of course I will, my dear," said Waring. 
 
 " And if you want me I'll come at once." 
 
 " I know you will," he said. " I know it, Joyce. But 
 I shall be all right." 
 
 She knew he was to meet a friend in Paris, and thought 
 that the friend was a man. But when he got to the little 
 hotel he had chosen in the Rue de 1'Arcade he found Jennie 
 waiting for him. 
 
 XVII 
 
 OFTEN Jennie had felt as if she were a dove who nested 
 with an eagle. But sometimes she said to Waring, " TomJ 
 I think I am a sanatorium, a kind of nursing home, or 
 perhaps an orphan asylum that takes one boarder." He had 
 been apt to go to her and stay in her little house when he had 
 been harried to death ; when the work of life and its calls 
 had been too much ; when the spring and summer and 
 autumn and winter cleanings of No. 88 got upon his nerves ; 
 when poor Milly's singularly terre d terre mind had showed 
 the qualities of a reed patch and monotonously grown 
 thistles. Jennie understood and what she did not under- 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 159 
 
 stand intellectually she understood by her instincts. She 
 had played David to his Saul, had smoothed his ruffled 
 locks, and sung him into peace. But she was very conscious 
 of the fact that she was only part of his Life, though he was 
 almost all hers. 
 
 Only once before this had they been abroad together, 
 when he had taken her to Rome, Paris, and Constantinople. 
 Then he had been enormously and amazingly busy : it 
 seemed to her, though he spoke little of his affairs, that all 
 Europe hung upon his wisdom. He left her early in the 
 morning, and was with journalists and diplomatists the 
 whole day. Sometimes he dined with them, and came 
 home late, and stayed up writing. Still he had been her 
 dearest, and had turned to her at certain hours for help and 
 hope and comfort. Those hours had been her great reward, 
 for she loved him utterly, and accepted all he gave her with 
 pathetic gratitude. 
 
 Now, she lived in alternating periods of hope and heavy 
 fear. He had seemed very strange, and very different, 
 when she saw him last in the nursing home : he was so 
 strange, and so much altered, that she conceived the 
 alteration might have gone very deep. Now, when he was 
 wrecked, weakened, it might be that he would drift away 
 from her. Even if he did not, there was the dark terror in 
 her mind that he would die, and if he died she would be left 
 alone. For she was very gentle, and utterly devoted to him, 
 and thought him all that he was not : noble, a great man : 
 something, to her mind, not wholly undivine, for he stood 
 in the place of a god, as a man so often does to the woman 
 who loves him. 
 
 She had waited in Paris in a strange state of nervous- 
 ness and agitation, wondering what he would be like, but 
 when he came to her room, the room she had taken for both 
 of them for the few hours or days they remained in Paris, 
 she perceived that her fears had been in vain. He was still 
 
160 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 himself, still the man she knew, and as it seemed to her 
 something better. He took her in his arms and kissed her, 
 and then held her away from him and looked into her face 
 and read it. It seemed to him that he read it now like 
 an open book written in some easy script, whereas often 
 she had been difficult, inscrutable. 
 
 " You foolish child," he said, " you foolish child ! " 
 
 And she did not ask him why she was foolish, for she 
 knew. For now she too could read him, see that he was his 
 old self but changed : a much better man, gentler, one who 
 understood. His sympathies were wider, his thoughts 
 more tender. There was something almost childlike about 
 him. She desired, as every woman did, to be younger than 
 the man she loved, but to feel older, for this was nature. 
 This had never been, because he had always been extra- 
 ordinarily wise, certain, ruthless in judgment as he was 
 active in thought. 
 
 He had given her no child ; he had desired that she should 
 have none. She had shed many bitter tears about it. Her 
 loss had been great. Now it seemed to her that he was 
 her child, her dear boy, something that asked for help. She 
 held him in her arms with strange new feelings, the feelings 
 of a motherhood that had been denied to her ; and through 
 all her tears, which she wiped away, he saw that she was 
 happy. 
 
 He fell into a reverie. It seemed to him now for the 
 first time that Evelyn, the Evelyn that he remembered in 
 his brain, where she held a dear and sacred immortality of 
 her own, was no longer wrathful, or jealous, or even sad. 
 Perhaps the dead recognized such a strange new birth, 
 recognized the claims of that wonderful maternity which 
 love brings to many women, whether they have children 
 or whether they have none. He had no more doubts 
 about himself, about his doing right or wrong ; those things 
 were solved. There was no question of morality this was 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 161 
 
 a question of simple nature. But it was a help to him to 
 think that if he had grown tolerant of himself, the dearest 
 and most sacred memories in his heart had also assumed 
 a new and gentler majesty. Even the dead were tolerant 
 and pitiful and merciful. They needed no incantation, no 
 strange charm or prayer to solace their ancient indignation. 
 
 " So you're glad to see me, Jennie ? " said Waring. 
 
 " Oh, dear Tom, it's been a sad, sad time and even now 
 I can't help thinking about the wife of Thothmes who will 
 miss me." 
 
 " She's got her kittens, hasn't she ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " Oh yes," said Jennie, sighing, " she's got her kittens." 
 
 And Waring understood what she meant, and what she 
 thought, for her eyes became a little dim and introspective. 
 
 " I don't worry about the wife of Thothmes, or anything 
 or anything so long as you're with me. You're much 
 better your colour is so good." 
 
 " Is it ? " asked Waring, 
 
 " You have changed, you know," said Jennie. " You 
 are yourself, but quite different." 
 
 " Quite different," he said, " quite different ! " 
 
 " I don't believe you'd order anybody out to instant 
 execution now," said Jennie lightly. 
 
 " Perhaps not," said Waring. 
 
 " In the old days, dearest sir, when you were angry about 
 something you used to look at me like Someone the Great 
 I forget who he was who used to order everybody out to 
 instant execution as a relish for breakfast. Those were the 
 times when I wondered whether I really liked you. How- 
 ever, after the cook had been executed you used to get quite 
 nice and suggest that her wages should be raised. But how 
 long are we going to stay in Paris ? " 
 
 " Don't you like it ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " Can't abide it," replied Jennie. " You know what I 
 think about London : it's a dear place that one likes to stay 
 
162 
 
 in sometimes, to go to see, to call on, so to speak. But 
 Paris is worse than London. There's something about it 
 which shocks me more or less I really don't know what it 
 is, and I haven't tried to find out. If it will do you good, of 
 course, that's another thing but if it won't, I do hope you'll 
 go somewhere else." 
 
 " Don't worry," said Waring, " we'll go down to the 
 Pyrenees by the Sud Express to-morrow if you like." 
 
 Jennie said that was delightful : she had yearned to see 
 the Pyrenees ever since the time at school when she had 
 made a map of France and Spain with a most successful 
 range of mountains in between. 
 
 " When you think," said Jennie, " that years ago oh, 
 so many years ago, I made a lot of criss-cross signs upon 
 a piece of paper, and wrote in a straggling hand all along 
 them ' The Pyrenees,' I feel like a kind of creator, as if I'd 
 made them myself and now I'm going to see them. Am 
 I silly, dearest sir ? " 
 
 " I'm glad you are," sighed Waring. " What did you 
 leave the house like, Jennie ? " 
 
 " Clean as a new pin," said Jennie, with a little tired 
 yawn. " I cleaned it up while you were away. It's the 
 only reason I have for being glad when you are away, for 
 then I get a chance to exercise some of my native instincts. 
 You know, if you stayed there all the year round, I believe 
 the house would get in an awful condition. Why is it that 
 you so hate to have a house cleaned, dear ? " 
 
 " I really don't know," said Waring. But he knew 
 very well. " I like it clean, my dear, but I don't like the 
 process, and I think some people really carry it to an 
 extreme." 
 
 " So they do," said Jennie. " But that's one of the 
 reasons why living in London is so bad. Now, I dare say, if 
 one lived on the top of the Pyrenees one wouldn't have to 
 clean so much." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 163 
 
 The next day they went south by way of Orleans, Tours, 
 and Bordeaux, and then through the strange, cruel Landes, 
 by way of La Mothe and Morcenx and steamy Dax. And 
 as they went Waring told Jennie about the pine plantations 
 and how they cut them and drained their blood, which was 
 gum, into little tin cups, and sold it. And Jennie was sorry 
 for the pines : they seemed so crowded, and so young and 
 thin. It seemed cruel to bleed them before they had 
 grown up, and then to cut them down and send them to 
 England to be pit props or something of that sort, was 
 adding insult to injury. It was like breeding sheep in order 
 to kill them. 
 
 " I think I shall be a vegetarian," said Jennie. " And 
 if they take the poor little pines and put them where you 
 get coal, I won't have any more coal ! " 
 
 It was her nature to express herself thus, and Waring, 
 who was by now so utterly accustomed to have unredeemed 
 common sense fired at him hour by hour in his own house, 
 relaxed, and loved her all the more for her fantastic and 
 affectionate folly. 
 
 So they came to Bayonne, the old city which had once 
 been English, whose citadel bore the proud inscription, 
 " Nunquam polluta," and they stayed one night at a small 
 old hotel where they had a wood fire in their bedroom. For 
 the first time in her life Jennie heard folks talking Basque, 
 and was much surprised to hear that Waring did not under- 
 stand it. She would probably have been surprised if he 
 had told her that he did not know Hittite, and was not 
 perfectly acquainted with the Cretan language. 
 
 " However, I do know one sentence in it," said Waring 
 significantly. 
 
 " And what is that ? " asked Jennie. 
 
 " It means, ' You are a pretty girl, give me a kiss.' ' 
 
 " I don't think I like the language," said Jennie, with a 
 pout. " When did you learn it ? " 
 
164 
 
 " Years ago," said Waring, " but I found exceedingly 
 little use for it I've never seen a pretty girl in the Basque 
 country." 
 
 " Then I don't mind you knowing it so much." 
 
 " It's the men who are so fine among the Basques," said 
 Waring, " so mind what you're doing and don't you learn 
 any Basque, for if you do I shall be exceedingly angry ! " 
 
 The next day they went on to St. Jean de Luz, and from 
 it to Fontarabia, where they stayed for some days in a 
 little fonda upon the beach, the shore of the tidal river 
 Bidassoa. 
 
 " The women about here are supposed to have big feet," 
 said Waring. 
 
 " Indeed, are they ? " said Jennie, looking at her own. 
 " That must be a great safeguard." 
 
 " The whole place reeks here of history," he added. 
 " Wellington came by this way as he drove the French out 
 of Spain." 
 
 He showed her the hills which were her Pyrenees. They 
 went for long drives among them. 
 
 " It's a funny thing when you think of it," said Jennie, 
 " that I was supposed to make a most satisfactory repre- 
 sentation of the Pyrenees by putting down a long row of 
 kissing signs on a piece of paper. I sometimes think 
 everything is like that." 
 
 " Lake what ? " he asked. 
 
 " Like putting crosses down for the Pyrenees," said 
 Jennie. " Language, everything, you know. You only 
 make believe that you're putting things down. It's all 
 pretending : language and science and things ; and logic, 
 and wisdom, and all that kind of thing." 
 
 A little while ago Waring would not have followed her, 
 but now he did, and raised his eyebrows as he thought, 
 " Here's a little woman, half a child, and full of natural 
 wisdom. She's got where I have got all at once, and doesn't 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 165 
 
 know how far it is and I used to think her a dear little 
 fool." 
 
 Indeed, she had got very far. Perhaps she knew it, for 
 some women did, and kept their own counsel with all men, 
 even their own. 
 
 They stayed a few days on the Bidassoa, and then went 
 on to Burgos, where Jennie for the first time in her life saw 
 a great foreign cathedral and fell monstrously in love with 
 it. She declared that the cathedral made her very religious, 
 not to say sad ; and as she had endeavoured to analyse her 
 sensations for Waring's benefit, she declared incidentally 
 that it was idle for folks to pretend that religion could be 
 anything else but mournful seeing that it always represented 
 a pis aller. 
 
 " It's like pretending that you are going to have a 
 good dinner to-morrow," said Jennie, " because you have 
 had a bad one to-day." 
 
 They remained only a day in Madrid, because it was 
 blowing a murderously cold wind, as it often does on the 
 high Castilian plateau. Nevertheless, it was something to 
 have seen the city, if only for a few hours. They went 
 farther south, and presently stayed for a little while at 
 Algeciras. This time the weather was very warm ; it 
 suited Waring wonderfully, his energy came back to him 
 day by day. Sometimes he felt quite as strong as he had 
 ever been ; it was only when he tried to do as much as he 
 had done before that he found out the truth of things. But 
 even the feeling of strength was something. He was no 
 longer poisoned, his body functioned easily, he had lost all 
 the old post-operative rigidity. 
 
 Yet he still had a feeling of mechanism in him and without 
 him. People were puppets, mannikins, marionettes. At 
 times he felt enormously and immeasurably superior to 
 them, and at another time he was aware, or seemed to be 
 aware, that he was less than they, in that they really never 
 
166 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 thought of death, and never had thought of it. Theirs 
 was the better part ; they still danced in the sun. 
 
 While they were at Algeciras Waring got letters : one of 
 them was from Milly. She was not a profuse correspondent, 
 but when he was away she wrote at least once a week. 
 She wrote two pages, which were perfectly clear and well 
 expressed, on the subject of the two ugly maids she had 
 provided for Jack's benefit. She then added that Jack 
 himself had at last gone to Coventry. 
 
 " And, would you believe it ? " added Mrs. Waring, 
 " after his departure I found Margaret, a woman, I am sure, 
 of nearly forty, in tears. I discharged her instantly with a 
 month's wages, although Jack was no longer in the house. 
 What is coming to women nowadays ? They seem to have 
 no modesty, no restraint. It is very dreadful." 
 
 After that she indulged in a kind of dithyramb, a song 
 and dance of joy, concerning what looked like the defeat 
 and dispersion of Robert Hardy. 
 
 " Joyce is perfectly cheerful again, though somewhat 
 nervous," she said, " the difference in the girl is amazing. 
 She gets up early once more, and on several occasions I 
 have found her polishing the furniture all by herself." 
 
 This, his wife thought, would no doubt be highly gratify- 
 ing to her husband, but it upset him frightfully. Once 
 more he found that he had overestimated his physical and 
 nervous strength. He did not answer that letter for days, 
 and then ignored the Hardy subject altogether. He only 
 said he was glad to hear that Joyce was better. 
 
 " A little while ago," he added, " I was very much 
 troubled about her health. She is not really strong, and I 
 do not think she would be able to stand much more worry." 
 
 If he could get Heathcote to back him up in that, he 
 wondered whether, after all, his wife might not be prepared 
 to sacrifice her principles rather than see her daughter die. 
 
 It was while they were going up to Honda that Waring 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 167 
 
 determined to speak to Jennie about his daughter. He 
 spoke to her that night in the hotel as they sat in the 
 balcony. 
 
 " Child, I want to speak seriously to you," he said. 
 
 She turned to him with a quick motion of alarm, of 
 protection. She put both her hands upon him. 
 
 " About yourself ? " 
 
 " No, not about myself," said Waring. 
 
 And then the flutter that she was in subsided. 
 
 " It's more about you, in one way, that I want to speak, 
 my dear," said her lover. " Tell me now, have you any 
 great regrets ? " 
 
 The darkness was falling about them then. She took 
 one of his hands in both hers. 
 
 " You know one of them," she said. " And I'm so much 
 younger than you some day I shall be alone." 
 
 " We'll talk about that afterwards," said Waring. " But 
 don't you sometimes regret that things are as they are, 
 sweetheart ? " 
 
 " I'm sorry I can't be with you always," she sighed. 
 " That's all I regret." 
 
 " Then you'd do it all again ? " he asked. 
 
 " A thousand thousand times," said Jennie. 
 
 " I wanted to tell you something," said Waring presently. 
 " I know a girl she's now twenty- three who's absolutely 
 devoted to a man who is married and separated from his 
 wife." 
 
 " Does the wife love him ? " asked Jennie. " And is 
 she a nice thing ? " 
 
 " He's separated from her," said Waring, " because she's 
 violent and drunken." 
 
 " He'll never go back to her then ? " asked Jennie. 
 
 " Never," replied Waring. " He says it's impossible. 
 He tried it four times." 
 
 " And is the girl fond of him ? " she asked. 
 
168 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Very," said Waring. 
 
 " I should go away with him," said Jennie. " But then 
 I had no one to consider. Has she a father and mother ? " 
 
 Waring nodded. 
 
 " Would the mother be sad ? " asked Jennie. 
 
 And again Waring nodded. 
 
 " And the father ? " asked Jennie. 
 
 " He would regret the necessity," said Waring, " but so 
 far as I know him he would have no moral objection, only 
 social ones." 
 
 " Ah, I know what you mean," said Jennie. " But don't 
 you remember telling me one day that I should give up a 
 great deal that all women hold dear ? And then we went 
 carefully into details, and as you say ' analysed the situa- 
 tion,' and came to the conclusion that what I was supposed 
 to hold dear was the opinion of seven old ladies : one of 
 whom lived in Bayswater, two others in Battersea, while 
 the rest pickled their souls on the slopes of Hampstead 
 Heath. Oh, I remember every word you said. But there's 
 her mother, of course that's always awful, Tom. It's 
 hateful to hurt anybody. But then I think I'd rather hurt 
 all the world than you. Didn't you tell me once, ' When 
 you're in doubt about your morals trust your instincts, 
 and when you're in doubt about your affections trust your 
 love.' I think, dearest, the mother would probably get 
 over it I'm sure they always do. You see, the girl would 
 either be happy or unhappy, wouldn't she ? And if she 
 were very happy the mother couldn't help being glad in the 
 end ; and if she were very unhappy the poor mother would 
 be sorry. It's a very difficult world, dearest." 
 
 But somehow it did not seem so difficult to Waring now. 
 
 " Do you know, you're always a great help to me, 
 Jennie," he said at last. 
 
 " I have always hoped so, Tom," said Jennie. " You 
 know what you are to me I don't care a bit about the 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 169 
 
 world. Didn't you tell me about some one who said nobody 
 had any right to be happy in the world, but they could 
 be blessed if they went about it in the proper way. Isn't 
 it strange when you think of it that the dear old lady in 
 Bayswater, and the two in Battersea, and the four on the 
 slopes of Hampstead Heath would think I was a most im- 
 proper young female who ought to be done something very 
 dreadful to ? " 
 
 " Come along," said Waring suddenly. " Come along 
 and dress. It's time we went to dinner. I'm a deal more 
 cheerful now, Jennie. If one of your regrets is that I'm 
 not so young as you, you shan't have any other regret if I 
 can help it." 
 
 XVIII 
 
 WARING and Jennie spent a week at Granada, where they 
 were as happy as if they were wholly separated from the 
 world. It was curious to Waring, who was naturally 
 interested in the workings of his own mind, to observe 
 that he had now no moral misgivings. He perceived it 
 was a sign of natural and instinctive health. He was 
 acutely aware that a man's conscience was the most un- 
 certain guide. It might as well be a counsel of imperfection 
 as of perfection ; at its best it was no more than a general 
 indication, useful to the timid and unenterprising. Any 
 pioneer had to outrage his own conscience as well as that 
 of other people and reduce it to the position of a counsellor 
 to be heard, weighed, considered, but not necessarily 
 followed. In the old days he had sometimes said that 
 Luther, when he put the seal on his revolt by marrying a 
 nun, must have suffered atrociously. Nevertheless he had 
 
170 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 done right ; by no other means could he so well have 
 achieved his end. 
 
 And now it was obvious to him that Jennie was really 
 happy. He understood her better ; in the old days he 
 had never understood her. At last he had broken through 
 her reserve, or through most of it. He often told her 
 things he never told anyone else ; he even talked to her 
 about Evelyn, though he never mentioned her name. He 
 explained to her all he had gone through after the operation. 
 She appeared to understand it better than any of his 
 physicians, and she followed his mind when he explained 
 the amazing difference it had made to all his thoughts. 
 
 "Now I understand," said Jennie, "why you are so 
 much simpler, so much easier to understand, so much 
 gentler. When I saw you in the nursing home I was afraid 
 of the great change in you. It seemed to me as if you might 
 have been dying, dearest, and instead of that it means 
 oh, it means I know what it means, you've been 
 converted." 
 
 And Waring stared at her and then smiled. 
 
 " I wonder what some of my clerical friends would think 
 of your pronouncement, Jennie ? " 
 
 "They're dear silly things," said Jennie. "I think 
 they mean well enough just as well as doctors but then 
 they don't know everything. I never had any religion 
 myself. You know my father hadn't and mother, who 
 was the dearest thing, used to say to people who came 
 worrying about her soul they often did it, dearest, 
 because she was such a duck ' Please don't bother ; I've 
 got my work to do.' She did beautiful work too," added 
 Jennie reflectively. " Once she embroidered an altar-piece 
 for a sorrowful clergyman who said it would be all right 
 when it was consecrated." 
 
 " Ah," said Waring, " pecunia non okt ! " and this he 
 explained to Jennie. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 171 
 
 " You see, although she didn't believe in them, she 
 was quite kind to them," continued Jennie. " But I don't 
 believe you'll find many who understand, as I understand, 
 how a man may be converted by a great shock from being 
 an intolerant Christian into the dearest and kindest 
 atheist." 
 
 From Granada they went back again to Gibraltar, and 
 thence to Lisbon. One day they spent at Cintra, where 
 Jennie devoted most of her time to feeding the donkeys 
 with bread and sugar. She was pleased, for one reason, 
 to be out of Spain : in Portugal they at any rate tried to 
 treat animals decently. She asked why the most religious 
 country in Europe was the most brutal to them. Waring 
 told her that it probably sprang out of the old Catholic 
 notion that animals, not having souls, were automata : 
 and automata, not having a soul to feel with, could not feel 
 at all ; and that therefore any signs they showed of suffering 
 were mere illusions. 
 
 " If you beat a dog," said Waring, " the poor dear howls 
 mechanically. Now, you see." 
 
 " Yes, I see," said Jennie indignantly. " I'd rather 
 be an atheistic vivisectionist than a Spanish Christian. 
 But what makes people think you only feel with your soul ? " 
 
 " It's a savage notion which permeates everything," 
 replied Waring. " It's the doctrine of vitalism, which 
 is written large over every language in the world and has 
 done more harm than any other delusion of the human 
 race. However, I can't explain it now. I'll give you 
 something to read about it when we get home." 
 
 " How did you ever believe any of these things your- 
 self ? " asked Jennie. 
 
 " That's the great puzzle," he answered, shaking his 
 head. " All I can say now is, that I did and I didn't. 
 The truth is that I was too busy to think about such things. 
 Part of my life I was too happy, another part too miserable, 
 
172 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 another part too much occupied. I just worked with the 
 tools that I found in my mind. A lot of these semi -religious 
 ideas, which are really savage, remain as a kind of ritual of 
 thinking, that is, when you think about religious things. 
 It's just in the same way that some tribes who have learnt 
 to use iron for their ordinary weapons and knives, keep 
 the sacred old knives of flint or obsidian to perform their 
 bloody sacrifices with. So you see when some of us think 
 about religion we use some old flint or obsidian logic, 
 though when we go to business we fight with steel." 
 
 " You're a very strange man," said Jennie. " How 
 could you know all these things and yet go to church, in a 
 kind of way believing you believed it all ? " 
 Waring shook his head. 
 
 " Ask me another ! I don't suppose I believed it 
 I don't think I even believed I believed it." 
 
 " Oh, I see," said Jennie, " you believed you believed 
 you believed it ! Well, I don't care you're much nicer now 
 you've stopped that complicated process." 
 
 By this time Waring felt quite well, although he was 
 perfectly aware that he would only feel so if he did not 
 put any great stress upon himself. He had no more fits 
 of depression, no more nightmares that suggested the horrors 
 of his post-operative time. His general nervous condition 
 had improved out of knowledge, and yet always and for 
 ever he was conscious in the back of his mind of the fragility 
 of life. Some physiological instinct told him that so long 
 as this lasted he was not really well. 
 
 For this reason he lingered abroad as long as he 
 could, or that was one of the reasons. He was now in- 
 finitely fonder of Jennie. He came nearer to loving her in 
 the sense that he understood love. And, besides that, 
 lately she had had some news for him which made him 
 tender, and her very happy. 
 They spent their last fortnight on the wildest coast 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 173 
 
 of Brittany, and while he was there he wrote to no one in 
 England. From something which he had said casually in 
 his last letter he was expected to return by sea, though 
 he gave them no date. Their last day they spent on the 
 coast which faces west not far from Plogastel, between the 
 He de Seins and the wondrous light of Penmarch. They 
 sat together on the rocks the whole afternoon and spoke but 
 little, but just before they went back to the carriage which 
 was to drive them to Pont 1'Abbe, whence they were 
 to return to Quimper, Waring spoke very seriously to 
 Jennie. 
 
 " My dear, I think you have been happy this time, 
 and I'm sure I've been so too. Sometimes I wonder if you 
 understand the very great chance there is that I shan't be 
 with you very long. Of course it mayn't be so, but I just 
 want you to face it." 
 
 But what she said was, " Dearest, I've always faced 
 it not only since this last trouble, but always." 
 
 Waring nodded. " That's well." 
 
 And yet he did not understand quite what she meant. 
 
 "There's another thing," he said presently. "If I 
 go, you won't be very rich or very poor. I've left you 
 nothing in my will, because I don't want to make any other 
 people unhappy, or curious. But before I left London I 
 took enough to your bank to give you two hundred a year. 
 You've something of your own and I think that ought to 
 be enough. I wish I could make it more, and if I can, I 
 will. I know that presently my daughter won't want 
 anything, but I've left her sufficient. The rest of course 
 you know how that will go. I hate to speak of these things, 
 but I thought you ought to know. Don't say anything, my 
 dear let's go down for a moment right to the water's 
 edge." 
 
 They walked to it hand in hand, and stood by it in that 
 vast and resounding solitude. 
 
174 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Do you remember where Keats says : 
 
 The moving waters at their priestlike task 
 Of pure ablution round these human shores " ? 
 
 asked Waring presently. 
 
 And Jennie held his hand tightly, and nodded. She 
 said to herself, " I don't care what other people think, he's 
 a very good man and the dearest one too ! " 
 
 But she was bitterly oppressed by a sense of her future 
 loneliness. She wondered whether in years to come she 
 might not return to this spot on a pilgrimage and stand 
 alone upon that wild and solitary beach. 
 
 XIX 
 
 WHENEVER August came round, Mrs. Waring went to 
 Margate. She had gone to Margate as a child, as a young 
 girl, and as a married woman. She had even insisted on 
 spending half the honeymoon there, though it was a place 
 which Waring loathed . Thus, when he returned to England 
 on the third of August, he found that his wife and Joyce 
 were in the same old rooms, recommended by the con- 
 servatism and subservience of the landlady, and by the fact 
 that lodgers could see their faces in the furniture. 
 
 Waring wrote to his wife saying that she was not to 
 think of coming home, or sending Joyce, for he could do 
 very well as he was, and had much work before him. This, 
 indeed, was true, but he found himself unable, at first, to 
 touch it. Nevertheless he went every day to the rooms 
 he occupied on the second floor of a house in the Adelphi, 
 where he kept his working library and all his papers. His 
 secretary, who had taken another post temporarily, 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 175 
 
 returned to him. She was an exceedingly sharp and able 
 young woman, who knew more about foreign politics than 
 half the Foreign Office. Her air of confidence and faith in 
 herself was extraordinarily convincing ; it gave her a 
 male air, which had disarmed Mrs. Waring's natural 
 hostility to any woman in the employ of her husband. She 
 contradicted everybody flatly except Waring, and even 
 he was perfectly sure that she said to herself when he 
 had succeeded in crushing her : " All the same, I'm 
 right ! " 
 
 Waring was pleased to find that her sense of duty, even 
 while she was away and doing other work, had kept her 
 thoroughly abreast of everything that had happened in the 
 political world she indeed knew much more than he did. 
 He set her to work on the accumulation of some details, 
 and as she had been able to correct him with reference to 
 certain things that had happened in Germany, she was 
 perfectly and serenely happy. She had, indeed, one 
 grievance : it was that of the three rooms he had in the 
 Adelphi she only knew two for one of them was always 
 kept locked. Miss Willis had often looked through the 
 keyhole, but had never yet discovered anything but the 
 fact that there was a portrait in the room. 
 
 Now that Waring was back in town he soon discovered 
 that he was not capable of prolonged work. His interest in 
 it had partly evaporated ; he no longer flattered himself 
 that he was anything but a fly upon the wheel. In the old 
 days his certainty that he was much more had given him 
 an authority which greatly affected others. But now the 
 fountain of his certainty and interest was broken up. He 
 remembered that after the operation he had cared for no one 
 but her who was gone. Then gradually others had returned 
 to him, but all those things that returned were personal. 
 The world of his work was still beneath the floods : it 
 belonged to the great universe that was still but an awful 
 
176 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 process to him, that worked itself out for good or ill 
 remorselessly and mechanically. 
 
 The first people besides Miss Willis that he saw in town 
 were, naturally enough, Heathcote and Renshaw. Heath- 
 cote received him joyfully, and yet with an injured air. 
 Waring had no right to be alive, the operation ought to 
 have killed him. No amount of successes worked by 
 heroic surgery could compensate him for certain disasters 
 that he had seen. He had a certain grim and unacknow- 
 ledged satisfaction in the obvious fact that Waring was 
 still suffering from post-operative nervous exhaustion. It 
 was with great difficulty that he induced himself to minimize 
 this to the patient : he desired urgently to say to Waring : 
 " If you were fool enough to have an operation of that kind, 
 how do you ever expect to get better ? " In the face of the 
 facts he knew this was absurd, nevertheless that was his 
 feeling. He belonged to the old order of physicians, who 
 regarded the surgeon as an interloper, those physicians 
 that had something of the prehistoric leech about them 
 still. They were sure in their hearts that there was a drug 
 for everything if they could only find it. Ten thousand 
 years ago Heathcote might have sought simples during the 
 waxing moon if he desired to fatten a believer, and have 
 picked the same drug when the moon was waning if he 
 desired to reduce his weight. 
 
 Nevertheless, he liked Waring amazingly. It had 
 always been a pleasure to him, seeing that he was more or 
 less of an orthodox Christian, that Waring had not in the 
 old days belonged to the order of the intellectuals who 
 turned away from dogma with open contempt. He was 
 one of those who find an extraordinary satisfaction in 
 discovering a man, obviously with brains, and highly 
 instructed, who still on occasion put on a high hat and 
 went to church to take it off. Thus it was that he said to 
 Waring, after he had gone over him rather casually and 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 177 
 
 inspected the operation wound with a certain disfavour, 
 as though Renshaw and Waring together had taken a 
 liberty with the sacred mysteries of medicine : " You've 
 been through a rotten bad time, Waring, but no doubt 
 religion has been a comfort to you." 
 
 Waring looked at him very oddly, and wrinkled up his 
 brows and twisted his mouth. And as he did so he said 
 to himself : " Well, I'd better tell him the truth though 
 I don't suppose he'll understand it." 
 
 He answered out aloud. " Why, no, Heathcote I don't 
 think I've got any now." 
 
 " Not got any ? " asked Heathcote, in surprise. " W T hy 
 you must, man, after such an experience." 
 
 " That's it," said Waring. " You two fellows sent me 
 looking for realities. I don't think I found them or not 
 what you would think I found. Do you think I'm 
 changed ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, there's a change," said Heathcote, " but 
 what do you mean ? " 
 
 And Waring told him all that he had been through. 
 Heathcote listened with a fair amount of patience, and 
 when Waring had done, he said : " But that's not logical. 
 What you suffered under an anaesthetic surely cannot 
 afford you any grounds for disbelief." 
 
 " Do you believe because you feel ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " Of course I do," said Heathcote. 
 
 " I don't believe because I feel," said Waring. 
 
 " You'll get over it," said Heathcote. " This is all 
 nervous exhaustion." 
 
 " Then you think you can make me religious again by 
 giving me some nux vomica or compound syrup of the 
 hypophosphites ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " You're a strange man," said the physician, " and I 
 don't understand you." 
 
 " Who understands anybody ? " asked his patient, 
 
 M 
 
178 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 smiling. " But there what I used to think I believed, 
 I believe no more. With a little struggle I can understand 
 you others believing it, but it is a struggle. I can't do it 
 easily." 
 
 " You said just now," said Heathcote, " that you had 
 found some realities ? " 
 
 " A working reality, at any rate," replied Waring, " and 
 a working religion, for that matter. There's nothing 
 worth considering but two aspects of one thing : kindness 
 and cruelty, Heathcote." 
 
 "Isn't that the essence of Christianity ? " asked Heath- 
 cote. 
 
 " Very well," said Waring, " consider me a Christian 
 but I'm afraid the dogmatists wouldn't agree with 
 you." 
 
 " You'll come round when you get better," said the 
 doctor. " Have you anything else to tell me ? How's 
 that little girl of yours ? " 
 
 Waring knew very well that he was referring to Jennie, 
 not to his daughter. His rigid code of Christian morals had 
 been softened in the alembic of experience. 
 
 " She's very well," said Waring. " In fact, we've been 
 abroad together. I shouldn't be surprised if she wants to 
 see you in a few months." 
 
 " God bless my soul, what a man it is ! " said Heathcote, 
 a little testily. " If you are ten thousand years old at 
 least, as you make out, you've got remarkably little 
 wisdom for the time you've lived." 
 
 " Oh, to the devil with wisdom ! " said Waring. " I've 
 come to tolerate myself at last, Heathcote. I accept 
 myself, and what I am. It's no use worrying. And yet 
 I am worrying it's about my daughter." 
 
 " Ah," said Heathcote, " hasn't that trouble passed 
 over ? " 
 
 " No," said Waring. " In fact it's more acute than 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 179 
 
 ever. What did you think of Joyce when you saw her 
 last ? " 
 
 " I wasn't pleased with her," said Heathcote. " She 
 looked as if she were drifting into a state of bad health. 
 The mind works wonderfully on the body, Waring." 
 
 " Why not say that the brain and the body go to pieces 
 under undue strains ? " asked Waring. " However, not 
 to start another argument, I may tell you I've made up 
 my mind about that business." 
 
 Heathcote looked at him. 
 
 " Why, that means that you have changed your mind," 
 he said. 
 
 "No doubt of it," replied Waring. " I suppose you'll 
 be surprised when I tell you that I'm going to let her go 
 away with him." 
 
 " I can't approve of it," said Heathcote. 
 
 " I didn't expect you would," replied Joyce's father. 
 " I suppose I ought to do what people would call my duty. 
 I ought to keep them apart and see my Kttle girl drift 
 into a state of health which would invite tuberculosis and 
 every other confounded bug in the universe. That's it, 
 isn't it ? " 
 
 Heathcote shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " What would you do," asked Waring, " in a case like 
 that, supposing it was your daughter ? and supposing 
 you believed, as I believe, that their permanent separation 
 would kill her ? " 
 
 Heathcote looked much disturbed. 
 
 " I don't know what I should do," he replied, almost 
 savagely. " I think I should want to kill the man for not 
 putting it beyond my power to say anything." 
 
 Waring laughed a little bitterly. 
 
 " Ah, I see as long as you were relieved of the moral 
 responsibility, and were given a proper opportunity of 
 damning his eyes, it would be more or less all right. Well, 
 
180 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 I want to tell you that I've settled it. I've seen too many 
 die I'll not see my little Joyce go. I told her months ago, 
 and you wouldn't know her if you saw her now." 
 
 " What, did it make a difference ? " asked Heathcote. 
 
 " By Jove ! yes," said Waring. " If you could only 
 make up a mixture, Heathcote, with a grain of hope to the 
 teaspoonful, you'd be wallowing in gold, get a knighthood, 
 and be physician to the King and Queen." 
 
 " That's all very well," said Heathcote, " but what 
 about your wife ? How does she take it ? " 
 
 " She doesn't know, and I've got to tell her," said Waring. 
 " It's a devilish disagreeable job too you know what 
 she is." 
 
 " Everything a woman should be," said Heathcote. 
 
 " Oh, I admit it," said Waring. " All the same no 
 woman's all she should be unless she's a little that she 
 shouldn't be." 
 
 " Well, don't tell her," said Heathcote. " You see, 
 she's a good woman, and obstinate, of course and you'll 
 have trouble. It'll make you ill." 
 
 " It doesn't seem to me fair," said Waring. 
 
 " You'd better go back on your word with your daughter 
 than have all this," said Heathcote. 
 
 " Oh, that I can't do," replied Waring. " I'd rather 
 die right off. Besides, do you think it'll improve my 
 health to see Joyce hate the sight of me, as she would ? " 
 
 " You've got yourself in a pretty mess anyhow," growled 
 Heathcote. " And to think it all came out of Renshaw's 
 great operation ! You confuse me, Waring, upon my 
 word you do. You used to be a good enough Christian 
 went to church why, confound it, man, I've seen you go 
 myself ! And now all of a sudden you weigh in and say 
 you're an atheist." 
 
 "Oh no," said Waring, " I'm not labelling myself any 
 sort of an ' ist.' " 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 181 
 
 " That's what it amounts to," retorted the doctor. 
 " Now, I can almost understand being an agnostic." 
 
 Waring shook his head. 
 
 " That's a pretty cowardly business, you know. Why, 
 Heathcote, it's just like this after snuffing all round your 
 house excepting the roof, they say : ' Well, I see no reason 
 to come to a conclusion as to whether there's a royal 
 Bengal tiger on the roof or not.' Whereas, if they've 
 got no reason for believing one way or another, it seems to 
 me it's much more honest to say there's not a Bengal tiger 
 on the roof." 
 
 " You're an irreverent dog," said Heathcote, laughing. 
 
 " Not at all," urged Waring. " Why, a man like 
 Cardinal Newman, who declared that he saw no sign in the 
 whole universe of there being any God " 
 
 " Come now," interrupted Heathcote, " you don't mean 
 that the Cardinal ever said a thing like that ? " 
 
 " I'll show it you," said Waring. " Then he went on 
 to say that he had an internal conviction there was, all the 
 same, and that was the only ground he had for believing it. 
 I don't know whether you and Renshaw cut out my internal 
 conviction under chloroform, but I haven't got any now, 
 and so I am in the logical position of Cardinal Newman." 
 
 " Well, you shouldn't talk about royal Bengal tigers," 
 said Heathcote, " it's mere scoffing." 
 
 " I won't any more," said Waring. 
 
 " And don't you tell your wife about it," added Heath- 
 cote. " Take my advice, and don't. Of course I con- 
 sider you're hideously immoral, and everything that's 
 wrong ; but you can be wise, even in your beastly im- 
 morality." 
 
 " I'll think of it," said Waring. " Only, you see, I don't 
 want to act the coward." 
 
 Heathcote threw his eyes up. 
 
 " Here's a man coming prating logic, science, reason 
 
182 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 all kinds of tosh and then, when he's got a plain and 
 simple straightforward opportunity of not making an ass 
 of himself, he begins to talk about being a coward." 
 
 " Well, I'll think of it," said Waring. 
 
 " Have you seen Kenshaw yet ? " asked Heathcote, with 
 a certain half suggestion of jealousy in his voice. 
 
 " Oh dear no, I came straight to you," said Waring, 
 who recognized what was in his physician's mind. 
 
 "Well, you're a good chap, though you do beat me," 
 said Heathcote. " Come in and see me whenever you 
 want to. I shouldn't be surprised but what you'll be all 
 right now see us all out." 
 
 " Oh yes," said Waring, " I'm to dance a solemn fare- 
 well fling on your tombstones ! but you know better." 
 
 "No, honestly I don't," said Heathcote. "I can tell 
 you the truth, and I am telling it you. When there's any 
 reason for telling you anything else I'll do it." 
 
 So they shook hands, and Waring went away. It was 
 satisfactory, no doubt, to learn that Heathcote thought so 
 well of him, but by now Waring distrusted every physician. 
 He saw, what they sedulously concealed from the public, 
 that their business as a whole was too much for any man to 
 learn. They had run up against the eternal nature of 
 things : they could not specialize and know all medicine, 
 and they could not know all medicine without specializing. 
 His friend Campbell had admitted to him that the time 
 was rapidly approaching for the development of some 
 instinctive race of diagnostic specialists whose sole business 
 would be to tell patients what doctor to go to. One of 
 Waring's friends who, as he declared, was a complete 
 nosology and had more diseases than they showed in a 
 week at the Polyclinic, declared that doctors were fright- 
 fully useful in spite of appearances. 
 
 " All you have to do," he said, " is to discover patiently, 
 all by your little lonesome, what is the matter with you, 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 183 
 
 and go and tell a doctor. Then he may be able to help you 
 if he is a decent chap. You go into his consulting-room 
 with the air of superiority due to your higher endowment. 
 You treat him firmly but kindly, mention your disease, 
 allow no discussion, reject further examination, and have 
 a little friendly talk about treatment that he is likely to 
 know more about than you." 
 
 In spite of what Waring felt about the whole hier- 
 archy of Hippocrates it was comforting to hear that 
 he was all right so far. What did amaze him was Heath- 
 cote's advice that he should hold his tongue about Joyce 
 until the fact disclosed itself. One of the great functions 
 of physicians was equally the function of solicitors ; to 
 know the world, to know humanity, and to give good, 
 unbiassed advice. Here was Heathcote, full of moral pre- 
 judices, philosophically the victim of vitalism, a little Atlas 
 of the church especially when he was in the country 
 who put all these ideas aside, cleaned his mind of them, 
 and gave what Waring felt was the rightful counsel if he 
 could make himself follow it. And yet he who believed 
 he had cleaned his mind permanently of moral prejudices, 
 found he had one still left. He did not want to be thought 
 a coward. He did not want to think himself one. He was 
 afraid of his own opinion. Once more this was a resurgent 
 conscience endeavouring to do harm. 
 
 " Well, there's no hurry," said Waring, " not for a day 
 or two at any rate. I'll make up my mind before Milly 
 comes back." 
 
 On his way from Harley Street he called at Renshaw's, 
 and found him out of town, as he expected it had only 
 been a fluke that he found Heathcote in London so he 
 took a taxi and went down to his rooms in the Adelphi. 
 He rarely, even yet, walked more than three or four 
 hundred yards at a time, for he found the pavements 
 exceedingly fatiguing. He stayed in his rooms for a couple 
 
184 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 of hours and dictated to his secretary the heads of an 
 article on the situation in Spain. This was his first attempt 
 to work ; it went easily, and he was much pleased. What 
 he did hardly seemed worth doing, but that he could do 
 anything helped him to forget that he was sure his apparent 
 recovery was really illusory. 
 
 Life was still fragile. He felt it would remain so and 
 yet some time had been given him. Now he must contrive 
 shelter for Joyce ; he understood her and her lover. Just 
 so he had learned to understand his son. Jack was happy 
 at Coventry, and working hard. For the first time of his 
 life he had written letters to his father which showed 
 affection without fear. Perhaps the boy had no great 
 endowment, but he was a good fellow and sound at heart. 
 In the old days Waring, proud of his own intellect, had 
 resented the fact that his only son promised not to be his 
 intellectual equal. Now he was infinitely wider and wiser 
 than he had been : he saw this did not matter. Unless 
 wisdom meant simplicity it was no great gain. The gate 
 and path by which these two join together was difficult to 
 find and hard to pass, and few there were that found it. 
 
 He sat alone in his room for a long time after Miss Willis 
 had left him. When it grew dusk he opened the door of 
 the third room and went in for a little while. It was the 
 first time he had been there since he came back. 
 
 He dined alone that night. He was glad that Jennie 
 had sent a telegram saying that she could not come, as she 
 had a headache. Perhaps that was the reason he went into 
 the little room. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 185 
 
 XX 
 
 MRS. WARING came back to town on the evening of the 
 thirty-first of August. She always came back to town on 
 the evening of the thirty-first of August, save when the 
 thirty-first of August fell upon a Sunday. Such occasions 
 she treated as a painful dispensation of the Deity which 
 robbed her of one more day at Margate. She returned 
 bristling with energy, with a kind of secret hope that the 
 house was very dirty but then, after all, it always was. 
 
 She greeted her husband, who met her and Joyce at 
 the station, with every sign of proper affection. Indeed, 
 so far as she understood love, she was very fond of him. 
 She was used to him. She had more or less learnt to 
 endure, if not to understand, his inexplicable ways. She 
 put all his mannerisms and peculiarities down to journalism, 
 which she thought a diabolical business that kept respect- 
 able men out of bed till one or two, thus depriving their 
 legitimate spouses of comfort and assistance in the early 
 nervous hours of night, and waking them up when they had 
 at last gone to sleep. 
 
 She declared Tom was looking wonderfully well, but 
 she regretted that he had not been able to spend the last 
 fortnight at Margate ; it would, she was convinced, have 
 put the last fine polish upon his recovery. Perhaps the 
 fact that he disliked it might have done something for his 
 general moral and religious tone. She pointed to the good 
 effects of Margate, seeing that it was overrun with Jews 
 and Jewesses, who were notoriously a moral people. 
 Waring was never able to discover whether the Jews 
 owed this to the air of Margate, or the air of Margate owed 
 it to the Jews. 
 
186 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " And look at Joyce," she declared triumphantly. " If 
 you want a proof of what Margate can do, here it is, right 
 before you." 
 
 She exhibited her refreshed daughter with the pride 
 of a dressmaker who turns a mannikin to show the beauties 
 of a frock. Thus she succeeded in making Joyce exceedingly 
 uncomfortable, and filled her husband with something not 
 unlike remorse. 
 
 When they reached home Milly darted into the house, 
 and producing a clean handkerchief from her little bag, 
 tried it on the furniture and triumphantly proclaimed that 
 it was in the most disgusting state. 
 
 " No, Tom, don't dare to say it's clean enough for you. 
 It's not clean enough for you I will not hear you say 
 such things. Well, at any rate it might have been worse 
 I'll say that for them. We'll begin on it to-morrow, 
 Joyce." 
 
 Margate had screwed her up to her duties. She was 
 relentlessly happy, and indeed according to her own 
 account had much to thank God for. Jack was leading a 
 godly, righteous, and sober life at Coventry. She visualized 
 him going to church regularly, rising early, and retiring 
 to his chaste if small bedroom at half-past ten. Thus 
 ehe proved herself an incurable optimist. Joyce, too, had 
 recovered her colour, was several pounds heavier, and no 
 longer showed signs of dying in a decline, which is romance 
 for tuberculosis. 
 
 And undoubtedly Tom had made a marvellous recovery. 
 She had never believed that he was dangerously ill, seeing 
 that her theory was that his illness came chiefly from his 
 bad temper. Her pathology was somewhat antiquated, 
 yet not so far removed from that of some practising 
 physicians as might be imagined. It is true she was anxious 
 about him in spite of what Heathcote and her own senses 
 told her. He was singularly mild ; his irritability no 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 187 
 
 longer exploded volcanically. This was a change. She 
 did not approve of changes ; she was essentially a Con- 
 servative. If everything was so because it was God's will, 
 it was obvious that a Radical, if not an atheist, was at least 
 in the position of Satan. However, she hoped for the 
 best, but would have been reassured if Tom had come out 
 of his bedroom some morning with his braces hanging 
 down his back and had roared, " Damn it all, Milly, you'll 
 have to give that girl the sack ! Does she think that I want 
 to make ices with my shaving water ? " 
 
 Certainly Waring was in every way more considerate. 
 It interested him to discover that even his servants were 
 human beings. In the old days he had never been casually 
 charitable. Without desiring to save money he had still 
 saved it by accepting the view that all casual gifts did 
 harm. Now he suddenly became aware that though 
 they might possibly do harm to the receiver, that harm 
 was far outweighed by the good wrought in him who made 
 the gift. He could sympathize with Carlyle when he 
 excused his charity to a worthless scoundrel by alleging 
 that the beggar was obviously in low water. 
 
 He was, too, more considerate to Milly in his thoughts. 
 She was a good little woman, one of the very best of her 
 type. He was conscious that she would have been a 
 perfect wife for some men. That she lacked anything like 
 intelligent sympathy with himself was, after all, not her fault. 
 She was like one who dwelt in some little island and was 
 unconscious of the great continents and the roaring seas 
 beyond her world. If she was rigid, she was kindly ; she 
 lived according to her lights, though they were but farthing 
 candles. 
 
 Waring thought much about his conversation with 
 Heathcote and about the physician's advice. It was a 
 reasonable point of view to take, and presently he dis- 
 covered that he meant to take it. If the thing had to 
 
188 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 be done, it was as well that it should be done with as little 
 friction as possible. The accomplished fact would be 
 accepted. No doubt there would be uproar, but that would 
 pass over. The wisest thing was to let matters take their 
 course ; thus he would save himself, and save everybody. 
 
 " Go easy," said the physician, " give yourself a chance. 
 Every time you upset the machine you give your old 
 enemy an opening. Work smoothly, go round with a can 
 of oil. Go and look at a good engine make it your great 
 exemplar." 
 
 Thus spoke the physician, who was yet a vitalist when 
 he put aside his scientific mind. It was good advice, and 
 Waring knew it ; every day that passed without friction 
 was so much to the good that he felt in his nerves, in his 
 mental grip, in the greater ease with which he functioned 
 mentally and physically. And still he found it a little 
 difficult to act ; he lacked his accustomed energy, his 
 ancient power of decision. He knew that Joyce trusted 
 him and was waiting meekly. She would never take things 
 in her own hands as he sometimes wished she had done. 
 She belonged rather to the old order than the new, and 
 although she had sometimes lingered by the door of the 
 Church of the Insurgents she had never yet knelt at its 
 altars. 
 
 He knew she looked to her father. He had promised 
 to help, and help he would ; but he found it difficult. The 
 path of the pioneer was never easy, and Waring knew it. 
 Yet when he remembered what he had been through in the 
 old days, it again seemed very easy. If he had to sacrifice 
 anything, there were righteous sacrifices. 
 
 During the next few weeks he saw Hardy two or three 
 times, and the lover pleaded with him for an early decision. 
 There was no difficulty as regarded money, for Hardy's firm 
 was doing better every day. It seemed that in that 
 particular trade there was much opportunity for honest 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 189 
 
 dealing, and Hardy was utterly honest. He had argued the 
 matter with his eager Hebraic partner in such wise that 
 little Sonnenschein had at last grasped the fact that there 
 was great pecuniary advantage in a spotless reputation. He 
 presently regarded this as an original discovery, and 
 attributing it to his own moral feelings went out like a 
 prophet among his people. 
 
 Waring said to Hardy, " Well, my boy, I understand 
 how you feel. It's now September ; make -what arrange- 
 ments you can so that you can get away before Christmas 
 and stay away for three months. Can you do that ? " 
 
 " Of course I can and will," said Hardy. 
 
 " By the time you come back to London," said Waring, 
 " things will have settled down a little. Mrs. Waring 
 won't be easily reconciled to it, but presently she will 
 accept it. Well, there you are make your arrangements." 
 
 He went away with his head down, pondering ; re- 
 membering his old love, and his own great passion when he 
 was a young man. He knew Hardy. He knew his 
 character as well as a man may ; knew how he had suffered, 
 what he had endured, what a life of misery and self-sup- 
 pression he had led. He knew he had been his wife's nurse, 
 her keeper, had stayed up with her night after night. 
 During the worst of his time Waring had done a great deal 
 for him, had had him in his house constantly and en- 
 couraged him, had been kinder to him, perhaps, than to 
 any other man, had shown Hardy the best side of his 
 character. 
 
 And then there came the time when he knew that his 
 daughter had fallen in love with the man. He had behaved 
 brutally, like a fool. Well, ah 1 that was over ; he might 
 behave like a fool, but never again would he be brutal. It 
 had been taken out of him, and in place of it there came 
 something which he felt was nobler : a gentleness, humility, 
 a great acceptance of life, an acceptance in its essence 
 
190 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 religious, though he neither perceived nor acknowledged 
 any Deity. But the essence of religion, as he felt, was not 
 any such belief, it was the consciousness of the great facts 
 of life all in their due order. 
 
 He told Joyce about his last talk with Robert, and 
 when he spoke to her she flushed and trembled. 
 
 " What about mother ? " she asked. 
 
 And Waring said, " My dear, I am not going to tell her 
 till you go away, I have made up my mind to that. Nothing 
 would be gained by it but trouble, and we are neither 
 of us strong enough for that." 
 
 Now she clung to him. 
 
 " Oh, but you are so much better, father." 
 
 " That's true, my dear, I know I am and I want to 
 be. But I'm easily upset still. So say no more about it. 
 Get as ready as you can you won't need to take so very 
 much. When the day comes you will go out early one 
 morning just with a little hand-bag ; any other things that 
 you wish to take I want you to bring down to my office." 
 
 She and her mother knew that Waring had what he 
 called an office. They imagined it was a working room 
 somewhere down by his newspaper. As he had never said 
 anything more about it, and had never invited them there 
 to see him, they had displayed no curiosity on the subject. 
 Mrs. Waring's one chance visit to the real newspaper office 
 had greatly afflicted her. She had been put in a waiting- 
 room dimly lighted from the back through glass which 
 had never been cleaned. The principal decorations of this 
 room had been piles of newspapers in various stages of 
 dirt. Even the room in which she presently found her 
 husband was hardly better to her orderly eye it seemed 
 a chaos that none but the child of a god could tackle. 
 Thus she imagined what he called his office was of this 
 order. It is true she had seen Miss Willis, but Waring 
 had instructed his secretary to complain discreetly of the 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 191 
 
 awful conditions in the city, having said frankly to her, 
 " I don't want Mrs. Waring here, Miss Willis, and nothing in 
 the world will keep her away so well as a general idea that 
 you and I work together in a dust- bin." 
 
 " Am I to come there ? " asked Joyce. " I don't know 
 where it is." 
 
 " I'll take you there in a day or two," said Waring, 
 " but you won't let your mother know anything about it. 
 I'd like you to come there, there's something that I want 
 to tell you, child. There's also something I'd like you to 
 see. You'd better come into town and lunch with me 
 on Saturday, and I'll take you ; Miss Willis won't be there 
 then, and we shall have the place to ourselves." And so 
 it was arranged. 
 
 On the following Saturday she went down to town, and 
 at half-past one met her father outside the restaurant in 
 the Strand which he had appointed as a meeting-place. 
 She thought that he was more quiet than usual, perhaps 
 more depressed than he had been. During the lunch he 
 spoke very little, but presently he said, " It is a hard thing 
 for anybody to know anybody else, isn't it, Joyce ? We 
 either do it at once, or it takes us long long years. I'm 
 sorry now to think of the years I wasted when I might have, 
 been reading the book of my own little girl." Then he added 
 with an odd change in his voice, a change which seemed a 
 little harsh to her, " I am going to let you read a little in 
 my book, child. You don't know me, either." 
 
 She could not answer him. She wished to hear what 
 he had to tell her, and yet did not wish it. The change in 
 him had been very great ; it had been difficult to accommo- 
 date herself to so big a change. Her affection for him was 
 not yet full-grown. She was beautifully reconciled to 
 him, and to what he was now, because she had a pity for 
 him in that he seemed in some ways not only gentle but 
 broken. But she wondered what he was going to tell her.. 
 
192 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 She was uneasy, for she perceived it would be difficult for 
 him to speak. She wanted to keep near him, to get nearer. 
 He might say something which would be a shock, a surprise, 
 that would take time to get over. And then, again, she 
 was glad to hear that he could speak. She put out her 
 hand timidly, and he pressed it ; and presently they went 
 away together down the Strand and turned into the 
 Adelphi. 
 
 " You don't even know where my room is, Joyce," said 
 her father. " I suppose I've been a rather secretive land of 
 man. It was my nature I couldn't help it. Besides, 
 you know, my dear, I didn't want your mother running 
 round to see me. I needn't tell you she doesn't under- 
 stand a man's work." 
 
 But Joyce knew she did not understand the man either. 
 
 " I hardly ever see anybody here but Miss Willis," 
 said Waring, when he opened the door of his rooms, " and 
 as it's Saturday afternoon she is not here now. Come in, 
 my dear." 
 
 And Joyce entered the room and looked round it curiously. 
 It was lined with books, and with shelves on which stood 
 portfolios containing innumerable indexed cuttings. There 
 were a few pictures in the room. Mostly it was adorned, 
 as far as it was adorned at all, by photographs of eminent 
 journalists and of foreign statesmen, that had been given 
 to Waring in the course of his journalistic life. Here and 
 there were a few objects of art that he had picked up abroad. 
 One was a little tanagra statuette worth much more than 
 Waring knew. He had no knowledge of art, but some 
 little taste. Besides the pictures the room was very simply 
 furnished. There were three tables in it covered with 
 papers ; on one of them was the covered typewriter that 
 Miss Willis used. There was a gas fire which Waring now 
 lit. When it went off with a sudden bang Joyce started. 
 She found she was very nervous. Her father drew up the 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 193 
 
 only fairly comfortable chair in the room and placed it by 
 the fire. 
 
 " Sit down, my dear," he said. And she sat down. 
 
 " I have two working rooms here," he said presently as 
 he walked up and down and then stood by the window. 
 " The other one is a very barren place, there's no need to 
 show it you. Miss Willis sits there when I have anyone to 
 see me privately you know, of course, that in my position 
 I have a great deal of confidential matter imparted to me. 
 I have sometimes wondered what the public would think 
 if they knew how little one puts down compared with the 
 great deal that one knows. Perhaps it is always the same, 
 Joyce, with everything. We know so much about our- 
 selves, and say so little. We keep our counsel, and then 
 resent not being understood." 
 
 He was then standing by the window looking out upon 
 the river. 
 
 " Come here, my dear," he said. 
 
 She came to him. It was a very beautiful view. Waring 
 loved it. There was always something splendid, something 
 amazing about a great river, whether it flowed for ever in 
 one way or was subject to the influence of the tides. Now 
 there was strong sunlight upon the flood. She saw part of 
 her own ancient, mystic city, the turn of the flowing river, 
 the bridges, churches that she could not name, and signs 
 of the great business for ever carried on by the banks of 
 the Thames. 
 
 " I like the river," said Waring, " it's mostly doing 
 something, for ever hurrying to and fro, and yet the tides do 
 seem to rest for a moment. This river isn't like the Rhone 
 or the Rhine, my dear. They seem to me very lonely ; 
 they pass for ever in a great silent procession. Somehow 
 the old Thames seems to renew its life. One knows it is not 
 so far from the sea that gives it a kind of touch of im- 
 mortality. A river that never returns is something like 
 
194 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 human life. I don't suppose you remember the old Greek 
 poet who said, ' The mallow and the parsley return, but 
 we men who are strong and wise and brave, when we die 
 we sleep well, a long endless, unawakening sleep.' That 
 mayn't be your religion, my dear, and I won't discuss 
 it, but in a way that's why I'm glad the old river outside 
 is not an inland one. Now, Joyce, I want to tell you 
 something. Go and sit down again." 
 
 He walked up and down the room and once more stood 
 at the window. 
 
 " I thought I should never tell you what I'm going to 
 tell you now. It is not always easy to speak, one has to get 
 through so much. I found that with your brother when 
 we made friends. When one holds one's tongue for a year 
 it's difficult to speak, and when it's ten years it's a hundred 
 times more difficult. But sometimes the barriers fall down 
 themselves. You know nothing of my early life, do you, 
 child ? " 
 
 He looked at her and she shook her head. 
 
 " No more does your mother," said Waring. " At first 
 I did not tell her anything because I couldn't, but after- 
 wards I thought it would distress her. And besides, she 
 was never curious I'll say that for her. Sometimes I 
 wish she had been she takes so little interest except in the 
 house work, Joyce. She doesn't know that I was married 
 before I married her." 
 
 This was a great shock to Joyce. She did not know 
 what she had expected to hear, but certainly this had 
 never occurred to her. 
 
 "It is difficult to tell you even a little," said Waring 
 after a pause. " But somehow I feel it's right to tell you 
 all I can. You see my first wife was a relative of yours, 
 Joyce, there's the same blood in you as in her. You are 
 my daughter, my dear, my only daughter, and she was 
 my second cousin so I suppose you and she were third 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 195 
 
 cousins, or whatever it may be. And since you have 
 grown up, especially since you've had trouble, Joyce, 
 there's been more than a little likeness between you and 
 her. I can't tell you everything, but you must understand 
 I loved her very much as much as I was capable of which 
 is more than I have been capable of ever since. Her death 
 nearly killed me. But I can't tell it you. I only wanted 
 you to know, for many reasons, partly, as I say, because 
 you'd got like her ; and then there are things here in that 
 other room, which I will show you presently, that I want 
 you to have if anything happens to me. I don't want any- 
 body else but you, and perhaps Robert, to go in that room 
 if anything does happen. I'm going to take you in now." 
 
 As he spoke he faced the window and did not turn to 
 his daughter, for he wondered whether she would under- 
 stand. Joyce had had grief of her own, and it was through 
 grief that understanding came. Perhaps it would come to 
 her. 
 
 Presently Waring felt her hand upon his shoulder, and 
 turned and looked at her, and saw that her eyes were 
 filled with tears, and that she was very sorry. He took 
 her in his arms and said, " My dear little girl, I don't want 
 to make you unhappy, but one has sometimes to confide 
 in some one, and I wanted to tell you this." 
 
 She answered, " I'm glad, father I'm glad." 
 
 Then he gave her his keys, and said, " That is the key 
 of the door unlock it and go in, and presently come back 
 to me. And when you come out, lock the door again." 
 
 He took a chair and sat by the window, which he opened, 
 and watched the making flood. 
 
 And Joyce went into the other room and closed the door 
 behind her. It was as though she had entered a little 
 chapel, something unknown, sacred, peculiarly secret or 
 apart. It was not only a room, it was some strange 
 reserved portion of her father's mind, and of his youth : 
 
196 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 something that had happened more than twenty-five years 
 ago, that still existed like a monument. 
 
 The room was cold and very clean, for indeed Waring 
 saw that it was clean, and dusted things with his own hands. 
 She saw the portrait of the woman who was connected with 
 her by blood ; who was, so her father said, a little like her. 
 She wondered if it were so, and looked at the portrait with 
 a strange feeling of respect. It made her peculiarly 
 conscious of the strange and awful dignity of death, that 
 till now she had never understood. For death was the past, 
 it was history, and yet it lived and worked. The woman 
 that she saw was beautiful. She had hair like her own, 
 hair that was a mass of dark bronze. She was peculiarly 
 gentle ; sad, though smiling ; her hands were thin and 
 fine. 
 
 " They are like my own," said Joyce. 
 
 It was the portrait of a woman, although she was young, 
 who understood, who was capable of forgiveness because 
 she was capable of comprehension. Her smile was one of 
 contemplation, it was very deep, and as though she had 
 thoughts that were perhaps incommunicable save by the 
 sweetness they imparted to the spirit. Joyce thought 
 she had been a very silent woman she could not say why. 
 That she had been very lovable, she knew. That her father 
 had loved her very greatly she felt in her bones, and for a 
 moment there was a great flood of pity in her for her own 
 mother, who had no high, incommunicable thoughts, nor 
 any gift of contemplation, nor any dear surrendering pity 
 of the soul. She had no gifts : there was no fine grace in 
 her aspect, nor any capacity for a noble calm. 
 
 Joyce knew she was essentially her father's child. Here 
 for once, perhaps, the mother had been an accident, the 
 father had been the essence of the child's being. And she 
 understood why her father had spoken to her, and she was 
 glad. She bowed her head before the portrait of her whom 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 197 
 
 she perceived to have been her spiritual mother, for so it 
 seemed to her. 
 
 She looked about the room and saw a shelf with books 
 upon it. When she read the titles she understood why it 
 was that in her father's library at home there were few of the 
 great poets. For they were here, and had belonged to her 
 who was dead. There were many things about the room 
 that must have belonged to her ; a closed and locked 
 work-box, a trunk covered with a travelling rug, photo- 
 graphs of her long before the portrait had been painted, 
 things that had been gifts given to her by her lover, things 
 she had given him when she knew she loved him. 
 
 Presently Joyce looked again at the portrait, and went 
 to it, and lifting up her hand touched the painted hand she 
 saw upon the canvas, and then turned away and went out 
 swiftly, and closed the door and locked it, and brought the 
 keys back to her father. And for a little while she did not 
 speak, and he was wondering whether he had been wise, 
 whether he had wrought wisdom or disaster for if this child 
 did not understand she would be no child of his. Suddenly 
 he felt that if she did not understand he would hate her. 
 And he grew very cold, and shivered, and was sorry. 
 
 But she put her hand upon his shoulder and said, " I 
 am glad, father I'm glad you told me." 
 
 And then he turned and took her in his arms, and his 
 heart was warm towards her. And he felt he had been a 
 bitter, strange fool to have any doubts of her knowledge, 
 her comprehension, and her native sweetness, seeing that 
 she was like Evelyn. 
 
 He said, " My daughter, I am glad I told you. And now 
 perhaps you understand oh no, you couldn't understand 
 that, but I'll tell you. I've sometimes thought, because 
 she gave me no children, that you in a way were her child, 
 because you are like her. It is not so, of course, but again 
 it seems possible oh, I don't know what I'm saying she 
 
198 
 
 was so much in my heart always, and wrought upon me 
 so, and I was changed. For me, you are her daughter, 
 Joyce." 
 
 He kissed the girl's brow, and she held to him for a little 
 while and said nothing, but presently smiled up at him 
 through her tears, still holding his hand. 
 
 Then he said in a changed voice, " Come now, my dear, 
 I've told you all or as much as I can tell you now. Some 
 day perhaps I'll tell you a little more. Let us go." 
 
 And they went away together. 
 
 XXI 
 
 THE next week Waring went to see Renshaw, for Heathcote 
 sent him a card to say the surgeon had come back. Evi- 
 dently Heathcote was somewhat anxious that Renshaw 
 should see their patient ; at any rate, that was the conclu- 
 sion that Waring drew. He found Renshaw looking as 
 strong as an Assyrian bull. After they had shaken hands 
 he stood a little back and looked at his man, running his eyes 
 up and down him. 
 
 Then he said, " By God, Waring, I'm your father and 
 your mother ! Talk about the new women devilish good 
 job there are some new ones, by the way you're the new 
 man. Don't want to shock you, but upon my word I feel 
 somewhat in the position of the Deity, who made man out 
 of nothing. You were next to nothing when you came 
 to me. How are you feeling ? " 
 
 Waring, flattered by the proud position he occupied in 
 Renshaw's mental surgical exhibition, said that he felt 
 very well. 
 
 " At least, you know, I feel very well one moment, and 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 199 
 
 pretty beastly the next. I haven't got back to anything 
 like certainty." 
 
 " What kind of certainty ? " asked Renshaw. 
 
 " A certainty of life," -said Waring. " Don't you know 
 we most of us go about thinking we can't die ? Well, now I 
 mostly have the feeling that I shan't find it easy to live. 
 Life seems very fragile." 
 
 Renshaw nodded. 
 
 " Oh, I understand but that's the result of shock. You 
 haven't got over it you couldn't expect to in a few months. 
 Although we tell you comfortable lies just to help you, it 
 takes a year or two, to speak the absolute truth. You'll 
 be two years at the least, Waring, before you really lay hold 
 of things and get back your comfortable sense of physical 
 immortality. But come, take off your shirt and get on the 
 couch, and I'll run my hands over you." 
 
 And presently Renshaw was engaged in looking at his 
 handiwork. He said he was as pleased as a boy with a 
 white rat. 
 
 " Here's a scar for you by Jove, it's a triumph ! " said 
 Renshaw. " Straight as a ruler, not a wrinkle in it. I'm 
 proud of that scar. Makes one mad to see a bad one, 
 you know, Waring. On my word I'd like to get you, 
 stripped, on a revolving pedestal at the Polyclinic." 
 
 " Much obliged, I'm sure," said Waring. 
 
 And then Renshaw did what he called " running his hands 
 over " him, which, luckily for Waring, gave him nothing 
 but slight discomfort here or there. 
 
 " Upon my word, I think I've made a wonderful job of 
 you," said Renshaw. " You'd better put a placard on your 
 back, say, ' Sanitation and electric lighting by Renshaw.' ' 
 
 " Then you don't find anything ? " asked Waring, half 
 suspiciously. 
 
 " No, and I didn't expect to find it," said Renshaw. 
 
 " You will, some day," said Waring. 
 
200 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 But that made Renshaw angry. 
 
 " Your business isn't to think any such thing," he said, 
 pointing his ringer at his patient. " Your business is 
 to go round thinking you're quite well. The more you 
 think you're not, the worse your chance. You stick to 
 thinking you're well and mighty well, and I wouldn't be 
 surprised, as I told you before, but you'd see me cremated. 
 What's this that Heathcote says about you, though ? He 
 threw out dark hints, Waring, that you were mad as a 
 hatter." 
 
 " The deuce he did," said Waring, standing up and 
 putting his clothes in order. " Said I was mad, eh ? Oh, 
 I know I didn't agree with his views of morality or 
 religion." 
 
 " He moaned because you were an atheist, or something 
 of the kind." 
 
 " Something of the sort, perhaps," said Waring. 
 " Thought you used to be a bit orthodox," said Renshaw. 
 " Heathcote is ; I can't understand it, either." 
 " What are you ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " Oh, I ? I'm nothing," said Renshaw contemptuously. 
 " I haven't got any time to be I don't think of these 
 things I go to work. It's a sign of disease to be a moralist, 
 or to be religious. All you've got to do is just to go to work 
 don't think about anything. When a man begins con- 
 sidering his position in the universe he ought to have six 
 weeks' hard labour. A philosopher's a symptom of social 
 disease. Somebody'd better write another book called 
 ' Social Symptoms and their Interpretation.' Have you 
 got to work yet ? " 
 
 Waring nodded, and then shook his head. 
 " Well I'm just fooling." 
 
 " That's right," said Renshaw. " Keep fooling. Keep 
 your mind occupied. Have as good a time as you can 
 don't worry." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 201 
 
 " Bless you and the whole hierarchy of doctors ! " 
 laughed Waring. " You, and your ' Don't worry ! ' 
 
 " All the same it's sound," said Renshaw. " Go away, 
 and don't forget it. I know one stockbroker who, when- 
 ever things go badly, retires into an upper room and reads 
 astronomy. He says there's nothing like seeing stars to 
 make you forget the turn of the market. When you are 
 worrying about little things, go and look at the big things. 
 Oh, I'm a very wise man, Waring ! " 
 
 " Look at the big things, eh ? " said Waring. " Well, 
 Renshaw, I'll get a photograph of yours and when I'm 
 worried I'll stick it up and have a look at it. Do you think 
 you'll do instead of the sea or Saturn ? " 
 
 " I'll send you a photograph," said Renshaw, " if you'll 
 give me one of yours. And now go away like a good boy, 
 and don't forget I'm your father and your mother. You 
 must do as you're told." 
 
 " You haven't told me a story," said Waring. " Haven't 
 you got a new one ? " 
 
 " God bless your heart, a dozen," said Renshaw. " Look 
 me up some evening, and I'll tell you them, but now I can't 
 so off you go, my boy." 
 
 Waring went away feeling for a little while extra- 
 ordinarily pleased. He chuckled to think of himself as 
 Renshaw's only child. That he certainly was not, for 
 according to Renshaw's theory he was father and mother 
 to half Grosvenor Square to say the least of it. 
 
 During that week he asked Nurse Smith to lunch with 
 him. He took her to the same restaurant in the Strand that 
 he had been to with his daughter. It appeared that she too 
 was rather like Renshaw she also regarded herself as his 
 father and his mother ; or so it seemed to Waring, who was 
 never so simple or so childlike as when he was with his 
 nurses. They at any rate had seen him at his worst and at 
 his weakest ; there was no painted veil or screen between him 
 
202 
 
 and them, no picturesque pretence or illusion. Occasionally 
 Nurse Smith had told him with due and reasoned authority 
 what she thought of him ; had said that he must this, and 
 must that ; had indeed stood over him somewhat as he 
 remembered his mother standing when she held an early 
 Victorian dose to his reluctant mouth. 
 
 " But you've grown up again, Mr. Waring," said the 
 nurse. 
 
 " Not quite," said Waring. " At any rate not for you. 
 I'm about fifteen or sixteen, so you needn't be too polite 
 to me. It would never surprise me if I heard any of my 
 nurses call me ' Tom ' in a threatening voice, and say that 
 if I didn't do something they'd spank me." 
 
 "I'm sure we were all very nice to you," said Nurse 
 Smith. 
 
 " It was the only thing that saved me," said Waring. 
 " If only one of you had been nice it would have been all up 
 with me." 
 
 He told her while they were having lunch what Heath- 
 cote and Renshaw said, but presently, when they came 
 to the coffee, he got a little more confidential than 
 that. 
 
 " You know, my dear," he said, " it's all very well for 
 these men to talk like that. They do it just for encourage- 
 ment, and it does encourage one. But somehow I've got 
 an internal conviction that I haven't got such a thundering 
 long time after all." 
 
 Nurse Smith shook her finger at him. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Waring, you have no business to say that, or 
 to think it." 
 
 " Forget you're a nurse for a moment," said Waring. 
 " I'm perfectly cheerful I'm taking everything as it comes 
 and I'm just telling you what I think. I'm glad now that 
 the thing was done and that I've got a little time left it 
 may be no more, it may be less. Still, however little or 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 203 
 
 however much it is I'm glad of it, because I have'ti lot of 
 tilings to do." 
 
 " But you want to live as well, don't you ? " asked his 
 nurse. 
 
 " Yes, of course I do," replied Waring, " only I don't feel 
 I shall. However, I only tell you this in order that you 
 shall be prepared for me to come in again one of these days 
 and have another little turn with you. If it does happen, 
 nurse, I'm going to refuse to go in unless they put me 
 under you I won't be with any other nurse. So if you've 
 just been pretending that on the whole I was endurable 
 you'll have brought it all on yourself. How are all my 
 other friends at the home ? " 
 
 She told him about them. 
 
 " Ah," said Waring, " most of you, I see, have got lives 
 of your own you're not only nurses. I think the public 
 believe that nurses never speak about anything but patients, 
 that they rise up and go to bed thinking of 'em." 
 
 " It would be very bad for the patients if they did," said 
 Nurse Smith. 
 
 " I'm going to write to-morrow and ask Nurse Ballantyne 
 to come and have lunch," said Waring. " I want to have 
 a talk with her too. And I wonder in the meantime 
 whether you and she, or any other pal of yours, could use 
 these theatre tickets ? " 
 
 He produced a couple and handed them over. 
 
 " If you can't use them yourself, give them away," said 
 Waring. " And if at any time you have a passionate desire 
 to go to any particular theatre, and feel yourself incapable 
 of going anywhere but the stalls, let me know. I can get 
 whatever tickets I like." 
 
 That was quite true, as the dramatic critic of his paper 
 had a notion that though going to the theatre regularly 
 nearly killed him, it was a fine tonic for other people. 
 Waring told this to the nurse, and added, " Upon my word, 
 
204 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 I'm not sure but what he's right. Sometimes after going 
 to the theatre I've come out and said, ' Well, after all, life 
 isn't so damned silly as that. On the contrary it's 
 endurable.' " 
 
 About four o'clock he put her into a taxi-cab and sent 
 her back home. Whatever she felt, he was all the better 
 for having seen her, for she was a sweet and kindly woman 
 and knew her business. That was a point that always 
 affected Waring there were so few people who did. 
 
 As Nurse Ballantyne could not get away when he asked 
 her, it was a week later when they met. He knew she was 
 always a little nervous with him after what had happened in 
 his house, but this time she seemed to have got rid of it. 
 She saw he was a different man. As she knew his private 
 affairs better than Nurse Smith he told her in confidence 
 what she had already guessed, that he was no longer to 
 stand between his daughter and her lover. 
 
 " I hope you don't think I'm wrong," he said. 
 Nurse Ballantyne shook her head. 
 
 " I can't say you are wrong, and I can't say you are 
 right, Mr. Waring. I'm sure you believe you are doing 
 right, and I hope, indeed I believe, that no real harm will 
 come of it. I saw Miss Waring last week and thought she 
 looked wonderful, quite a different creature." 
 
 " Ah, you did ? " said Waring. " That was my pre- 
 scription, nurse, a prescription I told Dr. Heathcote about 
 a grain of hope to an ounce of kindness. A fine prescription 
 that ! I used to prescribe an ounce of ' Damn it all ! ' to a 
 pound of ' I won't have it,' but things are different now. 
 I've been in the firing line and have been brought down, 
 and I understand what I didn't before. I suppose at times 
 one may have to be cruel to people's prejudices that stand 
 in the way of your being truly kind, but as a general rule 
 you can't go wrong by being tolerant. At any rate I'm 
 going to try it. Have you heard how Mrs. Hardy is ? " 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 205 
 
 Nurse Ballantyne nodded. 
 
 " My sister told me about her two or three days ago," she 
 said. 
 
 " Is she just as usual ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " Rather worse," said Nurse Ballantyne. " You see, my 
 yister can't be with her all the time they ought to have two 
 nurses and the consequence was Mrs. Hardy went out 
 with her mother the other day, and got hold of a bottle of 
 brandy. She drank it all that evening, and my sister had 
 an awful time with her. She stopped her when she was 
 opening the window, swearing she'd jump out. She seemed 
 to have a notion that she could fly." 
 
 " I wish to God she would jump out," said Waring. " A 
 woman like that never will. If your sister would throw 
 her out I'd give her a pension. However, let me know what 
 happens. It would be all the better if she were dead 
 before Christmas, but of course she won't be." 
 
 Nurse Ballantyne shook her head. 
 
 " I don't see any reason why she should. She's been 
 going on like this now for eight years, and since she's been 
 at home she actually looks much better, though of course 
 her mother looks worse." 
 
 " Nurses ought to have some discretion allowed them," 
 said Waring. " My tolerance doesn't extend to people who 
 make other lives miserable. But there, we've talked 
 enough about your business if you'd like to come with me 
 in a taxi-cab I'll take you to Chelsea and send you back 
 in it while I stay and see my friend Harman." 
 
206 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 XXII 
 
 As Waring drifted again into some of his old habits of work, 
 it was the old habit with a difference. His secretary dis- 
 covered that he was less anxious to polish what he dictated. 
 Things were good enough, he said. He knew he would 
 never get back his former view of politics, even though 
 they seemed to matter dreadfully to others. No doubt 
 Miss Willis was pleased. She had a better time ; he only 
 snapped her head off at intervals. Nor did he enter 
 the working-room with the expression, as she had once 
 expressed it, "as if he were a soured but energetic 
 murderer." 
 
 By the end of October he was doing what seemed to him 
 a great deal of work. It was almost half what he had been 
 accustomed to do. The editor of his paper, though anxious 
 to see him once more at the mill, was very considerate to 
 him. Some of his colleagues who had detested him now 
 began to discover good qualities in him. He was more 
 pleasant ; if he did not suffer fools gladly, he tried to be 
 kind to them. 
 
 Waring had never been a great man for clubs, he had 
 been too much wrapped up in himself, and too dogmatic, 
 to be clubbable. Nevertheless he belonged to two, and 
 he now began to find it more pleasant to drop into one in 
 the afternoon. It was not a well-known club outside the 
 ranks of the working professions. Perhaps it was the more 
 friendly for that, as most of the men knew each other. 
 
 One afternoon late in the month of October, Waring went 
 in and found but few men in the smoking-room. But 
 presently he heard the voice of his friend Harman in the 
 corner. His face lighted up a little at that, for Harman 
 
207 
 
 interested him. Waring was accustomed to say that all 
 men interested him. In a sense that was true, but it was 
 usually only on account of their special work ; for even 
 the biggest fool knew something better than his wisest 
 questioner, though it were but his folly. But Harman had 
 no speciality ; he knew everything badly, or so he said 
 with plaintive arrogance. 
 
 " All I want is three facts in the same plane," Harman 
 was wont to declare, " and then I can draw a triangle and 
 speculate as to the nature of its angles for a whole fort- 
 night." 
 
 He was full of ingenuity. He had a fresh mind. He 
 used to declare he could turn himself inside out like a 
 holothurian and make a new stomach of his outside. His 
 passion was discussion, he loved to draw new and outrageous 
 conclusions. Now Waring knew that some of the con- 
 clusions he thought outrageous and far-fetched were 
 neither. Harman now was talking in the corner with 
 Campbell, a big Highlander, by profession a physician, 
 whom Waring had known for some two or three years, and 
 had found wonderfully intelligent outside his own business, 
 a man ready to learn from anybody, one who was furiously 
 interested in realities, whether they were medical or social. 
 
 Waring remembered now that in a talk he had had with 
 him two years before he had found that Campbell, in spite 
 of his medical training, retained some vague tendencies to 
 a kind of vitalism with which at that time Waring half 
 sympathized. He wondered whether Campbell still felt as 
 he did. It was probable he yet held to the old opinions, 
 they were most likely in his Highland blood. 
 
 Now he went over to the corner where the two men were 
 sitting, and shook hands with them and sat down. Campbell 
 had been to see him several times while he was in the 
 nursing home. He congratulated Waring on the apparent 
 results of the operation. 
 
208 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Yes," said Waring, " I saw Renshaw this week, and 
 he said he was my father and my mother. He wanted to 
 get me on a pedestal at the Polyclinic and show me off, 
 scar and all, of which he was specially proud." 
 
 " Waring's as spick-and-span to look at as the new South 
 Kensington Museum," said Harman. 
 
 " Ah," laughed Waring, " why, that's almost what 
 Renshaw said. He wanted me to go round with a sandwich 
 board with ' Alterations and repairs and sanitary work by 
 Renshaw.' ' 
 
 " New morality, too," put in Harman. 
 
 " Why do you say that ? " asked Campbell, a little 
 curiously. 
 
 " Waring's chock full of new ideas since this illness of 
 his," said Harman, " and I don't think he's ashamed of 
 'em either." 
 
 " People with new ideas never are," said Campbell. 
 " When I get a new one I want a herald and trumpeter. 
 I'm as proud as a dog with two tails, as I heard a sailor 
 say once. But what are your new ideas, Waring ? " 
 
 " I'll tell you," said Harman, " he's come at last to 
 where I've been for years. You know my opinions that 
 is, you know I haven't any. Here's old Waring suddenly 
 got cured of some kind of religious arthritis. I suppose 
 your friend Renshaw cured him of it." 
 
 Waring laughed. 
 
 " I suppose I organized what knowledge I had," he said. 
 ' You see one can have a lot of unorganized knowledge 
 without knowing it. For example, I found out that I 
 knew quite a deal here and there about anatomy while 
 I was lying in bed at the home, Campbell, but I'd never had 
 anything to hang it on. Having a little piece of anatomy 
 forced on me I began hooking all the rest on to it. Then 
 I discovered all the gaps, and in spite of them I found what 
 knowledge I had became a sort of reasonable pattern in 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 209 
 
 my mind. And the gaps had a tendency to fill themselves 
 even before I got hold of a little book about anatomy and 
 tried to fill them. I suppose you can understand that." 
 
 " Why, of course I can," said Campbell. " Any in- 
 telligent man is full of unorganized knowledge." 
 
 " And most people never organize anything," grunted 
 Harman. " They neither know how much nor how little 
 it is." 
 
 " When I'd come to that," said Waring, " I came to it 
 through the path of anatomy I began to organize other 
 things. I said the other day that I had been like a box of 
 undeveloped photographic plates, and all this business 
 lately developed 'em. I knew what I'd seen, what I'd 
 taken, so to speak and it all came out, some of it sharp 
 and clear, some of it fogged. I'd always been so busy 
 before I don't suppose I really thought deeply about 
 anything but foreign politics. But now I organized the 
 suffering of others round my own in the organic mass, and 
 when it was in a pattern, not in a heap, it looked terrible 
 to me, and any explanation I had made about it, or had 
 made for me, didn't work. That's about all." 
 
 " Waring's come out of the religious Egypt," said 
 Harman. " He's as proud as your dog with two tails, 
 Campbell." 
 
 Waring shook his head. 
 
 " Anyhow you've got more liberty in your mind," said 
 Harman, " and liberty, why that's life. What do we 
 want ? more freedom. Nietzsche's a great tonic to me, 
 though I think he's wrong he thinks only the strong can 
 be free. I think the strong will love freedom enough to 
 make others free, and those of us who are free love it not 
 only for ourselves, but for others. Do you know, Campbell, 
 here's Waring been talking about anatomy, of which he 
 knows deuced little for according to his account he lay 
 in bed and evolved it from his inner consciousness. The 
 
210 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 other day I was thinking about physiology and evolu- 
 tion. Every bit of physiological evolution begins as a 
 disease." 
 
 " Ah," said Campbell, " what do you mean ? Tell me 
 this interests me." 
 
 " If you take a heart and lay it open with a knife," said 
 Harman, " what does it look like ? " 
 
 " Like a heart," said Campbell, rudely. 
 
 " I didn't expect any better of you," said Harman. 
 " You're BO wrapped up in your own profession that you 
 haven't time to think about it. Now it looks like an 
 aneurism an organized aneurism." 
 
 " Quite right," said Campbell, " that's what it is." 
 
 " That's how it began, at any rate," said Harman. 
 " The circulatory canal of some of our remote ancestors 
 got a local dilatation, but it became organized. Isn't it 
 the same about the stomach ? Our poor ancestors were 
 long, straight-tube animals ; they took in and put out, and 
 had their time cut out to keep themselves going ; they had 
 to eat all the time. Some wise blighter, whose name I 
 don't know, got a kind of dilatation somewhere in his 
 eanal ; there was a stasis of food there. He felt beastly 
 uncomfortable ; was diseased, savage, cross. It made 
 him think, I dare say ; made him curse, probably I can 
 imagine anything cursing, from an amoeba up ; I can even 
 imagine a savage and misanthropic electron, especially if 
 he's a negative one. This poor beggar out of his pain 
 developed a stomach that's where our stomach comes 
 from, Campbell. Folks with stomachs don't have to eat 
 all their time that's a great saving. My ancestral annelid, 
 or whatever he was, had time for other work but chewing. 
 Here's your beginning of intelligence out of a dilated 
 intestinal canal. Am I speaking words of wisdom, O 
 physician ? " 
 
 " Upon my word, you're quite right ; it runs through 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 211 
 
 everything, though I don't remember hearing it put exactly 
 that way," said Campbell. 
 
 " No more have I," said Waring. " But then Harman 
 always was a bit of a genius, who didn't know his own 
 business, but could tell everybody else theirs." 
 
 " He's right enough," said Campbell. " The odd thing 
 is that I've been thinking it's all the same on the mental 
 side. Every advance that we make intellectually is or 
 implies, to start with, a disorder of metabolism, a disease if 
 you like, at any rate a quasi-pathological state." 
 
 " That's it," said Harman. " We're always organizing 
 up to our environment." 
 
 " Yes," said Campbell, " to our changing environment, 
 trying to touch it, to fit. Why, Harman, if you were to go 
 down into the country among a lot of solid agriculturists, 
 the adscripti glebce, they'd think you as mad as a hatter 
 and what's more, you are as mad as a hatter compared with 
 them. What's your damned intellectual curiosity but 
 madness ? Just you sit down alongside some solid old 
 labourer made of beautiful Saxon mud, using only two 
 hundred and fifty words to express everything with, and 
 you've got twenty-five thousand though half of them are 
 misused, no doubt. Why, over a pint of beer at the Hare 
 and Hounds he tells his pals, ' That chap from Lunnon's 
 mad.' Put him in London and he'd get run over by a 
 taxi-cab he's subdued to his environment or he'd go 
 mad too many stimuli for him. Why, things we can't 
 stand kids can organize up to easily. Now I'll tell you 
 about my boy who is five years old. I've got a tele- 
 phone in my house, of course. Now, my dear old mother, 
 whenever she hears the telephone bell ring, gets an attack 
 of the nerves, and says : ' Oh dear, oh dear ! ' She can't 
 take a message or send one, and she's a brilliant old dear, 
 all the same. But the other day that kid of mine dragged 
 a chair across the room and rang me up in Harley Street. 
 
212 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 Think of that he's organized up to the telephone already. 
 In twenty or thirty years he'll be organizing with difficulty, 
 and will get worried. What's worry but the attempt at 
 evolution in a slow-moving organization ? I think you're 
 right, Harman we're both of us right. And I suppose 
 Waring here's been organizing up to his knowledge." 
 
 " Partly, I think," said Waring. 
 
 " Real wise men," said Harman, " that is, great men, 
 prophets, are those who are organized up to what doesn't 
 exist isn't that it ? Look at William Blake, whom I love. 
 He's always abusing analytics, as he calls it. That's 
 because he didn't see the necessity for them. I suppose 
 a kangaroo looks with almighty pity on a poor little walker 
 like a man. So a hurricane that throws down a forest 
 might laugh at an axe ; he that cuts forests with his 
 breath may well despise a knife. However, I don't know 
 that it's any good talking about Blake to you chaps, 
 you've probably never read him. Most people must have 
 a map and a Baedeker to Heaven, a time-table for the 
 Paradise express " 
 
 " Spare us," said Campbell. " We can't live in your 
 keen air. Try not to be a genius for five minutes." 
 
 " Oh, I can always do my best in your company," 
 retorted Harman. " But, then, all men are geniuses 
 the trouble is they don't know it. If any single man or 
 even an amoeba could get out all it knew there'd be an 
 explosion in the Conservative newspapers." 
 
 " And are women geniuses, too ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " Oh, they ? " said Harman. " Of course they are, and 
 they know it and laugh. That's their secret." 
 
 " All the same we haven't got to Waring's new opinions," 
 said Campbell. 
 
 " They're so simple that I haven't any," said Waring. 
 " If you really ask me to put it into one word I -should say 
 that somehow or another I have become tolerant." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 213 
 
 " By God, you're a man ! " said Harman. " Talk about 
 my keen air here's old Waring on a peak, living among 
 the snows. What's a Bloomsbury brick house to all that ? " 
 
 " You feel you've altered ? " said Campbell to Waring. 
 
 Waring nodded. 
 
 " I suppose you think it's odd that I should alter at my 
 age. Say it's shock ; well, what did Harman talk about 
 just now ? religious arthritis, didn't he call it ? I think 
 I'd been suffering from it, and moral arthritis, too. But 
 I know very well that what I think now on top I used to 
 think underneath. It all came in a rush. It's just like a 
 puzzle that's hard till you know how to do it. What do 
 they say about mountains ? ' Impossible very difficult 
 an easy day for a lady.' That's the history of a peak. 
 That's the history of opinions, too." 
 
 " Nevertheless you mustn't say what you think in this 
 country," said Harman. " Wasn't Turgenev more or less 
 turned out of Russia as a revolutionary ? he seems pretty 
 meek to us. But all revolutionaries are in exile. They're 
 sent to Coventry Jones and Smith and Robinson won't 
 know them. Didn't Campbell's profession pretty nearly 
 want to boil Harvey for discovering the circulation of the 
 blood ? Good old England ! " 
 
 " If you went out and talked, you'd have your head 
 broken," said Campbell. 
 
 " Ah," said Harman, " great men are developing-baths, 
 they must have darkness to work in-. When it comes to 
 believing in nothing but kindness and cruelty, and being 
 tolerant, that's the very devil. Are you very tolerant up 
 in Scotland, Campbell ? " 
 
 " God help us, don't talk about it," replied the doctor. 
 
 " They still believe in witches up there," said Waring. 
 
 " Yes," said Harman, " and if you were to tell some of 
 Campbell's countrymen that you saw good in everything 
 and could tolerate everything but cruelty, they'd want to 
 
214 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 drop you in a bog or burn you. If you don't believe in 
 their particular brand of deity black and white, let's say 
 you're a wretch, who ought to be slain without benefit 
 of clergy. You've got to believe like other people if you 
 come out in the open, if you don't want stones thrown. 
 I came across a thing the other day about the Bantus in 
 South Africa. They all believe in witches, and the person 
 who doesn't is a horrible monster, probably a witch him- 
 self, who ought to be killed as soon as possible. You'll be 
 getting yourself into trouble yet, Waring, unless you hold 
 your tongue and don't act on your principles that's the 
 good English safeguard. Get back your old religion, or 
 somebody else's. Stick to Plato and the theologians 
 don't have anything to say to Aristotle or Bacon. Believe 
 you've got a little god inside you that works the machine 
 and you're safe for this life and the next." 
 
 " You've got a poor opinion of your countrymen," said 
 Campbell. 
 
 " Well, damn it all ! " retorted Harman, " what opinion 
 have you got of yours ? " 
 
 " Don't quarrel about the morals of our two countries," 
 said Waring. " After all, have we got anywhere ? Here's 
 Ted Harman talking a great deal, as usual " 
 
 " And saying something," interjected Harman. 
 
 " No doubt but are we any for'arder ? " 
 
 " One never is, visibly," said Harman. 
 
 " It's when one comes to practice," said Waring, " that's 
 the point." 
 
 " Now you want to put cases," suggested Campbell. 
 " One may change one's opinions, but it's very doubtful 
 if one changes one's practice." 
 
 Waring shook his head. 
 
 " I hope I'm not a solemn ass, but I rather fancy I'd 
 change my practice if I changed my opinions." 
 
 " One's got a theoretic right to run away with another 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 215 
 
 man's wife, I suppose," said Harman, " according to my 
 principles or my want of 'em but it's often a very 
 difficult thing to do." 
 
 " Solvitur ambulando" said Campbell. 
 " Well, I've got a case for you that's got to be solved in 
 the next six months," said Waring, " and this isn't a 
 matter of running away with a man's wife, but running 
 away with a woman's husband. I've been asked for 
 advice, but I'd like to hear what you have to say." 
 " Give us the particulars," said Harman. 
 " Well, there's a married man," said Waring, " with a 
 drunken and violent wife. He did his best to save her. 
 Finally he had to separate she's back with her mother, 
 being looked after by a nurse. He's lived alone since, and 
 naturally enough, being still young, he has fallen in love 
 with a young woman who pitied him." 
 
 " And she's in love with him, of course ? " said Harman. 
 Waring nodded. 
 
 " And he wants her to bolt with him, I suppose ? " 
 asked Harman. 
 
 " They're both ready to go," said Waring, " except that 
 the girl doesn't want to shock her people." 
 
 " Then they know all about it ? " asked Harman. 
 " The father does, at any rate," said Waring. " What 
 ought he to do ?" He turned to Campbell. " What do 
 you think, Campbell ? " 
 
 " Let's hear Harman first," said Campbell. 
 Harman put on an air of rigid and outraged virtue. 
 He had something of the face of the actor, and was not a 
 bad mimic. " Speaking, sir, as a man from Surbiton, or 
 Highbury, I recommend that father to buy a thick stick 
 and thrash the lover unmercifully." 
 " Don't be an ass," said Campbell. 
 
 " I can't help it, sometimes," said Harman, " especially 
 when I see your solemn face." 
 
216 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " I was wondering how the girl took it," said Campbell. 
 
 " Well, she's ill," said Waring. " And the father knows 
 she's drifting into a bad state of health." 
 
 " What does he think of the lover ? " asked Harman, 
 getting serious again. 
 
 " If it weren't for this he'd like him very well, I should 
 imagine," said Waring. " Well, what would you do, 
 Harman ? " 
 
 " If it was anybody else's daughter but my own," 
 replied Harman, " I should advise her to run away with 
 him. And if it was my own daughter I should be in a 
 furious rage for a fortnight at the very least perhaps 
 three weeks." 
 
 " And after that ? " asked Waring. 
 
 "Well, it's a bit of a crux," said Harman. "Free 
 oneself as one likes from prejudice, it's a hard decision 
 for anybody to make. What do you think, Campbell ? 
 
 " It's a matter of common sense," said the doctor, " like 
 everything else. Sooner than let the girl die, if it came to 
 that, I should let her go, after pointing out what it meant 
 socially. But in this country you can't expect a father or 
 a mother to give sound or sensible advice on a thing like 
 that." 
 
 " Why not ? " asked Harman. 
 
 " You, of all men, to ask that ! " said Campbell, " after 
 what you said about England just now. It's an odd 
 thing, isn't it, when you come to think of it, that a boy or 
 a girl ought to be able to go to their parents who have 
 presumably had experience and get real good sound 
 advice founded on the whole of the facts, advice fitting 
 their particular case. But that's just what our moral law 
 especially forbids parents to do of all people they've got 
 to be rigidly moral. Now if in this particular case the girl 
 runs away with this man without consulting her father, 
 she'll get the blame ; but if the father were to advise her 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 217 
 
 to run away, he'd get it. Do you know the father ? " he 
 asked Waring. 
 
 Waring nodded. 
 
 " Theoretically, according to our unwritten law," said 
 Campbell, " he ought to shut the girl up, over age or not, 
 even if it ended in her death that's the virtuous, proper, 
 correct, and moral course." 
 
 " What would you do yourself ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " I'm not accustomed to cross bridges till I come to 
 them," said Campbell, " that's Harman's speciality. But 
 you know I think it would depend amazingly on what I 
 thought of the girl and what I thought of the man." 
 
 " Then you wouldn't settle it according to the moral 
 law ? " said Waring. 
 
 " I don't know any moral law," said Campbell. " I 
 certainly wouldn't settle it according to the regulations of 
 some Baptist Bethel, which is what you seem to me to be 
 thinking of." 
 
 " No more would I," said Harman. " I've come to the 
 conclusion I should say to the girl, if she were my daughter : 
 ' Well, I've told you what you're very likely letting your- 
 self in for, but, God bless my soul ! you might be letting 
 yourself in for worse if you got married.' If she married 
 a man and ran away from him because she couldn't stand 
 him, that would be most immoral, and people would say 
 so, but if she was living with a man and didn't like him, 
 and left him surely that would be to resume the path of 
 virtue, and she would receive applause. On the whole, 
 not to marry a man seems to be making the best of both 
 possible worlds. If she gets on with him she's got one 
 world. If she has to leave him, her action will be approved 
 even in Surbiton." 
 
 " Helpful beggar, Harman, isn't he ? " said Waring. 
 
 " Well, it seems to me we've come to something, at any 
 rate," said Harman. " We seem to have come to the 
 
218 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 conclusion, more or less, that a man isn't bound to kill his 
 own daughter in order to please some Congregationalist 
 minister at Clapham." 
 
 " As the environment changes," said Campbell, with a 
 smile, " we have to organize up to it. Waring and Harman 
 and myself may really imitate my little boy, and, climbing 
 upon the chair of experience, we can ring up Harman' s 
 bite noire at Clapham and tell him he's an out-of-date 
 monster." 
 
 " Yes, and what am I to advise my friend ? " asked 
 Waring. 
 
 " Haven't we been telling you all the time ? " said 
 Harman. " He should take the common sense view of it 
 which will probably necessitate his cutting his throat." 
 
 " Every man's his own court of equity," said Campbell. 
 " I don't know whether I speak in a legal manner or not, 
 but I understand the court of equity came into existence 
 to modify the injustices of the law. I haven't the slightest 
 doubt that the lawyers of that time looked upon an equit- 
 able decision as a most horrible blasphemy." 
 
 " Would your wives receive a girl who was living with 
 a man she was not married to ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " Good Lord ! " said Campbell, " you don't expect 
 judges, even of a High Court of Appeal like this, to be able 
 to carry their wives with them, do you ? " 
 
 " My wife would meet her all right," said Harman. 
 
 " I shouldn't be surprised if mine would, either," said 
 Campbell, reflectively, " if she were allowed some very 
 proper and reasonable loophole for saying afterwards, 
 when we were found out, that she had been sadly deceived. 
 Has all this helped you, Waring ? " 
 
 " On the whole, yes," said Waring. " Especially as I had 
 made up my mind about the advice I was going to give." 
 
 " Well, what advice are you going to give ? " asked both 
 the men at once. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 219 
 
 " The advice I'm going to give," said Waring sen- 
 tentiously, " is that the whole matter should be settled in 
 accordance with the precepts of the highest morality." 
 
 " What are the precepts of the highest morality ? " 
 asked Harman. 
 
 ' Have a whisky and soda," said Waring. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 FOR four nights in the week Waring now dined at home, 
 as he had been accustomed to do. For years before Jennie 
 had become his mistress it had been his habit to go away 
 whenever it could be managed, on Friday afternoon, and to 
 return to town on the Monday. He had rarely told his 
 wife where he was going, for the simple reason that he 
 rarely knew until he had taken his ticket. Such conduct 
 had been something of a mystery to Milly ; nevertheless 
 she had accepted it. Tom was no ordinary man : she 
 thought him excitable and erratic. 
 
 When Jennie came into his life he had still preserved his 
 custom of going away for these three days, and naturally 
 enough he kept to his old habit of never saying where he 
 went. He now spent most of these three days with her. 
 Sometimes they left town together and only returned on 
 Monday. He found that she was infinitely happier than 
 she had been, although she naturally enough grew nervous. 
 There was no doubt that if nothing untoward happened she 
 would become a mother in the spring of the coming year. 
 The thought of the new life within her made her a different 
 creature ; if she was ever depressed, her depression was no 
 longer what it had been. She read less because she felt 
 she could now afford to dream. 
 
220 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Sometimes, Tom, I used to read in order not to think," 
 she said to him. " But now I like to. I am not so much 
 separated from things, I seem to belong to life generally. 
 The world is a little more to me, and I think strangely of the 
 future sometimes even of ages to come. I begin to see 
 why so many women busy themselves about their own 
 work and nothing else it's so very important." 
 
 In spite of his native conservatism Waring had always 
 been theoretically something of a feminist. He believed 
 that this was due to the influence of his first wife, for he 
 had got far beyond thinking that any belief was due to 
 argument or discussion. Now he perceived that what 
 Jennie said was true ; the natural business of the woman 
 was so important that it overshadowed in the end all the 
 mightiest works of man. 
 
 The knowledge that Jennie would soon be the mother 
 of his child influenced him greatly. In the old days she 
 knew well that the real love had been on her side, and that 
 he had given her no more than affection. If Milly Waring 
 knew nothing about Evelyn, Jennie did ; for her father had 
 been acquainted with her lover's first wife. She knew he 
 had preserved some kind of strange faith towards her who 
 was dead ; never had he told Jennie that he loved her. He 
 was fond of her. He had often said, " You know I have a 
 great affection for you." He had been passionate, and 
 devoted, and yet there was something lacking. 
 
 But now Waring was much changed. As he was more 
 gentle, so he was sweeter. It seemed to her indeed, as it 
 seemed to him, that he had died, as a man dies many times, 
 and had come again to a strange new life, partially divorced 
 from that which he had led before. She knew he remem- 
 bered : that he would never forget, but still there was 
 something of a new birth within him. He seemed freer, 
 and understood so much more. 
 
 So one day when he said, " Why, Jennie, you know I love 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 221 
 
 you," she fell into a strange trembling and cried upon 
 his shoulder. For he had never said that before. In spite 
 of her anxiety for him, which was now infinitely more 
 maternal, seeing that her maternal instincts were wakened, 
 she was much happier, and he knew it. If he went, he left 
 her his child, and also the memory that her own love had 
 availed with him. 
 
 Waring had now no sort of moral or instinctive feelings 
 with regard to his own domestic infidelity. In the old 
 days he had somewhat excused himself by saying that 
 after all this affair was based largely on his nature and 
 the unemotional character of his wife. Now that he 
 was infinitely more unfaithful and more divorced from his 
 own house he felt no regret and no remorse : his affair 
 with Jennie savoured rather of some natural and avowed 
 polygamy than of a mere intrigue. He was assured that 
 day by day he was drifting more and more from Milly. Her 
 conservatism was so fatal. In the old days she had under- 
 stood him, or thought that she did. She was aware that 
 her own predilection for a peculiar kind of soup on Monday, 
 with an equally rigid choice for Tuesday and the remaining 
 days of the week, used to bring forth regularly an expression 
 of hopeless discontent on his part. Now he never made a 
 complaint, he took things easily. It worried her ; she 
 conceived all kinds of reasons for this alteration. He cared 
 no longer for his food that was the conclusion she came to. 
 
 She saw no reason for supposing that he was anything 
 but well. She accepted what the doctors told her. All the 
 more was it bitter to see that he took what came, ate in an 
 absent-minded manner, and never said, " Look here, my 
 dear, if this kind of soup turns up on Wednesday again I'll 
 get up from the table and go and dine in town." 
 
 He had said that often, and had sometimes acted on it ; 
 in times of great stress even sitting down to dinner, tasting 
 the soup, and rising up and leaving the house instantly, 
 
222 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 while she sat rigidly at the head of the table without so 
 much as turning round as he left the room. Now she 
 sometimes tried him with the very dishes he used to loathe 
 worst, and never provoked a remonstrance. She even 
 asked, " Do you like the soup, dear ? " He almost in- 
 variably answered, " Eh, what ? like the soup ? Oh, 
 it's all right, my dear I don't see anything wrong with it. 
 Do you ? " 
 
 These were occasions when Milly could have beaten him 
 willingly : his air of contemplation and withdrawal was 
 intensely provocative. She regarded absent-mindedness as 
 an infraction of domestic morality, and when it came to 
 being absent-minded about food it was almost a theologic 
 sin. Nevertheless she kept her temper. If God were trying 
 her through her husband he had, at any rate, made it up 
 on the balance by interesting himself personally in Joyce's 
 recovery from a wicked passion. She saw the finger of 
 God in this as plainly as if he had removed Robert Hardy 
 by the immediate and radical means of a flash of lightning, 
 known to British juries as " the visitation of God." 
 
 Joyce was certainly better. She was fatter and Mrs. 
 Waring, being plump and well liking herself, had an immense 
 dislike of seeing anybody's clothes inadequately filled. She 
 was wont to say of this person or the other, " He is fatter," 
 or " He is thinner in the face." Joyce, indeed, began once 
 more to take a reasonable interest in her meals, and some- 
 times showed she was the child of her father by grumbling 
 about the very things that had ceased to trouble him. 
 For instance, it was just about this time that she inquired 
 with a gleam of philosophic humour what deep and natural 
 connexion there was between pea soup and Saturday. 
 
 " When you are a housekeeper, my dear, you will under- 
 stand," said her mother. 
 
 " Understand that there is a connexion between pea 
 soup and Saturday, mother ? " asked Joyce. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 223 
 
 " Don't be absurd, my dear. I decline to answer such a 
 stupid question. You will understand that regularity is 
 the essence of housekeeping. I like to know what I am 
 going to eat." 
 
 " Well, I think it's bald and uninteresting," retorted 
 Joyce. " I can understand tripe on Tuesday because 
 there's a T in both even mutton on Monday seems to have 
 some kind of a reason in it " 
 
 She was interruped by her mother. 
 
 " Don't imitate your father," she said abruptly. " Can't 
 you see how very different he is now ? He takes what I 
 give him, and you must do the same so long as you are in my 
 house." 
 
 Naturally enough that reduced Joyce to silence. She 
 would not be in the house long, and when she thought of 
 that she was sorry she had worried her mother about 
 matters that were of no importance. Presently she would 
 be troubled about things that were. And indeed this came 
 on sooner than Joyce expected. One day in November 
 Mrs. Waring, from the inside of a 'bus in Regent Street, saw 
 her daughter talking with Robert Hardy. 
 
 Before she recovered from the shock she had gone too 
 far to stop the 'bus. By that time she was glad that she 
 had not been able to get out of it on the spur of the moment. 
 She was certainly not a clever woman, and yet she saw a 
 great deal more in that moment than her husband would 
 have given her credit for. Combining the fact that Joyce 
 had not ceased to see her lover with the fact of her improved 
 health, Mrs. Waring came to the conclusion that something 
 more serious than she had suspected had happened, or was 
 about to happen. She even went so far as to imagine that 
 it might be possible that the worst had occurred already. 
 That, however, she dismissed on reflection. She could not 
 reconcile it with her daughter's veiled hostility. 
 
 " She's corresponding with him, and meeting him," said 
 
224 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 Mrs. Waring. " She's deceiving me and her father. And 
 now he's so easygoing that I distrust his severity as much 
 as I used to fear it." 
 
 The next morning she was up much earlier than usual 
 and emptied the letter-box as soon as the postman came. 
 There was no letter for Joyce, nor was there next morning, 
 but on the third day she found one. She went into her 
 room and with a little spirit lamp heated some water and 
 opened the letter. It required uncommon resolution for 
 her to adopt this course ; her hands trembled as she did her 
 work. Nevertheless she said it was her duty. 
 
 She read the letter half as though she did not read it, 
 for deep within her she was ashamed. It began, ' ' Dearest. ' ' 
 Until she got to the last sentence she found nothing to make 
 her fear more than that the affair was still going on, but 
 when Hardy wrote, " I can stand anything now, because I 
 am sure of you, and know that all this will end before 
 Christmas," she closed the letter again with trembling 
 hands. Then she put it with the other letters on the hall 
 table. 
 
 Something then was going to happen before Christmas ! 
 It could only mean one thing. Joyce's renewed health and 
 spirits were due to the fact that she had made up her mind 
 to go to this man whether she were married to him or not. 
 To Mrs. Waring it seemed almost incredible that anyone's 
 health could improve on such a prospect of immorality. 
 
 " And this is my daughter," she said, " my daughter ! 
 Oh, she's wicked ! I must tell her father and in his state 
 of health too ! " 
 
 Now in her mind she exaggerated Tom's poor state of 
 health, just as she had previously minimized it. It would 
 do him immense harm, of course that seemed obvious. 
 No doubt he was taking things more easily ; that in a way 
 was good, although in other ways she resented it. He 
 seemed to have less ambition, less desire to make money 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 225 
 
 for the house and for his family. But this he would not be 
 able to take easily. She dreaded, even as she almost 
 rejoiced in, the possibility of his rage. 
 
 Waring of course had his breakfast in his own room, as 
 he had done for many years, so Mrs. Waring sat down with 
 her daughter alone to breakfast. She controlled herself 
 wonderfully : Joyce noticed nothing in her except that she 
 was more than usually silent. 
 
 Once more that week Mrs. Waring opened a letter, and 
 this time her certainty was made even surer. Hardy spoke 
 of the time when they would be together, saying he counted 
 the days until she came to him. 
 
 That morning Mrs. Waring went into her husband's 
 library as soon as he got downstairs. She found him 
 smoking, with his usual pile of papers littering the floor. 
 
 " I hope you are feeling well this morning, Tom," she 
 began. 
 
 " I'm feeling very much as usual," he replied. " What's 
 the matter, dear ? " 
 
 He saw there was something the matter. Her face was 
 white. 
 
 " I am afraid I shall disturb you greatly," she said. " I 
 have something dreadful to tell you." 
 
 " It's come ! " said Waring to himself. " Yes ? " he 
 added aloud, with raised brows, " yes ? what is it ? " 
 
 " It is about Joyce," said Mrs. Waring sternly. 
 
 " What of her ? " 
 
 " She is writing to that Hardy, and receiving letters from 
 him." 
 
 " It doesn't surprise me," said Waring slowly. 
 
 " It doesn't surprise you ? " she cried. " What do you 
 mean ? If you are not surprised you ought to be horrified. 
 Surely you're not going to take this as you have been taking 
 everything else lately ! " 
 
 " How have I been taking things ? " he asked. 
 
 p 
 
226 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Much, much too easily for your nature," she said, as 
 if that were a matter of reproach. " In a way I don't under- 
 stand. But I haven't told you all it's far worse than you 
 can imagine." 
 
 " Ah," said Waring, " worse than I can imagine ? Well, 
 what is it ? " 
 
 Mrs. Waring sat down in front of him, and with a 
 ludicrously tragic air, which sat upon her oddly and yet 
 seemed pitiful, she said, " Tom, she she is going to run 
 away with him." 
 
 " How do you know it ? " asked Waring quietly. 
 " I've opened her letters," said his wife. 
 He frowned. 
 
 " You have done what ? " he asked. 
 "I've opened her letters, Tom," she repeated. 
 Waring shook his head. 
 
 " You shouldn't have done it, Milly. I don't see how 
 you could have done it." 
 
 " Don't speak to me like that," said his wife angrily. 
 " How else should I know the dreadful fact that I tell 
 you ? " 
 
 " I'd much rather you hadn't known it than opened your 
 daughter's letters," said Waring. " Oh, much rather ! " 
 
 " Then you mean you'd rather she should have run away 
 than I should have found this out ? " she demanded. 
 
 " Yes, I had rather that had happened," he said, after a 
 long pause. 
 
 " You must be mad," cried his wife, " quite mad ! " 
 Waring shook his head. 
 
 " Oh no, I'm not mad," he said. " I never was saner." 
 " But your daughter and that fellow a man with a 
 wife ! " she panted. " And my daughter ! oh, Tom, what 
 are you saying ? " 
 
 As she looked at him she saw he seemed strangely quiet, 
 hardly disturbed. She stared at him. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 227 
 
 " I don't understand," she repeated pitifully, " I don't 
 understand. My God ! it's a sin, Tom a sin ! " 
 
 " A sin ? " said Waring with a sigh. " Ah yes, a sin ? 
 I wonder whether one's always right about a sin, my dear ? " 
 
 " About a sin against God ? " she demanded. 
 
 Waring got up from his chair and stood by the fireplace 
 with his elbow on the mantel. He sighed again, and 
 looked down upon her. 
 
 " I wonder," he said, " I wonder ? " 
 
 She too rose to her feet and went to him and took him 
 by the sleeve. He saw she was greatly agitated : he was 
 sorry for her. 
 
 " Have you lost all sense of religion, Tom ? " 
 
 He looked up at her with a strange far-off look. 
 
 " I don't know," said Waring. " I think not certainly 
 I think not. But I wonder, Milly, if you and I regard the 
 same thing as religion." 
 
 Religion was what Milly Waring had been taught, what 
 she had heard stated in the churches, what was commonly 
 received, all that she had never heard doubted. 
 
 " Religion," she said, " it is the word of God, Tom." 
 
 " Ah, and what is the word of God ? " asked Waring, 
 " and who is his mouthpiece ? Milly, I suppose you'd rather 
 see Joyce dead than do this thing ? " 
 
 " Oh, much rather," said his wife. 
 
 " You mean that ? " asked Waring quietly. 
 
 " I I mean it," she repeated. 
 
 " Come," said Waring in a strange passionate voice, " let 
 us understand each other. You say you'd rather see her 
 dead, Milly. My dear, you have been a lucky woman, you 
 have never seen anybody dead that you loved. Why, your 
 father and your mother are alive still, and all your brothers. 
 Did you ever see anybody dead in your life ? " 
 
 " No," she said, " no, I never did." 
 
 And Waring nodded. 
 
228 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " You've never seen them go," he said, as if to himself, 
 " never watched beside them when they had gone. And 
 still you talk, and say you would rather see her dead ! You 
 don't know what you're saying, woman." 
 
 He spoke the last words almost savagely. 
 
 " Then you mean, Tom you mean you would rather see 
 her go away with this scoundrel " 
 
 " Scoundrel ? " said Waring, as if he reflected over the 
 point. " Robert Hardy a scoundrel, is he ? " Then he 
 lifted his eyes again. " Why is he a scoundrel, Milly ? " 
 
 " He's married," she replied, " and he's trying to drag 
 your daughter into degradation." 
 
 " A married man ! " said Waring, " and she's nearly 
 a madwoman and all a drunkard. You never saw that scar 
 she made on his head with a carving-knife, did you ? " 
 
 " She's his wife," said Mrs. Waring. 
 
 " And not having committed adultery as far as anybody 
 knows," said Waring, " no doubt she's a good woman 
 technically." 
 
 " What would your daughter be ? " she cried. 
 
 " Joyce would always be a good woman," said Waring, 
 " whatever she did. Whatever she did ! " 
 
 " My God ! And I came to you for help," cried Milly. 
 
 " I will give it you," said Waring, " if you can accept 
 it. If I were in Hardy's place I'd have had Joyce out of 
 this house three years ago as soon as I knew she loved me, 
 and as soon as I was sure I loved her." 
 
 " If you had been married," said his wife, " and separated 
 from me, would you have run away with another woman ? " 
 
 " Of course I would, if I'd loved her," said Waring. 
 
 " I've never known you," said his wife. 
 
 " You never spoke a truer word," said Waring. " Now 
 I'll tell you the truth, Milly I didn't mean to tell you till 
 it was all over and you had to accept it or leave it alone. 
 Joyce is going to Robert Hardy with my permission." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 229 
 
 Milly sat down again and stared at him. For a long time 
 she was speechless, and then said feebly, " With your 
 permission, Tom ? " 
 
 " With my permission," he repeated. 
 
 " I don't understand," said his wife. " You you used 
 to be religious to have a sense of duty to your God. When 
 did you tell her this ? " 
 
 " While I was in the nursing home," he answered. " I 
 made up my mind after the operation, when I had been near 
 death myself, nearer than you know. I learnt much then. 
 I went back over things, and I saw the girl as she used to be ; 
 and I saw the way she was drifting, and I've had mercy 
 on her." 
 
 " Mercy," said his wife, " mercy ! " 
 
 "I've seen death," said Waring. " I have seen it come, 
 seen it accomplish itself. And I have seen those that I 
 loved when they could speak no more. And in my mind I 
 saw Joyce like that, Milly quiet and unanswering. I 
 couldn't bear it, because I love her." 
 
 " God loves her," said his wife, " and those whom he 
 loveth he chasteneth." 
 
 " Does he ? " said Waring. " Then indeed he must love 
 some of us very much. Perhaps he loves you, Milly, and 
 this is part of your chastening." 
 
 He spoke then with a passion that she could not under- 
 stand. She had never seen him in any passion but that of 
 the rage of ill-health, of physiologic misery. 
 
 " The word of God says it," she cried, " oh, and all the 
 churches." 
 
 " What's the Church, or all the churches, to what I 
 feel ? " asked Waring bitterly. " I told you the truth, and 
 what I feel. I shall give her to Robert Hardy. If I know 
 the man and know her it will be as good a marriage as was 
 ever made in any church." 
 
 " I said you were mad," cried his wife, " and you are 
 
230 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 mad ! Oh oh, what what would Mr. Russell say to 
 this ? " 
 
 And Waring almost laughed. What would an ordinary 
 good and well-meaning clergyman, the official representative 
 of the religious club of the middle classes, known as the 
 Established Church, say ? He would answer according to 
 the rubric, with all respect to immemorial ritual, and 
 would intone the church service at the funeral of some victim 
 of rigid law with an uplifted heart, thanking God on his 
 own behalf, and the Church's behalf, and the family's behalf, 
 that " this, our dear daughter " had been saved from sin, 
 even though she died full of awful and irremediable regrets. 
 
 " Eh, what ? " said Waring. " He's a good fellow, Milly, 
 quite a good fellow. He'd say what he has to say what 
 he must say. But by the law of his Church he is forbidden 
 to do what Christ did the Church doesn't forgive those 
 who are taken in adultery. So far as I remember, the 
 bishops, for the most part, endorse the Church's view with 
 holy ardour." 
 
 " I'll get Mr. Russell to speak to you," said his wife. 
 " You can't allow this you can't ! it would kill me ! " 
 
 " Oh no," said Waring. " Some day you'll be glad of it." 
 
 " Glad of my daughter being " 
 
 " She's my daughter, too," said Waring. 
 
 " I'll get Mr. Russell now, now," said Mrs. Waring 
 pitifully. 
 
 She had felt so strong, and now she felt immeasurably 
 weak. She had run up against something she had never 
 known before. As she looked at her husband she seemed 
 to see in him something of a strange fervour that she had 
 hitherto associated with uplifted religious feeling. It was 
 that which paralysed her, more than his astounding ob- 
 stinacy, more than his peculiarly unintelligible wickedness, 
 more even than the fact that he was prepared to run counter 
 to every social ordinance. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 231 
 
 " Bring him if you will, any time you like," said Waring. 
 " And in the meantime I recommend you if you wish not 
 to precipitate things I recommend you to say nothing to 
 Joyce." 
 
 " I am not to speak to my own daughter about this ! " 
 she cried. 
 
 " Speak, if you will," said Waring, " but if you do 
 she'll leave the house. Did you never recognize that there's 
 a great deal of me in Joyce ? If there had been more we 
 should not have been discussing this. But if you are wise 
 you'll not speak to her. I'll let you know when you can 
 speak." 
 
 " I will pray to God for guidance," said his wife, " and 
 take Mr. Russell's advice. I shall never be able to hold up 
 my head again." 
 
 " Not hold up your head in Bloomsbury ? " asked 
 Waring. " Oh, you'd find that easy enough if you only 
 understood." 
 
 " You are cruel," said his wife. 
 
 " I don't mean to be cruel," returned Waring. " Some- 
 times my tongue runs away with me but I'm very much in 
 earnest." 
 
 " I can't understand you," said his wife. " I don't think 
 you understand yourself." 
 
 " Oh yes I do," answered Waring. " I understand my- 
 self thoroughly this shows me that I do. Go now, my 
 dear, and remember what I say don't speak to Joyce." 
 
 Mrs. Waring left the room, and Waring sat down and 
 shook all over. 
 
 Presently he said, " It's gone better than I thought it'd 
 go. I thought the poor little woman would be violent. 
 I suppose I partly crushed her I'm sorry I'm sorry ! " 
 
 He knew now that he would never have had the strength 
 to tell his wife. So he was glad that it had come out as 
 it had done, although he hated to think that Milly had 
 
232 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 opened her daughter's letters. That to him was a crime 
 which hardly anything excused. 
 
 " I suppose she thought she did right," said Waring, " but 
 it's a hard thing for me to forgive. And yet, she thought 
 she did right I'm sure of that. I suppose I must take 
 it as a justification." 
 
 He was extraordinarily shaken. This conflict with Milly 
 affected him not only mentally but physically. He found 
 that his hands trembled ; he felt weak. 
 
 " I'm not so strong as I believed," he said, as he lay back 
 in his chair. 
 
 He felt cold. He put his hand up to his face and 
 found his skin was damp. He closed his eyes. He knew 
 not what happened, but presently it seemed to him that he 
 woke out of a sleep, feeling chilled and sick. 
 
 " I must have fainted," said Waring. 
 
 He felt his radial pulse and only found it with difficulty : 
 the beat of his heart was barely perceptible. He rang the 
 bell, and when the servant came he told her to bring him the 
 brandy. 
 
 The girl looked at him curiously. " Are you ill, sir ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " I feel a little faint," he said. " Pour me out some and 
 remember you are not to tell your mistress about it." 
 
 After he had drunk the brandy he felt better, but still 
 he wondered a little. Now he seemed to recollect that 
 Bent, the anaesthetist, had appeared a little doubtful about 
 his heart when he examined it before the operation. He 
 had taken great trouble over him ; he had not only used the 
 stethoscope but had gone farther and taken pulse tracings 
 with the polygraph, a remarkable and live instrument which 
 had interested Waring very much. On the whole Bent, 
 in the end, had seemed pretty satisfied ; but Waring did 
 not know that he had said while the operation was going 
 on, " Oh yes, he's all right this time." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 233 
 
 " Well," thought Waring, " I suppose I've got a right 
 to faint if I like, without being very ill over it, seeing all 
 I've been through. Still it's odd it never happened before. 
 I'm very glad that Milly wasn't in the room." 
 
 As a result of this he did not go to the Adelphi, but 
 telephoned to Miss Willis, and also to Fleet Street, saying 
 that he could not come that day. He wondered where his 
 wife was, and what she was doing. Just then he heard 
 her step in the hall. It seemed to him that she stood for 
 a moment outside his door ; then he heard her go out. 
 He looked out of his window and saw her in the street. 
 Most likely she was going to see Mr. Russell. 
 
 " I suppose I shall have to tackle him presently," said 
 Waring, " well, it can't be helped." 
 
 He again rang the bell, and asked the girl who answered 
 it to send his daughter to him if she was in the house. And 
 presently Joyce came in. 
 
 She kissed him affectionately, then stared at him and said, 
 " What's the matter, father ? " 
 
 " Do I look ill ? " he asked. 
 
 " I don't think you look well," she said, " you are 
 worried." 
 
 " Sit down," said her father. " I want to tell you. My 
 dear, your mother knows what's going to happen." 
 
 " You've told her ? " asked Joyce in alarm. 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " I've not told her she knows." 
 
 " How can she know ? " asked Joyce. 
 
 " Don't ask me," said her father. " I can't tell you. 
 But somehow or another she's convinced that you're going 
 away with Robert. Seeing that it was so that she'd got 
 so far, however she'd got there I told her the truth." 
 
 Not for anything would he have told her what her mother 
 had done. 
 
 " What shall I do ? " asked Joyce. 
 
234 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " You must do nothing now," said her father, " abso- 
 lutely nothing. If there's much trouble, my dear, you'd 
 better go away as soon as you can. You needn't be afraid 
 I shall go back on what I said." 
 
 " Perhaps I ought not to do it," cried Joyce. " I I 
 don't want to hurt her." 
 
 But somebody had to be hurt she knew that. 
 
 " The responsibility's mine," said her father. "It's all 
 mine you understand that. Don't look so ghastly, child." 
 
 Indeed Joyce was very white ; she trembled visibly. 
 
 " I told your mother not to speak to you," said Waring, 
 as he put his hands upon her shoulders. " I told her that 
 if she did you would go at once. Be gentle to her it will 
 be all right it shall be all right." 
 
 " I'll do whatever you tell me," said Joyce. 
 
 " Then be brave," said her father, " that's all I ask you. 
 Be brave and gentle." 
 
 " Am I to tell Robert about this ? " she asked. 
 
 " No say nothing," he replied. " What need is there 
 to trouble him this won't last many days. Now go, my 
 dear. Kiss me and just be brave, that's all." 
 
 For a long time after his daughter had gone he sat there 
 thinking. Life was very difficult, but when this was over 
 his difficulties would be solved. All the rest would be 
 easy, whatever happened. Presently he lighted his pipe 
 again, and found it had little savour. Suddenly he rose, 
 and from among his books took a worn volume containing 
 many of the poems of Matthew Arnold. He turned to 
 " Empedocles on Etna " and read the last lyric. He 
 repeated to himself the last verse : 
 
 The Day in its hotness, 
 The strife with the palm ; 
 The Night in its silence, 
 The Stars in their calm. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 235 
 
 Then he turned back in the poem and came to a passage 
 that he remembered : 
 
 Slave of Sense 
 
 I have in no wise been : but slave of Thought ? 
 
 And who can say / have been always free, 
 
 Lived ever in the light of my own soul ? 
 
 I cannot : I have lived in wrath and gloom, 
 
 Fierce, disputatious, ever at war with man. 
 
 Far from my own soul, far from warmth and light. 
 
 But I have not grown easy in these bonds 
 
 But I have not denied what bonds these were. 
 
 Yea, I take myself to witness, 
 
 That I have loved no darkness, 
 
 Sophisticated no truth, 
 
 Nursed no delusion, 
 
 Allow'd no fear. 
 
 " I wish I could say all that truly," said Waring. " I 
 think I can say it now I wish I could have said it always." 
 He repeated aloud : 
 
 / have loved no darkness, 
 Sophisticated no truth, 
 Nursed no delusion, 
 Allow'd no fear. 
 
 " I seem to have cut myself off from the common race of 
 man," he said, with a sigh. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 MR. RUSSELL came in that very afternoon and spent 
 nearly two hours in Waring's library. As might have been 
 expected the result was nothing, for nothing ever came out 
 
236 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 of any discussion when the disputants had no common 
 grounds to argue from. Poor Mr. Russell at last took 
 his departure almost in tears. He gained no more than 
 permission to speak to Joyce. 
 
 It was all very well for Waring to be resolute in this 
 talk, but he found it profoundly exhausting. He had 
 spoken with what Russell thought ruthlessness, but at the 
 bottom Waring had been curiously excited. He was in 
 a manner uplifted and alone. He had no certainty that 
 even Joyce would have understood and followed all he had 
 said what she did would be a matter of instinct. 
 
 That Russell would ever move her he did not imagine 
 for a moment. That she could break with Robert on 
 religious grounds seemed perfectly impossible to her father. 
 He had never inquired curiously into his daughter's 
 beliefs or disbeliefs, but he was aware by intuition that 
 she shared the wakening that had come to most of the young 
 women of the time. Certainly women were not naturally 
 religious ; their religion was attached to the family, their 
 husbands, their lovers. Waring knew that it was only the 
 distorted and suppressed affections which turned towards 
 heaven. Women were essentially practical, they erected 
 their altars in their own houses ; their deities were those 
 they loved and those who loved them : near at hand, close 
 to their lips, their hearts. The idle celibate, the soured, 
 the widowed and the deserted might turn desolately 
 or in hope to the corporate Church which warmly voiced 
 the claims of a far-off Deity, but while they were not 
 sorrowful the voice of God was a far-off voice. 
 
 Joyce, he knew, was full of thoughts of her lover. She 
 had no room for anything else but a little grief, it might 
 be, for her mother, and the fear of her father which now 
 had vanished. Russell, he was sure, in her would run up 
 against something as inexplicable as her father. Waring 
 himself was convinced day by day, even as he seemed to 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 237 
 
 grow better, that his time was short. He was filled with 
 the notion ; it overflowed, it coloured all things. And 
 Joyce was filled with another passion, which was not that 
 of death but of life her own life, her lover's life, and those 
 lives which might complete and succeed them. 
 
 When Russell left his room Waring knew that he went 
 to Mrs. Waring. He would tell her what had happened,, 
 what had been said ; he would modify it in a way, but on 
 the whole would tell her the truth which was so strange 
 and horrible from his point of view. No doubt Milly 
 would weep ; her disturbance would be great and sincere. 
 She would consider it her duty to speak to her husband 
 again, to speak to Joyce. For bis own part Waring felt 
 that he could stand no more. In his mind he found himself 
 arguing vainly with her, and getting overwrought in a way 
 that suggested his old irritation. He hated to be like 
 that : he might say something unkind, something cruel. 
 
 He felt he could not stay in the house, it was best to go 
 away. So he rang the bell and asked the servant to find 
 his daughter if she was now with her mother or with Mr, 
 Russell. 
 
 The moment afterwards Joyce came in. She looked, 
 not so well as she had done ; she was a little worn, a little 
 distressed ; but he perceived something in her eyes which 
 comforted him. In spite of her pallor and her obvious 
 nervousness she was strangely set and rigid. He smiled 
 to himself. 
 
 " She's my daughter," he thought. " The poor girl's 
 my daughter there's no mistake about that. There's 
 something fine and hard underneath her. What a pity all 
 women haven't the same ; too many of them are boneless." 
 
 He told her he had had a long talk with Russell. 
 
 " I tried to be fair to him, my dear," said Waring, " tried 
 to let him say what he wanted to say. But he seemed 
 paralysed, almost hopeless from the start. The man's not a 
 
238 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 fool you know I never thought him one. In many ways 
 he's a wise man and a fine man. But I suppose he felt very 
 much as I might have felt if I'd gone to his house and had 
 proposed to make him an agnostic in something under 
 three-quarters of an hour. I suppose I shouldn't have 
 been in the house three minutes before I should have felt 
 a little hopeless. I shouldn't be surprised if he felt as most 
 bishops would feel if they had tackled Voltaire or Samuel 
 Butler. Not that I am Voltaire or Butler but then he's 
 not a bishop, after all. But the trouble is, my dear, he wants 
 to see you I had to say he could if he liked. Do you 
 mind?" 
 
 Joyce looked troubled. 
 
 " Oh yes, I mind," she said, " but it doesn't matter. 
 I don't want to worry mother, and that's the only thing 
 that moves me at all, now. He won't trouble me." 
 " Well, be nice to him," said Waring. 
 " Oh yes, father." 
 
 " How long is this to go on ? " asked Waring. " You 
 and Robert didn't mean to go till just before Christmas 
 if you take my advice, my dear, you won't wait till 
 then." 
 
 " I don't wish to wait," said Joyce. " I'd go now, 
 this moment, if he was here so long as you didn't mind, 
 dad." 
 
 " Very well," said Waring, " write to him to-night and 
 post the letter yourself, and ask if he can go on Tuesday. 
 I've made up my mind, and you've made up yours. The 
 sooner it's over, the better for your mother I'm sure of 
 that. And now, my dear, if you don't think I'm deserting 
 you, I'm going away. I shan't be back to-night." 
 It was then Thursday. 
 
 " I meant to go away to-morrow," he went on, " but I 
 think I'd better now as I've not been so well." 
 
 " Yes, go, father," she said. " I don't mind. I can 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 239 
 
 stand anything for a few days anything ! I don't want 
 to see you get ill again." 
 
 " Oh, I shall be all right, my dear," said her father. " I 
 too can stand a little. I'm really stronger, you know." 
 
 With that he took her in his arms and kissed her. 
 " My brave little girl ! " he said. " Of course the world 
 would tell you and will tell you, if it gets the chance a 
 lot of very disagreeable things ; but then they won't be 
 true, so don't you mind." 
 
 He kissed her and went out of the room, and put on 
 his hat and walked out of the house. He took a taxi-cab, 
 and drove straight up to Hampstead, thinking with a 
 kind of grim humour of the Irishman who said it was 
 better to be a coward for five minutes than to be dead 
 for the rest of his life. 
 
 " Every man's afraid of his wife," he said, " more or 
 less but when she's got religion to go on she's terror 
 incarnate." 
 
 He found Jennie reading Italian with a dictionary. She 
 dropped her books and ran to him, and looked him in the 
 face. 
 
 "Oh, Tom dear ! " she said," things have been worrying 
 you, I can see that. Is it They who have been worrying 
 you ? " 
 
 " I suppose it is," replied Waring, " but then in this case 
 every one's right all round, Jennie. I'll tell you about 
 it presently. Give me a cup of tea, and bring out Thothmes 
 III and let me have a look at him or her. And when 
 I've told you we'll put things aside till next week, and you 
 shall tell me of your difficulties with Italian and I'll see 
 if I can smooth them away." 
 
 " I think Italian pronouns are dreadful," said Jennie. 
 " What do they want so many pronouns for ? Why can't 
 they be nice and simple like English pronouns ? " 
 
 Waring laughed. 
 
240 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Well, my dear," he replied, " don't you think Italians 
 may say : ' Why can't English pronouns be nice and 
 simple like Italian ones ? ' I've just had a long fight with 
 a clergyman, and he's been asking all the time, ' Why aren't 
 your moral and religious pronouns as nice and simple as my 
 religious pronouns ? ' That's what They've been saying 
 to me too : ' Why isn't your moral and religious language 
 as nice and simple and as true and correct as my religious 
 and moral language ? ' But don't you worry about pro- 
 nouns, either grammatical, or religious, or moral just take 
 the book of life and read it straight ahead, and the grammar 
 of it'll come to you. Books weren't made for grammar, 
 child ; and life wasn't made for religion and morals it's 
 all the other way about. Bring out your epicene Thothmes, 
 your bi-sexual cat that started by being a king and became 
 a queen with kittens. If you'll be simple and silly this 
 afternoon, Jennie, I shall be much obliged to you." 
 
 She curtsied. 
 
 "In that respect, dear sir, nature has been very bountiful 
 to me. Do you think I'm really silly ? " 
 
 " I know better," said Waring. " It's the fluff you put 
 on you're a horribly wise young person." 
 
 " Ah yes, now," said Jennie, " I'm getting awfully wise. 
 But there, don't let's talk about wisdom. I'll give you 
 your tea and as for Thothmes, ' there ain't no sich a 
 person,' she's Bubastis now." 
 
 " Was Bubastis the wife of Thothmes III ? " inquired 
 Waring. " I think your history's wrong, my dear." 
 
 " You mustn't come up here to talk history," said 
 Jennie. " Just as if history matters with a Persian cat ! " 
 
 It was all very well for Waring to relax and play the 
 fool ; deep within him all the time he was worried and 
 troubled greatly. After tea he telephoned to Robert 
 Hardy and told him all that had happened. 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " asked Hardy. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 241 
 
 " Do ? " replied Waring. " It's what are you to do ! 
 Can you go away sooner than you had arranged ? " 
 
 " I can go any time," said Hardy eagerly. 
 
 " Then be ready to go on Tuesday by the early train 
 to Paris," said Waring. " When shall you see Joyce ? " 
 
 " This afternoon," said Hardy. 
 
 " Then tell her what I said. Tell her to get as ready as 
 she can, and I will arrange everything else," said her 
 father. " I'll bring her down to Charing Cross." 
 
 " Very well, sir thank you," said the lover. " You 
 shan't ever regret this, sir never never ! Where are you 
 now ? " he asked. " At home ? " 
 
 But Waring cut him off. 
 
 " Well, what have you been telephoning about ? " asked 
 Jennie. " More troublesome business ? Is it about the 
 Tsar ? or the German Emperor, that pervading young 
 man ? or the Balkans ? or the Sultan of Turkey ? I 
 thought you'd given up that it used to make me so cross 
 to think, when you came up to me, that you still were so 
 full of foreign politics." 
 
 " I've settled something, Jennie," said Waring. " Some- 
 thing quite as difficult as foreign politics, though I think it 
 might be described as coming under the jurisdiction of the 
 Home Office." 
 
 " Ah," said Jennie eagerly, " is it going to be settled ? " 
 
 " It is settled," said Waring shortly. 
 
 " That's a good boy," said Jennie. " Now fill your pipe, 
 and tell me why you came up on Thursday instead of 
 Friday ? " 
 
 In the old days Waring had an extraordinary capacity 
 of discharging his mind of work or of worry. Now he found 
 things were different ; it was not so easy, in spite of Jennie 
 playing David to his Saul. She was extremely simple 
 and natural, and underneath all her childishness, which 
 was not in the least affectation, seeing that it deceived 
 
 Q 
 
242 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 no one and was meant to deceive no one, she was strangely 
 shrewd and helpful. But help him as she would, and 
 charm him as she might, he was thinking all the time of 
 Milly and Joyce. That night he told Jennie more about it, 
 and she tried to console him. 
 
 He said, " You see, my dear, after all it's a great respon- 
 sibility to run counter to everybody." 
 
 " The responsibility isn't much," she said, " if you 
 are sure about Mr. Hardy. If you are certain he is a good 
 fellow even half as good as my dearest man she will be 
 all right. There's only one thing matters just being sure. 
 And even if you are only sure for a little time, Tom, I think 
 it's worth it. If you left me now it would be very terrible 
 perhaps I might die but I'd always say, as I do now, that 
 it's worth it that's the thing. I've known several poor 
 girls in my time, some I've told you of, who had bitter 
 hard experiences, but I haven't known many who didn't 
 think it was worth it. Didn't you tell me that sometimes 
 in Rome if a poor little vestal virgin got into trouble they 
 walled her up till she died ? " 
 
 " I believe that's so," said Waring. 
 
 " Very well," said Jennie, " I dare say a good many of 
 them died saying, ' It was worth it quite worth it.' I don't 
 think I should have made at all a good vestal virgin, Tom. 
 And if you had been a nice Roman, I'm sadly afraid I 
 should have been walled up." 
 
 That night Jennie said to Waring, " Are you asleep, 
 boy ? " 
 
 He answered, " No, Jennie, I'm wide awake." 
 
 " Are you thinking ? " 
 
 " Yes, I'm thinking," he said. 
 
 " Are you worrying about the little girl ? " 
 
 " I suppose I am, Jennie," he answered. 
 
 " I've been thinking about her too," she said, "and I don't 
 think you need worry. You know I've seen her, don't you ? " 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 243 
 
 " Yes," said Waring. 
 
 " I saw her again the other day," said Jennie. " I 
 sat down by her in the Tube. I thought she was very 
 sweet, and looked much happier than when I saw her 
 last. And, do you know, she looked at me as if she liked 
 me. And I looked at her, Tom I couldn't do it too much 
 because I was afraid she'd see tears in my eyes, but I'm sure 
 she's happy. And what's better, I'm sure she's sure, Tom. 
 That's the great thing. Oh, you dear men, you never 
 seem to understand it's better to be loved a little if you 
 can't be loved much, better to be loved badly than not to 
 be loved at all. And unless one's got big work to do, and 
 many people to look after, what's the use of a woman 
 being alive at all ? One must have something to do. Oh, 
 I'm not sorry for the women who get into trouble and 
 have miseries and catastrophes in their lives it's the 
 people who never have any trouble, and no miseries and 
 no catastrophes, who go on from Monday to Saturday, and 
 Sunday as well, and see their days fall from them just like 
 the leaves of the tree. To think, dear, that we women grow 
 up so soon as we do and perhaps at eighteen or nineteen or 
 twenty we might be happy wives and mothers or mothers 
 and not wives, I don't think it matters so much. And yet 
 it does matter, Tom, when every day another leaf falls, 
 and the capacity for love and the chances of motherhood 
 all go, and are rarer every day, and every week, and every 
 month and every year. That's what's so dreadful to a 
 woman, and men hardly ever think of it. It's a kind of 
 martyrdom even to the happiest, to see their beauty 
 going to see the little crawling wrinkles come, Tom, and 
 to see their hair grow thin. Even the happiest suffer 
 from that. It's a great, great tragedy and nobody writes 
 a tragedy about it unless a woman's very beautiful : some 
 Cleopatra, or some beautiful wicked queen. Oh, but these 
 are tragedies just as big as those of any queen, and they 
 
244 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 happen in every little house in Hampstead, and in every 
 little Hampstead all over the world. So don't you be sorry 
 about your little girl it's a thousand times better she 
 should do what she's doing than that you should sacrifice 
 her, or that she should sacrifice herself, and live on in the 
 little slow fire that doesn't burn one up at once, but does 
 in the end and all for nothing for nothing ! That's 
 always the horror of it, doing idle things for nothing : 
 getting nothing, giving oneself away wholly for nothing. 
 I'm glad I haven't done it, and I'm glad your little girl 
 isn't going to do it. You don't mind my talking like this, 
 Tom ? " 
 
 " No," said Waring, " no ! " 
 
 " Although it's half -past two in the morning, Tom ? 
 and although there's an owl outside ? I love to hear the 
 owls. Do you think I'm very wise ? " 
 
 " Wonderfully wise," said Waring. 
 
 " Very well, then," said Jennie, " you must be wise too 
 and go to sleep. All the same, I'm not sorry I spoke." 
 
 And Waring was not sorry. 
 
 XXV 
 
 ON Monday morning Waring went to the Adelphi. He 
 found his secretary in rebellion : she threw out dark hints 
 that he was not doing enough work. Waring apologized 
 to her for his idleness and promised to do better in future. 
 
 " In another week or so, Miss Willis, we shall really get 
 to work again. Just now I've got many things on hand 
 that take up my thoughts. After all, the world isn't 
 entirely foreign politics, you know." 
 
 This was so astonishing a statement from her employer 
 that Miss Willis sat almost paralysed. For the first time 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 245 
 
 it occurred to her that it was quite possible Mr. Waring was 
 not going to recover. This was the only suggestion that 
 had ever come from him that the world did not exist purely 
 for the sake of foreign politics. She began to think that 
 she would have to look for another post. 
 
 " Don't look alarmed if I add," said Waring, with a 
 twinkle in his eye, " that I don't care two straws what 
 Germany does, or what happens to the Balkans. Just get 
 on to Mr. Robert Hardy I want to speak to him for a 
 moment privately." 
 
 Miss Willis went to the 'phone and, having got Robert 
 Hardy, retired into her own room. 
 
 " Is that you, Robert ? " asked Waring. 
 " Yes," said Hardy. 
 
 " Have you made your arrangements for to-morrow ? " 
 " Yes, sir," replied Hardy. 
 
 " You'd better get the tickets yourself," said Waring, 
 " and meet us at half-past eight at Charing Cross. I've 
 settled everything. You understand you must under- 
 stand how very difficult it's all been. You are doing 
 something, my boy, that throws a great deal more re- 
 sponsibility on you than if you were getting married, 
 I believe you understand that." 
 
 " I do understand it," said Robert Hardy. 
 " Very well," said Waring. " I'll speak no more about 
 it. Good-bye till to-morrow." And he cut him oft 
 abruptly. 
 
 He wondered whether it would be possible for Joyce to 
 take anything away with her. It might so happen that 
 it would not be possible. If Milly was much disturbed, or 
 had any suspicions that things had advanced further than 
 she knew, the girl might have to leave the house with what 
 she stood up in. 
 
 " In that case," said Waring, " I must get her some 
 money." 
 
246 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 On his way home he went to his bank in Trafalgar Square 
 and drew fifty pounds. 
 
 " It's lucky I've got money," said Waring. " All these 
 things depend on money nearly everything becomes an 
 economic question. I think that is what men know when 
 they don't want to give women any liberty as long as 
 they are economic slaves, they are moral slaves too." 
 
 He reached home about four o'clock, and he had not 
 been there five minutes before Milly came in. She had 
 never been a woman to show much tenderness, however 
 much she felt ; she did not attempt to embrace or kiss 
 him. If she had been a little more tender in her life, a 
 little more given to showing what she felt, if indeed she 
 had felt greatly, it might have been better for her, and 
 better for her husband. She was pale and set and rigid. 
 Her aspect was suspiciously hostile, and she aroused the 
 latent hostility that was in Waring. 
 
 " I don't think you should have gone away at such a 
 juncture," she said. " It's not fair to me." 
 
 " I had to go," said Waring, shortly, " I just had to go. 
 I suppose you don't want me to break down. So Milly, 
 my dear, try and be reasonable." 
 
 "Reasonable," cried his wife, "reasonable! What is 
 reasonable in a case like this ? Oh, it's all impossible ! 
 That's what Mr. Russell said it was impossible he 
 couldn't understand it." 
 
 " Many good people won't understand it," said Waring. 
 " It must be sufficient for you that I understand it. Where 
 is Joyce ? " 
 
 " In her room," said his wife. " She and I haven't 
 spoken to each other since Friday after I knew what she 
 had said to Mr. Russell." 
 
 " Did she go to see him ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " Yes, at his house," said his wife. 
 
 " And what happened ? " asked her husband. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 247 
 
 " Mr. Russell said she sat and looked at him, and said 
 nothing except, ' I must think of Robert I must think 
 of Robert.' This is my daughter that I brought up so 
 carefully ! I thought she was a good girl and she pays 
 no more attention to me than if I were an image ! " 
 
 " You'll think differently about it presently," said 
 Waring. 
 
 " You are mad ! " said his wife, " you don't seem to 
 understand anything." 
 
 " Oh, I understand, only too well," returned Waring. 
 " I know it's hard on you." 
 
 " If you didn't encourage it she couldn't do it," said 
 his wife. " Oh, Tom, you mustn't encourage the girl to 
 do this you're not yourself you have been very ill 
 for God's sake, Tom ! " 
 
 " I'm not myself," said her husband, " am I not, Milly ? 
 Oh yes, my dear, I'm myself. I've taken a long time to 
 find out what I am, but I think I know now." 
 
 " No Christian could do this thing," said Milly. " You're 
 not a Christian any more, Tom." 
 
 " Perhaps not," said her husband. " And, again, I'm 
 sometimes inclined to think I'm a better one than I used 
 to be, Milly." 
 
 "Mr. Russell doesn't think so," she retorted. 
 
 " That doesn't settle it," returned her husband. 
 
 " It doesn't seem any good speaking to you," said his 
 wife. " You sit there sit there, looking oh, like a 
 graven image so strange and rigid. I don't seem to 
 know you I don't seem to know my own husband that 
 I've lived with over twenty years." 
 
 " Perhaps you don't," said Waring. " That's true 
 perhaps you don't. I didn't know myself till a little while 
 ago, Milly, and sometimes I wonder if you know yourself 
 if anyone knows himself." 
 
 "My own husband is a stranger," said Milly. "Oh, 
 
248 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 it's very dreadful ! What have I done that this should be 
 inflicted on me ? Why does God punish me ? " 
 
 " Is God doing this, then ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " Apparently he allows it," wailed Milly. 
 
 Waring almost smiled. 
 
 " That my daughter should do this," she went on, " my 
 own my only daughter ! A thing I could never have 
 done I would rather die ! " 
 
 " Then you wouldn't have run away with me, if you'd 
 loved me, Milly ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " You know I would not," she cried. " You know it." 
 
 Waring rubbed his hands and leant forward and stared 
 into the fire, and said : ' Yes, Milly, I do know it and 
 I'm very sorry very sorry. Don't let's talk now, my 
 dear. Send Joyce to me, I want to see her." 
 
 " At any rate," said his wife, " whatever you tell her, 
 I hope I pray you will see she does nothing in a hurry, 
 Tom. Who knows who knows what might happen ? " 
 
 And Waring knew what she meant. She conceived it 
 possible that God might yet be merciful and allow Mrs. 
 Hardy to die and set her husband free. Once she had been 
 very fond of Robert Hardy, for he had a capacity rare in 
 men for taking an apparent interest in the little ways and 
 thoughts of those who ordinarily would have no interest 
 for them. He had listened to her patiently about her 
 household woes, and many little troubles that her husband 
 pooh-poohed. He had even gained extraordinary favour 
 with her by bringing her a special receipt known to the 
 antique trade for dealing with furniture. Now she blamed 
 herself when she remembered thinking that he would have 
 been a son-in-law whom she could have loved if things had 
 been different. These were wrong thoughts, and she 
 grieved for them perhaps she was being punished for 
 them. 
 
 " In a hurry ? " said Waring. " Well, she has been very 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 249 
 
 patient. And she's endured a good deal, Milly. I'll be 
 as wise as I can send her to me, my dear." 
 
 Mrs. Waring went out of the room with a gesture of 
 despair. 
 
 "Poor woman," said Waring, "she feels it awfully. 
 She thinks I'm being cruel and if there were any God to 
 know it he'd know I'm not being cruel. I'm doing my 
 best. I'm trying to be kind but things are not easy. 
 So long as people take things the way they do they won't 
 be easy." 
 
 Then Joyce came in, and his face brightened a little. 
 She came over to him, and he pulled a chair alongside his 
 own and bade her sit down. She looked at him with 
 puzzled eyes, eyes that were eager, alarmed, questioning. 
 But he shook his head and smiled. 
 
 " Don't be afraid, kiddie," he said. " It's all right." 
 
 It was long years since he had called her " Kiddie." 
 He had called her that before his illness came on him, 
 when for some time she had been his chum, and had come 
 into his workroom at nights when he worked at home and 
 sat for a little time upon the hearthrug at his knees. He 
 saw tears in her eyes, and then she smiled, and slipped 
 out of her chair and sat again at his feet and leant her 
 head upon his knees. 
 
 " You've had a bad time this end of the week, kiddie," 
 he said, " I know you've had a bad time." 
 
 " Mother won't speak," said Joyce, " and she looks very 
 dreadful." 
 
 Waring sighed. 
 
 " You went to see Mr. Russell ? " he asked. And Joyce 
 nodded. 
 
 " Can you tell me anything he said ? " asked her father. 
 " But of course I know." 
 
 " He said what he felt, I suppose," said Joyce, " what 
 he felt he ought to say. And he told me to pray, father. 
 
250 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 As if I hadn't prayed ! without getting any answer, or 
 any help. I don't believe half the things they tell one, 
 dad. I don't think they know anything about it." 
 
 " Ah," said Waring, " you're getting too wise, kiddie. 
 No one knows anything, and the wisest the least. Then 
 I suppose your religion's a bit shaky, child ? " 
 
 Joyce nodded, and looked straight into the fire. 
 
 " It always was since I was four years old," she said. 
 
 " Four years ? " said her father. " How was that ? " 
 
 " When I was four," said Joyce, " I used to have awful 
 nightmares. They were something very dreadful, I can't 
 explain them. And mother used to take away the candle, 
 because she found I got up and lighted it not that the 
 candle stopped the nightmare, but when I woke at least 
 there was a light there, a little light." 
 
 " Ah," said her father, " a little human light." 
 
 "And that was better than the darkness," went on 
 Joyce. " I used to pray to God to be kind and not give 
 me those dreams again. And I used to be afraid to go to 
 sleep, and I used to sit up and try not to sleep. Oh, I've 
 often beaten my head with my hands to try to keep myself 
 awake, and held my eyes open with my fingers. And then 
 I've fallen asleep, and it all came again night after night, 
 although I prayed so much. And I didn't believe God was 
 kind then, or he'd have listened to a little child praying 
 in the dark, out of bed on her knees in the cold praying 
 with tears. But he didn't help me." 
 
 " My dear, my dear ! " said her father, " did this go on 
 long, child ? " 
 
 Joyce nodded. 
 
 " It went on for years. Sometimes it didn't come for 
 weeks or months, and then it came again." 
 
 " And I never knew it," said her father, " never knew it. 
 Didn't your mother know it ? " 
 
 " I tried to tell her," said Joyce, "but she said I wasn't 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 251 
 
 to talk nonsense, and took away the candle." Then she 
 added with sudden extraordinary bitterness, " And now 
 she's telling me not to talk nonsense, and she'd take away 
 the candle." 
 
 " Don't, dear," said her father. " It's all right it's 
 all right. Nothing shall be taken away from you." He 
 put his hand on her shoulder. " Kiddie, I telephoned to 
 Robert this afternoon, and I told him that he was taking 
 a very big responsibility on himself, much bigger than he 
 would have taken if things had gone the way your mother 
 would like them to go and as I should like them to go for 
 you. He understands it. You, too, must understand 
 you're taking a big responsibility. But you're going to 
 take it to-morrow, Joyce." 
 
 He felt her hand tighten on his. 
 
 " To-morrow. You're going to Paris to-morrow by the 
 early train. I don't know what you can get out of the 
 house I'm not going to tell your mother until you've 
 gone. Pack your dressing-bag, and anything you can put 
 in my kit bag you'll find it in my dressing-room. Your 
 mother won't get up till half -past eight, and you and I will 
 be out of the house before then. Don't say anything, 
 child come now, kiss me, and go away and get things 
 ready as quietly as you can. Don't let anybody know 
 that you're packing anything. Perhaps you'd better not 
 pack till we've all gone to bed. And see you're ready in 
 your room at eight o'clock to-morrow. Good-night, 
 Joyce." 
 
 For a little while she clung to him and trembled, and 
 said : " You're very good, father. I want to do what 
 I feel is right but oh, dad, I'm sorry for mother I'm 
 very sorry for her. 
 
 " Wait a little," said Waring, " and that will be all 
 right you will see. Good-night, child." 
 
 When she was gone he walked up and down the room 
 
252 
 
 and thought about the bad time his little girl had had in 
 the old days when he didn't understand that she suffered. 
 His little girl, whom he had always loved the spiritual 
 daughter of her whom he had adored, who was dead 
 had knelt at her bedside and prayed to some inexorable, 
 or pitiful and unable, god to help her in strange and awful 
 distress, and had prayed in vain. 
 
 " It's well we should try not to be cruel," said Waring, 
 " when things themselves are so awful, and so pitiless." 
 
 XXVI 
 
 As she chose her moment Joyce got out of the house next 
 morning, taking nothing but her dressing-bag, without 
 any of the servants knowing that she went. A few minutes 
 later Waring followed her, carrying his kit bag. Erratic as 
 his habits were, this was curiously early for him to be leaving 
 the house ; he felt sure that his wife would be told of it. 
 At the next corner he found Joyce waiting for him ; they 
 took a taxi-cab and went straight down to Charing Cross. 
 As they drew up inside the station yard he caught sight of 
 Robert Hardy before she did. 
 
 " There he is, waiting for us," he said. " Now, kiddie, 
 buck up keep your head." 
 
 She looked at him, and for the first time she smiled, 
 a little feeble flickering smile like a pale gleam of sunlight. 
 
 Robert Hardy took the kit bag from Waring, and Waring 
 carried his daughter's dressing-bag. They went together 
 straight to the train. There was yet a quarter of an hour 
 before the time for departure. 
 
 " What about the other luggage ? " asked Robert. 
 
 Waring shook his head. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 253 
 
 " My dear man, there isn't any. I couldn't get it 
 away without trouble. All she's brought is in this bag. 
 You'll have to get more things in Paris. I suppose they'll 
 think you've lost it all." 
 
 He got into the carriage with them, and sat down for 
 a little while. He pulled out his pocket-book and from it 
 took the money he had drawn the night before. It was 
 in an envelope ; he handed it over to Joyce. 
 
 " Put it in your dressing-bag and don't lose it," he said. 
 " It's something for you to buy another bonnet when you 
 get into Paris, my dear." 
 
 She knew that he was generous with money, far more 
 generous than he ought to have been, according to Milly, 
 who, however, never understood that he had a private 
 income of his own, and believed he earned all he had. 
 Joyce thanked him with her eyes but did not speak. She 
 was in a strange dream. She was very sorry for her 
 mother, and wondered what would happen when her father 
 got back. Suddenly she spoke. 
 
 " Please go outside for a moment," she said, touching 
 her lover's hand. 
 
 Robert Hardy got out. 
 
 " Dear dad," said Joyce, " I am afraid. When you get 
 back you'll be quiet with mother, won't you ? It would 
 be awful if you were ill again. It seems to me now that 
 I ought not to do this." 
 
 But Waring shook his head. 
 
 " That's settled, my dear. Don't be afraid. There 
 won't be any trouble things will settle down." 
 
 He looked quite cheerful, so she thought. Then he 
 smiled at her. 
 
 " Take your hat off, kiddie you won't want it till 
 you get to Dover. If you don't, I'll spoil it for you." And 
 she took it off. 
 
 Then he kissed her, and said suddenly in a strange harsh 
 
254 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 voice, " Good-bye, kiddie." With that he jumped out of 
 the carriage and walked away, and never looked back. 
 
 Hardy came after him : "Oh sir, what is it ? " 
 
 Waring turned his head. 
 
 " It's all right, old chap," he said. " It's aU right." He 
 turned round, took him by both hands and looked him 
 straight in the eyes. " There aren't three men in England 
 that would do this, Robert. Look to it that you justify 
 me." 
 
 He saw something in the other man's eyes that helped 
 him. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Waring, " don't say any more good- 
 bye." 
 
 And with that he walked up the platform blindly. He 
 was glad that it was over, and sorry. He liked Robert 
 Hardy, and hated him that would presently pass, for he 
 knew he was a good fellow. He was sure of it, utterly 
 sure. But it was a hard thing to do a very hard thing. 
 
 " I thought it would have been easier," said Waring. 
 " But it's a wrench. It's like oh, like an operation. I'm 
 cut in pieces. But it's done." 
 
 When he went past the ticket collector who had let him 
 pass in he staggered, and the man caught hold of him. 
 
 " What is it, sir ? " 
 
 He knew Waring well, as he so often went to Paris. 
 
 " I'm all right, thank you," said Waring. " I was just 
 a little giddy." 
 
 But indeed he felt very ill, as he had been the other day 
 when he had had trouble with Milly. He went straight to the 
 refreshment room and drank a whole shillingsworth of 
 brandy, and sat down for a quarter of an hour. Then 
 he took a cab and went back home. 
 
 " I'd rather give a thousand pounds than go there 
 now," he said, " a thousand pounds ! Poor Milly ! poor 
 Milly ! If people only understood if one only lived for 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 255 
 
 those who did understand ! That's it to understand, 
 to be sorry, not to be hard. But now I shall have to 
 be hard." 
 
 He had not been in his own room three minutes when 
 Mrs. Waring came in ; it was then only twenty past nine. 
 She came straight up to him ; she was like some woman that 
 he did not know, somebody he had never seen. She was 
 very white ; her hands were clenched. 
 
 " Where have you been ? " she said. " And where's 
 where's Joyce ? She's not in the house where is she ? " 
 
 " Sit down," said Waring in a queer hard voice. 
 
 " I will not sit down," said his wife. 
 
 " Then I must," he said. 
 
 He looked weary, strained, and haggard. 
 
 " Where is Joyce, I ask you ? " said Milly. 
 
 Waring sat down and rested his face on his hand. 
 
 " She's gone away," he said. 
 
 " Ah," said his wife, " gone away ! and you've helped 
 her. Where has she gone ? " 
 
 " To Paris," said Waring, and he added harshly, " And 
 not alone." 
 
 " Not alone ! " said Milly. " Oh, Tom ! you don't 
 deny it." 
 
 " Why should I deny anything ? " asked Waring. " Be 
 wise, Milly. 
 
 " She's gone away with with that man. You went out 
 with her you helped her ! " cried his wife. 
 
 " Or she'd have gone without help," said Waring. 
 
 " And you're her father," said his wife, " her father ! 
 and my husband ! Could you have done this ? it's impos- 
 sible it's quite impossible ! I shall go mad ! " 
 
 And all Waring could say was, " Oh no, my dear, you 
 won't. Oh no, my dear, you won't." 
 
 It sounded silly, ridiculous, futile, and weak. 
 
 And then Milly sat down and stared at him and fiddled 
 
256 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 with her hands. She felt as Russell had felt when he had 
 faced Waring : he was a fact that could not be got rid of, 
 inexplicable, awful : something like fate, a kind of in- 
 exorable and terrible deity, something that did things that 
 were without explanation, that could not be moved by 
 prayer or sacrifice. And she had lived in her own little 
 world, a world she had made for herself : a shelter, a 
 kind of cocoon of illusion. She was the mother, the god- 
 dess of the house, the real power. Her husband had been 
 the worker, the maker of money, the father : hard enough 
 to manage at times, but still, as she thought, manageable : 
 hardly to be endured at some hours, but still to be endured 
 by a good woman. She thought she had driven and 
 managed him skilfully, and had been pleased with her 
 management, for he was difficult, and her friends knew 
 he was difficult and praised her for that housekeeping 
 which always includes the management of a difficult man. 
 Now all semblance of power was taken from her. She had 
 a thousand griefs, griefs based truly enough on religion, on 
 her principles, on her prejudices, on morals. But what 
 was bitterest of all was the sense of extraordinary im- 
 potence that now flooded her, She had no rag of authority 
 to cover herself with ; she had been given no chance at all. 
 
 " I shall go to Paris," she said. 
 
 She knew well enough there were later trains, because 
 her husband so often went there. 
 
 " Where have they gone ? To what hotel ? " 
 
 Waring did not answer. 
 
 " I ask where have they gone ? " she repeated. 
 
 " It will be no good your going," said Waring. " Don't 
 think of it." 
 
 " I shall think of it," said his wife. " And I shall go. 
 Tell me where they are where they will be." 
 
 " No," said Waring, " I can't do that." 
 
 " You must," said his wife. 
 
257 
 
 " I will not," said Waring. He sat still and rubbed his 
 hands over the fire. 
 
 " I can't stay in your house," said his wife. " After all 
 these years I must go back to my old mother ! " 
 
 " And let everybody know why you've done so ? " asked 
 Waring. " Is it wise ? From your own point of view is it 
 wise ? " 
 
 " People will know presently," said Milly, " they can't 
 help but know. What difference if some know it to-day 
 rather than to-morrow ? You won't tell me where they 
 are in Paris ? " 
 
 " No, I will not," said Waring. 
 
 Just then there was a knock and ring at the hall door 
 and Mrs. Waring went to the window almost mechanically 
 and looked out. 
 
 She spoke. " That's Nurse Ballantyne outside what 
 does she want ? " 
 
 "Ah," said Waring, " yes ? I wonder ? " 
 
 He had no notion what brought her, or why she should 
 come at all. But his wife had, her mind moved very swiftly. 
 She wondered her heart stood still for a moment. Then 
 one of the servants knocked and opened the library door. 
 
 " Nurse Ballantyne would like to see you, ma'am," she 
 said. 
 
 Milly went out, and Waring sat there wondering 
 wondering. He heard some other door open and shut, and 
 knew that Milly was with the nurse ; and still it never 
 occurred to him why the nurse should come. Then he 
 heard the other door open and Milly's step in the hall. 
 She came swiftly to his door and opened it, and shut it, 
 and ran up to him with a strange light upon her face. 
 She tried to speak, and could not. She stammered, and 
 then she said, " Oh Tom, Tom ! the finger of God ! the 
 finger of God ! " 
 
 She reached out her hands and took him by the arm. 
 
258 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " What is it, Milly ? " 
 
 Then she told him. 
 
 " This morning, early, Robert Hardy's wife threw her- 
 self out of a window." 
 
 " Good heavens ! " said Waring, " this morning ! " 
 
 " This morning this very morning ! " said Milly. 
 
 " Is she dead ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " She can't live they say she can't live," said his wife. 
 
 And again she cried out that this was the finger of God. 
 She seemed sure of it. 
 
 " And now," she said, " and now, Tom " 
 
 " One minute, let me speak to Nurse Ballantyne." 
 
 He went out and spoke to her in the other room. 
 
 " How did you hear this news ? " he asked. 
 
 " My sister telephoned to me," said the nurse, " and 
 I thought I'd better come and tell you. You know I 
 understand and I didn't want to interfere but I've been 
 wondering lately about things when I saw Miss Waring, and 
 I thought it would be just as well to let you know." 
 
 " They think she won't recover ? " said Waring. 
 
 " They say so," replied the nurse. " She's very badly 
 hurt." 
 
 " Ah," said Waring, " thank you, my dear, for coming. 
 It was good of you." 
 
 When the nurse had gone he went back to his own room 
 and still found his wife there. 
 
 " Tom, you must telegraph to them now to separate 
 until they can get married." 
 
 Waring stared at her. There was an extraordinary 
 look upon his face, a look of inquiry, of wonderment, of 
 what seemed to her a peculiar amazement. She had 
 said something simple, direct, and quite obvious, and there 
 he was staring at her again with that look, as if he did not 
 understand the simple and the direct and the obvious. 
 
 " To separate ? " said Waring, " now ? now ? " 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 259 
 
 " Of course," said his wife, " of course of course, Tom ! " 
 
 She said " of course " three times, in different tones. It 
 was all so simple and direct and obvious that a fool could 
 understand it. 
 
 " They must be separated until they can get married," 
 said Milly. 
 
 " Separated ? separated now ? " said Waring. He 
 looked round the room. " Why, Milly ! do you want to 
 break up their lives altogether ? " 
 
 " Break up their lives ? " said his wife. " What do 
 you mean ? what can you mean ? " 
 
 " What do I mean ? " repeated Waring. " Don't you 
 understand ? Do you think Joyce would leave him now ? " 
 
 " Oh, most assuredly," said his wife. 
 
 " Then if I were in Robert Hardy's place, and she 
 left me now, I'd never speak to her again," said Waring. 
 
 " You'd never speak to her again ? " said his wife. 
 " Don't I keep on saying they're not married and now in a 
 day or two they may get married." 
 
 " Married ! " said Waring, " they are married. No, no 
 I'll not do it. I wouldn't do it for anything on earth. 
 Don't you understand ? " 
 
 But she did not understand. It seemed to her that 
 God had directly intervened to save her daughter from sin. 
 He had, in fact, thrown poor Mrs. Hardy out of a window 
 it might be, to the dogs to save Joyce from sin. There 
 could be a regular and normal, correct and proper marriage. 
 It was not too late. They would not be in Paris for hours 
 it was still the morning. 
 
 " You'll not do it ? " said his wife. " You are making 
 my daughter into this man's mistress when she might be 
 married married in church ! " 
 
 And Waring thought she might have added to that, 
 "By a clergyman in a surplice, with an organ, and ' The 
 voice that breathed o'er Eden.' " For these things were 
 
260 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 in her mind along with her infinite distress for indeed 
 her distress was infinite to her ; it filled her whole mind. 
 She prayed, visibly prayed, for calm, for strength, for 
 direction, to overcome this inexplicable obstacle in front 
 of her. Waring saw her lips move : she clasped her hands. 
 He was very sorry for her, but his face was as rigid as if it 
 had been carved out of stone ; his mouth was set, his brows 
 contracted. 
 
 "Do this for me," said his wife, "for me for your wife, 
 Tom." 
 
 Perhaps she had got direction, if not from God, from her 
 heart, but even that did not avail. 
 
 " Oh, I'm grieved, I'm grieved," said Waring, " but I 
 can't do it, Milly, no, I can't do it. You don't under- 
 stand. Those two love each other, if I know anything of 
 love 
 
 " What do you know of love ? " asked his wife. 
 
 She did not know what he knew of love. He stood 
 and seemed to be thinking aloud. 
 
 " Robert Hardy is a strange man," he said. " He's 
 been tried very hard tried in the fire, Milly. He's been 
 ten thousand times a better man than I'd have been in his 
 place it's as well you should know that. But he's come 
 now to the breaking-point and I don't wonder at it. If 
 Joyce left him to-day on this point that seems to you so 
 serious, and to him and me doesn't seem serious at all, he 
 couldn't forgive her. He couldn't ! I don't believe he'd 
 live. And if he did, perhaps he'd be like me, as I should 
 be in such a case. Why if a woman served me such 
 a trick I wouldn't speak to her again I wouldn't be in the 
 country where she was ! I couldn't understand it." 
 
 " You're mad," said his wife, " you're quite mad ! " 
 
 He turned to her. 
 
 " I may be mad all those are mad that one doesn't 
 agree with. Do you think Joyce would leave him ? " 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 261 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 " Come, speak do you believe the girl would leave 
 him to-day if I telegraphed and told her this ? " 
 
 " Perhaps Robert Hardy would behave like a gentleman 
 and wish her to," she said breathlessly. " I used to like him 
 and was sorry for him I thought he was a gentleman. I 
 believe he'd want her to leave him." 
 
 " I won't give him the chance," said Waring. " If he 
 were what you call a gentleman though what being a 
 gentleman has got to do with it I don't know if he left 
 her and waited till this other poor woman was dead do 
 you think that Joyce would forgive him ? " 
 
 And she did not answer. 
 
 " Look in your own heart," said Waring, " if it's not tied 
 up in convention, Milly, look in your own heart put your- 
 self in her place, after all they have been through, and 
 after what has been done. Their life is beginning to-day. 
 She has made the greatest sacrifice of all which is yet no 
 sacrifice if it is properly looked at and then he says to her, 
 ' Oh, we'll take advantage of this little accident, and you 
 shall go back to your mother, and after a decent interval 
 I'll marry you in a church.' That would be love ! That 
 would be passion ! Oh, if I were a woman I wouldn't 
 forgive it." 
 
 " Give me their address," said his wife, " give it me ! " 
 
 " I'll not risk it," said Waring. " I will not." 
 
 She repeated her words again and again, but he did not 
 answer, and went to the window and leant against it and 
 looked out into the street. 
 
 " You're a stone," said his wife, " you're cruel and 
 wicked ! " 
 
 " I don't want to be," said Waring, " I don't want to be. 
 But it's all on me now, I've got to decide I've got to 
 do what I think best for every one." 
 
 " This is what you think best ! " she said, " this ! " 
 
262 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " It is, it is," said Waring steadily. " I've got to take 
 it that way, Milly. I can't do anything but what I think 
 right." 
 
 And Milly Waring said no more. She no longer threatened 
 to leave the house, nor did she mean to. It might be that 
 within a few days, or even a few hours, Mrs. Hardy would 
 die, and then things would be made straight. For of the 
 mercy of God there was no end. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 DURING the next few days Milly Waring perhaps began to 
 have doubts as to whether the accident to Mrs. Hardy had 
 been by the direct interposition of the Deity. It appeared 
 that the poor woman was, after all, not fatally injured ; 
 it seemed that she might partially recover. Waring went 
 to see Heathcote about her. 
 
 " It's a lamentable business," said Heathcote. " The 
 poor thing ought to have been killed it would have been 
 the best thing for all of you for herself included, Waring. 
 It would certainly relieve you of a lot of anxiety, would 
 it not ? " 
 
 Waring nodded, but did not say what had happened. 
 There was no need to tell anyone ; he proposed to say 
 nothing about it until he was obliged. The world being 
 a mass compact of prejudice and folly and convention it 
 was as well to say nothing as long as possible. 
 
 " Then you don't think she'll die," he asked. 
 
 " She's smashed up badly," said Heathcote, " and her 
 being alcoholic gives her every chance of going under, but 
 my opinion is that she'll get through it. Little Smith's 
 her surgeon you don't know him a good little chap, and 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 263 
 
 very clever. He says the same as I do. There's one thing 
 pretty certain she'll never walk again." 
 
 Waring shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Ah," he said, " that means she won't get any more 
 brandy. And that " 
 
 " Just so," said Heathcote. " If she makes a good 
 recovery, or as good as may be looked for, one doesn't 
 know how long she'll live. It was the liquor that was 
 killing her." 
 
 " It's a bad job," said Waring, thinking of Milly. 
 
 " And how are you ? " asked Heathcote. 
 
 " I suppose I'm all right," said Waring, " though for the 
 matter of that I fainted the other day." 
 
 " The devil you did ! " said Heathcote. " Take off your 
 shirt let's listen to your pump." 
 
 W T hen he had finished his examination with the stetho- 
 scope he did not seem quite satisfied. He sat for a long 
 time feeling Waring's radial pulse. 
 
 " Anything wrong ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " Not so far as I can say," replied Heathcote, " but then 
 they have been doing so much work in cardiology lately 
 that the young chaps are fairly beyond me in that branch, 
 so I think I'd like you to go to some one else. You see, 
 Waring, in the old days we used to rely altogether on heart 
 sounds and murmurs as we heard 'em through the stetho- 
 scope ; but one can't get over the fact that whereas people 
 with murmurs often live as long as if they hadn't any, 
 people without go under. If you're at all anxious or 
 worried you might go and see one of half a dozen men." 
 
 " I'm not in the least anxious," said Waring, " but I'll 
 go and see anybody you like. Bent seems to know a lot 
 about the heart." 
 
 " Oh, he's an anaesthetist," said Heathcote, who was 
 sufficiently old-fashioned to resent the position into which 
 anaesthetists were gradually forcing themselves. Though 
 
264 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 he had done no surgery since he was a young man he had 
 a strong belief that he could give chloroform as well as 
 anybody. 
 
 " Well, go to Bent, if you like," he grumbled. " At any 
 rate he ought to know enough to send you to somebody 
 perhaps to John Mackintosh. I suppose you're taking 
 things as easy as you can ? " 
 
 " Oh yes," said Waring, with a little grim smile, " just 
 as easy as I can, Heathcote." 
 
 Heathcote looked at him. 
 
 " How are you feeling in yourself ? I'm often inclined 
 to damn symptoms if a man feels all right." 
 
 "As to feeling all right, I don't know," said Waring, 
 " but all the same I don't believe I shall live five years 
 perhaps not half as much." 
 
 " Kenshaw told me he was satisfied with you," said 
 Heathcote. 
 
 Waring nodded. 
 
 "So he said to me, and I do think he very nearly was. 
 But it isn't that one has a kind of internal conviction, 
 and I've made up my mind the business isn't over." 
 
 " Well, you're taking it easy all the same ? " said 
 Heathcote. 
 
 " I really believe I am," replied Waring. " I think of 
 it as little as possible, but one's got to get crossed out 
 some time or another." 
 
 " Oh, well, buck up," said Heathcote, " and when you 
 see Bent, tell him what I said. But you might go to 
 Mackintosh right off." 
 
 " Oh, I'll see Bent first," said Waring. 
 
 As a matter of fact he did not go in to see Bent for 
 some weeks. He thought more about Joyce than about 
 himself, and things at home were not at all comfortable. 
 Nevertheless he was sure that he had done right when he 
 heard from Joyce and Hardy. They were very happy, and 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 265 
 
 infinitely grateful to him. He seemed a thousand times 
 more her father now that he had become almost as a god 
 who had wrought that wonder for her which was always 
 so miraculous, of making another human being happy. 
 She asked him if she might write to her mother : she was 
 afraid to do it until she knew how things were going. So 
 Waring took the letters in to his wife. 
 
 Ever since Joyce had gone away Milly had withdrawn 
 much into herself. She was stern and rigid ; rarely did 
 she offer any remark about anything, and she answered 
 her husband as shortly as she might without showing anger. 
 He knew she was very unhappy. Although their own 
 relations had never been intimate or deep, they had, it 
 seemed, satisfied her soul, for she who was without passion 
 demanded it not. But he knew she missed her little talks 
 with him, and knew she loved him as far as her nature 
 went. But now he was another man and inexplicable ; 
 one who did not believe in God. It was all very dreadful. 
 
 " I've got some letters, Milly," he said, " letters from 
 abroad. Would you like to see them ? " 
 
 "No," she said, "or " 
 
 " Or what ? " asked her husband. 
 
 " Or not now," she answered, coldly. 
 
 " I'll leave them with you," said Waring. 
 
 He put them in her workbox, which was open beside her 
 on the table. 
 
 " I want you to write to Joyce," he said. 
 
 But Milly shook her head, and he saw a tear run down 
 her cheek ; so he said no more, and went away. 
 
 " She'll come round," he thought. " Poor Milly ! I 
 suppose she believes all that she does believe with every 
 fibre of her heart." 
 
 So did he now ; that was the trouble. 
 
 That night when he came in, he found the letters on his 
 desk. There was a little pencil note inside it from his 
 
266 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 wife. It was not signed. She said : " I'll try and write 
 to her presently. But not yet not yet." 
 
 By this time it was certain that Mrs. Hardy was making 
 a temporary recovery. Waring knew what a blow this 
 was to Milly ; she believed so greatly in her own theories 
 that this disappointment hit her very hard indeed. 
 Perhaps for the first and only time in her life she had 
 dreadful sensations of doubt in God and his goodness. 
 She never thought about his goodness to the wretched 
 woman who lay maimed within a mile of her own house. 
 She had the feeling that God was her God, her tribal, her 
 domestic Deity. That was what she had always thought 
 without knowing it, and now she could not understand. 
 
 That night, when Waring went up to bed, he wondered 
 whether his wife was asleep. He was very sorry for her, 
 he wanted to speak. He felt curiously shy about going 
 into her room perhaps he might only disturb her the 
 more. Nevertheless he felt that he ought to speak : she 
 was so lonely now that Joyce had gone, now that Jack was 
 not in London. 
 
 " Perhaps if I had loved her more," thought Waring, 
 " she might have loved me better and yet, till this 
 happened she was always happy and contented. Her 
 nature seemed wholly occupied." 
 
 He tapped at her door and went in, and saw that she 
 was awake with a shaded light by the bed. 
 
 " May I speak to you a minute ? " he asked softly. 
 
 And she answered, meekly enough : " Yes, Tom." 
 
 He drew a chair to the side of the bed and sat down. 
 
 " You read the letters, Milly ? " 
 
 " Yes, I read them," said his wife. 
 
 " And some day and soon you'll answer them ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " As soon as I can," she replied, after a pause. 
 
 " Milly," said Waring, " isn't there something in your 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 267 
 
 heart that's glad our little girl is happier than she 
 was ? " 
 
 " Don't," said Milly, " don't speak of it." 
 
 " There is," said Waring, " all the same there is." 
 
 He put his hand upon her hand which was underneath 
 the bedclothes. 
 
 " I don't like to have you so unhappy," he said, " and 
 I know you've been unhappy. I've given you a lot of 
 trouble, Milly, since that illness began years ago. Some- 
 times I must have been awfully trying I'm very sorry 
 now. You know, sometimes, little woman, I think you 
 suspect I am ill if I am not violent and cross, and ready 
 to damn everybody in heaps." 
 
 " You are very much changed," said his wife, but not so 
 bitterly. " Oh, Tom, you are so much changed now I 
 hardly seem to know you. The other day you were like a 
 rock like a great, hard rock. You didn't seem to care 
 for me at all, but only for Joyce." 
 
 And Waring's heart smote him. 
 
 " That's not so, little woman it was only that I thought 
 I was doing right. Perhaps if things had been different, 
 and I had been very hard and brutal to our little girl, 
 Milly, that might have changed you. But don't let's talk 
 of it it will come right in the end." 
 
 " I cannot think you are well to hear you talk like this," 
 said Milly, with a sob. " I don't think you ever did it 
 before, Tom." 
 
 " I have been through quite a little this last two years, 
 you know, my dear," he answered. 
 
 " I know it," she said, " I do know it." 
 
 She drew her hand from underneath the clothes and laid 
 it upon his, and he took it, and presently bent and kissed it. 
 
 " Poor little woman, you've had a bad time," he said. 
 
 He knew she was crying softly. Presently she spoke. 
 
 " Isn't it dreadful that that wretched woman doesn't 
 
268 
 
 die ? Oh, Tom, I did so think she would. If it hadn't 
 been for her " 
 
 " Don't worry about it," said Waring. " I saw Heath- 
 cote to-day, and although the poor thing won't do what's 
 best for herself and everybody just now, she can't possibly 
 live long, Milly." 
 
 " Poor creature ! " said Milly. " I've been thinking 
 about her, Tom, and, of course, perhaps it's wicked of me 
 to want her to die, but seeing all she's done . And 
 now, there she is in bed, crippled, and not able to get 
 drink. And that'll make her sane again, and perhaps 
 she's lying there thinking of what she used to be, and of 
 what she might have been, and what she did to to poor 
 Eobert." 
 
 Waring smiled a little to himself, a little grimly, as he 
 saw the motions of his wife's mind. Already Robert 
 Hardy had become " poor Robert." 
 
 " It was a dreadful business," he said, " and Robert 
 Hardy behaved a great deal better than you know, Milly. 
 It's not only what he's told me, for, with his permission, 
 Heathcote told me all he knew. There's not a better fellow 
 living than Robert Hardy, if I know anything about men. 
 All this grief of yours, Milly, will turn some day into joy. 
 You'll have other troubles, but this will end." 
 
 " Other troubles ? " she said. " Tom, what do you 
 mean ? Sometimes this alteration in you makes me very 
 much afraid. Other troubles ? you don't think that after 
 all you're going not to keep well, Tom ? " 
 
 She sat up and caught hold of him with both hands. 
 "No, Milly," he said, "don't think that. Of course 
 after what I've been through one can't feel very certain 
 
 of life " 
 
 " I think you think that you're not not strong," she 
 sobbed. 
 He seemed to think about it. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 269 
 
 " I certainly think that," he said at last. " I haven't 
 that old sense that I'd got hold of life with both 
 hands to say nothing of one's teeth. But that's all, 
 I assure you. I give you my word that that's all if you 
 don't believe me, go and ask Heathcote." 
 
 And she made up her mind to see the doctor, and at the 
 same time determined not to believe a word he told her. 
 
 She spoke aloud. " Tom, have I been a good wife to 
 you ? " 
 
 " Oh, my dear, a very good wife. There couldn't have 
 been a better." 
 
 " I've tried to do everything," she said sadly. " Only 
 sometimes, Tom, I've thought I didn't understand you." 
 
 " Nobody understands anybody, my dear, but you've 
 understood me quite well enough." 
 
 He felt that there was a double meaning in what he 
 said he had not intended it. 
 
 " Well, don't you understand me, either ? " she said. 
 
 " Of course I don't, my dear," he answered, " of course 
 I don't. No man ever understands a woman, Milly 
 especially if she's good. If he did he'd probably be so 
 ashamed of himself that he'd retire into a monastery 
 and I shouldn't like to do that. It would be a bad place 
 for foreign politics, Milly, wouldn't it ? " 
 
 " I wish you hadn't to do any more foreign politics," 
 sighed Milly. She seemed infinitely more childlike. " But 
 all the same I'm glad you are interested in them." She 
 still held his hand. " Do you think, Tom, that foreign 
 politics would " 
 
 " Would what ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " Take you soon to Paris ? " asked his wife. 
 
 Waring looked at her with an odd smile. 
 
 " By Jove ! " he said, " I shouldn't be surprised if they 
 did. Will you come with me ? " 
 
 " Yes, Tom," she said, meekly. 
 
270 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 MANY things had worked on Milly Waring during the 
 hours that followed her daughter's flight. Certainly her 
 bitterness with heaven as to Mrs. Hardy had a curious effect 
 upon her, though she would never have acknowledged it. 
 It was as if she had been given something and had had it 
 taken away again. But it was not only that ; she found 
 herself dreadfully alone now Joyce had gone. 
 
 Bitter as she had been with her husband, she could not 
 but now remember when he and she had been, as she 
 thought, sufficient for themselves. These days returned 
 to her again. The reality would never come back, so much 
 she knew, but yet something of their fragrance perhaps 
 might live again. Now she regretted that she had not more 
 often gone abroad with her husband. Perhaps it had not 
 been wise other men, she knew, might have wandered 
 more from her than Tom had ; they might possibly have 
 drifted into some terrible affair with another woman ; they 
 might even have had a mistress. She was glad to think 
 that her husband was not that kind of man. 
 
 Henceforth she would be more with him. She was very 
 glad they had made it up. It was perhaps possible that he 
 would not live very long. All his people had died com- 
 paratively young they were not like her own, who seemed 
 to live for ever and go on talking cheerfully about nothing, 
 and doing with ardour what amounted to less. 
 
 Yet, although after her talk with Tom she was ready to 
 go to Paris with him, and was anxious to make it up with 
 Joyce, she had a peculiar sense of sin within her. She felt 
 that she ought not to forgive Joyce : it seemed like flouting 
 God. It was the first time in her life she had ever proposed 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 271 
 
 to do anything of which she really disapproved. It was an 
 odd experience ; she found within herself a little fluttered 
 sense that she liked doing something that she ought not to 
 do. But then she had never recognized the power her 
 husband had over her. He said he was doing right, that he 
 was sure of it. That was amazing, but nevertheless if he 
 was sure, that was something, something very great. She 
 tried to think it out. It seemed impossible to her that he 
 could be doing it for the special purpose of angering the 
 Deity ; so bit by bit she came to the conclusion that per- 
 haps in some way that she did not understand it was not 
 so wrong as she had thought it. It was certain that Mrs. 
 Hardy would not live very long and if God had really dis- 
 approved of the whole affair he would not have allowed 
 this accident to happen. It was hardly to be expected 
 that any self-respecting deity would go so far as to kill the 
 poor woman out of hand in order to make things comfortable 
 for two sinners, but the fact that Mrs. Hardy was half killed 
 to say the least of it, seemed to Milly to show that God 
 thought there were extenuating circumstances. Perhaps 
 Tom was one of God's instruments. 
 
 Thus it was that she made out a case for herself ; and by 
 so doing she made out a case for her husband who sadly 
 needed it and offered herself excuses for going to Paris. 
 At the end of a week, when Waring said he thought it was 
 time they went, she had worked herself into more than mere 
 acquiescence. Without knowing it or suspecting it she 
 had managed her domesticated conscience with such skill 
 that she had no regrets when they started. 
 
 They stayed a week in Paris, putting up at an hotel in a 
 side street just off the Avenue de 1' Opera. During that 
 week Milly saw so much of which she disapproved that she 
 could not but approve of herself there being nothing so 
 consoling as the sins of an alien race. She behaved ad- 
 mirably to Robert Hardy, and never by word or look 
 
272 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 betrayed any disapproval of him. Waring knew at once 
 that Robert had heard nothing of the accident to his wife ; 
 that seemed to him just as well. By his desire Milly did 
 not speak of it to Joyce. 
 
 " They will hear of it soon enough," said Waring, " but 
 just now Robert is not getting any letters from London. 
 He is supposed to be taking a holiday." 
 
 Nevertheless, at the end of the week Milly could not 
 refrain from telling her daughter that she had every reason 
 for supposing that a certain poor woman could not possibly 
 live long. When she went away she called Robert " my 
 dear boy," and in the train Waring told her that she had 
 behaved with the most admirable discretion. 
 
 " It was a very difficult situation, my dear," he said, 
 " and you couldn't have behaved better. I think you 
 believe now that in the end everything will come right." 
 
 " I hope so I pray so," said Milly fervently. " But 
 I do hope they won't stay too long in Paris it's a very im- 
 moral place. I dread the influence of such a city on young 
 people, Tom it's all very well for you and me." 
 
 " Oh yes, I can stand it," said Waring, without so much as 
 a smile. " But on the whole, my dear, I'm sure you enjoyed 
 it. I don't think I should like to leave you in Paris by your- 
 self for long." 
 
 Whereupon his wife said, "Oh, Tom, how can you say such 
 things ! " 
 
 Now that his wife had come round in face of the accom- 
 plished fact Waring felt much easier in his mind. He had 
 done something important, something that he wished to do, 
 something that had to be done. But there was another side 
 to the matter : every time that he did any work, whether 
 it were professional or connected with his own affairs, he 
 had an odd melancholy feeling that it brought him per- 
 ceptibly nearer to the end. When he had been in the 
 nursing home still suffering he had laid out in his mind 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 273 
 
 certain things that he had to do : he had to be reconciled 
 with his son ; he had to make his daughter happy, what- 
 ever obstacles there might be ; he had to provide properly 
 for Jennie. But even now he had accomplished more than 
 he had hoped for. He had not recognized the possibility of 
 Milly acting as she had done : her nature was not so small 
 as he had suspected. He felt infinitely grateful, and 
 much more affectionate to her than he had done for many 
 years, and yet he knew that so long as she had her boy, and 
 Joyce, and perhaps Joyce's children, she would recover from 
 the shock when he went, and recover quickly. He did not 
 resent it ; he was glad of it. He saw her in his mind, 
 sitting with her hands upon her lap in the hour of her 
 relaxation, about tea-time, saying something of " poor 
 Tom." It was good that some were born who did not 
 suffer greatly. 
 
 And still, though he kept thinking of the time he feared, 
 when the old trouble would renew itself, he hoped that it 
 might not turn out so. He found he clung more to life than 
 he had done, he felt less detached. This came to him 
 almost as a discovery ; it was the first time he had acknow- 
 ledged to himself that he really wanted to live. And still 
 he knew he was not really well for he had not half his old 
 mental eagerness or energy. 
 
 His secretary, who analysed him with a pitiless mind, 
 discerned no weakening in his judgment, but she was horri- 
 fied to observe an increasing contempt for money. He 
 refused work every week ; Miss Willis spent half her time 
 cleaning the typewriter and learning Spanish. Sometimes 
 now her employer said, " No, I won't do any more work. 
 If you like you can read a page or two of ' Don Quixote ' 
 to me, and I'll criticize your pronunciation." 
 
 He had put off going to see Bent, but at last when ho 
 found himself in Wimpole Street he looked up the anaes- 
 thetist and by chance found him unoccupied. 
 
274 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Well," asked Bent cheerfully, " what's the matter 
 with you now ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Waring. " I haven't come to take 
 an anaesthetic, and I don't suppose I have really any right 
 to come to you at all. Heathcote thought I ought to see 
 what he calls a cardiologist which is a comparatively 
 new word to me. I believe you beggars will all get divided 
 up at last till you're like the doctor I heard of whom a lady 
 recommended as a specialist for the left apex of the lung 
 she said he knew more about left apices than anybody in 
 Europe." 
 
 " Does Heathcote think your heart's off colour ? " 
 asked Bent with a little nicker of his eye. 
 
 " That's his notion," said Waring, " at any rate, he 
 wasn't sure. He wanted me to go and see Mackintosh, but 
 as you went over me before the operation and seemed to 
 know a deal about it, I thought I'd give you the chance. 
 If you want me to go to Mackintosh afterwards, of course 
 I will." 
 
 As a matter of fact Bent knew his business, and rightly 
 enough considered that it included something like specialism 
 in cardiology. He went over him with a phonendoscope, 
 and afterwards took tracings with a polygraph from his 
 jugular and radial pulses. He picked out one piece of 
 tracing and studied it with a pencil and dividers while 
 Waring looked on. 
 
 " What do you think of it ? " asked Waring presently. 
 
 " It's a little more irregular than I should like to see," 
 replied Bent. 
 
 By now Waring was aware that there were irregularities 
 that did not matter, and irregularities that did. 
 
 " Be quite open with me, Bent," he said. " Is there 
 anything very serious ? " 
 
 " I shouldn't like to say that," replied Bent. 
 
 " Come now," asked Waring, " would you like to give me 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 275 
 
 a general anaesthetic and see me go through another time on 
 the table ? Tell me that." 
 
 Bent rubbed his ear. 
 
 " I don't think I should be quite so satisfied now as I 
 was last time," he said after a little consideration. " What 
 I'm wondering is how Heathcote spotted anything was 
 wrong. He's a very good man, but he belongs to the order 
 of those who fall into a fit of apprehension every time they 
 hear a mitral murmur." 
 
 " He wasn't satisfied with my pulse I could see that," 
 said Waring. 
 
 " I shouldn't have thought he could have noticed any 
 irregularity in the radial pulse," said Bent, " with his finger 
 at any rate." 
 
 " Is there anything to alarm myself about ? " asked 
 Waring. 
 
 " No," said Bent, " get all the rest and open air and 
 peace and sunlight and good food you can that's all one 
 can say. Don't press your heart too much. Don't hurry ; 
 don't worry. How have you been otherwise ? " 
 
 " Oh, they all seem satisfied," said Waring, shrugging his 
 shoulders. 
 
 " Well, you've had a good busy life," said the doctor, 
 " that's something. I often feel sorry for the poor devils 
 who go round doing nothing." 
 
 And Waring nodded. 
 
 " Sometimes I think they're the only ones to be pitied," 
 he said. " Come along and have lunch with me if you're 
 not too busy. We'll go to Pagani's we're sure to find 
 somebody there. You don't know John Campbell I 
 should like you to meet him." 
 
 " What's his line ? " asked Bent. 
 
 " He says tummies," said Waring, " but that's mostly 
 his joke, though he seems to know as much of them as most. 
 What interests me in him is that he is interested in every- 
 
276 TIME AND THOMAS 
 
 tiling, and a man must either be that or tremendously 
 interested in something." 
 
 " I can answer to the last, at any rate," said Bent, as they 
 went oat together. 
 
 " Fm sure you can," said Waring, " that's what I like 
 about you fellows. Of course you play a little on us. the 
 poor laity, and let us think you know everything, but among 
 yourselves you know you don't. A doctor pretends he 
 knows everything and knows he doesn't ; the average person 
 of the laity thinks he knows everything and pretends he 
 doesn't beBeve so. There are some fools and fanatics 
 among you, Bent, but upon my word, as a body you are 
 the only broad-minded men in the kingdom." 
 
 "We don't learn life from books," said Bent. "As 
 it seems to me, all professions have some time or another to 
 go back to nature, but by the very constitution of our busi- 
 ness we're being sent there all the time." 
 
 " There used to be a pathological school, didn't there ? " 
 asked Waring, " a school that thought everything was to 
 be learnt in the dead-house, that pathology was everything 
 and physiology nothing ? " 
 
 "If that school isn't dead it's dying," said Bent. 
 " They're nearly as ted as the theologians, and those are 
 having a pretty rotten time nowadays." 
 
 When they got to Paganf s they found Campbell sitting 
 at his usual table. As it happened he was alone, so they all 
 sat down and had lunch together. It was a place Waring 
 often took Jennie to lunch at ; and in consequence he never 
 took his wife there. He knew that Jennie sometimes came 
 in by herself when she was in town. 
 
 The three men got on very well together, and Campbell 
 seemed to take to Bent, as a very big man often does to a 
 very small one ; but then Bent was as keen as mustard Ufc 
 his own business, and had an acute mind outside of it. 
 They talked of everything under the sun, beginning with 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 277 
 
 gastric stimulation areas, going on to intra-tracheal anaes- 
 thesia, and ending in a general discussion of social pathology 
 where Waring at last got a chance. They were still sitting 
 there at two o'clock when Waring had to go. He left the 
 doctors hard at it, for Bent, though a revolutionist in 
 anaesthesia, was a Conservative in politics, whereas Camp- 
 bell was a general reformer with a strong conviction that 
 he ought to have been emperor. They did not notice that 
 soon after Waring had gone a lady sat down at the next 
 table. Presently they spoke of him. 
 
 "You gave him the anaesthetic, didn't you?" asked 
 Campbell. 
 
 Bent nodded. 
 
 " He doesn't seem at all sure that he's really got through 
 it all," said Campbell. 
 
 " It isn't likely he has," replied Bent. " Renshaw thinks 
 he's got a chance he doesn't think it's a good one, or 
 that's what he told me. But, of course, he encouraged the 
 poor chap all he could. Heathcote too is very doubtful." 
 
 " It will be a great pity if he does," said Campbell. " I 
 suppose there isn't anybody in Europe knows as much 
 about foreign politics as Waring. He's greatly changed 
 since his operation." 
 
 " I didn't know him before," said Bent. 
 
 " Oh, there's been a great change in him," said Campbell. 
 " I never saw such a change in any man. He says it's the 
 result of what he went through after you'd done with him.'* 
 
 " He told me about it," said Bent. 
 
 " An odd fellow," said Campbell, thoughtfully, " he says 
 it made him a religious atheist." 
 
 " A very sensible religion too," said Bent. " I suppose 
 most of us men belong more or less to the same order, 
 though we haven't ticketed ourselves. Well, I must be 
 going." 
 
 And presently the two men got up and left. They 
 
278 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 did not know that the pretty young woman next to them, 
 who looked, in spite of her beauty, very ill and pale, was 
 Jennie Waring. Soon after they left she paid her bill and 
 went away, having eaten nothing. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 EVEN before she had overheard what Dr. Campbell and 
 Dr. Bent had said at the restaurant, Jennie had thought of 
 calling on Campbell to try to get the truth out of him. The 
 more she thought of it, the more sure she was that the big 
 dark man of the two was Campbell. Waring had often 
 spoken of him, and being something of a caricaturist he 
 had done a rough humorous pencil sketch of him. He 
 looked sincere, sympathetic, and strong. 
 
 She knew it was little use for her to go to her old friend 
 Heathcote, kind as he had been. He would put the best 
 face on things for her. But she felt that she wanted the 
 truth. Thus it was that she went to Campbell. The man 
 was a doctor ; he was her lover's friend ; he was big and 
 strong, with kind eyes that seemed to her full of wisdom. 
 When she was with Heathcote she was perfectly aware that 
 he disapproved of her morally. She was certain that Dr. 
 Campbell would not take that view, even if he guessed her 
 position. She sent in her name as Mrs. Guy Waring ; and 
 Campbell, who was not busy that day, was able to see her. 
 When she got into the consulting-room she went straight 
 up to him and said : 
 
 " I don't suppose you know me, Dr. Campbell ? " 
 " I think I have seen you somewhere," said Campbell, 
 " perhaps you may be some connexion of my friend, Mr. 
 Thomas Waring. Pray sit down." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 279 
 
 " It is on his account I've come to see you," said Jennie 
 nervously. " I am a great friend of his." She looked 
 at him quite steadily. 
 
 And Campbell looked at her again as if he understood. 
 
 " If you understand that is so," said Jennie, " you 
 will see all that happens to him is a matter of very great 
 concern to me. I know you know all that has happened 
 to him this last year, and even before, and I want to find 
 out what is going to happen." 
 
 " My dear madam," said Campbell, " that's more than I 
 can tell you." 
 
 " Be straight and open with me," urged Jennie. " The 
 other day I went into Pagani's, and I sat down at a table 
 next to the one where I sometimes have lunch with Mr. 
 Waring. I believe he had just left. You and another 
 doctor were talking together I didn't hear you mention 
 Mr. Waring's name, but I feel sure you were talking about 
 him, and I heard almost everything you said." 
 
 " I'm sorry for that," said Campbell. 
 
 " Both of you seemed to believe that he had a very 
 poor chance," said Jennie. 
 
 " I don't think I went so far as that," said Campbell. 
 
 " At any rate you thought that Mr. Renshaw thought 
 so," said Jennie. " Tell me the truth I want to know it." 
 
 " Don't you think you should go to his regular 
 physician ? " asked Campbell. " There's Dr. Heathcote, 
 for instance or Mr. Renshaw ? " 
 
 Jennie shook her head. 
 
 " They'll both say the comfortable thing," she said. 
 " I know them both they are very good they couldn't be 
 better, either of them, but they wouldn't tell me the truth." 
 
 Campbell looked up and down the room. 
 
 " I don't see that I have any right to give you an opinion," 
 he said at last. " I am not Mr. Waring's medical attendant. 
 I know him of course he's a friend of mine, and I think 
 
280 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 he's an extraordinarily interesting man. But from a 
 professional point of view I haven't any right to pronounce 
 a judgment, and I have no right to tell anybody what I 
 think." 
 
 Jennie shook her head again. 
 
 " I understand all that, Dr. Campbell," she said. " But 
 you have told me all I wish to know. You would not talk 
 about your professional duty if you'd been able to tell me 
 what I wanted to hear." 
 
 Campbell did not speak for a moment, but then he said, 
 "I think you are taking the wrong view about it the wrong 
 view for yourself, and the wrong view for Mr. Waring. So 
 far as I understand there has been no sign of any recurrence 
 of the trouble. He has recovered his health for the time 
 being at any rate, he is working, and when I saw him, as I 
 did the night before last as a matter of fact Dr. Bent, 
 who was with me when you overheard us, and I were at his 
 house he was exceedingly cheerful. If you get depressed 
 you can't help showing your depression to him. Everything 
 that depresses him will do him harm. When a man's 
 organization is fighting something, my dear lady, it wants 
 all the help it can get. Many people who wanted to do the 
 best have killed those they loved most by their very 
 anxiety that anxiety has been seen although they thought 
 they hid it. Now take my advice : go away and hope 
 for the best, think the best, be sure of the best. Do 
 all you can to make him happy and cheerful. In any case 
 your knowing the worst or thinking it can't but do harm." 
 
 Jennie rose. 
 
 " I'll do all I can," she said slowly. " I am a woman, 
 Dr. Campbell, and we should be poor creatures if we 
 couldn't act. Thank you for what you have said. I am 
 sorry I troubled you. If you ever do want to see me or to 
 tell me anything I will give you my address will you 
 promise to write to me ? " 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 281 
 
 Campbell nodded. 
 
 She laid down her card, and with it the fee, which 
 Campbell obstinately refused to take. 
 
 " I haven't done anything for it," he said, " so take 
 it away, please. I shall always be glad to do anything for 
 you, Mrs. Waring." 
 
 And Jennie went away a little comforted, but still 
 very sorrowful. She understood that whatever Campbell 
 said his own views were not cheerful, and yet still there was 
 hope. She was glad that Waring knew a man like that. 
 She trusted him instinctively more than any doctor she 
 had ever met, and yet she had met many doctors and they 
 were certainly among the best of men. 
 
 She never meant to tell her lover that she had seen 
 Campbell. Some day, perhaps, she might be able to tell him, 
 if the time came when she would have no more fear of any- 
 thing but the common and inevitable accidents of life. 
 Certainly when she saw Tom next he was very cheerful, a 
 little anxious about her own state of health perhaps, but 
 otherwise full of talk and energy or so it seemed to her, 
 though Miss Willis's view had been different. She made 
 him think she was very happy, and helping him helped 
 herself. Nevertheless she told him he must not work 
 too hard. He smiled and said he found it good to work, it 
 stopped his morbid thinking. It took the blood away 
 from those cells of his brain which for ever considered fate 
 and destiny, that pondered over life and death, and 
 perhaps knew more than he knew. 
 
 He avoided loneliness now as he would have avoided 
 poison, for however essential solitude might be to the 
 formation of character and that he knew to be true his 
 character was settled, and solitude hurt him. It was a fore- 
 taste of death, a foretaste of the infinite silence that came 
 in the end to all. And yet it might be that death if the 
 dead were at all conscious of things thought life itself was 
 
282 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 strange and awful, though experience had led to peace at 
 last. 
 
 Certainly his strength grew ; and he felt happier and 
 more assured of himself and more hopeful for others. It 
 was quite certain that Joyce and Robert were as happy as 
 it was possible to be. They lived much, if not entirely, 
 by themselves and for each other; so far there had been 
 no talk about them. They had a little house not far from 
 Golder's Green in a neighbourhood where nobody knew 
 them. Mrs. Hardy still went on living, but, as Heathcote 
 told Waring, every day brought her nearer to the end. 
 Bit by bit she seemed to return somewhat to what she had 
 been before Robert Hardy had married her. She still 
 retained her morbid anger, and hated her husband, or so it 
 seemed ; and yet once it was only a few days before the 
 end she sent for him. 
 
 Three days after that she died. That was in March, 
 and a fortnight later Robert married Joyce at a registrar's 
 office, but still they told nobody of the marriage, and lived 
 in their little house all by themselves, though Waring often 
 went there. And now Milly was pleased with all that 
 Providence had done for her. She forgave Heaven its 
 shortcomings. She even imagined it more possible than 
 ever that in some way her husband had acted under the 
 direction of God, for thus she believed all things worked 
 together for good. 
 
 During all the early spring Waring often felt that he had 
 renewed his physical youth ; and yet all the time in the 
 background there was the dread of something impending. 
 Curiously enough he used to feel this mostly in the mornings : 
 he was conscious that he had had unremembered dreams ; 
 but in spite of all this he was certainly happier. His wife 
 was happier about him ; she returned to her household 
 duties with renewed ardour, and polished for dear life. She 
 owned that she had neglected much during those painful 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 283 
 
 weeks during which God had tried her faith, before he had 
 permitted poor Mrs. Hardy to depart in peace. Certainly 
 Waring was on better terms with her than he had been 
 for years ; their little journey to Paris had done much 
 for them both, and the marriage of her daughter had done 
 more. He did not now regret her infinite capacity for 
 domesticity as he had done. He had his own life to live, 
 and proposed to live it. 
 
 He resumed all his old habits, including that of going 
 aw,ay for the end of the week without saying where he 
 went. Jennie was doing very well, and although she some- 
 times seemed a little melancholy, and more solicitous 
 about him than she had been, he put this down to the 
 natural alteration in her due to the fact that she would 
 soon bear a child. This fact had a strange reflex influence 
 upon Waring it was chiefly that which made him feel 
 young again. At times it seemed to him that life was 
 still all before him, but then again suddenly there came 
 that darker feeling which oppressed him so often. Happy 
 as he seemed, and in some ways he was very happy and 
 contented, life grew more and more fragile in spite of his 
 strength. It seemed as though something unknown 
 undermined, not his vigour, but his confidence in it. 
 
 He thrust these thoughts aside, did his best to think 
 of cheerful things : of Joyce and her husband ; of his boy 
 Jack, who was doing so well at Coventry ; of Milly, bustling 
 round the house intent on sideboards and silver, with a 
 kind of vague notion in her head that she must preserve 
 everything that belonged to her for Joyce's children, or 
 for Jack's when he got married. Certainly it seemed to 
 Waring that in many ways he had been a lucky man, if 
 he had had great disasters. He had lived, and died, and 
 been born again, and with the new birth that was promised 
 he seemed to renew himself once more. He believed that 
 even if he were to go soon, as might so well happen, he 
 
284 
 
 might still esteem himself lucky that he had had this year, 
 and perhaps another year, or it might be more, free from 
 the appalling misery that had been his before the operation. 
 
 His thankfulness to the surgeon was curious, and almost 
 pathetic. Renshaw had done so much, not only for him- 
 self, but for his children and Milly, and for Jennie too. 
 Indeed he had done most for Jennie, if his patient were to 
 die after all. 
 
 In April Jennie's child was born. She was glad it was a 
 boy. She had a comparatively easy time considering that 
 this was her first child. Heathcote with his general air 
 of moral disapproval modified by his natural recognition 
 of the facts of human nature, seemed to reprove and 
 comfort her in one breath. She was only amused by his 
 attitude. She was a new creature when she held her child 
 in her own arms. This boy, if he lived and the baby was 
 strong and well would in the future be her consolation, 
 the reincarnation of her lover when he was no more. And 
 Waring was very simply glad that she had the child it was 
 something for her to live for. He wanted her to live and 
 remember him. 
 
 When she was well and able to go away he took her and 
 the baby to the Isle of Wight. He stayed away with her 
 for nearly three weeks. Once or twice during the time he 
 went back to London to do some business, but only remained 
 there for the night. While he was away Milly wrote to 
 him, as in duty bound, once a week. She did not belong 
 to the order of women who write once a day : she con- 
 sidered that a gross waste of time and stamps. As she was 
 certain that she loved her husband to the utmost that was 
 possible for any woman, she was satisfied with the expres- 
 sion she gave it. Passion was a detestable thing, and she 
 did not approve of it : it was as bad as jealousy, which 
 she was proud to say she had never felt. This was due 
 to her conviction that Tom Waring was essentially of a cold 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 285 
 
 nature as regards sex. She had the utmost confidence that 
 no woman living could put him off his balance, for she had 
 never done it herself. 
 
 Thus it was that she paid no more attention to his being 
 in the Isle of Wight without her than if he had been in 
 the Balkans or in China. For one thing she detested a 
 relaxing climate, and her passion for Margate still 
 remained unimpaired : so long as she spent a month 
 there with him, or without him, she felt that she did her 
 duty to her health and the sea. And besides that, the Isle 
 of Wight evidently agreed with Tom : he was browner and, 
 as she expressed it with obvious housewifely content, 
 "a little fatter in the face." Certainly during these few 
 weeks at the seaside with Jennie and the baby he felt 
 wonderfully happy, happier perhaps than he had ever 
 been since the old days that had passed so long ago. 
 
 Sometimes, it is true, he thought of Evelyn with a 
 strange and passionate regret for her who was something 
 remembered, something dreamed, a dear and sweet 
 imagination. He recalled the days when he had gone 
 away with her, and it still seemed to him, even when he 
 was happiest, that the ancient spirit of himself wan- 
 dered yet in these Elysian fields and trod upon unfor- 
 gotten meads of violet and asphodel. Each time that he 
 went to London he used to go into that one room in his 
 place in the Adelphi that was sacred to his old memories, 
 that room that no one living had been in but himself and 
 Joyce. He who was thought so hard and so material lived 
 thus a spiritual life that no one knew or suspected, save 
 only Jennie and his daughter. 
 
 Even as he had the feeling that Joyce was not so much 
 the daughter of his wife as of her who had gone, so he had the 
 feeling that in some strange way Evelyn did not resent in 
 any measure his life with Jennie as she had seemed to resent 
 his marriage. Sometimes he thought that she approved 
 
286 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 it : sometimes it seemed that she was Jennie herself. He 
 knew these were wild imaginings of the human spirit, the 
 last outcome of the imaginative flesh that makes a man. 
 Sometimes as he wandered by the sea with Jennie he 
 considered these things, and contemplated death once 
 more with calm. 
 
 It was odd and a little dreadful that during this happy 
 time he began to get conscious that his nights were not 
 so happy. Once more he knew that he dreamed dreams that 
 were not unlike his sufferings under the anaesthetic. When 
 he woke he did not remember what he had dreamed, but 
 he had times in which he felt the same odd sense of 
 mechanism in everything that had come to him after that 
 experience. Sometimes this lasted for many hours ; 
 once or twice it lasted through the day. There was 
 something in this which took the light out of things, out of 
 the very sun, out of the leaves of the trees, out of the 
 motion and the pleasant murmur of the sea. It was 
 difficult to analyse what he felt, but still there it was all the 
 same. The effect remained even after the sensation passed : 
 it made him quieter, more melancholy. 
 
 Sometimes Jennie seemed to notice a little change in 
 him. She was full of hope in spite of what she feared, in 
 spite of what Dr. Campbell had said. But whatever she 
 feared, she knew or felt that she must not say it it might 
 do harm. But at last her lover spoke to her. 
 
 He said one day, "I suppose, Jennie, there are thousands 
 who are like me, who have lost the internal certainty of life 
 that most people have, and yet I feel as if I were peculiar, as 
 if I were the only human being who had lost that great 
 conviction. It divides me a little from humanity." 
 
 She asked with a flutter of alarm, " Don't you feel so 
 well, Tom ? " 
 
 " In some ways I never felt better," he replied. " After 
 all you must remember I am not so young. Of course it 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 287 
 
 may be that all men who are fifty and over begin to feel as I 
 do. Who knows ? It's a thing that people don't speak 
 about, I should think. Still, I don't think men do I've 
 heard very old men talking as if they were going to live 
 through the next century." 
 
 " You look very well, Tom." 
 
 " Oh yes, I feel very well, Jennie. But I don't sleep 
 as well as I did I suppose that's natural too. After all, 
 according to Campbell one doesn't get over the shock of 
 what I went through for two years at least. You know 
 it has changed me." 
 
 "I know you are a better man," said Jennie. "You are 
 so much kinder and so much more thoughtful, dearest." 
 
 " I'd like to think I was," mused Waring. " I sup- 
 pose some people who knew about us would say I was a worse 
 man, Jennie. But you know, though I wouldn't tell any- 
 body but you, that I do feel inside me as if I was a better 
 man. It's curious to say so one's half ashamed to say 
 it but I wouldn't do anybody any harm now. I wouldn't 
 revenge myself on any enemy of mine." 
 
 " I'm sure you wouldn't," said Jennie. " I'm glad 
 to be sure you wouldn't. But have you got any enemies ? " 
 
 " I used to think so," he replied. Then with the oddest 
 expression of surprise in his face he turned to her and 
 said. " I don't really think I have now I never thought 
 of it before. I used to hate several people bitterly, and I 
 don't in the least hate them now." 
 
 " Isn't that good ? " asked Jennie. 
 
 " I'm not so sure of it," he said, " it's a change I never 
 noticed before. I have been preaching tolerance but I 
 really never thought I should be able to carry it to the 
 point of forgiving that chap Harbord Smith." 
 
 Waring pondered over this new fact for a few minutes, 
 and shook his head and then laughed. Presently he turned 
 again to Jennie, who was eyeing him seriously. 
 
288 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Well," he said with a smile, " after all I suppose it 
 doesn't matter. If I have lost the power of hating any- 
 body I haven't lost the capacity for loving my little Jennie." 
 
 All the same it did seem very curious that he disliked 
 nobody now. He knew no man could go through years 
 of life in London without making some enemies. It was 
 true that the person who had a capacity for being an 
 enemy was rarely worth considering he could do nothing 
 more than tell lies to people who only half believed them. 
 Waring had gone his own way and had paid little atten- 
 tion to such, nevertheless he had sometimes been angered 
 and annoyed, as any man may be by common vermin. 
 Now he felt that what they said or thought did not matter. 
 Probably they could not help what they did they were 
 a part of the disagreeable mechanism of the universe. It 
 was curious to reflect that those who took the trouble of 
 hating anybody made themselves much more uncomfort- 
 able than they did their enemies. 
 
 " After all," said Waring, " perhaps I am not a better 
 man, but only a little wiser." He turned once more to 
 Jennie. " Upon my word, my dear, I believe the two 
 things are the same." 
 
 Jennie sniffed. 
 
 " I thought everybody knew that," she said. 
 
 " Women know, perhaps," said Waring, " but then all 
 you feminine folk are so fearfully wise. Is it because you 
 are good ? or are you good because you are wise ? " 
 
 They were then sitting on the beach. The nurse was a 
 little way off with the baby. 
 
 " Come," said Jennie, " don't talk philosophy. Let's 
 go home to tea." 
 
 Waring laughed. 
 
 " I begin to think that wisdom's at the bottom of good- 
 ness," he said. " To know really that's the first thing." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 289 
 
 XXX 
 
 THE summer passed for Waring in extraordinary peace. 
 It is true that every now and then he had a recurrence of the 
 nightmares which had troubled him in the spring, but this 
 Heathcote put down to indigestion due to post-operative 
 neurasthenia. He suggested that Waring was probably 
 working too much. He pointed out to him that it was a 
 physiological truth although he admitted he despised 
 physiology that when a man's nervous system received a 
 shock and was consequently weakened, it might be in- 
 capable of running a man's stomach and the foreign 
 politics of Europe as well. Once or twice Waring thought 
 of having Renshaw go over him again, but he did not do so. 
 While he had no strong reason to believe that there was 
 anything very wrong he did not wish to run the risk of 
 Renshaw saying that there was. All the same he knew that 
 it would have been wiser for him to see the surgeon, and 
 he kept on saying that presently he would go to him. 
 
 In the meantime he, or his organism, took Heathcote's 
 advice. He slacked off his work ; he read less ; he was less 
 at his rooms in the Adelphi. He gave Miss Willis a per- 
 manent holiday on Mondays and Saturdays. Even during 
 the middle of the week she was apt to throw out sad hints 
 that she must look for another post. Her energies were 
 eating her up, or so she averred with a kind of plaintive 
 fierceness. Her protestations that she had not sufficient 
 to do showed Waring how much he was altering. His pass- 
 book showed him the same : he was making about half 
 the money that he had earned before his illness. Yet even 
 so he was making enough, and any financial worry that he 
 might have invented was taken away from him at the end 
 
290 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 of August by the death of his wife's parents. They went 
 very naturally and quietly within a week of each other ; and 
 as Milly's two brothers were doing very well indeed one as 
 a stockbroker in the city, and the other as a doctor in 
 Birmingham most of the money belonging to the old people 
 came to her. When certain legacies had been paid, and the 
 estate duty deducted, Mrs. Waring had four hundred a year 
 of her own. 
 
 As a result of this, Waring realized another two thousand 
 pounds of his own investments, turned the money into 
 bearer bonds, and handed them to the manager of Jennie's 
 bank to hold in custody for her. This meant that Jennie 
 upon his death would have a total income, including the 
 little she had of her own, of four hundred a year. His wife's 
 income would be very nearly eight hundred. 
 
 When he told her that she would have eight hundred 
 a year if he died, she was immensely surprised. 
 
 " I'd no idea you had saved money, Tom," she exclaimed. 
 
 "No ? " said Waring. "Well, I must have done or 
 somebody must have left it me, Milly. You see I have 
 never talked about money, my dear." 
 
 " No, but you've been very good about it," said Milly. 
 " I have always said that. It's such a trouble with some 
 women they're always obliged to be screwing money out 
 of their husbands. No you've been very good about it. 
 All the same, isn't it a great blessing, Tom, that Joyce should 
 be so happily married to a man who is doing so well as dear 
 Robert ? " 
 
 " It is indeed a piece of luck," said Waring. 
 
 " I call it providential," said his wife fervently. " Sup- 
 posing you hadn't been able to save any money, Tom 
 I often used to think that I should be very poor if you 
 unfortunately passed away before me. Of course I felt 
 resigned about it, but I own it worried me sometimes to 
 think that if Jack didn't do well, and if Joyce didn't 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 291 
 
 marry, we might have had to live on the insurance 
 money." 
 
 " Ah," said Waring, " I suppose I did wrong, my dear. 
 I ought to have told you that things would be better than 
 you supposed. I wish now that you'd asked me. But 
 then you've always been awfully good about money, Milly ; 
 no man could have had a better wife in that respect. Or 
 in any respect," he added. " You've been a perfect 
 paragon, my dear. I've known that for many years, 
 although I haven't shouted it on the housetops. Half 
 the men's wives that I know appear to have a wonderful 
 capacity for changing a sovereign and losing ten shillings 
 on the transaction, whereas you seem to be able to turn 
 fifteen shillings into a pound." 
 
 This little conversation made Mrs. Waring happy for a 
 week. Nowadays her husband noticed how easily she could 
 be made happy, and regretted greatly that he had not 
 always said those little things which so often pleased a 
 woman. But even those who loved praise themselves 
 were often strangely oblivious that others were like them. 
 Waring knew one man who was notoriously greedy of 
 literary approbation, but had never been heard in the 
 course of twenty years to praise any work done by any of 
 his fellows, unless he felt perfectly sure that the writer 
 with whom he was talking considered the book in question 
 a mere pot-boiler. Now Waring began to find a certain 
 pleasure in pleasing other people that he had never known 
 before. He remembered that young Harman, who was 
 extraordinarily popular wherever he went, had once said 
 to him, " Look here, Waring, you know I absolutely love 
 you, but you've got a very bitter tongue at times. Now 
 I don't believe any man ever lost anything by saying the 
 pleasant thing that was true every chance he got." 
 
 It was certainly the fact that Waring in the old days, 
 especially during those three or four bad years before his 
 
292 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 operation, had appeared to exert himself to say with a sting 
 all unpleasant things that were true. He looked back 
 on that with regret. It had been cruel ; for all writers of 
 any kind, even the poorest journalists, were abnormally 
 sensitive to criticism. The duty of the successful and in 
 his way he himself had been very successful was en- 
 couragement. And where encouragement was impossible, 
 as it was in some cases, it was a man's duty to hold his 
 tongue and say nothing, unless he were asked directly for 
 his real opinion. 
 
 It was quite true that in his own profession and among 
 the men of letters that he knew there were many who would 
 have been better employed tying up pounds of tea, or 
 carrying bricks, or working their secretary's typewriter. 
 He knew one man who made a considerable income, whose 
 secretary had more brains in her little finger than he had 
 inside his sleek skull. He knew another whose only son 
 confessed plaintively to his intimates that he could read 
 almost anything but his father's books. He knew another 
 who invariably proposed at a certain period of acquaintance- 
 ship the question which of his works was most likely to 
 procure him immortality. Waring sometimes flinched 
 when he remembered with what peculiar brutality he had 
 answered this question. After all, these poor fellows, book 
 writers or journalists, did work which many read with 
 eagerness. Their work though often lamentable was not 
 disgraceful. They had their vanities, and they were hurt 
 by criticism just as much as if they had been greater men. 
 A poet needed not to be Keats in order to suffer : and even 
 those poor writers who gave critics tAvinges compared with 
 which gout and lumbago were comparative nepenthe, 
 deserved to be treated as human beings. Ignorance of 
 English was after all no such bitter crime. Want of 
 imagination was not penal. It was not true, as was 
 commonly stated in literary clubs, that a split infinitive 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 293 
 
 deserved the cat. A man might be almost perfect in all 
 the relations of life and yet die in the belief that Accadian 
 literature was due to Sir Philip Sidney's bold initiative ; 
 that Rabelais was a claret ; or that Melanchthon was a 
 Hebrew prophet. 
 
 Thus it was that even those who knew him best said 
 Waring was greatly changed, and changed for the better. 
 Many of them protested, as they quoted what he had said 
 of their new books, that they had never known a case of 
 anyone so late in life improving in his literary taste. 
 
 He found it curious as time went on that he did indeed 
 begin to renew his old interest in pure literature. He was 
 less subdued to journalism and the seismology of the 
 Balkans. He found that he took again to reading the poets : 
 he read many of the old books that he had loved as a boy 
 Malory, Sir Thomas Browne, Byron, Wordsworth, and 
 Vaughan, the Silurist, he who had been the original pro- 
 genitor of Wordsworth's greatest ode. Sometimes he now 
 lamented that he had not written other things than those 
 which were by their nature merely of the day. There was 
 something great in belonging to the order and hierarchy of 
 English literature, even though a man were a mere acolyte 
 or exorcist in its high churches. 
 
 As his interests drew in from the actual life of the times 
 he began to find that in other ways they also drew in, and 
 these ways were not so pleasing to him. He discovered 
 that his interest in most people he knew began to get weak. 
 He remembered that before his illness came on this same 
 thing had happened. It was the first big suggestion that 
 things were not well with him. 
 
 And yet he felt much more than tolerably well. He was 
 very strong. It was true he sometimes had some trouble 
 with his heart ; he heard it more at night, he was much too 
 conscious of its working, and such consciousness implied 
 diseaseof a sort though it might be no more than functional. 
 
294 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 The consciousness of any part of the body was in itself dis- 
 order ; that was a subject of which he and Campbell had 
 often spoken. 
 
 As Campbell said, " We ought to be happy undivided 
 organisms not chopping logic, not manufacturing hypo- 
 theses, not tossing uneasily on the world pillow, but satis- 
 fied, unthinking, active, doing. Thought's all very well 
 until it becomes conscious, or we become conscious of it. 
 Then again brain and body are divided ; we are out of 
 balance, we are uneasy." 
 
 Now Waring was too conscious of his brain. He found 
 that it was a bad thing to read late at night anything which 
 exercised his mind. It was even worse to talk about 
 exciting things. He discovered that he did better, both as 
 regards sleep and his general mental balance, if he refrained 
 from seeing anybody with any founded pretensions to in- 
 tellect after four o'clock in the afternoon. Harman and 
 Campbell became as bad for him as black coffee : he lay 
 awake, if he saw them in the evening, until three or four 
 o'clock. Jennie, although she had often soothed him, not 
 only by her ways, but by her voice and by her music, had 
 sometimes been a curious tonic to him. He now felt a little 
 glad that the possession of the child was something of an 
 opiate to her. She no longer brought difficult passages of 
 Italian or Spanish to him, nor did she play her old, more 
 difficult music. Life had altered for her amazingly ; 
 she could look forward, even to the disaster which she be- 
 lieved was coming, without utter despair. She had always 
 been gentle, but this made her gentler. He found it good 
 to be with her. 
 
 In the old days he had rarely spent his evenings with his 
 wife even when he was not in Fleet Street, but now as he 
 did less work he was more frequently at home, and he 
 found some pleasure in her artless prattle. He still felt 
 immeasurably her intellectual superior, but he had no 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 295 
 
 pride in it. She seemed infinitely more human than she 
 had been. Her satisfaction with God and the universe was 
 really amazing. Bit by bit she had convinced herself 
 in some deep, occult way that her daughter's happiness was 
 entirely due to herself. She pointed out to her husband, 
 with a certain triumph in her own perspicuity, that if she 
 had not been firmly opposed to the whole affair years ago 
 Joyce would have run away with Robert long before Mrs. 
 Hardy's accident. She seemed to think there was an 
 essential difference between being an immoral person for 
 weeks, and being an immoral person for months. But 
 indeed, after her first paean over the marriage she dropped 
 a veil on the illicit honeymoon and never mentioned it. 
 
 Waring's obvious satisfaction in his daughter's marriage 
 and indeed he was glad it had come about so soon 
 seemed to her to indicate repentance of the part he had 
 played. But she showed an extraordinary, instinctive 
 wisdom in not now inquiring too curiously into his religion 
 or his motives. She had always been given to accepting 
 facts, and he was certainly pleasanter to get on with. She 
 now took a certain joy in going into his room after dinner. 
 In the old times he had sometimes endured her domestic 
 talk ; now he showed a little real pleasure in it. He actually 
 became interested in his wife's character. After all, the 
 simplest human machine was wonderful in its working, and 
 the more simple it was, the more easy it became to see how it 
 worked at all. 
 
 Just as the talk and the sayings of children were intensely 
 instructive to psychologists, so Milly's talk was instructive 
 to him. He played upon her foibles not unkindly : he 
 dropped a word in here and there and urged her on. He 
 felt it made her more happy, and now he much desired 
 to make her happy. But sometimes as she sat with him he 
 wondered how it was that any human being could live 
 with another and know so little as Milly knew of him. He 
 
296 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 hoped she never would know anything, or nothing that 
 would hurt her. But above all things he desired that she 
 should know nothing of his early life. Somehow it seemed 
 to him that it would be a greater grief to her to know that 
 he had been married than to learn of Jennie. That was 
 almost certainly not true ; it only indicated his own 
 feelings. Deep in his own mind Milly had been more a 
 harmless, necessary mistress than a wife, and in many ways 
 Jennie had been more a wife to him than she. 
 
 Thus he seemed to have treated her badly in marrying 
 her ; he had not been quite fair. If she ever learnt any- 
 thing about Evelyn perhaps she might think so. He took 
 every precaution that she should know nothing. He gave 
 Miss Willis instructions that if he died she was to transfer 
 everything in the one room that his secretary had not seen 
 to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hardy. He had told her to wait 
 for no legal formality : his daughter and her husband would 
 come with the key and take the things away. 
 
 He had made other arrangements years ago about his 
 working library and papers. At that time Harman had 
 an extraordinary fit of foreign politics, had worked at them 
 very hard, and had written some excellent articles on the 
 subject. Waring, who looked upon him as a kind of 
 intellectual son he had been intellectually disappointed 
 in his own boy always meant to leave his stock-in-trade 
 to Harman. Much to his disappointment, however, he 
 threw up politics altogether and took to literature on a 
 little oatmeal in the purlieus of Chelsea. Since this 
 Waring had never quite known what should be done 
 with his political apparatus when he died. He knew that 
 there was one man in London who could make use of them. 
 Harbord Smith had been his rival for years. They had 
 sometimes almost come to blows in argument, in the days 
 when Waring was willing to argue. They had also 
 quarrelled on paper. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 297 
 
 Nevertheless, Harbord Smith was quite a good man in 
 his own way, and although they had rarely spoken for years 
 before Waring fell ill, yet when they met in Fleet Street 
 eight months after the operation, Smith had come right 
 across the road, had shaken hands with him, and had said, 
 " I'm really glad to see you looking so well, Waring. We 
 haven't been friends for a long time, but I hope that's over." 
 And Waring, who was much affected, said with an air not 
 wholly graceful that he hoped so too, and then as he went 
 away he cursed himself for not being more responsive to 
 the man. But he had never responded easily. 
 
 That scene came back to him now. Yes, Smith was 
 not a bad fellow. He was certainly in some ways quite 
 brilliant. His errors, Waring said, were due mostly to the 
 way he trusted his mere instincts. He had not sufficient 
 knowledge of the past ; he wanted a bigger apparatus to 
 work with. And suddenly Waring thought to himself, " I 
 don't see why he shouldn't have my papers he can use 
 them, and nobody else can." So the next time he was 
 in the city he added a codicil to his will giving all his political 
 papers and his political library to his one great rival. The 
 very next day he met Smith in the Strand, and nodded to 
 him curtly and did not stop to speak. He hated to think 
 that Harbord Smith would have the papers. He found 
 that very curious. 
 
 Everything which he did now that settled affairs gave 
 him an odd and melancholy pleasure. Miss Willis, who 
 was beginning to think that she would either die, discharge 
 herself, or go mad, suddenly found herself busy. She was 
 allowed to put all his papers into strict and logical order. 
 She was even admitted freely, though with certain groans, 
 to the holy precincts of two enormous roll-top desks that 
 Waring kept in admirable disorder, in which he could find 
 anything he desired after using language which his secre- 
 tary felt was a liberal education. 
 
298 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 She said to herself, " I wonder what's wrong with him ? 
 I never expected to have the key of these desks, if I 
 stayed with him till I was bald ! I'm afraid he must be 
 getting ill again ! " 
 
 On occasions he still worked well, sometimes as rapidly 
 as he had done before in his best days. Nevertheless, 
 these were but spurts. Although he had drawn in his 
 horns, it seemed to him at first that he had done it out 
 of wisdom, not out of physical necessity, in spite of his 
 apparent cardiac trouble. That only worried him occa- 
 sionally : in himself he felt tolerably well ; but presently 
 he began to think that he really was drifting into the state 
 he had experienced before the operation. He used to sit 
 for hours doing nothing. But of one thing he was exceed- 
 ingly glad, he was very rarely irritable now. He did not dis- 
 turb those who were with him. If ever he did feel inclined 
 to be angry he put a strong guard over his tongue. A man 
 had no right to make others unhappy, however miserable 
 he might be himself. It was quite sufficiently certain 
 that such a man carried an atmosphere with him which was 
 disturbing enough without his getting into rages and tearing 
 the house down. 
 
 He looked back with a sense of shame to some of his old 
 outbursts, when he had almost made Milly hate him, when 
 he had tried Jennie very badly, when some of his colleagues 
 had actually learnt to avoid him. Oddly enough, the only 
 person who had ever stood up against him in times like those 
 had been Miss Willis, who one day got up from the table and 
 said with firmness, " Look here, Mr. Waring, if you speak 
 like that I'll put my hat on and go." He remembered that 
 he had apologized. Well, that kind of thing should not 
 happen again if he could help it. 
 
 In spite of his self-control, or perhaps all the more that 
 he did not let himself go, he began to have a very bad time. 
 He kept it to himself : he told Milly that he was perfectly 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 299 
 
 well. She more or less accepted what he said as she had 
 been accustomed to do. When he told Jennie so she began 
 to have her doubts. She watched him closely whenever 
 she could without his observing it. She saw that something 
 of the old terror that she had known began to grow in him. 
 He fell into reveries, stared straight in front of him, was for 
 a time unconscious of her presence. She saw his lips 
 move. Nevertheless he had periods when he was perfectly 
 cheerful. 
 
 One day he said to her, " Well, I'm glad my life has not 
 been ' agreeable, serene, and correct,' Jennie." 
 
 And she asked him what he meant. 
 
 " It's a quotation from a book," said Waring. " Some 
 one in it proposed to have an agreeable, serene, and correct 
 life, but made something of a failure." 
 
 " It's a hideous ideal," said Jennie. 
 
 " I agree with you," said Waring. " One has to face 
 things." 
 
 He was still quite sure he could do it. And yet he 
 would not go and see any of his friends the physicians, or 
 his surgeon. Heathcote would look gloomy and speak 
 cheerfully. Renshaw would be absolutely honest. 
 
 " He'll have something to be honest about," said Waring. 
 " I'm sure of that. I'm not living in a fool's paradise, but 
 as long as I don't know too much I can get along. If I do 
 know I shan't be able to do anything." 
 
 So he kept as busy as he could : he pretended to work 
 even when he did very little. It was impossible to waste 
 any time something within him began to tell him that it 
 was short. Up to now he had no particular pain, but one 
 day when he was dictating to Miss Willis he stopped and 
 sat down. She looked up from her notebook. 
 
 " What is it, Mr. Waring ? " she asked. 
 
 " Only a bit of a twinge," said Waring. " Let us 
 go on." 
 
300 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 And he went on all the same, though it seemed to her 
 that he looked pale and strange. 
 
 He sat in the room after she had gone. So the pain was 
 beginning to come back. He pressed the place where he 
 felt it ; it seemed to him the pressure helped him. He 
 wondered what Renshaw would think about it. 
 
 " I hope there won't be much pain," said Waring. 
 
 Then he had a peculiar fit of terror come over him. He 
 faced death : death, sheer, stark, and physical. He had 
 done that once before, and yet it was different now. He 
 had been buoyed up with hope even at his worst ; even the 
 three days before his operation had not been devoid of 
 hope everybody had been most encouraging. But he 
 recognized that if the worst happened again it would almost 
 certainly be the end. There was no " almost " about it it 
 would be the end. 
 
 This terror rose out of a sense of awful loneliness. He 
 was going to be cut off while life was yet warm and strong ; 
 while he was capable of work, and might have so many 
 years before him. No one could help he could not help 
 himself. Once more he was a piece of mechanism that 
 suffered. For the first time since he had made a recovery 
 he seemed to savour not in his mouth, but deep in his 
 brain the kind of taste which had so afflicted him as he 
 came out of the anaesthetic. It was the taste of the 
 universe. That was absurd ; all the same it seemed true. 
 In that awful time he had seen the universe as something 
 built of steel and concrete, of plaster mixed with some 
 metal. It was ridiculous to feel like that, but still he felt it. 
 
 That access of terror lasted for an hour it seemed it 
 had lasted for years but it was relieved in the end by the 
 sensation that nothing really mattered. All those who 
 lived had to go under that narrow gateway sooner or later ; 
 they must return to the nature from which they sprang. 
 He remembered some one had said once that death was the 
 
301 
 
 result of the final overmastering desire for liberty of all the 
 atoms that compose a man. These atoms, however brought 
 together, had been slaves of an organism till they revolted 
 at last. All life was a struggle for freedom perhaps death 
 was the same. His life had not been all it might be, but 
 he had lived, he had worked, he had loved greatly. He 
 had satisfied his instincts almost to the full : to tire these 
 out, and to tire the brain to wear it out was life, and 
 it implied death in the end. It was a strange solution, but 
 he found a comfort in it. If in the next six weeks, in the 
 next month or two, he could only exhaust all his energies so 
 that he neither loved nor hoped nor feared, he could antici- 
 pate death easily. It was the unused organism that 
 resented it. 
 
 He said nothing to anyone of what he had been through, 
 nor did the pain return for many days, but something that 
 was not himself told him what it meant. Presently it 
 would come back. He seemed to feel that his body had 
 been alarmed long ago, but only now the signs and reports 
 of its terror came to the surface of his consciousness. He 
 felt that he knew too much too much of himself, too 
 much of his body. He was divided, broken up. The healthy 
 knew nothing. He remembered Campbell saying, " We 
 can all know too much, and realize too much, both about 
 the world and about ourselves. Health implies a physio- 
 logical amount of ignorance, a proper amount of decentrali- 
 zation." That was true, not only of states, but of human 
 beings. 
 
 Next day Waring dictated to Miss Willis the best portion 
 of a most admirable article on this point viewed from a 
 political basis. 
 
 " How do you think that went ? " he asked. 
 
 Miss Willis bit the end of her pencil, and said in her 
 usual abrupt manner, " I think it's the best thing you have 
 written for several months, Mr. Waring." 
 
302 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 He wanted to use himself up. He would like to die 
 bankrupt there would be great satisfaction in that. It 
 was always something to die in harness, but there was 
 something even better in dying when a man had done the 
 last stroke of work of which he was capable. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 IF We consisted in exhausting a man's possibilities it also 
 consisted in knowing what he was, morally, physically, 
 and intellectually. Life, to be interesting, must be a 
 process not only of doing, but of continual discovery. 
 Waring wondered now how it was some people existed 
 with the same mental armament that they had been 
 turned loose with into the world, the same set of ideas, 
 the same philosophy or want of it, the same moral pre- 
 possessions, the belief that all things were settled. Now 
 he knew that morals were, like medicine and like surgery, 
 an incomplete art ; bald instructions how to do things ; 
 a set of rules, some scientific, some empirical. But if all 
 things were interesting, as Waring firmly believed, there 
 was nothing so infinitely interesting as discovery within 
 himself. To know what he was, what he would do, what 
 his decision would be in this case or that all these were 
 great things to guess at. So long as a man changed he 
 was not dead. He changed daily. 
 
 It was at this time that he had an experience which for 
 a time took him wholly out of himself and yet showed him 
 what he was. He met Elgood, an old colleague of his, 
 whom he had not seen for some years, just by the British 
 Museum. Once Elgood had asked Waring for fifty pounds, 
 and had been refused. Waring noticed that he looked in 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 303 
 
 a frightfully disturbed mental condition. He stopped, 
 and even as he asked him what was the matter he remem- 
 bered some one had told him that Mrs. Elgood had lately 
 run away from her husband with a man called Staveley. 
 Waring knew Staveley. He liked him better than he did 
 Elgood. 
 
 " Oh, my God ! don't ask me," said Elgood. 
 
 He was very white, and shook as he spoke. 
 
 " Tell me," said Waring. He put his hand on the other 
 man's arm and turned him about and walked with him 
 towards his own house. " Tell me, what's the matter, 
 old chap ? " 
 
 Elgood stared at him. 
 
 " You you seem changed, Waring changed ! " 
 
 " Oh yes," said Waring, " I've been through a good 
 deal lately." 
 
 " You may thank God you haven't been through what 
 I've been through," said Elgood, harshly. 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Waring. " I know you've had a very 
 bad time. Come with me and tell me about it." 
 
 Elgood went with him and then stopped suddenly. 
 
 " I'll give you my word," he said, " that I haven't 
 spoken to anybody. And I don't know why I should be 
 speaking to you. You were always so so " 
 
 " Hard ? " asked Waring. 
 
 Elgood nodded. 
 
 " Perhaps that's it. You were hard to me once." 
 
 " I know, and I'm sorry. Come, tell me all about it," 
 said Waring. He took his arm again. " My house is only 
 round the corner. Come in and tell me what you can." 
 
 And Elgood went with him like a child. All the time 
 the tears were running down his face. 
 
 " I shan't meet anybody else, shall I ? " he asked. 
 
 " Not a soul," said Waring. " They're all in bed and 
 asleep by now. Come in." 
 
304 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 He took him into the library, put him in a chair, and 
 poured out a big whisky and soda. 
 
 " Come, Elgood, be a man take that and tell me all 
 about it." 
 
 And Elgood told him. Three months ago his wife had 
 run away, and now it seemed that the man with whom she 
 had gone had died suddenly of pneumonia. She was left 
 helpless, and almost penniless, in the south of France. 
 
 " I wasn't all I should have been to her," said Elgood, 
 " I know I wasn't. But it's an awful thing. What am 
 I to do ? shall I send her money, Waring ? " 
 
 Waring walked up and down the room. He wondered 
 what he would have done in such circumstances. Years 
 ago he knew, but now he was not sure. 
 
 " Were you fond of her, Elgood ? " he asked presently. 
 
 Elgood' s face twitched. 
 
 " I never showed it, but I was," he said at last. 
 
 " Take her back," said Waring. 
 
 But Elgood did not answer for a long time. Then he 
 asked : " Could you do that, Waring ? " 
 
 And Waring answered : " Not always not always ! 
 But I think I could now." 
 
 " I want to," said Elgood, in a whisper, " and I don't 
 want to. It'll be very dreadful for me." 
 
 "It'll be more dreadful for her," said Waring quietly. 
 " And you can't let her starve." 
 
 " No, I can't," said Elgood. 
 
 " Take her back," said Waring. " These things happen, 
 Elgood, more often than you think. You wouldn't think 
 it very much yourself, if you had gone to the south of 
 France for six months." 
 
 " Perhaps I shouldn't perhaps not," said Elgood, 
 shivering. " But though I might perhaps take her back, 
 would would she come ? " 
 
 He looked up at Waring with piteous eyes. He was a 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 305 
 
 weak man, not fit for the shocks and stresses of the 
 world. 
 
 " It will be hard for her," said Waring. " There's 
 nothing quite so awfully hard as being forgiven, Elgood." 
 
 " After a little while perhaps I could forgive her," 
 whispered Elgood, " but not at first. And I couldn't see 
 her not to talk to her, you know, Waring." 
 
 Waring had read that there was something of the priest 
 in every man. Catholics knew it. One soldier could 
 confess another and practically give him absolution on the 
 field of battle in the old days. Perhaps it was so yet 
 and if so, the Church was wise. Now there was something 
 suggestive of the natural priest in Waring, though he had 
 no fellowship with the awful projection of mankind 
 worshipped in the churches. 
 
 " Elgood, I think it must be easy to forgive," he said, 
 " if only one knows if one understands. Hers is the 
 hardest part. To be forgiven that's a kind of surrender 
 of one's soul. That's where people are wrong. We hear 
 the preachers talking about a God forgiving mankind 
 that indeed should be easy. She's not a strong woman, 
 Elgood." 
 
 " No, she's not," said Elgood. 
 
 " And very pretty. And weak." 
 
 Elgood groaned. 
 
 " And she's abroad there by herself. She might kill 
 herself, Elgood, or worse ! " 
 
 " Don't talk of it," said Elgood shaking. 
 
 " She may drift, and drift, and drift," said Waring, 
 " and become what ? who knows what ? she, the 
 woman that you have held to your heart ! " 
 
 " I'll I'll take her back," said Elgood trembling. He 
 sat staring at the fire and biting his nails, and Waring 
 walked the room. Then he laid his hand on Elgood's 
 shoulder. 
 
 u 
 
306 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Look here," he said, " I'll go out to Avignon and bring 
 her home, Elgood. That'll be easier for her than if you 
 went." 
 
 " I couldn't go, I couldn't, I couldn't ! " said Elgood. 
 " I should kill myself before I got there. It's kind of you, 
 Waring I didn't expect it. You used to be so hard." 
 
 " Yes," said Waring, " perhaps I used to be. I'm sorry 
 I was hard that time you wrote to me. I've been sorry for 
 it ever since or ever since I was ill." 
 
 " You're quite well now ? " asked Elgood. 
 
 " Quite well," said Waring. 
 
 That very moment he had strange visions of the theatre, 
 of the nursing home. He saw it in its whiteness, its 
 strange and awful cleanliness, the glitter and polish of 
 things, the narrow, draped table. 
 
 " Thank you, I am quite well," he repeated. " I'll go 
 to-morrow morning. Where shall I take her, Elgood ? 
 Has she got a mother or sister ? " 
 
 Elgood sat trembling and thinking. 
 
 " She might go to her sister," he said at last. " I'll 
 find out this very night, and let you know by the first post 
 to-morrow." 
 
 He stood up, and suddenly turned to Waring, and said : 
 " Oh, Waring, have you ever been through anything very 
 very awful ? " 
 
 " Perhaps," said Waring. 
 
 " There's nothing so awful as this, not not even 
 death," said Elgood, with staring eyes. 
 
 " Whose death ? " asked Waring. " Yours, or some 
 one else's ? " 
 
 " One's own," said Elgood. 
 
 " You are quite right," said Waring. 
 
 Next morning he left for the south of France. He told 
 his wife that he was only going to Paris. She was beginning 
 to have her doubts now as to his health, although he soothed 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 307 
 
 her suspicions daily. She offered to go with him, but he 
 shook his head. 
 
 " I shall be occupied with business every moment," he 
 said. " You can expect me back in less than three days." 
 
 He wrote and told Jennie what he was going to do. 
 He could not tell his wife. He went straight through from 
 Paris by the night express to Avignon. It had not been 
 so hard to say that he would do this thing, but it was hard 
 to do. He had so much more imagination than in the old 
 days. He had only seen Nina Elgood he remembered 
 her name was Nina once in his life. Now he saw her 
 in his mind sitting in the kind of foreign bedroom that he 
 knew so well, a room with heavy curtains, and a gilt clock 
 upon the mantelpiece that never went. He saw her by 
 the bed with her dead lover. She did not seem to move 
 he saw her there perpetually and yet he knew the man 
 was buried. 
 
 He went through a thousand talks with her that night 
 as he lay down in the sleeping-car. He might find her 
 dead, or mad, or ill. He wondered why he was doing all 
 this. So far as he remembered it was the first time in his 
 life that he had ever gone far out of his way to help any- 
 body who had no claim on him. He remembered Elgood 
 had said as they parted on the steps of the house : "Oh, 
 Waring, you're a good chap." And Waring had answered 
 steadily : "I begin to think it's not such a bad thing to 
 be if we only knew what it was." 
 
 Perhaps, after all, it was only a matter of getting one's 
 deep self-approval ; not the self-approval that most folks 
 are satisfied with, which is not the approval of oneself 
 at all, but no more than the approval of the multitude. 
 It was not the approval of the common conscience of man- 
 kind, it was approval achieved with difficulty, by much 
 labour and pain and suffering and attained knowledge. 
 The sign and signature of good action were the personal 
 
308 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 feelings that followed it, the feeling of cleanliness, purifica- 
 tion ; something not alien from the katharsis of Aristotle's 
 tragic analysis. 
 
 It was strange to think that this poor thing whom he 
 was going to help might have felt a better woman, and a 
 sweeter one, with her lover than with poor Elgood. There 
 were marriages in which the merest contact made a woman, 
 or maybe a man, desire to have a bath even the merest 
 touch of hands might make some feel so. It would be 
 a cleaner thing far to live joyously with some such women 
 as he had read of in the far Marquesas. And all the time 
 he saw the little picture before him of that bedroom and 
 the desolate woman sitting by her dead lover. 
 
 " We are all fools," said Waring, " fools ! " 
 
 Soon after he had reached Avignon, he went straight to 
 her hotel. He asked if Madame Staveley was still there, 
 and sent up his card and was presently admitted. As he 
 went upstairs he was almost sorry he had come. He felt 
 very tired, very ill. Sometimes he had a little sense of 
 internal pain it was not yet beyond the threshold of mere 
 sensation. All that he had to do would be so hard, so 
 difficult. Yet it was not so hard, not so difficult, as he 
 imagined ; because he was sorry, and because he under- 
 stood. 
 
 He went straight up to her. She was in black, and 
 looked haggard and worn ; yet she was young and beauti- 
 ful. He remembered her when she had been pretty he 
 remembered her quite well. She was pretty no longer : a 
 strange and awful beauty had come to her instead. 
 
 " You don't know me," said Waring, as he held out his 
 hand. " I've come all the way from London to see you." 
 
 She looked at him wanly and whispered : " That's good 
 of you that's good of you." 
 
 " I know all about it," said Waring, " and I'm very 
 sorry. You've had an awful time." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 309 
 
 He could see it had been inconceivably awful. She had 
 sat nights by the bedside of the dead man for whom she 
 had sacrificed everything. That was true loneliness, 
 loneliness not to be imagined. Everything had gone. 
 She stood in utter solitude. 
 
 " Yes, I've had a bad time," she said almost dryly. 
 " A very bad time." 
 
 " I want to help you," said Waring. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " No one can help me." 
 
 " No one living is past help," said Waring, " while there 
 are still those who love her." 
 
 He hesitated a little before he said that, and she looked 
 up at him quickly. Then she looked away. 
 
 " Who loves me now ? " she asked, " who ? " 
 
 " Many, I think," said Waring. " But one, at any rate, 
 I can answer for." 
 
 " Who is that ? " she asked, trembling. " Tell me who 
 that is ? " 
 
 " Your husband," answered Waring. 
 
 She sat with her hands wrenching at each other. 
 
 " You you have come from him ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes," said Waring. " Come, listen to me. Don't 
 say anything. I'll tell you what he thinks, and what 
 I think. These things happen in life more often than 
 people know, more often than they get into the papers 
 they're always happening that's human nature. No one 
 can be sure of himself of herself. I dare say you thought 
 at times that your husband didn't love you. Some men 
 love, but find it difficult to express it ; they don't under- 
 stand the women that they live with. They don't know 
 that a little daily word means so much so very much. 
 We take things for granted. And then, perhaps, when 
 trouble comes, we're amazed but some men understand 
 it's been their fault. They should have lived for some- 
 
310 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 body else, and they have been living wholly for themselves 
 not out of want of love, but out of want of knowledge 
 and such men are often the best. The gift to a man of 
 those little ways which make women happy is often a 
 very dangerous one. I tell you that with all his faults 
 your husband is a good fellow, a very good fellow." 
 
 She said dully : "I know it I know it. But every- 
 thing's gone everything's gone ! He's gone ! I've 
 sinned." 
 
 " Sinned ! don't say so," said Waring sharply. 
 " Probably you did right, for you loved him ! " 
 She bowed her head. 
 " And he was so so happy," she said. 
 " Be content," said Waring. 
 
 This man had had his hour. He should be happy 
 dead. 
 
 " Be brave, brave and strong," he said. " But don't 
 spoil the past with regrets." 
 " You are a strange man." 
 
 " No," said Waring slowly, " I'm only just beginning to 
 think. And now I want you to come back to England 
 with me." 
 
 " To England ? what have I to do with England ? " 
 she replied. 
 
 " You have got to go back some time to those who love 
 you," said Waring. 
 
 " To ? " She turned to him slowly and stared him 
 
 in the face. " To to my husband ? " she asked. 
 
 " Not yet," said Waring, " but some day, I think 
 when he has proved to you once more that he really wants 
 you." 
 
 " And and I" she said, " after all this ? " 
 And, after a while, Waring answered her. 
 " After all this, and after a time," he said. " This will 
 pass like a sweet and awful dream, You know life now- 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 311 
 
 you know yourself. But life is not over for you you'll 
 go back again to the old days and bring something out of 
 these. Your old life it will be changed it will be 
 different but it can come back, and you will be a better 
 woman." 
 
 She looked at him with great wondering eyes. Here 
 was a man talking to her in the strangest way. She had 
 expected anything but that. He was telling her the 
 one thing that she knew to be true beyond all truth 
 that she was a better woman. It was so wonderful that 
 she could not believe she understood. So she repeated : 
 " A better woman a better woman ? " 
 
 And Waring put his hand on hers, and said : " Yes 
 3 7 es. I understand and your husband will understand 
 soon. I say, a better woman. Now, I want you to come 
 back with me, and I'll take you to your sister's. She 
 wants you could you go to her ? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered. " I could go to her." For in 
 the old days she had helped her sister. 
 
 " Will she understand, then ? " asked Waring. 
 
 She said her sister would understand, and she wept at 
 last. He told her then that he had known her lover. 
 She was frightfully moved, and clutched him as if he 
 represented the dead. 
 
 " You'll come back then ? " he asked at last. 
 
 " What else ? " she said. " What else ? if you hadn't 
 come I shouldn't have wanted any help to-morrow. I hope 
 I should have been brave enough for that." 
 
 That afternoon Waring drove her to the cemetery, where 
 days before her dead lover had been buried in the portion 
 devoted to those who were aliens from the Catholic Church. 
 He left her there for an hour. And the next day he was 
 back with her in London. 
 
 That night he sent round for Heathcote. He felt tired, 
 worn out, and at times had great pain. But Heathcote 
 
312 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 encouraged him, and said that he would soon be better. 
 All the same he wrote to Renshaw when he got home. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 IT was all very well for Heathcote to be encouraging, 
 but Waring saw through his manner that even the confirmed 
 optimist thought something was very wrong. It is true he 
 had said, " Don't worry yourself. Oh no certainly no 
 need to see Renshaw." But all the same Waring under- 
 stood, if not from his physician's manner, from his own 
 feelings. It was high time he went to Renshaw. The 
 pain increased, and he was less well every day. 
 
 He was so much better in himself than he had been 
 before the big operation that he feared death more than he 
 had done then. It had been almost easy to face the end 
 the last time it would not be so easy now. He still 
 savoured life : death was something blank, white, horrible. 
 He still had activities within him. It is true they grew 
 less daily, but he could still do things. Continually he 
 saw that strange white shining theatre and the little bit 
 of blue through the skylight. He mostly dreaded the 
 anaesthetic, yet curiously enough the thought of it helped 
 him to face death. It might be, of course, that if he came 
 out of it he would not have to endure the same suffering 
 through which he had passed before. Bent might give 
 him something to stop that he did not know what. 
 Perhaps a little cocaine might make him cheerful, or 
 they might mix gas with the other anesthetics. But if he 
 died upon the table, as sometimes seemed possible to him, 
 he would escape the worst and most awful misery of all. 
 He must remember to speak definitely to Bent about the 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 313 
 
 matter. Yet all the time it did help him to think that 
 death might save him the misery that he hated to remember, 
 misery worse than any he perceived ; misery that had 
 lasted beyond all time. When he thought of it he was 
 hardly prepared to buy another year of life at the price. 
 He said to himself again and again, " I think I'd rather go. 
 No one could ask me to endure all that." 
 
 For some days he remained in this state. He did very 
 little work. His secretary was in despair : she had got 
 everything into applie-pie order ; she had ticketed, and 
 docketed, and indexed till she was sick of it and there was 
 her employer sitting in his chair by the fire in a deep 
 reverie, saying nothing. Every day he got gloomier. 
 Sometimes he bought her tickets for a matinee at a theatre 
 and sent her out, glad to get rid of her. At other times he 
 seemed to forget that she was there. And then there 
 were times that he did not come down at all and sent no 
 message. In a week or so he almost ceased to come except 
 on Saturday. He took to going up to Jennie, and to his 
 daughter's. Joyce was his greatest pleasure in life. She 
 was very happy : it was largely his doing. She was glad 
 that she had run away with Robert and proved that she 
 loved him it was the greatest proof of all. But Robert 
 wanted no proof : every day he grew better, happier, 
 stronger, more full of energy. 
 
 When the weather was fine her father used to go to their 
 house three or four times a week and sit in her garden. 
 Although he was silent while he was with her he was not 
 gloomy. She discerned no great change in him he did 
 not want her to see it, there was time enough for that. He 
 lived in her happiness : it was something to have a child 
 of his really happy, there was a kind of immortality in 
 it. Presently, perhaps, she too would have children. He 
 wondered whether they would be like her, and thus be like 
 Evelyn. He asked her where she would put the portrait 
 
314 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 that he was going to leave her in his will, and she got him 
 to choose the place. 
 
 " If your mother sees it," he said, " and asks who it 
 is, you can say truly enough that it is a portrait of a cousin 
 of mine. Of course I don't want her to know any more." 
 
 When he had chosen where the picture was to hang ho 
 felt more satisfied. One day when he was in town he 
 bought a little book-case and sent it up to her ; it was to 
 hold the books which now stood in little rows upon the 
 mantelpiece and the window shelf of the sacred room in 
 his place at the Adelphi. He liked to think that those 
 books would be there. Some people would have thought 
 it impossible that a man could remember so much as he 
 remembered of her who had been dead more than twenty- 
 five years. But day by day he seemed to remember more 
 rather than less. Things came to him which he had for- 
 gotten. Sometimes at night he seemed to hear Evelyn's 
 very accents. 
 
 He lived in a perpetual dream, and only waked out of 
 it one day when he went to Coventry to see his boy, Jack. 
 He found him cheerful and contented in the middle of 
 machinery. 
 
 " I shall be sending you down a motor car one of these 
 days as a Christmas present," said Jack, who saw nothing 
 wrong. 
 
 " Do, if you can," said his father. " Your mother would 
 love it. I wish I'd been rich enough to give her one." 
 
 After all Jack was not the fool he had sometimes sup- 
 posed. It was so easy to imagine that a boy was a fool 
 who was not endowed with his father's abilities but had 
 others of his own. To Waring machinery was a perpetual 
 marvel. Though he knew all the treaties that had been 
 signed in Europe since the time of Elizabeth he could not 
 have drawn the inside of a steam-engine, however simple, 
 to save his life and here was Jack, who seemed to know 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 315 
 
 it all, who could take down a motor car and put it up again 
 as easily as a gambler shuffles a pack of cards. He left 
 Coventry feeling quite happy about his boy, for he had 
 more respect for him. 
 
 Of course he saw Jennie every week, and when he was 
 not with his daughter he went to her house. He hid nothing 
 from her now, for she was not a woman from whom he 
 could hide things. She saw that he wa's looking different, 
 knew he was not so strong, perceived that he fell into dark 
 thoughts and drifted aw r ay from her, even in the midst of 
 talking. He began to say things and then said, " Eh 
 what was I saying ? ah my mind ran off the rails." 
 Finally he told her all that he knew about himself ; it was 
 she at last who sent him to Renshaw. He had been 
 sitting gloomily without speaking for nearly an hour when 
 she came and knelt by him. 
 
 " Dearest," she said, " you mustn't be like this. Don't 
 you understand what it is to me ?" 
 
 And Waring put out his hand and stroked her hair. 
 
 " Oh yes, Jennie, I understand," he said. " But then, 
 you see, I am so much older than you, and we both of us 
 knew that the time must come some day " 
 
 She cried, " It shan't come it shan't come ! My dear, 
 I want you I want you ! " 
 
 " I believe you do," said Waring. " I'm sure of it. 
 Why, Jennie ; do you want me to tell the truth ? I could 
 tell you lies." 
 
 " Tell me the truth," she implored. 
 
 " Well, I think the end's coming," he said. " I've 
 wanted to tell you this last month it's best you should 
 know it." 
 
 He felt her tremble. She reached out her hands and 
 took hold of him as though she could hold him back from 
 death. 
 
 " But you look so well," she said, " so well ! " 
 
316 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Look at me," said her lover. " Am I what I was when 
 we were in Spain together, child ? " 
 
 And she knew that he was not. He had changed sadly. 
 There was a threatening greyness about his face ; his hair 
 was greyer too ; perhaps he was thinner. His eyes were 
 not so bright ; they were a little sunken. 
 
 " Oh no, I've changed," he said presently. " Heathcote 
 Ihiew it three weeks ago." 
 
 " You must see Mr. Renshaw again," she said. " Why 
 didn't you go before ? " 
 
 Waring frowned, and then he smiled again. 
 
 " Because I was a coward, Jennie. I I didn't want 
 to know I didn't want to know that I might have to leave 
 my little girl." 
 
 She said everything that she could think of to encourage 
 him, but she spoke with a white face that told him better 
 than words what her own fears were. At last she broke 
 down and said, ' Oh, Tom, Tom, you've been so good to 
 me!" 
 
 She knelt by him and cried with her arms upon his knees, 
 and still he stroked her hair. 
 
 " Have I been good ? Have I been good ? " he asked. 
 " I wonder ! " 
 
 " I know you have been good," she said. " What shall 
 I do if I am left alone ? " 
 
 " You won't be alone," said Waring. " Not altogether 
 alone now, Jennie, and I'm very glad of that." 
 
 But at that moment she could not think of her child. 
 To have saved him at that moment she could have sacrificed 
 it. And still she said, " You've been so good to me so 
 good to me." 
 
 When he left her at last she went almost all the way 
 with him into town, and got a promise out of him within 
 three hundred yards of his own house that he would go and 
 see Renshaw on the morrow. And he walked home dry- 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 317 
 
 eyed, but she went away blinded with tears, and could not 
 endure to think that he would not be with her till he died 
 if he were to die. Often she had wanted him, but never 
 so much as now. She had not envied his wife, nor, 
 knowing what she did, would she have married him, 
 although she was content to be his mistress. But now she 
 could not help thinking that this other poor woman had 
 him always in the house save for the few days he spent with 
 her. Her hand, her arms, her heart, her very soul, seemed 
 empty and desired to hold him close, and closer. 
 
 The next day Waring did as he had promised. He rang 
 up Renshaw and got an appointment, and went down to see 
 him that very afternoon. 
 
 " Well," said Renshaw, " and how are you ? Come, 
 let's have a look at you." 
 
 " I'm not so well," said Waring. " Have you seen 
 Heathcote lately ? " 
 
 " I met him in the street," said Renshaw, lying promptly. 
 " And I asked him how you were, and he said you were 
 rather seedy." 
 
 " Come come out with it," said Waring. 
 
 " You're not looking quite so fit," said Renshaw. " Been 
 working hard, I suppose worrying yourself too. You 
 writers, you writers ! " 
 
 " I'm only a poor journalist," said Waring. " Don't 
 class me among the noble army of martyrs who feed the 
 public beasts with their own flesh." 
 
 " Journalists or not," said Renshaw, " you're all pretty 
 much the same. The only difference between you is that 
 one set of you writes nonsense in books, and the other in 
 papers. Come, take your things off and let's have a look 
 at you." 
 
 Even then Waring perceived a certain air of vexation 
 about Renshaw. It affected Waring curiously : there was 
 something grimly humorous about Renshaw being vexed 
 
318 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 with him for not being a success. " I'm like a book that 
 hasn't sold, or like a series of articles that have been a 
 dead failure." 
 
 And yet perhaps it was not so. 
 
 " Get on the couch," said Renshaw. " If you aren't 
 as well as you ought to be you'll make me very angry, 
 Waring." 
 
 " Ah," said Waring, " you'll be going round saying I'm 
 one of your failures." 
 
 " Let's hope not," said Renshaw. " Come, lie down." 
 
 He went over him very carefully, although he more 
 or less talked all the time. Presently he confined himself 
 to one place, and he stopped talking and grew a little grave, 
 although he endeavoured, perhaps, to hide it. And hope 
 died out of Waring. He saw the little white shining theatre 
 again, and Renshaw in it, with Bent, and perhaps Heath- 
 cote, and Nurse Smith, and the matron, who was always 
 there when Renshaw operated. 
 
 " You've found something," said Waring shortly, and 
 his voice seemed very strange to himself. 
 
 " There is something," said Renshaw gravely. 
 
 " Tell me the truth," said Waring. " I can stand it." 
 
 " Sure of that ? " asked Renshaw. 
 
 " Yes," said Waring. " You see, I'm sure because you're 
 telling it me all the time." 
 
 " I shall have to have another go at you," said Renshaw. 
 " At least, that's what I advise." 
 
 " You're sure of it ? " said Waring. 
 
 " One can't be sure of anything," said Renshaw, " but 
 I should like to do an exploratory to see." 
 
 " And if I don't submit to it how long will you give me ? " 
 asked Waring. 
 
 " It's impossible to say," replied Renshaw. " A few 
 months, perhaps but you'll be bound to have an operation 
 of some kind soon." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 310 
 
 " Then whatever I decide on there will have to be one 
 sooner or later ? " asked Waring. 
 
 And Renshaw nodded. 
 
 " You're taking it very well," he said. 
 
 And Waring remembered that Bent had said he was 
 taking the anaesthetic very well. 
 
 " When can you do it ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " This is Thursday I'll do it on Monday," said Renshaw, 
 " if you'll go into the home on Saturday." 
 
 " Can you give me another week ? " asked Waring. 
 
 " Better have it done at once," said the surgeon. 
 
 " Do you think it will make very much difference if I 
 have another week ? " 
 
 " All right, take another week," said Renshaw. " Go 
 into the home on Saturday week, and I'll do it on Monday 
 week." 
 
 And Waring got up and put on his clothes. 
 
 " I'm sorry I've been a failure," he said presently. 
 
 " We don't know that yet," said Renshaw encouragingly. 
 
 " Oh, I know," said Waring. " I know. But you've 
 given me eighteen months at any rate, Renshaw, and I'm 
 glad of it. I've done a good many things that I wanted to 
 do. And if the end comes now " 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said Renshaw. " You're going to do 
 jolly well and I dare say you'll live another ten years." 
 
 But Waring knew better, and Renshaw knew he did. 
 
 " I suppose you'll arrange about the anaesthetist ? " said 
 Waring. " I'd like to have Bent." 
 
 " You shall have him," said Renshaw. 
 
 " I don't know whether he's spoken to you about me," 
 said Waring, " but he's not quite satisfied about my 
 heart." 
 
 Renshaw knew very well that he had not been quite 
 satisfied with it when the first operation was done. 
 
 " Don't worry about that," he said. " You'll be all 
 
320 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 right. Of course if you like to see Bent in the meantime, go 
 and see him. It can't do any harm." 
 
 Renshaw went with Waring to the outer door. He even 
 went into the street with him, and as they shook hands he 
 said, " Now I want you to be as cheerful about this as you 
 can. Of course it's worrying, but I've every belief that 
 things will come all right for you." 
 
 Waring looked at him and smiled, and nodded, and 
 said, " Well, you're a very good chap there couldn't be a 
 better." 
 
 " Wouldn't you like a cab ? " asked Renshaw. 
 
 But Waring shook his head and smiled at him again, and 
 then turned round and went away. 
 
 Renshaw stood looking after him, and said to himself 
 as he went into his house, " Poor old Waring ! he took it 
 very well indeed." 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 WHEN he left Renshaw, Waring walked straight down 
 Wimpole Street, and presently found himself in Cavendish 
 Square, not knowing quite how he had got there. It 
 shook him to feel he had not been conscious of time. It 
 seemed that he had shaken hands with Renshaw and had 
 come into the big open square with its trees, then almost 
 bare of foliage, in one short moment. When he came to 
 himself he stood wondering what he should do, which way 
 he should turn, which thread of his life he should follow 
 out first of all. There was Jennie, who was waiting to 
 hear. There was his daughter, who ought to be told. 
 There was his wife, who must not be told anything until 
 it was absolutely necessary. And then there was his poor 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 321 
 
 secretary, sitting, cursing him in idleness, down at the 
 Adelphi. 
 
 " What shall I do first ? " he said. " What ? " 
 
 Then he went on walking, going instinctively towards 
 home. Before he got there he turned about and went into 
 the next square. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I'd better settle things at the nursing 
 home. Nurse Smith won't like my coming back again so 
 soon. I think she really liked me before she got rid of me." 
 
 He knew how trying he had been. 
 
 He asked to see the matron, who recognized him instantly. 
 
 " I want a room, matron," said Waring. " I've got to 
 come in again." 
 
 The matron looked at him, and, with her knowledge, 
 guessed why. 
 
 " I am sorry for that," she said. " But when are you 
 coming ? when do you want to come ? " 
 
 " I'd like to come in on Saturday week. Mr. Renshaw 
 will operate on the Monday following. Could I have my 
 old room ? and my old nurse ? " 
 
 " I think you can," said the matron. " I'm not quite 
 sure about the room but you were with Nurse Smith, 
 were you not ? " 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 " I will see you are with her on the same floor," said 
 the matron. 
 
 " Might I go upstairs and see Nurse Smith now ? " asked 
 Waring. 
 
 " Yes," said the matron. 
 
 He went up in the lift to the highest floor but one and 
 stood there for a little while. Presently a door opened 
 and Nurse Smith came out. She looked surprised to see 
 him, but he went across to her and shook hands. 
 
 " What are you doing here, Mr. Waring ? " she ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 x 
 
322 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " I'm coming back to you on Saturday week," said 
 Waring. 
 
 " What for ? " she asked. 
 
 " Another operation," said Waring quietly. 
 
 " That's bad," said the nurse. " I'm very sorry. 
 You've not been so well then ? " 
 
 " No," said Waring, " not so well. I'm glad I'm to be 
 with you, nurse. I hope I shan't give you much trouble. 
 I just thought I'd like to see you. How are my other 
 friends ? " 
 
 " They're all just the same," said Nurse Smith. 
 
 "Tell Nurse Ballantyne when I shall be in," he said. 
 " I'd like to see her if she's about." 
 
 " I'll tell her," said Nurse Smith. 
 
 And with that Waring shook hands with her again and 
 went downstairs. The old porter let him out, and said : 
 " You're looking very well, Mr. Waring." 
 
 " Thank you," said Waring, " I'm all right." 
 
 Then he walked towards his own house, but stopped 
 several times. He hesitated, even when he was within a 
 hundred yards of where he lived, and then he turned away 
 once more and walked slowly to Tottenham Court Road. 
 There he took the Tube and went straight up to Hampstead 
 and drove to Jennie's. 
 
 " I must not tell her all the truth," he said, " or not at 
 once. I think it is best she should not know it all." 
 
 So when he came to the house and went in and found 
 her he seemed a little less gloomy than he had been. 
 
 " You have got some news ? " she asked. 
 
 She came up to him and took him by both shoulders. 
 
 " I've seen Renshaw," said Waring. 
 
 " What does he say ? Tell me tell me, Tom." 
 
 " He doesn't quite know what to say, my dear," said 
 Waring. " But I'm going in the nursing home in a week 
 for him to make a thorough examination." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 323 
 
 " In a week ? " said Jennie. " In a week ! " 
 
 " This is Thursday," said Waring. " I'll come up 
 to-morrow night and stay with you till Monday, dear. 
 And then " 
 
 " Yes, and then ? " said Jennie. 
 
 " I meant, you could see me during the week, and you 
 can come and see me on Sunday at the home," said Waring. 
 " On the whole Renshaw was very cheerful." 
 
 But Jennie was not cheerful, though she did her best. 
 She saw, or seemed to see, that he was not telling her 
 everything but just for the moment she did not wish to 
 know everything. There would be a whole week, at least, 
 before anybody would know certainly. 
 
 " It it might have been worse," said Jennie. 
 
 " Oh yes," said Waring, " it might have been much 
 worse. Give me some tea, my dear, and have the kid 
 down. I'd like to have a look at him." 
 
 So Jennie gave him tea, and the nurse brought down the 
 baby. It was a fine child, remarkably well behaved, but 
 very grave, as sometimes happened, so Waring remem- 
 bered to have been told, when the father was no longer a 
 very young man. Perhaps the child knew more in that 
 case. 
 
 Waring took the boy for a few minutes, and in his mind 
 seemed to see the baby grow up and become a man. He 
 might beget other children, and then die, and it would all 
 be done with such swiftness. W T hat was time ? It was 
 the creature and the creation of the passing passions of 
 humanity. If there were any in the universe for whom 
 it passed more swiftly than for man he would see cities rise 
 from nothing and fall and break like bubbles. Mankind 
 would seem a peculiar continuing organism which renewed 
 itself like the foam of a fermenting vat. The child looked 
 at him with grave, wise eyes, and smiled, and put out his 
 hands and took hold of his father's moustache and pulled it 
 
324 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 curiously. And Waring smiled at the baby and gave him 
 to his mother, and presently the nurse took him away. 
 
 " I am glad you've got the child, Jennie," said Waring, 
 " I'm very glad." 
 
 And he rubbed his hands together and stared into the 
 fire. And presently Jennie came and sat on the arm of his 
 chair and put her arms about his neck. But when he 
 went away she ran up into the nursery and told the nurse 
 to go downstairs and have her tea. She locked the door 
 against her and took the baby on her lap and sat there for 
 an hour, while his little hands were tangled in the very 
 strings of her heart. She looked into his eyes, and they 
 seemed as grave as those of her lover, who was passing 
 and she knew, quite as well as if some far-off God had told 
 her, that the next day and the day following and the day 
 following that, would be the last she would spend with him. 
 But she had no tears to shed. 
 
 That night Waring stayed at home, and had Milly in to 
 see him after dinner, and let her talk and tell him all her 
 little troubles, and all her joy in her daughter and in Robert. 
 And he said all that he could about Jack, who was doing 
 so well at Coventry because he really loved machinery. 
 Milly attributed this fact, not perhaps without justice, to 
 a strain of engineering in her own blood. 
 
 " It's that which makes me such a manager," she said. 
 
 One of her uncles had built a bridge somewhere. She 
 did not know what kind of a bridge, or where it was built, 
 but she was sure he had built it with great credit to himself. 
 
 " I shouldn't be at all surprised if that's where you get 
 your gifts from, my dear," said her husband. 
 
 Now he did his best to adapt himself to her, to make her 
 happy. For little things did make her happy, and he 
 regretted very much that he had not known it of old, or 
 that, knowing it, he had not taken the trouble to be kind. 
 But as he listened to her he understood how it was he 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 325 
 
 could not live wholly with her. Her talk was a pure 
 justification of polygamy. No man, he felt, could stand 
 that kind of talk, undiluted, for many years. If he under- 
 stood her now, or partly understood her, it was as clear as 
 spring water that she could not understand him, and not 
 understanding him did not draw him out. He could not 
 be himself with her ; he had to manage himself and such 
 policy in a man's house was very hard. There was no 
 happy life where there was such management. It was the 
 woman's place, or so he seemed to think just then, to help 
 a man to be himself not always, or wholly, his best, but 
 all himself : the man, the boy, the child, that are always 
 in a man to help his wisdom, and even his folly. And so 
 the man should help the woman. 
 
 And yet if he criticized her he did it now with tender- 
 ness. He felt the time pass, the hours that she was with 
 him went swiftly. He saw them pass after he was dead, 
 and saw her sitting there in decent black, wiping away a 
 tear and saying : " My poor dear Tom he's left me all 
 alone. How well I understood him ! " 
 
 Before she rose to go to bed she asked : " Are you 
 going away to-morrow, Tom ? " 
 
 He said he thought so. Almost for the first time in 
 her life she asked him where he was going. 
 
 " Will you go to Brighton ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Waring. " I might. Or perhaps 
 to Dover." 
 
 It had been an old habit of his to go to Dover, to cross 
 to France and come back again, after lunch in Calais. It 
 was a good tonic, one of old Heathcote's ideas, and not a 
 bad idea either. 
 
 " Yes perhaps to Dover, or Hampstead, or Kams- 
 chatka," said Waring with a smile. 
 
 Milly kissed him and went away, and he sat and smoked 
 over the fire, and once or twice took down a book and put 
 
326 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 it up again, and still sat smoking. He was a little angry 
 that Milly had not seen that he was worse, and then he 
 was angry with himself for feeling so. It was much better 
 that she should not know. He wished that he had told 
 Renshaw that he would go into the home this coming 
 Saturday instead of the next. He wanted to have things 
 done to have things over. Now he was waiting 
 waiting. 
 
 " It won't seem long, though, when I look back next 
 Saturday," he said. " It will seem as though these ten 
 days had passed magically. Well time's going, and I'm 
 going, too." 
 
 Again he saw Death : white, and blank, and awful. He 
 had a moment of intense and awful fear. There was a cold 
 sweat upon his forehead. He sat down again and faced it 
 out, and struggled, and got a kind of victory at last. 
 
 " If it is so," he said, " I shall be sleeping sleeping. 
 As Evelyn has slept these many years. There is some- 
 thing in such rest it's a big thing when one sleeps, and 
 sleeps well ; one knows it. Oh, it must be something 
 tremendous to sleep like that ! " 
 
 And presently he went to bed thinking of it, and slept 
 quite soundly till the early morning. And then he woke 
 up and fought the same fight again, and he could have 
 groaned. He desired to call for Milly, but he would not. 
 And once more he slept, and woke feeling much happier. 
 He believed he had dreamed of the time when he was a 
 young man, before he had understood what life and death 
 were. For that was the wisdom that wrecked a man ; the 
 increase of wisdom was but unhappiness. 
 
 That morning he went down to the Adelphi, and found 
 an odd satisfaction in telling Miss Willis the whole truth of 
 affairs. She knew all his business, and he trusted her 
 completely. He felt the relief of speaking openly. It 
 seemed to him that he was only treating her fairly in telling 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 327 
 
 her exactly how matters stood. She might very soon have 
 to look for another post. 
 
 " You see," said Waring, " one can't tell what will 
 happen this time, so I think I'd better give you a cheque 
 for your salary up to Christmas. Mind you cash it at 
 once in case of accidents because when a man's dead his 
 signature is no longer valid." 
 
 " Oh yes, I know that," said Miss Willis, almost with 
 tears, " and I wish you wouldn't talk that way." 
 
 " I'm sorry," said Waring, " but all the same I'm glad 
 to be able to tell you about it, because nobody else knows. 
 In any case you'll come here every day next week and the 
 week after, and before I go into the nursing home I'll leave 
 you the key of this other room, sealed up, for you to give 
 my daughter, or Mr. Robert Hardy, if anything happens." 
 
 He had got quite accustomed to regard Miss Willis as an 
 extraordinarily able machine, something like an inspired 
 typewriter. Therefore it not only surprised but annoyed 
 him when this very hard and capable young lady burst 
 into tears. 
 
 " Come, come," said Waring sternly. " You mustn't 
 do that, you know." 
 
 His mind worked so oddly that he seemed to remember 
 a passage in " Alice in Wonderland " where somebody said : 
 " Come, come, you mustn't do that, you know." He 
 made up his mind to look up the book and see where it 
 came from. 
 
 " It's very foolish of me," sobbed Miss Willis, " but I've 
 been with you now, Mr. Waring, for nearly four years, and 
 it's very very upsetting, you know. However, I don't 
 believe any thing's going to happen. You've been so much 
 better this last year." 
 
 And with that she dried her tears firmly and went about 
 for the next hour looking exceedingly ashamed of herself. 
 Presently she told him what she admitted she should 
 
328 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 have told him before that Mr. Blake had sent up from 
 Fleet Street to know if he would do a leading article that 
 night on the foreign situation. 
 
 " No, I can't do it," said Waring. 
 
 " He said he'd send up again about four o'clock to know 
 whether you would," said Miss Willis. 
 
 And just then four o'clock struck. A few minutes later 
 the messenger from the paper knocked at the door. 
 
 " Won't you do it, Mr. Waring ? " asked his secretary. 
 
 She had no notion that he would, but it seemed to her 
 that if he could make himself do something it would be 
 better than sitting by the fire, as he had been doing of 
 late, and saying nothing for hours. 
 
 " All right, I'll try," said Waring. " Put that boy in 
 your room, Miss Willis." 
 
 Waring walked up and down for at least ten minutes 
 before he spoke. The trouble was that nothing seemed 
 worth doing. What were foreign politics to him, or he to 
 foreign politics ? At last he spoke. 
 
 " At the present moment " And then he stopped. 
 
 " Cut that out," he said. 
 
 Again he began : "If war is to be avoided ," and 
 
 once more he stopped and said, irritably, " Cut that out." 
 
 Once more he began : " The Foreign Minister . Oh, 
 
 confoiind the Foreign Minister ! No, I'll not do it, Miss 
 Willis tell the boy I won't." 
 
 Then he took his hat, nodded to her abruptly, and 
 walked out of the room. 
 
 As he went downstairs he said : "I shall never do any 
 more. That's the end I shall never do any more." 
 
 It was horrible to know it, and yet as he turned into the 
 Strand and walked to Charing Cross he felt a certain grim 
 satisfaction in thinking he would not be grinding at the 
 mill any more, that neither foreign nor domestic politics 
 mattered. They were no more to him than the Pyramids, 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 329 
 
 no more than the antiquities of Mycenae or the secrets of 
 Cnossos. 
 
 He went straight up to Jennie's, and as he went he said : 
 " This last three days with her I'll try to be happy. After 
 all, I may have luck, and if I have none I shall sleep with 
 those who sleep now a very long, endless, unawakening 
 sleep." 
 
 His life had been full ; he had used himself up. He had 
 done mostly all he desired, good work and bad. He had 
 no unused talents. His life had not been all it might have 
 been, but in its way it had been a real life. He had not 
 sat piping under a tree, he had fought in the arena. If his 
 blood soaked into the sand now and he seemed to hear it 
 drip he had done his utmost. The rest lay on the knees 
 of the implacable gods. 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 TAUGHT by her natural instincts Jennie received him 
 when he came back to her as if there were no shadow upon 
 the horizon. Perhaps she was graver and more solicitous 
 for his comfort. Neither he nor she said anything of their 
 possible imminent parting. On Saturday Waring hired 
 a car, and they drove to Aylesbury, a town in which they 
 had sometimes stayed. They walked a little in the country 
 and dined in the hotel, and drove back again to Hampstead 
 by night. She perceived a certain wistfulness about him 
 as he looked upon the landscape he might never see again, 
 but did not remark upon it ; she only pressed his hand 
 which she held in her own. 
 
 They spent Sunday together quite quietly. The child 
 was with them during the afternoon, but at last Waring said 
 
330 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 with a little curious harshness, " Have him taken away, 
 Jennie." And she felt, as he did, that at that moment even 
 the baby was an intruder. 
 
 After dinner she took a stool and sat by him with her arms 
 upon his knees. And she said, " Tom, do you remember ? 
 I used to do this when I was a little girl, when father was 
 alive. And they used to laugh at me, saying I showed my 
 affection for you too openly. But I didn't care what any- 
 one said." 
 
 " I remember," said Waring. 
 
 There was a long silence. Then she spoke again. 
 
 " Sometimes I try to think what might have happened 
 if I had never loved you, and it all seems so dreadful and 
 blank. Have I made you a little happy, dear ? " 
 
 " Very happy, child, because because you always 
 understood." 
 
 She understood that if he had not given her everything, 
 he had given her all that was his to bestow, even to the 
 uttermost. It was not all she desired, but it was so much 
 better than nothing that it was great riches. 
 
 " I can remember," she said presently, " how you took 
 hold of my hair when I wore it in a pigtail. Why should I 
 remember that just now ? You used to tell me that you 
 wouldn't love me until it grew long enough for me to sit 
 on." And she gave a little laugh which was half a sob. 
 " I used to try to, Tom ; I think I almost broke my neck 
 when I was eleven, trying to sit on it. You see, I never 
 thought of anybody else. It's all very strange it's just 
 fate." 
 
 And he nodded, and stroked her hair, and told her how 
 beautiful it was. Then he spoke more cheerfully. 
 
 " When this is over, Jennie, we'll go away again, some- 
 where far off. You've never been to Greece I'd like to 
 show you Athens. And perhaps farther still, Damascus and 
 Palmyra." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 331 
 
 But she knew she would never see Damascus, nor the 
 Desert of Tadmor, nor hear the sound of the camel bells. 
 
 Presently he lifted her up and took her on his knees, 
 and she lay against his breast with her arms round his neck. 
 And he knew that she wept, though she wept very silently. 
 
 " It's hard on you, little woman," he said. " It's 
 harder on you than it is on me." 
 
 She was thinking that she would haVe no right to sit 
 by his death-bed it was the right of some one else. 
 
 " Yes, it's all hard," said Jennie. " But if it were a 
 thousand times harder I'd say it was worth it." 
 
 He went away next morning soon after breakfast, bid- 
 ding her farewell in the house. He spoke but little, but he 
 held her for a long time in his arms, and then took her head 
 in his hands and looked her straight in the eyes and said, 
 " Jennie, I love you." And he let her go and went straight 
 out of the house, and then ran back again blindly, held 
 her in his arms once more, and once more went away across 
 the Heath. 
 
 She sat by herself for an hour, staring before her. And 
 she beat with her fingers upon the table, wondering what 
 she felt ; wondering why she did not feel more ; wondering 
 how she had been able to let him go ; wondering if she would 
 ever see him again, dead or alive. 
 
 And she said, "If he dies I shall live. If he gets well 
 again I think it will kill me." 
 
 But she went about her work. 
 
 Waring travelled straight down to town, for he had 
 an appointment with Bent. He walked into his room 
 looking very white and rigid, and presently told him that 
 he had parted with somebody who was very dear to him. 
 
 And Bent said, " I understand I understand." 
 
 Indeed it seemed as if he did understand. Waring 
 wondered if he too had some time or another been through 
 something. Perhaps he, too, was capable of suffering. 
 
Bent went over him very carefully and said in a kind 
 of casual way, " Oh, you'll be all right, Waring. You 
 mustn't worry." 
 
 " I'm not worrying," said Waring almost irritably. 
 " It's no good worrying when you can't avoid a thing. All 
 I want is for you to save me what I went through last time. 
 When they take me off the table, Bent, I want you to go 
 with them and see you get me out of unconsciousness as 
 soon as you can. I couldn't go through what I did last 
 time not to get well again." 
 
 " I'll do my best," said Bent. 
 
 " Couldn't you put something in the anaesthetic to 
 make me more cheerful ? " asked Waring. " I remember 
 once, years ago, I had a little operation under cocaine, and 
 after that I was as jolly as a sandboy. I couldn't under- 
 stand it." 
 
 " I'll see what I can do," said Bent. 
 
 And Waring shook hands with him and went down to the 
 Adelphi. He dictated several letters to Miss Willis. They 
 were such letters as a man writes when he means to settle 
 his affairs. He dictated them all with a certain dry mind, 
 or what seemed so to his secretary. She had no attach- 
 ment for him except that of constant contiguity and 
 habit, but nevertheless she found her work very painful. 
 Full of life as she was, it seemed peculiarly dreadful to her 
 to see a man making cool and methodical preparations for 
 what he obviously looked on as inevitable death. Waring 
 had often in the old days seemed cruel, hideously im- 
 personal, a reasoning machine, one dyed in and subdued 
 to the ethics of diplomacy, which in themselves were not 
 human. Of late, it was true, he had been other than he was 
 much gentler, more considerate and thoughtful. She 
 had been less a machine to him, to be oiled every week 
 with two pounds ten. But once again he seemed far away, 
 aloof, grimly pathetic. The atmosphere was intolerable 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 333 
 
 to her. She was not likely to burst into tears, but there 
 were moments when she could have cried out, " For God's 
 sake, Mr. Waring, don't look like that ! " 
 
 Then suddenly he smiled and said, " Miss Willis, if any- 
 thing happens to me I've left all these political papers 
 and books of mine to Mr. Harbord Smith, and I'd give 
 seven and sixpence to see his face when he learns that 
 fact." 
 
 " And I hope his face will be as uninteresting for the next 
 twenty years as I've always found it," said Miss Willis 
 with a snap. 
 
 While she was typing the letters she had taken down, 
 Waring wrote to Ted Harman and one or two other men. 
 He began a letter to Campbell, but tore it up. 
 
 " I think I'd better see him," he said to himself. " I'd 
 like him to look after Jennie for me. He'll do it better 
 than Heathcote besides, he isn't so busy." 
 
 As soon as he had finished his letters and had signed 
 those which his secretary had ready for him, he took a cab 
 and went straight up to Wimpole Street, and after waiting 
 for a quarter of an hour saw Campbell. It was quite obvious 
 to Waring that Campbell had heard of what was going 
 to happen from some one else. 
 
 "I see you know," said Waring. 
 
 " Yes," said Campbell, " I've heard. Bent told me. 
 I'm very sorry, Waring, but I should judge you are taking 
 too serious a view of it." 
 
 " Don't talk nonsense," said Waring dryly. " You 
 know as well as I do it's just about as serious as it 
 can be." 
 
 Campbell examined his nails, and then nodded. 
 
 " Well, I suppose it is pretty serious. I wish I could 
 help you." 
 
 " You can," said Waring. " I believe you have seen 
 Mrs. Guy Waring, have you not ? " 
 
334 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Yes," said Campbell. 
 
 " She told me she saw you. It slipped out by accident," 
 said Waring. " Have you any idea who she is ? " 
 
 Campbell hesitated. 
 
 " I supposed," he said slowly, " that she was some 
 connexion or relative of yours." 
 
 " No more than that ? " asking Waring. 
 
 " If you put it that way," said Campbell, " I certainly 
 did think something else." 
 
 " Probably you thought right," said Waring. " I don't 
 see why I shouldn't tell you, because I want you to look 
 after her if the worst happens. If you could come to the 
 operation I hear Heathcote won't come, as he's got to be 
 out of town I shall be very glad. I'll speak to Renshaw 
 about it. And as soon as it's over whatever happens 
 I want you to go up and see her." 
 
 " I'll go," said Campbell. 
 
 " You won't let anything stand in the way of it," said 
 Waring. 
 
 "Nothing," replied Campbell, "I promise that." 
 
 " If you have got bad news for her, do the best you can," 
 said Waring. 
 
 " Has she any children ? " asked Campbell. 
 
 " One," said Waring, " born this year." 
 
 Campbell walked up and down the room for a minute, 
 and then he said, "You're taking it too seriously, Waring. 
 It would be better for you if you didn't look at the blackest 
 side of things." 
 
 " I'm taking it as I can," replied Waring. " Until 
 you've been through the same thing, or something like it, 
 you won't understand quite what it means. I'm in a kind 
 of dream nothing seems wholly real." 
 
 " I'm glad of that." 
 
 " And, you understand, everything seems a bit misty. 
 Of course at moments I get a little savage wild hope in me, 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 335 
 
 and then I have a little bit of terror, but on the whole I'm 
 taking it in the way that's easiest for others, Campbell. 
 I'm not a fool, and I hope I'm not a coward." 
 
 " You're certainly neither," said Campbell. " But, 
 personally, I shan't give up hope of you till I have to. 
 I'm sure you know, Waring, that it isn't all professional in 
 me when I say that." 
 
 Waring nodded. 
 
 " I really believe you'll miss me a bit," he said with 
 just a little gulp. 
 
 " I'm sure of it," said Campbell. 
 
 With that Waring took his hand in both of his, a thing 
 he very seldom did, and looked him in the eyes with 
 an odd kind of smile, and nodded, and picked up his hat 
 and walked out of the room saying, " Well, I'll see you on 
 Monday, at any rate." 
 
 And then he went straight up to Golder's Green to 
 see Joyce. He felt sure that Campbell felt it a great deal. 
 He himself had got fond of the man this last year or so. It 
 was a horrible thing to think that he was going round 
 carrying this kind of news first to one and then the other, 
 but he did not see quite how to avoid it it had to be done. 
 He had never been a man to talk about himself ; he had 
 been far too reserved for that, however self-centred he might 
 have seemed in other ways. And yet here he was, going 
 first to one and then to the other, saying, " I am probably 
 going to die next week I hope you won't be worried 
 about it." 
 
 But he was glad he hated none of them for being so 
 strong and well. 
 
 " Whatever I feel," said Waring, " I'll never let any- 
 one know but Jennie. I think I have said to them all 
 more or less what I ought to have said." 
 
 Nevertheless he did not manage himself ; he trusted 
 to his nature. After all it did not matter so long as he 
 
336 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 had done right with Jennie, and would do right with Joyce 
 and his wife. 
 
 " I shall be glad now when they know," he said. " The 
 worst will be over." 
 
 He drove from the station to Joyce's house and found 
 her by herself. Robert was then over in Paris with his 
 partner, and would be away for a few days. It was now 
 quite obvious to Joyce that her father was not looking 
 well ; she had far keener eyes than her mother, and then 
 she did not see him every day. She asked him, after he 
 had been in the house five minutes, what was the matter. 
 He was sitting on a couch when she did so. 
 
 " Come, sit down by me," he said, " and I'll tell you." 
 
 She sat down, and he put his arm about her. 
 
 " You think I'm not looking well, little girl ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 She shook her head, and turning looked at him with 
 steady eyes. 
 
 " You have seen more than some," said her father. 
 " No I'm not well, my dear. I'm afraid I am anything 
 but well. Indeed, that's what I have come up to see you 
 about." 
 
 He felt her tremble. 
 
 " Is it very serious ? " she asked in a low voice. 
 
 Waring nodded before he spoke. 
 
 " Yes, my dear, I suppose it is. I had to see Renshaw 
 the other day, and I'm going in the nursing home again on 
 Saturday." 
 
 " For for him to do anything ? " she asked. 
 
 And again he nodded. 
 
 " Yes," he said. " He's not satisfied, and thinks he 
 must do an exploratory operation." 
 
 " Does mother know ? " asked Joyce. 
 
 " I shan't tell her till Wednesday," said Waring. 
 
 " Poor mother ! " said Joyce. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 337 
 
 " I want you to be there when I tell her," said Waring. 
 " Come down to tea I shall be in. I'd like to have you in 
 the house. She'll take the most hopeful view of it, I 
 know, dear. I want her to and I want you to. Only 
 I had to tell you, you see." 
 
 " Yes," said Joyce, " of course you had to tell me, 
 father." 
 
 Waring felt the most amazing difficulty in speaking. 
 He could not express himself nor his affection ; he felt as he 
 had done in the old days when he could not tell her or his 
 boy that he was fond of them. He had a thousand things 
 to say, and could not say one of them. Perhaps it was the 
 best to tell Joyce so. 
 
 He held her close to him and said, " Little girl, there's 
 lots I'd like to say, but I don't seem to be able to say it. 
 Come, give me a cup of tea." 
 
 And Joyce understood, and kissed him, and went out 
 and prepared tea herself, and brought it in for him. With 
 understanding there also came to her that passion of love 
 and pity which was speechless. So they had tea together 
 almost in silence. But once Waring said, " You won't 
 forget about the Adelphi, Joyce ? If anything happens 
 you'll go with Robert straight down there, and Miss Willis 
 will give you the sealed key. You are not to let her go in 
 the room only you and Robert are to go. You must 
 do it as soon as anything happens, because you will find 
 some things with directions on them as to what you are to 
 do with them. There are some letters too. Give me 
 another cup of tea." 
 
 Presently he said, " Child, child, how like you are to 
 her ! " 
 
 She understood all that he meant how some strange 
 miracle of inherited blood had made her like one she had 
 never seen. 
 
 Soon after that he said good-bye, and as he went away 
 
 y 
 
338 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 he repeated, " Don't forget Wednesday but there, of 
 course, you couldn't forget." 
 
 He went down to the Adelphi again and got his bag, which 
 he had forgotten, and drove straight home. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 IT was all very well for Waring to think that he could part 
 with Jennie on Monday morning and then not see her 
 again till the next Sunday, but he found it impossible. 
 Thus it was that he sent for her, and she came down to 
 the Adelphi and they spent a part of the day together. 
 Some of the time they were in the National Gallery. 
 Though he was not a man who knew much of art, there 
 were certain things that he could appreciate. For the 
 most part these were portraits. It seemed to Jennie that 
 he went round saying good-bye to certain favourites of his ; 
 the bigger things of Rembrandt, some of Velasquez, and 
 one or two of Van Dyck. Yet most of the time they rested 
 on one of the benches and talked or so it might have 
 seemed to others but they said very little, and sat as 
 close together as if they were lovers. 
 
 When they parted that day it was arranged that she 
 should come down and see him again on Friday, for then 
 he would be able to give her the whole afternoon. Some- 
 how it seemed to her that he had more hope in him, but 
 then, again, it might be resignation rather than hope. 
 He accepted things now, and did not fight so furiously as 
 he had done. In the days when his first trouble began he 
 had refused to admit that he was ill until he was wholly 
 incapacitated, and almost suicidal. He had yielded 
 nothing, admitted nothing, but stood up until he was 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 339 
 
 smashed. In the days when he had been supposed to 
 believe in God, when he had believed with the outside 
 husk of his mind, he had not really admitted the superiority 
 of anything in the universe. But now if he was not 
 broken he knew what breaking meant, what losing a fight 
 meant, and what death meant. He had gone through it, 
 had fought, had failed, had died, and come to life again. 
 He was the poorer, and the richer : ^the poorer, in that he 
 summed up his resources and saw how little they were ; 
 the richer, in the capacity for understanding himself, which 
 implied the understanding of others. 
 
 On Wednesday he went to the Adelphi and did not leave 
 till he was sure that Joyce would be at home with her 
 mother. Inaccessible as Milly Waring seemed to those final 
 indications which would have alarmed greater sensibility, 
 she yet began to feel that something was very different. 
 Tom spoke to her so much more, he was so much more 
 possible. He listened, drew her out, let her go on talking 
 about her dear domestic nothings in a way that he would 
 have checked not so long ago. He came in her room at 
 nights and sat by her bed, and was very gentle. All this dis- 
 turbed her a little. It was not usual it was not customary. 
 Her native conservatism was troubled ; she remembered 
 all kinds of things that other women had told her. It was 
 a bad sign, they said, when a husband suddenly became 
 very considerate. And if he gave his wife presents without 
 being accustomed to do so it was really a very serious 
 matter, and should be looked to at once. 
 
 She was glad when Joyce came ; she wanted to ask her 
 if she had seen anything in her father that seemed strange. 
 Before she came to that she noticed that Joyce was dis- 
 turbed and uneasy. Her thoughts flew instantly from 
 Tom to " dear Robert." She wondered if " dear Robert " 
 had showed any signs of wandering from the correct and 
 narrow path. It was certainly rather dangerous that hip 
 
340 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 art business took him over to Paris Joyce ought to go 
 with him. A wife was a great safeguard. No decent man 
 could take other people out to dinner and leave his wife 
 alone in Paris this she had learnt in Bloomsbury. 
 
 " I think you ought to go to Paris with Robert," said 
 Milly. 
 
 " Yes ? " said Joyce, " oh, I will sometimes. But one 
 can't always be running over to Paris every time Robert 
 wants to go." 
 
 " I don't think you are looking so well," said her mother. 
 " It seems to me you are uneasy about something. Now, 
 confide in me, my dear is it anything about your 
 husband ? " 
 
 Joyce shook her head. 
 
 " He's perfectly well, mother perfectly well." 
 
 " Oh yes, my dear," said her mother, " but health 
 isn't everything. In fact being very, very well indeed is 
 rather dangerous with men. Some one I forget who told 
 me the other day that since her husband recovered his 
 health she hadn't had a moment's peace." 
 
 " I'm glad of it," said Joyce. " She must have been a 
 chattermag, mother." 
 
 " Well, you're not looking right," insisted her mother. 
 " Is it about your father ? " 
 
 And Joyce nodded. 
 
 " I don't think he's so well, mother," she said. 
 
 " I can't say that I think he's the same," said her mother. 
 " He's very different, my dear so much gentler. He 
 never gets angry now. I used to be quite afraid of him 
 sometimes, but now I'm not. And such a change is very 
 disturbing." 
 
 Just then she heard her husband at the outer door, and 
 went and met him and told him Joyce was there. 
 
 " Ah," said Waring, " I thought she would be. I asked 
 her to come down to-day." 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 341 
 
 And Mrs. Waring wondered why her daughter had not 
 told her that. 
 
 They had tea in Waring's library, as had been customary 
 now for some time when he was at home it was perhaps 
 the most comfortable room in the house. Milly came to 
 the conclusion that her little spurt of alarm about her 
 husband's morals was without any foundation. Tom 
 seemed tired, and was very quiet, but looked much less 
 disturbed than Joyce. Presently Milly drew her husband's 
 attention to this. 
 
 " I don't think Joyce is well," she said. 
 
 " I'm perfectly well, mother," said her daughter. 
 
 " It's no good your talking, my dear, you're worried 
 about something." 
 
 Waring reached out his hand and took his wife's. 
 
 " Milly, my dear, she's worried about me," he said. 
 
 " About you, Tom ? " said his wife in a flutter. 
 
 " Yes, my dear," said Waring. 
 
 " You've been keeping something from me ! " cried 
 Milly, " something that you have told Joyce/' 
 
 " That's true," said Waring, " but I only told her on 
 Monday, and I didn't know it much before." 
 
 " What is it ? " asked his wife. " Are you ill ? " 
 
 " The doctors say so, my dear," said Waring. 
 
 " It isn't it isn't it isn't that awful Mr. Renshaw 
 again ? " asked Milly. " Is it ? is it ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid it is, my dear," said her husband. 
 
 He stood up and put his arm about her shoulder. She 
 looked up at him pitifully. 
 
 " Oh, Tom, don't let him do anything. I dare say if 
 he had done nothing before, you'd have been well by now. 
 I'm sure Dr. Heathcote thought so what does he say 
 now ? " 
 
 " He thinks as the others think," said Waring. " But 
 you mustn't worry, my dear." 
 
342 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Worry ! " said his wife. " Oh, Tom how can you 
 speak so ? Is it is it the home again ? " 
 
 Waring nodded. 
 
 " And and anything else ? " asked Milly. 
 
 " Yes," said Waring, " but it won't be severe this time. 
 They just want to satisfy themselves about something." 
 
 " You're telling me the truth ? " asked Milly, clutching 
 at the lapels of his coat. 
 
 " I'm practically telling you everything I know, my 
 dear," said her husband. 
 
 " I I hate doctors," said Milly, and with that she 
 burst into tears. 
 
 Then Joyce came to her and said : " Come, mother dear, 
 you must be brave. After all, you know, it's hardest on 
 Dad he mustn't be disturbed if we can help it." 
 
 " No no, of course not," sobbed her mother. " I 
 understand that. But I do think it's very hard. 
 Especially especially after I thanked God so for Tom's 
 getting well." 
 
 It gave her husband a certain little grim satisfaction to 
 see her thus at odds with her own particular Providence. 
 
 "Don't worry, dear," he said. "I don't think it's 
 going to be serious." 
 
 " Not serious ! " said his wife, " with you going into the 
 nursing home, and everything everything being so upset." 
 
 " Mother mother ! " said Joyce. 
 
 Mrs. Waring gulped down her tears, and said : " Very 
 well, Joyce, it's all very well for you you've got Robert. 
 And I think when you came in you should have told me 
 what you were worried about. I began to think all kinds 
 of things and now now it's much, much worse than 
 anything I thought." 
 
 " You mustn't take a gloomy view of it," said her 
 husband. 
 
 " I'm not taking a gloomy view," said Milly, almost 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 343 
 
 angrily. " If I were taking a gloomy view, do you think 
 I should behave like this ? But I do think it's most 
 disturbing, Tom." 
 
 " Yes, my dear," said Waring. 
 
 He felt peculiarly helpless. Although he was glad 
 Joyce was there, he felt he could have behaved more 
 sympathetically if she had been anywhere else. 
 
 " You see, my dear, I had to tell you,' he urged. " You 
 wouldn't have liked me to go away on Saturday, after 
 telling you then. Come, now, give me another cup of tea." 
 
 He sat down. 
 
 " Pour your father out a cup," said Mrs. Waring to her 
 daughter, in a strange, sharp voice, as if it were all Joyce's 
 fault. 
 
 " And give me a piece of your mother's cake," said 
 Waring. 
 
 For years it had been a matter of grief to Milly that he 
 did not eat cakes, not even those she made herself. It 
 was beautiful of Tom to take some now. She looked at 
 him anxiously to see if he liked it. He smiled at her and 
 munched with great content. 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 IT seemed strange to Waring that at such a juncture he 
 should sometimes be able to view himself especially when 
 he was at home with a grimly humorous mind. He 
 wondered whether this did not mean that there was some 
 hope at the back of his brain ; for a man's organism did 
 not accept death easily ; and his personality was, after all, 
 no more than a little part of himself. So far as he was 
 intellectually concerned he knew that he had no hope. If 
 
344 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 the end had to come, he trusted it would come quickly. 
 He desired no recovery that meant a lingering illness. A 
 quick death was much less ghastly than that, and infinitely 
 more desirable. It was easier to face extinction and an 
 endless sleep. 
 
 His wife did not allow him to forget that even at the 
 worst there was a queer humour in things. She worried 
 about him a great deal that evening after Joyce had gone 
 away, but he could see that every moment she regarded 
 the whole affair as less and less serious. Before dinner was 
 over she had recovered her calm. Her husband persuaded 
 her to take a glass of wine, which certainly did her good 
 she was almost cheerful. She referred once more to the 
 cake. 
 
 " I was so glad to see you eat some. I think it's a good 
 sign," she said. " Are you sure you liked it ? " 
 
 " Very much, my dear," replied Waring rather absently. 
 
 " Would you like a piece now ? " asked his wife. 
 
 " A piece of what ? " asked Waring, as if he did not 
 quite catch what she said. 
 
 " A piece of cake," repeated Milly. 
 
 " Good heavens, my dear, no ! " said Waring in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 The next day, which was Thursday, Waring stayed at 
 home till the evening. In the afternoon Campbell came in 
 to see him ; he also saw Mrs. Waring, who appealed to him 
 for instruction and support. She trusted him : he was a 
 big dark man, and she was little and fair. She sometimes 
 regretted that Dr. Heathcote was not also six foot two. 
 Once she said to Joyce, " A big doctor, my dear, is a great 
 comfort." 
 
 Harman also came in. He was the only person outside 
 his own family who was not a doctor to whom Waring had 
 told the truth, or anything resembling it. His young friend 
 was very much disturbed about things. He knew a great 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 345 
 
 deal more about medicine than Waring, and a great deal 
 more than was good for him. 
 
 " Don't worry, Ted," said Waring at last. " I never 
 expected to have the last eighteen months, and I have 
 had them. If I get another few months out of it, 
 so much the better. If I don't, there's a good deal of 
 me that'll be glad to go. I've left you a few books in my 
 will, old chap, and I hope you'll think I've chosen them 
 well." 
 
 He did not say that he had also left him a hundred 
 pounds. He knew what a hundred pounds meant to 
 Harman since he had taken to writing books. 
 
 " If I don't see you again," said Waring almost casually, 
 when Harman got up to go, " remember I always looked 
 upon you as a kind of a son, Ted at any rate a kind of a 
 journalistic and literary one. You know my boy Jack 
 loathes the sight of a book, and has a singular detestation 
 for a pen." 
 
 " I'll come in and see you on Monday," said Harman 
 stubbornly, without looking at him. 
 
 " You won't be able to see me on Monday," said Waring. 
 " Then I can ask about you," said Harman. 
 That afternoon he wrote to Elgood and his wife. He 
 thought a good deal about them. It seemed to him that 
 if they knew what was going to happen to him it might in 
 some way bring them more together. He could not tell 
 why he thought so, the reason was obscure in his own mind. 
 If he had analysed it and put it into words, they might 
 have run something like this : " Waring, when he knew 
 he was dying and he must have really known took 
 the trouble to do what he did for us. It would seem 
 a little hard on him if he knows anything now to think 
 that after all he had done nothing." What he said to him- 
 self was, " I have suffered, but what was my suffering to 
 hers when she sat in that blank horror with the dead man 
 
346 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 that she had loved ? Oh, it's an awful and a foolish world, 
 when love and pity and passion the best things in life 
 work themselves through our conventions into something 
 evil and so awful. It is because we don't understand, and 
 live by the allowance of the dead past." 
 
 On Friday he went down to the Adelphi, and at one 
 o'clock Jennie came. They went out to lunch together. 
 It seemed to her that he was very quiet and peaceful. He 
 sometimes took her hand and pressed it. 
 
 " You mustn't talk much to-day, Jennie," he said. 
 " Just let our minds talk with each other. But I've not 
 much to say. Is the kiddie well ? " 
 
 And Jennie nodded. 
 
 All the time that they were together in the restaurant it 
 seemed to him that Jennie was going to speak. She often 
 began and then stopped. Once or twice he asked, " Well, 
 what is it, child ? " and she said nothing. 
 
 When at last they went out she said, " Let me come with 
 you to the Adelphi. I want to see the river." 
 
 As they stood and watched the stream, which was then 
 nearly at the top of the flood, Jennie said, " Tom, there's 
 one thing you promised me many years ago, and I've never 
 spoken of it since." 
 
 " What is it ? " he asked. 
 
 She looked out upon the river and replied, " You said 
 that some day you'd show me that portrait." 
 
 He wondered whether he could. 
 
 Presently he said, " Wait here till I come back." 
 
 He went into his room and wrote a personal letter to the 
 sub-editor of his paper and asked Miss Willis to take it 
 for him. And when she had gone he brought Jennie in and 
 lighted the lights in the inner room, and said, " You can go 
 in, Jennie." 
 
 After a few minutes she came out and stood close by 
 him, and took his hand and lifted it to her lips, and said, 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 347 
 
 " Yes I think I understand, Tom. Now I'd like to go 
 home." 
 
 He took her all the way and stayed with her till it was 
 time for him to go back to his own house. For this was 
 his last night at home he was bound to make such a 
 sacrifice for his wife's sake. But when he took Jennie in his 
 arms before he went he said, " You may come and see me 
 on Sunday at the nursing home. Come as late as you 
 can about half-past eight in the evening. I'd like to 
 see you the last of every one, if if I don't have luck, 
 dear." 
 
 With that he kissed her again, and held her very closely. 
 When he went out he was glad that it was dark, so that he 
 could not look back and see her. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 TIME went away from Waring not like the steady bleeding 
 of a vein, but like the quick gushes of a wounded artery. 
 Thus there were hours immeasurably swift, and the next 
 dragged as immeasurably. He seemed to watch the very 
 systole and diastole of life. Only the other day was it 
 yesterday ? was it but a few minutes ago ? he had seen 
 Rcnshaw. Now it was the end of the extra week the 
 surgeon had given him ; he had but Saturday and Sunday 
 before that which foreshadowed the end. He was sorry ; 
 he was glad. He revolted frightfully ; he accepted every- 
 thing. He wanted to go back and live those days again ; 
 he would have hated to live them. To have to go round 
 telling people was horrible. Well, that was over, and 
 there was no one now who need know anything till they 
 saw a paragraph in the paper. His own journal would 
 
348 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 give him a whole column, perhaps a little more, and 
 would say nothing. 
 
 For the few hours remaining to him, he wanted to be 
 more by himself. He drew away from every one, as a 
 wounded beast hides itself in the jungle from the rough 
 contact of its stronger fellows. Time, indeed, played him 
 strange tricks, for thus he personified time, not thinking 
 of his own mind and his memory. The years dropped 
 away from him, and just when he felt most immeasurably 
 old he went back to his youth. He was a boy at school, 
 a youth at Cambridge, where his career had been broken 
 up by his early marriage. That marriage of passion had 
 proved itself true ; it remained to him with all its memories. 
 He was like one who looked back from the height of 
 monstrous peaks, or the savage rocks of some sharp ridge, 
 to a far, sun-lighted spot upon a distant plain. And once 
 more he was back there ; he walked in the past serene 
 with his dead. There were tribes of savages who believed 
 the dead plucked at human souls to draw them out of the 
 very mouths of mourners, for thus they interpreted the 
 awful phenomena of grief. It seemed to him that once 
 more Evelyn called to him, as she had called to him for 
 years. If it were true that there were no voices that were 
 not soon mute, however tuneful they had been, there was 
 still an enduring echo in the depths of the heart. He 
 remembered what one had said : " There is no name, 
 with whatever emphasis of passionate love repeated, of 
 which the echo is not faint at last." But still its strength 
 depended on the soul of the hearer ; and under great 
 conditions the faintest echo might resound like the thunder 
 of great rocks cast down. 
 
 He left the house on Saturday morning very early, with 
 an air of cheerfulness which was surprising, but gratified 
 his wife amazingly. He knew he was deceiving her with 
 every motion, and with every accent of his voice. He even 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 349 
 
 lifted his hand to her as she stood at the window when he 
 walked down the steps, as if he were off for a few cheerful 
 hours of rest. 
 
 " Poor little woman," he said, " it will be a heavy blow 
 why make it worse before it comes ? She wouldn't 
 believe it, and yet would be troubled." 
 
 In that moment it seemed to him that time went very 
 slow. He suddenly desired passionately that Monday 
 had come. He saw himself in the nursing home, waking 
 early in the morning. He would get out of bed and stand 
 a little while at the window to look at the green trees in 
 the square, and at the little blue in the sky if there were 
 a little blue that morning. And then Nurse Smith would 
 come, and reprove him, and bid him get back to bed, with 
 her radiant, saintly, and maternal air. And after that 
 
 Instead of going straight to the Adelphi he walked a 
 little in St. James's Park, and fed the aquatic birds who 
 thronged beneath the little low bridge from which he 
 could see the Treasury block in which was the Foreign 
 Office that he knew so well. 
 
 " I shall never be inside it again," said Waring. 
 
 That day he gave something to every beggar that he 
 saw. If they were cheats and swindlers, what did it 
 matter ? Cheats and swindlers had a hard time of it in 
 this world, though not so hard as many of the workers 
 whose blood the world drank. 
 
 When he did go to his rooms he found his secretary 
 there before an empty table. She drummed with her 
 fingers on it when he came in. He stood up by the fire, 
 and presently he said : " You will be glad when this is 
 over, Miss Willis." 
 
 " Very, very glad, Mr. Waring," replied his secretary. 
 " Won't you ? " 
 
 " Oh I ? " asked Waring vaguely. " Just at present 
 I've come to the conclusion that I don't count that it's 
 
350 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 nothing to do with me, but with some other person of the 
 game name. Did you cash that cheque ? " 
 She said she had cashed it. 
 
 " Very well, let's hope it won't be the last," said Waring. 
 " Put on your hat you can take a holiday till you hear 
 what happens." 
 
 She went into the other room, and when she came back 
 stood lingering as though she had something to say. But 
 Waring looked at her with an odd smile which she found 
 inexplicable, and shook his head. Then he held out his 
 hand and shook hands, and went to the door and opened 
 it, and stood there and beckoned to her with his finger. 
 
 He held the door wide open and said : " Now get out, 
 my dear. Good-bye." 
 
 And thus Miss Willis commenced her little holiday. 
 " I shan't ever see her again," said Waring sorrowfully, 
 and he sat down by the fire. 
 
 She had not been gone for five minutes before he would 
 have given the world for her to come back. A new access 
 of terror came to him. He shivered, and again saw the 
 awful blank wall of nothingness, the negation of all things, 
 the destruction of energy, the downfall of the city of life. 
 " One comes right up against it," he thought, " right 
 up against it ! As I look back, my life seems like a full 
 hour, an hour full of strange and awful energies, half of 
 them wasted. And yet, who knows if the best is not 
 always a by-product ? " 
 
 These years, or that hour of life, as he considered their 
 swiftness, once more helped him to face death without 
 terror. It might indeed be blank and white and strange 
 and bloodless, but it was peace. He had lived and done a 
 little work ; he had loved greatly, had been himself, used 
 himself, and had nearly worked himself out. And he had 
 left children in them, and in them only, was immortality. 
 Sometimes he had wondered how it was that people 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 351 
 
 assumed that existence after death meant an eternal 
 existence. It might even be, if their poor notions had 
 any soundness, that the faint ghosts or wraiths of the men 
 and women who passed should endure but a little while, 
 although their time were long measured by the hours of 
 men. And once more, it might be that the passing wraith 
 bequeathed some fainter spirit to the wandering air. But 
 this was the same as his own creed, after all ; for so one 
 died as one's work and memory died through the death of 
 those who remembered, until at last nothing remained but 
 dim spiritual influences in hearts which knew not the dead 
 who begat their thoughts. 
 
 But all these notions of survival, of the spirit, of the 
 soul, were nothing but the vain endeavours of humanity 
 to perpetuate itself. Had not he himself died a thousand 
 times ? There might be innumerable portions of himself, 
 spirits of his past days, inhabiting the earth. If that were 
 so, it once more seemed to him, as it had often seemed to 
 him, that even yet he and Evelyn still wandered in the 
 familiar meads of some near Paradise. 
 
 He sat in his room alone, not moving from his chair by 
 the fire, till it was three o'clock ; the room darkened and 
 the sky outside was heavy. But when the clock struck 
 three he rose and went into the other little room where 
 Evelyn's portrait was, and sat there for a long time. It 
 seemed to him that he was not so much bidding her fare- 
 well as that he was coming to tell her of her second death. 
 In his mind she was more than remembered she had a 
 certain life, a very strange and strong life. How else 
 indeed could he still remember after these years oh, these 
 little, little years ! oh, these long and awful years ! 
 the accent of her voice, the pressure of her hand, her smile, 
 the very fragrance of her hair ? How else had she indeed 
 lived so long but by his perception of these things ? It 
 was not she that gave him these sensations now, but still 
 
352 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 he had them, and thus built her up again, renewing her, 
 so that when he closed his eyes it seemed that she was by 
 him, and might indeed say once more : " Dear Tom, 
 what is it ? " or " Good night, beloved " or praise his 
 work, or give him encouragement when he needed it sorely. 
 
 But no one else remembered her, for her folks were 
 dead, and she had borne no children. She had left her 
 memories to him he was her sanctuary, the very refuge 
 of her soul. And now that temple in which he guarded 
 her was in danger of destruction. Then none would 
 remember, no one would renew her beautiful spirit in deep 
 thought, or sorrowful reminiscence, or suddenly in the 
 white watches of the night. Only Joyce was a little like 
 her, and would have her portrait, and would say : " This 
 was she whom my dear father loved." And when Joyce 
 died as she must die at last Evelyn might be dead 
 indeed. 
 
 And yet that was impossible ! She had been so sweet 
 and dear her thoughts, her deeds, would still endure ; 
 not, perhaps, in less echoes and still less, but wholly 
 revived as by magic. Might it not be when the time came 
 and all the earth was gentle as it must be some day, or 
 so he thought now that such spirits as hers would feel 
 themselves renewed in the happier world ? Those who 
 were nobler, those who were braver and better, were the 
 great seeds of the future ; and when it came in all its 
 destined brightness those who lived then would have a 
 fuller life, although they knew it not, because she had 
 lived. If there were any immortality, it was that, and it 
 lasted while the world lasted, until the end came in the 
 final waste, or chill destruction, of the years. 
 
 He sat in that little room quietly for many hours, and 
 sometimes rose up and touched all the things that were hers, 
 and spoke to her portrait. Then he looked in a little box 
 where sacred things were kept, and found some letters 
 
353 
 
 some that were his own, and some that she had written. 
 They still seemed to speak to each other : they, too, had a 
 life of their own. He put together some of these things, and 
 on them laid a letter addressed to Joyce. For she was to 
 do much for him when he was dead. 
 
 When it was very dark he lighted the candles which 
 stood in two triple-branched candlesticks, for they had 
 been hers. He put them before her portrait and looked 
 at it for a long while with dry eyes. His face worked, but 
 sometimes he smiled. And then, at last, tears came ; 
 and he blew out the candles one by one, and turned and 
 left the room, and locked the door ; and went down and 
 walked in the darkness for a long hour by the great river 
 that was running out to the sea. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 WARING was so peaceful that night that Milly was re- 
 assured, and parted from him without tears. Earlier in 
 the day she had sent his bag round to the nursing home, 
 which was only a few streets off. At half-past nine Waring 
 kissed her as he might have done if he had been going down 
 to Fleet Street, and saying with a smile, " Cheer up, 
 Milly," he walked out and went straight to the home. 
 
 On the upper landing he found Nurse Smith ; he shook 
 hands with her and followed her to his room. 
 
 " This is a better room than you had, Mr. Waring," said 
 the nurse. " It is bigger." 
 
 He answered wearily, " Any room will do if you look 
 after me," and sat down by the fire. 
 
 " You'd better go to bed at once," said the nurse. 
 
 " I shall be glad to go," he said. " I've been living 
 
 z 
 
354 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 hard lately, nurse ; practically saying good-bye, you 
 know." 
 
 " You mustn't talk like that," said Nurse Smith. 
 
 " My dear," said Waring, " you've got to let me talk 
 any way I like. I've been saying too much that wasn't 
 true these last few days. I've done with that with you. 
 But why are you here now ? I thought you wouldn't be 
 here so late." 
 
 She had stayed especially to receive him. She did not 
 tell him so, but said that it was a mere accident. 
 
 " And my night nurse ? is she still the same ? " 
 
 " Oh no," replied Nurse Smith. " You didn't know ? 
 she's married." 
 
 " God send her luck in such a great adventure ! " said 
 Waring. " Who is the night nurse then ? " 
 
 " Nurse Ballantyne," replied Nurse Smith. " She's on 
 the inside staff again." 
 
 " Ah, I'm glad of that," said Waring. " She's a good 
 woman. Tell her to come in and see me presently." 
 
 So he went to bed, but smoked a pipe while he was 
 there. And presently Nurse Ballantyne came in. She 
 shook hands with him, and he said, " If you've got five 
 minutes, my dear, sit down. Have you seen my daughter 
 lately ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, I've seen her quite often," said Nurse 
 Ballantyne. 
 
 But she did not know what had happened before Joyce's 
 marriage. 
 
 " They're very happy," said Waring. " It's really 
 partly owing to you, nurse ; we owe you more than you think. 
 If anything happens to me on Monday, or soon after, I'd 
 like you to go round to my wife she always liked you since 
 you nursed her." 
 
 " Of course I will," said Nurse Ballantyne. " But 
 you mustn't " 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 355 
 
 " Come, come," said Waring. " Don't say professional 
 things, nurse. All you dears are just as bad as the doctors. 
 ' Take a cheerful view. Don't worry, but go away to the 
 Riviera for three weeks or a month. Don't do any work 
 for a year or two. Eat the best of everything. Be wise 
 and moderate. And if you happen to be frightfully poor, 
 drink some fine old crusted port at a hundred and twenty 
 shillings a dozen.' ' 
 
 " You haven't lost your tongue, at any rate," said Nurse 
 Ballantyne cheerfully. " Do you think you'll go to sleep ? " 
 
 " I'm perfectly convinced I shan't," said Waring. 
 
 " Then I'll come in at eleven, and if you are not asleep 
 I'll give you something," she said. 
 
 " In the meantime find me another pillow," said Waring. 
 " I want to sit up and look at the fire. Will there be any 
 blue sky to-morrow, nurse ? It doesn't matter so much 
 about to-morrow, but for Monday morning order a square 
 yard or two." 
 
 At eleven o'clock she came in and took away his extra 
 pillow, let down the head of his bed, and gave him the 
 sleeping draught. 
 
 " You've no pain, have you ? " she asked. 
 
 Waring nodded. 
 
 " Just a little. It comes and goes." 
 
 In spite of it he slept well and dreamlessly till five o'clock 
 in the morning. Then he had an access of pain, and he 
 rang his bell. When Nurse Ballantyne came in he said, 
 " Sit down for a minute by me, nurse and give me your 
 hand." 
 
 She sat with him for fully half an hour, and then he 
 nodded and said, " You're a dear thing, nurse I'm better 
 now. Perhaps I can sleep again." 
 
 In the morning Renshaw came in to see him, and made 
 another examination. When it was over he spoke quite 
 cheerfully, but all the time Waring knew better. 
 
356 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 " Did you hear from my friend, Campbell ? " he asked, 
 as Renshaw stood up. 
 
 " Yes," said Renshaw. " He wrote to me saying he'd 
 like to be present if I had no objection. Do you want 
 him?'* 
 
 " I'd like him to be there," said Waring. " You see, 
 Heathcote can't come this time he's away." 
 
 " Very weH, I'll telephone to Campbell presently," said 
 Renshaw. " Now just you lie quietly, and don't worry." 
 
 " Oh no," said Waring grimly, " and am I to go to the 
 Riviera for three weeks ? " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked Renshaw. 
 
 And Waring repeated what he had said to Nurse Ballan- 
 tyne the night before. 
 
 " All the same, I don't think you are worrying so much," 
 said Renshaw with a laugh. 
 
 " That's true," replied Waring. " There's a time when 
 even worry stops. Have you got any other patients here, 
 Renshaw ? " 
 
 " Bless your soul ! yes," replied Renshaw. " And all 
 doing as well as as you'll do, my dear chap." 
 
 And with that he went away, and Nurse Smith came in 
 and made her patient comfortable once more, and brought 
 him some flowers. He knew they had come from Jennie. 
 Milly wouid never think of that she never thought of 
 flowers unless she were having a party. But she came 
 round herself that afternoon and sat with him for half an 
 hour. 
 
 " I find it's so comforting, Tom, that you should be so 
 near home," she said. " You see, I can run in any minute." 
 
 " Don't come in again to-day, my dear," said Waring. 
 
 " Oh, I meant only once a day I can send round other 
 times," said his wife. " I saw Mr. Renshaw downstair*, 
 and he was most cheerful. But has Joyce been ? " 
 
 " Not yet," said Waring. " I dare say she'll come 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 357 
 
 presently. And now, my dear, kiss me, and say good-bye 
 till to-morrow or next day. Of course one doesn't know 
 when they'll let you see me." 
 
 She got up obediently and came to him, and he looked 
 her in the face and said, " You have been a very good wife 
 to me, Milly." 
 
 " And you have been the best of husbands," she answered, 
 with a sob. 
 
 For then at last tears came to her eyes, but she wiped 
 them away bravely, and w r ent out of the room. 
 
 Waring nodded to himself. " Ah well, I might have 
 made her unhappy, but I haven't really done it. That's 
 something that's a great deal." 
 
 When the nurse came in again he said to her, " My 
 daughter will very likely come presently, tell her she's only 
 to stay a minute. I want her just to come in and go away 
 again do you understand, nurse ? " 
 
 So when Joyce came she went straight into the room 
 and knelt down by the bed. He put his arms round her 
 neck and held her for a minute, and then looked at her and 
 said, " Good-bye, child. If anything happens, look after 
 your mother." 
 
 And when Joyce's lips touched his cheek he felt a tear 
 drop upon his face. But she went away very quietly. He 
 was glad to see her go he wanted to get it all over. He 
 was sorry now that he had asked Jennie to come, and yet 
 he knew that she wanted to come. But when she came 
 they said very little. She sat by him and held his hand, 
 and every now and again he smiled at her. He seemed 
 in a kind of a dream, as if he were far away in his mind. 
 
 But presently he said, " Do I look as if I had been 
 far away from you, Jennie, my girl ? " 
 
 And she nodded. 
 
 " But, no ! " said Waring," I have been down to Gibraltar 
 with some one, and to Ronda, and Malaga, and Granada 
 
358 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 among the hills. If anything happens, Jennie, think of 
 me as I was when I was with you then. Say good-bye, my 
 dear. You always made me very happy kiss me." 
 
 She held him fast for a long time, but presently he 
 reached out his hand and rang the bell, without her seeing 
 him do it, so that Nurse Smith came in and took her away. 
 
 And when the nurse came back to him she said, " I 
 think you have seen too many people to-day." 
 
 But he shook his head, and answered her very quietly, 
 " No, nurse, but I have seen all I want to see, except those 
 to whom I am going." 
 
 And she had nothing to say to that, for she perceived 
 she could do nothing by combating his inward settled 
 thoughts. When she spoke to him before she left him for 
 the night he hardly seemed to understand her. He looked 
 at her with wide far-off eyes, and then came back and smiled. 
 Whatever his thoughts were, he looked much more peaceful. 
 Many of the lines in his face seemed less deep than they had 
 been. He seemed young and, indeed, he had gone back 
 to his youth and was thinking of the past. It came up to 
 him vividly ; he remembered things that he thought he had 
 forgotten ; those who were dead were more alive than many 
 who still drew breath. And when at last he fell asleep he 
 murmured, " Good night, beloved." And it seemed to him 
 that he heard not wholly in imagination that she of 
 whom he thought murmured in her turn, " Dear heart, 
 good night." 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 WARING woke early. Though it was still almost dark, 
 there were signs of the coming dawn. The working world 
 was awake : he heard the early roar of the traffic in 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 359 
 
 London's great highways. He found that his mind was 
 curiously peaceful : perhaps the drug he had taken the 
 night before still affected him. He looked at the glimmer 
 which came through his window and remembered how two 
 years ago he had become conscious of the white light of day. 
 For a moment it seemed that this was the very same 
 awakening. But now he was not suffering, or he suffered 
 little. These last months had indeed been a dream, but 
 they had been beautiful, not awful. There was something 
 sacred about them. And they had gone with terrible 
 swiftness, or so it seemed to him when he woke. 
 
 There was now no revolt in him. He could suppress 
 the feelings of dread which came ; he beat them down and 
 put them aside. He felt that he had made his peace with 
 the world. He seemed to understand far better than he 
 had ever done, he accepted things bravely. Some might 
 say he was beaten ; but that would be false : he had 
 conquered. For those were conquerors who worked out 
 all that was in them ; who had not feared, or if they had 
 feared had still fought. Yet he had no hope of further life 
 let others say what they would, he did not believe them. 
 He had bidden good-bye to all that he loved ; that had been 
 bitter, and still he could endure it. He had said good-bye 
 once when he could not endure it, and after that all things 
 were easy. 
 
 Now he saw suddenly that the sky was strangely light. 
 Presently he knew that it was utterly cloudless. There was 
 a touch of frost in the air ; it would be a beautiful day ; 
 there was a blue sky it looked very faint, but still it was 
 blue, the colour of the heavens. He was glad of that. 
 Somehow one would like to die, if one had to die, in the 
 sunlight. Ajax had prayed, if he were to be destroyed, to 
 be destroyed in the light that was natural. Thus he 
 spoke with himself ; his brain seemed to talk, it dominated 
 his body. That now hardly concerned him ; he would not 
 
360 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 have thought of it had it not been for that dull pain which 
 sometimes was not dull and shot through him like an arrow. 
 Perhaps his body was busy with that pain, dreading it, 
 fighting against it. Perhaps it regretted what was coming. 
 It seemed to him that it was only his body that felt this 
 parting with all things ; for it was not wholly tired, whereas 
 his brain was ready to sleep, and asked for infinite rest. 
 
 " I'm not afraid," he said. " I'm not in the least 
 afraid." 
 
 And then, in spite of himself, he feared. Yet once more 
 courage came back again, and that desire for endless sleep. 
 All these months his body had been fighting. Every day 
 had been a field of battle. 
 
 " I don't want to think any more," he said. 
 
 He reached out and touched the bell, deliberately be- 
 ginning his last day. Nurse Ballantyne came in and smiled 
 at him. He spoke to her almost as cheerfully as she did to 
 him ; he asked for some coffee. And time went on. He 
 heard the clock strike seven. Presently there were people 
 moving outside in the passage ; the working day had 
 come. It struck eight ; he remembered that they mostly 
 hanged people at eight. That was a horrible thing a most 
 horrible thing. Death could be very awful ; but then, so 
 could life be awful. When one was a little used to death, 
 how quiet how beautiful it might be. But one wanted 
 to be just a little used to it. He had learned that. 
 
 Nurse Ballantyne put his pillow straight for him, and 
 nodded and went away, going off duty. 
 
 " I shan't see her again," said Waring. 
 
 A few minutes later his other nurse came in. 
 
 " Is it time yet ? " he asked. 
 
 " Not yet," she answered. " It's no more than half -past 
 eight Mr. Renshaw will be here at nine." 
 
 So he had half an hour, and a few minutes, perhaps, of 
 consciousness left to him. And after that, who could say ? 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 361 
 
 He hoped above all things that if he did wake out of un- 
 consciousness Bent would see to it that he did not suffer. 
 That had been an awful price to pay for these last months. 
 And yet perhaps it had been worth what he had paid. If 
 the dead could speak many might say and many would 
 say that life had been worth it ; worth it all, worth all it 
 pain, its immeasurable anguish. A little joy meant so 
 much ; and work was good, though why it was good no one 
 knew. 
 
 He tried to remember some of his friends. Many of 
 them had vanished ; he could not see some of them at all. 
 But he saw Joyce and Jennie clearly enough. And then 
 he smiled an odd little smile to think that he suddenly saw 
 Milly polishing polishing, as it were for dear life. She 
 was doing her work. They were all ghosts ; dear and 
 beautiful, but still no more than shadows. But then 
 he was a shadow himself, a mere ghost of what he had been. 
 He had worked all his time. At what ? He wondered 
 what he had worked at, and why he had worked, and 
 what its use was. 
 
 " I'm wasting time. My mind is wasting time," said 
 Waring. " I wanted to think of her." 
 
 He knew that he always was thinking of her dead 
 or alive he was thinking of her. If "he were no more than 
 that same little fiery speck that he had been for such 
 immeasurable periods of time, still he would think of her. 
 In his dust " two handfuls of white dust shut in an urn of 
 brass " there would be one little speck of memory. He re- 
 called his earlier life, his marriage, his life in the country 
 before he grew ambitious, before he had seen London's 
 Wittenburg, before he had read the more awful books of 
 life. Then he was happy. He had known joy since, but 
 no happiness. He declared that gravely. 
 
 " It comes back it all comes back," he said to himself. 
 " It's very, very clear." 
 
362 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 But Nurse Smith came in again and began to get him 
 ready. She put his dressing-gown over a chair by the fire, 
 smiled at him, and went out once more. 
 
 He held his memories very close to him and found them 
 slip away ; still he followed and took hold of them. He 
 wanted to ask for a little more time just a little more time 
 and he]could not. It was absurd, ridiculous, to have so 
 little time. He felt himself tremble. 
 
 " I'm afraid," he said, " but I'll not be afraid." 
 
 And then it struck nine, and the nurse came back, and 
 took his dressing-gown, and said, " Come, Mr. Waring, 
 we're all ready for you." 
 
 So he got up, and she held the dressing-gown for him, 
 while he put on his slippers which had been by the fire. 
 Then he went out with her into the passage and into the 
 lift, and was taken upstairs. He walked straight to 
 the theatre ; for he knew where it was. The door was 
 open. He smelt remembered odours, and saw its intense 
 and scrupulous cleanliness, its white and gleaming tiles, 
 its bright brass work. It was all white and very warm. 
 He heard the electric fan with its ceaseless hum. He came 
 to the door and put his hand against it and looked in, 
 staying for a moment, and saw once more all that he had 
 seen so long ago such a short time ago yesterday, it 
 might be. He remembered the colours of things ; blue 
 and pink ; those things which were beautiful and yet 
 sinister. And there was the long table with its folded 
 blanket on it. He saw some of the shining copper. By it 
 stood Renshaw. Close to him was Bent. And then there 
 was Campbell ; big, dark, and strong. He remembered 
 that Milly liked him because he was so big and strong. But 
 for the moment Waring, or Waring's body, did not like 
 him or any of the others. It seemed to him that they were 
 his enemies. They would be interested about him just 
 interested. But that passed ; it passed instantly. Renshaw 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 363 
 
 was a very good fellow, and so was little Bent. Why 
 did he cut his moustache so short ? 
 
 He looked straight at Campbell, and greeted him first. 
 
 " I'm glad you could come," he said. 
 
 Then he turned to Renshaw and shook hands with him 
 just across the head of the operating table. After that he 
 spoke to Bent. 
 
 " Mind what I told you, doctor," he said. " I'd much 
 rather you killed me on the table than let me go through 
 what I did last time." 
 
 " You shan't go through it. That's all right you 
 shan't go through it, I promise you," said Bent. 
 
 And Waring heard the door shut. Nurse Smith shut 
 it the matron had come in, and stood by her. They were 
 all clothed in white, except Renshaw who still had his 
 frock-coat on. Waring wondered what they were waiting 
 for. But they were not waiting for anything, he had not 
 been fifteen seconds in the room. It seemed an im- 
 measurable time. How strange Time was ! 
 
 He walked round the table to the right side of it, and 
 got on it and lay down. It was very hard to do, but he 
 did it. As he lay down he turned his head and looked 
 through the window and saw the faint blue sky. 
 
 " Let me sit up one moment," he said suddenly. 
 
 He sat up and looked out of the window, and saw the 
 gaunt, bare trees outside. There were just a few leaves 
 upon them. They had done their year's work. 
 
 " That's all right," said Waring, and he lay down again. 
 He beckoned Campbell to come close to him. " Don't 
 forget what I asked you," he said in a strong voice. 
 
 " I'll not forget," said Campbell. 
 
 " And give my love to any of rny friends if if anything 
 happens," said Waring. 
 
 " Nothing will happen," said Renshaw. 
 
 They prepared him for the work that had to be done. 
 
364 TIME AND THOMAS WARING 
 
 They drew down the upper garment to keep him warm, 
 and pulled up the lower one till only the operation area 
 was visible. Renshaw covered that with a sterilized towel. 
 
 And now he knew he had to take the anaesthetic. Bent 
 took his finger from his radial pulse. He gave him a little 
 alcohol perhaps there was something else in it. 
 
 And suddenly Waring said to the surgeon, " Shake hands, 
 Renshaw. All right, I'm ready." 
 
 He remembered he had said that before. He wished 
 Renshaw would take off his black coat and put on his 
 white one ; he did not like the sight of black. But just as 
 he was thinking so Bent put something over his mouth. 
 
 " Breathe deeply and easily," he said. 
 
 And Waring did as he was told. That was what he 
 was there for. 
 
 " This is the end," he said, " the end. Ah it's the 
 end ! " 
 
 And yet perhaps it was not the end. He might come 
 out of it he hoped he would, now. He wanted a little 
 more life, a little more time ! 
 
 " Breathe out as much as you can," said Bent. " The 
 breathing in will take care of itself." 
 
 Waring remembered he had said that before. He looked 
 round and saw Campbell standing back from the table. 
 Then he thought of Milly ; of Joyce ; of Jennie. He be- 
 held them with peculiar clearness, and then they passed 
 and he saw Evelyn. It was the first time he had seen 
 her plainly for many long, long years. He made a little 
 motion as if he would rise, and Bent put one hand 
 upon his shoulder. Where was he going ? It seemed 
 to him that the table rose in the air. And now he heard 
 his own breathing. It sounded loud and deep, almost like 
 thunder. And still he smiled, and went out of the operating 
 room through some deep field of his memories into a wood- 
 land. 
 
TIME AND THOMAS WARING 365 
 
 He heard Bent say in a very loud voice that sounded 
 like the roar of a cataract, " I think he'll be all right." 
 
 Waring was glad somebody was going to be all right. 
 He took an amazing interest in somebody. He won- 
 dered who it was. And yet all the time he was dimly, 
 desperately, conscious that he was fighting to keep hold 
 of himself. He wanted to stay in that room, for he feared 
 the depths of the wood. But when he lost it that was 
 the last of it. He laughed, and was glad. There was 
 some very wonderful reason for glad laughter. It was, 
 he seemed to think, because he was so magically, so mar- 
 vellously happy. And then the trees in the woodland grew, 
 as it were, to the very heavens ; and the sky, which was 
 the starry sky of night, came down on him swiftly. 
 
BY 
 
 MORLEY ROBERTS 
 
 Author of "David Bran," " Rachel Marr," etc. 
 
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