The Return Of The Soul

by Robert Hichens

not doaway with their reality."

  "It must. Look into their faces until they fade like ghosts, seen onlybetween light and darkness. They are founded upon nothing; they are bredwithout father or mother; they are hysterical; they are wicked. Think alittle of me. You are not going to be conquered by a chimera, to allow aphantom created by your imagination to ruin the happiness that has beenso beautiful. You will not do that! You dare not!"

  She only answered:

  "If I can help it."

  A passionate anger seized me, a fury at my impotence against this child.I pushed her almost roughly from my arms.

  "And I have married this woman!" I cried bitterly. I got up.

  Margot had ceased crying now, and her face was very white and calm; itlooked rigid in the faint candle-light that shone across the bed.

  "Do not be angry," she said. "We are controlled by something inside ofus; there are powers in us that we cannot fight against."

  "There is nothing we cannot fight against," I said passionately. "Thedoctrine of predestination is the devil's own doctrine. It is thedoctrine set up by the sinner to excuse his sin; it is the coward'sdoctrine. Understand me, Margot, I love you, but I am not a weak fool.There must be an end of this folly. Perhaps you are playing with me,acting like a girl, testing me. Let us have no more of it."

  She said:

  "I only do what I must."

  Her tone turned me cold. Her set face frightened me, and angered me, forthere was a curious obstinacy in it. I left the room abruptly, and didnot return. That night I had no sleep.

  I am not a coward, but I find that I am inclined to fear that whichfears me. I dread an animal that always avoids me silently more than ananimal that actually attacks me. The thing that runs from me makes meshiver, the thing that creeps away when I come near wakes my uneasiness.At this time there rose up in me a strange feeling towards Margot.The white, fair child I had married was at moments--only atmoments--horrible to me. I felt disposed to shun her. Something withincried out against her. Long ago, at the instant of our introduction, anunreasoning sensation that could only be called dread had laid holdupon me. That dread returned from the night of our explanation, returneddeepened and added to. It prompted me to a suggestion which I had nosooner made than I regretted it. On the morning following I toldMargot that in future we had better occupy separate rooms. She assentedquietly, but I thought a furtive expression of relief stole for a momentinto her face.

  I was deeply angered with her and with myself; yet, now that I knewbeyond question my wife's physical terror of me, I was-half afraid ofher. I felt as if I could not bring myself to lie long hours by her sidein the darkness, by the side of a woman who was shrinking from me, whowas watching me when I could not see her. The idea made my very fleshcreep.

  Yet I hated myself for this shrinking of the body, and sometimeshated her for rousing it. A hideous struggle was going on within me--astruggle between love and impotent anger and despair, between the loverand the master. For I am one of the old-fashioned men who think that ahusband ought to be master of his wife as well as of his house.

  How could I be master of a woman I secretly feared? My knowledge ofmyself spurred me through acute irritation almost to the verge ofmadness.

  All calm was gone. I was alternately gentle to my wife and almostferocious towards her, ready to fall at her feet and worship her or toseize her and treat her with physical violence. I only restrained myselfby an effort.

  My variations of manner did not seem to affect her. Indeed, it sometimesstruck me that she feared me more when I was kind to her than when I washarsh.

  And I knew, by a thousand furtive indications, that her horror of me wasdeepening day by day. I believe she could hardly bring herself to be ina room alone with me, especially after nightfall.

  One evening, when we were dining, the butler, after placing dessert uponthe table, moved to leave us. She turned white, and, as he reached thedoor, half rose, and called him back in a sharp voice.

  "Symonds!" she said.

  "Yes, ma'am?"

  "You are going?"

  The fellow looked surprised.

  "Can I get you anything, ma'am?"

  She glanced at me with an indescribable uneasiness. Then she leaned backin her chair with an effort, and pressed her lips together.

  "No," she said.

  As the man went out and shut the door, she looked at me again fromunder her eyelids; and finally her eyes travelled from me to a small,thin-bladed knife, used for cutting oranges, that lay near her plate,and fixed themselves on it. She put out her hand stealthily, drew ittowards her, and kept her hand over it on the table. I took an orangefrom a dish in front of me.

  "Margot," I said, "will you pass me that fruit-knife?"

  She obviously hesitated.

  "Give me that knife," I repeated roughly, stretching out my hand.

  She lifted her hand, left the knife upon the table, and at the sametime, springing up, glided softly out of the room and closed the doorbehind her.

  That evening I spent alone in the smoking-room, and, for the first time,she did not come to bid me good-night.

  I sat smoking my cigar in a tumult of furious despair and love. Thesituation was becoming intolerable. It could not be en-dured. I longedfor a crisis, even for a violent one. I could have cried aloud thatnight for a veritable tragedy. There were moments when I would almosthave killed the child who mysteriously eluded and defied me. I couldhave wreaked a cruel vengeance upon the body for the sin of the mind. Iwas terribly, mortally distressed.

  After a long and painful self-communion, I resolved to make another wildeffort to set things right before it was too late; and when the clockchimed the half-hour after ten I went upstairs softly to her bedroom andturned the handle of the door, meaning to enter, to catch Margot in myarms, tell her how deep my love for her was, how she injured me by herbase fears, and how she was driving me back from the gentleness she hadgiven me to the cruelty, to the brutality, of my first nature.

  The door resisted me: it was locked. I paused a moment, and then tappedgently. I heard a sudden rustle within, as if someone hurried across thefloor away from the door, and then Margot's voice cried sharply:

  "Who's that? Who is there?" "Margot, it is I. I wish to speak to you--tosay good-night."

  "Good-night," she said. "But let me in for a moment." There was asilence--it seemed to me a long one; then she answered:

  "Not now, dear; I--I am so tired." "Open the door for a moment." "Iam very tired. Good-night." The cold, level tone of her voice--for theanxiety had left it after that first sudden cry--roused me to a suddenfury of action. I seized the handle of the door and pressed with all mystrength. Physically I am a very powerful man--my anger and despairgave me a giant's might. I burst the lock, and sprang into the room. Myimpulse was to seize Margot in my arms and crush her to death, it mightbe, in an embrace she could not struggle against. The blood coursed likemolten fire through my veins. The lust of love, the lust of murder even,perhaps, was upon me. I sprang impetuously into the room.

  No candles were alight in it. The blinds were up, and the chillmoonbeams filtered through the small lattice panes. By the farthestwindow, in the yellowish radiance, was huddled a white thing.

  A sudden cold took hold upon me. All the warmth in me froze up.

  I stopped where I was and held my breath.

  That white thing, seen thus uncertainly, had no semblance to humanity.It was animal wholly. I could have believed for the moment that a whitecat crouched from me there by the curtain, waiting to spring.

  What a strange illusion that was! I tried to laugh at it afterwards, butat the moment horror stole through me--horror, and almost awe.

  All desire of violence left me. Heat was dead; I felt cold as stone. Icould not even speak a word.

  Suddenly the white thing moved. The curtain was drawn sharply; themoonlight was blotted out; the room was plunged in darkness--a darknessin which that thing could see!

  I turned and stole out of the room. I could
have fled, driven by thenameless fear that was upon me.

  Only when the morning dawned did the man in me awake, and I cursedmyself for my cowardice.

  *****

  The following evening we were asked to dine out with some neighbours,who lived a few miles off in a wonderful old Norman castle near thesea. During the day neither of us had made the slightest allusion tothe incidents of the previous night. We both felt it a relief to gointo society, I think. The friends to whom we went--Lord and LadyMelchester--had a large party staying with them, and we were, I believe,the only outsiders who lived in the neighbourhood. One of their guestswas Professor Black, whose name I have already mentioned--a little,dry, thin, acrid man, with thick black hair, innocent of the comb, andpursed, straight lips. I had met him two or three times in London,and as he had only just arrived at the castle, and scarcely knew hisfellow-visitors there, he brought his wine over to me when