look at, with eyes like those young mediaeval,brainless Madonnas. I'm so glad to have someone else play withhim--with Alec. I dread him so. I hate, I _hate_ to let him--kiss me.There. If you were a real man I couldn't have exploded into that.You're only the spirit of a thunder-storm, you know; I'll never see youagain on earth; I can say anything. I do say anything, don't I? I cansay--I do say--that you have dragged me from the bottomless pit; thatif any good comes of me it is your good--that you--being a shadow, amemory, an incident--are yet the central figure of this world to me.If I fall back into the pit, that is not your affair--mine, mine only.The light that shines around you for me is the only kindly light thatmay save me. But it may not. I may fall back. I have the toy in thedrawer yet--covered with letters. Good-by--I am yours always,
AUGUST FIRST.
WARCHESTER, St. Andrew's Parish House, October 8th.
You'll never see me again? You'll see me in three days unless you stopme with a telegram.
I have a curious feeling that all this has happened before--my sittinghere in front of the fire writing to you at one o'clock in the morning.They say it's one part of the brain working a shade ahead of the rest.I don't believe that. I do not believe my brain is working at all.It's spinning around. For days I've been living in the FourthDimension--something like that. It changes the values to have a newuniverse whirl up around one. New heavens and a new earth--that's it.I have given up trying to analyze it. Even if I didn't want to tellyou I couldn't help it. I'm beyond that now, and--helpless. I neverdreamed of its being like this. I never thought much about it, exceptvaguely, as anybody does, and here it's come and snatched away theworld.
I don't know how this is going to get itself said. But I can't stopit. That frightens me, rather; I've been used to ordering myself aboutor, at least, to feeling that I could. But that seems to be over. Idon't pretend that I didn't foresee it, or rather that I didn'trecognize it right at the beginning. What I did was to put offreckoning with it.
I see that I'm going to say things wrong. You have got to overlookthat; I can't help it. I told you my brain wasn't working. For daysI've been in a maze. Then your letter came, late this afternoon, andthat settled it. Do you know what you said? Do you? You said: "Ifyou were a real man, I wouldn't have exploded like this." A realman--what do you _think_ I am? That's what I want to know. You'llfind out I'm real enough before you and I are done. Do you supposethat I have been reading your letters all these weeks--those letters inwhich you said yourself you put your soul--as though they were stockquotations? Did you think you were a numbered "case," that I waskeeping notes about you in that neat filing-cabinet down in the office?Well, it hasn't been exactly that way.
Do you remember that day you were here? How it rained--how dark itwas? Why, I've never seen you, really. I'm always trying to imagineyour face.
I've got to talk to you--some things can't be written. You won't stopme. Do you suppose you can? You've got to give me a chance totalk--that's only square. No, I don't mean all that. I don't quiteknow what I'm saying. I mean, you will let me come, won't you? I'llgo away again after; you needn't be afraid. That's fair, isn't it?
You see, it's been strange from the start, and so quick. You, in themiddle of the storm that day--the things you said--the fearful tangleyou were in. And then the letters--the wonderful letters! And wethought we were keeping it all impersonal. You, with your blazingindividuality--you, impersonal! I can't imagine your face, but you'vestripped the masks and conventions off your soul for me--I've looked atthat. I couldn't help it, could I? I couldn't stop. I can't now. Ican't look at anything else. There isn't anything else--it fills myworld--it's blotted out what used to be reality.
You're hundreds of miles away--what are you doing? Sitting, with yourwhite dress a rosy blur in the lamplight, reading, thinking,afraid--frightened at the doctors--shrinking at the thought of thatdamned, pawing beast? We'll drop that last--this isn't the time forthat--not yet. Miles away you are--and yet you're here--the real youthat you've sent me in the letters. Always you are here. I listen toyour voice--I've got that--your voice, singing through my days--here inthe silence and the firelight, outside in the night under the stars,always, everywhere, I hear you--calling me.
You see, my head's gone. Don't think though, that I don't know therisk this is. But there isn't any other way. Those four weeks youdidn't write, when I thought you had gone under--that was when I beganto see how it was with me. Since then I've gone on, living on yourletters, until now I can't imagine living without them--and more. Andyet I know this may be the end. That's the risk. But I can't go onlike that any more. It's everything now, or nothing. I want to knowwhat you are going to do about it. What are you thinking--what mustyou think--what will you say to me when I see you in your still gardenof miracles? I've got to know. If you meant it--you said I was thecentre of your world--it can't be true that you meant that. I thecentre of your great, clean, wind-swept world of hill-tops and ofvisions? I, who haven't got the decent strength to hold my tongue, andkeep my hands. But you did say that--you did! When I come, will yousay it to me again, out loud, that? I can't imagine it--such a thingcouldn't happen to me. But if you shouldn't--if you should tell me notto come--no, I can't face that. Where is the solution? I seeperfectly that you can't care--why should you?--I see also that youmust be made to. That's just it. I know what I must have and that Ican never have it. No, that isn't so. I know that I shall come andtake you away from what you fear and hate, out of the world we bothknow is not real, into reality. I shall tell you why I want you, whyyou must come. You will listen and you will answer. You will say whyit's madness and insanity. I shall have to hear all your obviousreasons, but I shall know that you know they are lies--Do you think--doyou dream, that they can stand between me and you? You can't stop me.Because I have seen your soul--you said so--you've held it out, in yourtwo hands, for me to look at. You can't keep me away from you. I knowhow you'll fight against it. You won't win--don't count on it.
This isn't insolence--it's the thing that's got me. I can't help it.A man is that way. I don't half know what I've said; I don't dare readit. You have got to make it out yourself, somehow.
You've asked me questions. You're troubled, frightened--I know,it's--hell. Do you think I can sit here any longer and let you gothrough that alone? I've been over the whole thing--I've done nothingelse, and out of the maze of it all I'm forced to come to this. It'sthe old way and the only one--the answer to it all. What can you dowith your life--your life that is going to be, that is now, allglorious with loveliness and light? Give it away--that's it--give itto me, and then we two will set it to music and send it singing throughthe world. The old way. You to come home to when the day isdone--your face, your hands, your eyes----
You'll have to overlook this. It's mad to go on. It's mad anyway. Ifyou knew how I've lied to myself, how I've struggled and fought andtwisted to keep this back from you! And here it is, confused andgrotesque and contradictory and wrong. If I could look at you and sayit, I could get it right. If I could look at you--if I could see you.Give me a chance. Then I'll go away again--if you say so. I had togive you warning--it didn't seem square not. And I've bungled it likethis! I tell you I can't help it. It's what you've done to me. Itried to spare you this, but I waited too long--now it's almighty.
Give me my man's chance--Oh I know I'm not worth it--who is?Afterwards--
G. McB.
_October 10th_.
Telegram received by the Reverend Geoffrey McBirney, St. Andrews ParishHouse, Warchester:
You must not come. Leaving Forest Gate. Sailing for Germany Saturday.Letter.
AUGUST FIRST.
The son of the under-gardener was a steady ten-year-old three hundredand sixty-four days of the year, and his Scottish blood commended himto Robert Halarkenden and inspired a confidence not justified on thethree hundred and sixty-fifth day.
"Angus," said Halarkenden, regarding
the boy with a blue glance like ablow, "the young mistress wishes this letter posted to catch the noontrain. The master has sent for me and I canna take it. You will"--thebony hand fished in the deep pocket and brought out a nickel--"you willhurry with this letter and post it immediately." "Yes, sir," saidAngus, and Robert Halarkenden turned to go to the master of the greathouse, ill in his great room, with no doubt about the United Statesmails. While Angus,
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