"He stretched out his hand and touched mine.
""Yes; it is indeed so," he murmured.
""And you," I said in my turn, "are no spirit. Yet, I, too, believed you to be a wraith of myself, interrupting my sins with your sorrow, interrupting my desires with your prayers. I have seen you. I have imagined you. And now I find you live. What does it mean? For we are as one and yet not as one."
""We are as two halves of a strangely-mingled whole," he answered. "Do you know what you have done to me?"
""No, father."
""Listen," he said. "When a boy I dedicated myself to G.o.d. Early, early I dedicated myself, so that I might never know sin. For I had heard that the charm of sin is so great and so terrible that, once it is known, once it is felt, it can never be forgotten. And so it can make the holiest life hideous with its memories. It can intrude into the very sanctuary like a ghost, and murmur its music with the midnight ma.s.s.
Even at the elevation of the Host will it be present, and stir the heart of the officiator to longing so keen that it is like the Agony of the Garden, the Agony of Christ. There are monks here who weep because they dare not sin, who rage secretly like beasts--because they will not sin."
"He paused. The grey light grew over the mountains.
""Knowing this, I resolved that I would never know sin, lest I, too, should suffer so horribly. I threw myself at once into the arms of G.o.d.
Yet I have suffered--how I have suffered!"
"His face was contorted, and his lips worked. I stood as if under a spell, my eyes upon his face. I had only the desire to hear him. He went on, speaking now in a voice roughened by emotion:
""For I became like these monks. You"--and he pointed at me with outstretched fingers--"you, my wraith, made in my very likeness, were surely born when I was born, to torment me. For, while I have prayed, I have been conscious of your neglect of prayer as if it were my own. When I have believed, I have been conscious of your unbelief as if it were my own. Whatever I have feebly tried to do for G.o.d, has been marred and defaced by all that you have left undone. I have wrestled with you; I have tried to hold you back; I have tried to lead you with me where I want to go, where I must go. All these years I have tried, all these years I have striven. But it has seemed as if G.o.d did not choose it.
When you have been sinning, I have been agonising. I have lain upon the floor of my cell in the night, and I have torn at my evil heart.
For--sometimes--I have longed--how I have longed!--to sin your sin."
"He crossed himself. Sudden tears sprang into his eyes.
""I have called you my demon," he cried. "But you are my cross. Oh, brother, will you not be my crown?"
"His eyes, shadowed with tears, gazed down into mine. Bernard, in that moment, I understood all--my depression, my unreasoning despair, the fancied hatred of others, even my few good impulses, all came from him, from this living holy wraith of my evil self.
""Will you not be my crown?" he said.
"Bernard, there, in the snow, I fell at his feet. I confessed to him. I received his absolution.
"And, as the light of the dawn grew strong upon the mountains, he, my other self, my wraith, blessed me."
There was a long silence between us. Then I said:--
"And now?"
"And now you know why I have changed. That day, as I went down into the land of the sunshine, I made a vow."
"A vow?"
"Yes; to be his crown, not his cross. I soon returned to England. At first I was happy, and then one day my old evil nature came upon me like a giant. I fell again into sin, and, even as I sinned, I saw his face looking into mine, Bernard, pale, pale to the lips, and with eyes--such sad eyes of reproach! Then I thought I was not fit to live, and I tried to kill myself. They saved me, and brought me here."
"Yes; and now, Hubert?"
"Now," he said, "I am so happy. G.o.d surely placed me here where I cannot sin. The days pa.s.s and the nights, and they are stainless. And he--he comes by night and blesses me. I live for him now, and see always the grey walls of his monastery, his face which shall, at last, be completely mine."
"Good-bye," the doctor said to me as I got into the carriage to drive back to the station. "Yes, he is perfectly happy, happier in his mania, I believe, than you or I in our sanity."
I drove away from that huge home of madness, set in the midst of lovely gardens in a smiling landscape, and I pondered those last words of the doctor"s:--
"You and I--in our sanity."
And, thinking of the peace that lay on Hubert"s face, I compared the so-called mad of the world with the so-called sane--and wondered.
THE MAN WHO INTERVENED
I
The atmosphere of the room in which Sergius Blake was sitting seemed to him strange and cold. As he looked round it, he could imagine that a light mist invaded it stealthily, like miasma rising from some sinister marsh. There was surely a cloud about the electric light that gleamed in the ceiling, a cloud sweeping in feathery, white flakes across the faces of the pictures upon the wall. Even the familiar furniture seemed to loom out faintly, with a gaunt and grotesque aspect, from shadows less real, yet more fearful, than any living form could be.
Sergius stared round him slowly, pressing his strong lips together. When he concentrated his gaze upon any one thing--a table, a sofa, a chair--the cloud faded, and the object stood out clearly before his eyes. Yet always the rest of the room seemed to lie in mist and in shadows. He knew that this dim atmosphere did not really exist, that it was projected by his mind. Yet it troubled him, and added a dull horror to his thoughts, which moved again and again, in persistent promenade, round one idea.
The hour was seven o"clock of an autumn night. Darkness lay over London, and rain made a furtive music on roofs and pavements. Sergius Blake listened to the drops upon the panes of his windows. They seemed to beckon him forth, to tell him that it was time to exchange thought for action. He had come to a definite and tremendous resolution. He must now carry it out.
He got up slowly from his chair, and with the movement the mist seemed to gather itself together in the room and to disappear. It pa.s.sed away, evaporating among the pictures and ornaments, the prayer-rugs and divans. A clearness and an insight came to Sergius. He stood still by the piano, on which he rested one hand lightly, and listened. The rain-drops pattered close by. Beyond them rose the dull music of the evening traffic of New Bond Street, in which thoroughfare he lived. As he stood thus at attention, his young and handsome face seemed carved in stone. His lips were set in a hard and straight line. His dark-grey eyes stared, like eyes in a photograph. The muscles of his long-fingered hands were tense and knotted. He was in evening dress, and had been engaged to dine in Curzon Street; but he had written a hasty note to say he was ill and could not come. Another appointment claimed him. He had made it for himself.
Presently, lifting his hand from the piano, he took up a small leather case from a table that stood near, opened it, and drew out a revolver.
He examined it carefully. Two chambers were loaded. They would be enough. He put on his long overcoat, and slipped the revolver into his left breast pocket. His heart could beat against it there.
Each time his heart pulsed, Sergius seemed to hear the silence of another heart.
And now, though his mind was quite clear, and the mists and shadows had slunk away, his familiar room looked very peculiar to him. The very chair in which he generally sat wore the aspect of a stranger. Was the wall paper really blue? Sergius went close up to it and examined it narrowly, and then he drew back and laughed softly, like a child. In the sound of his laugh irresponsibility chimed. "What is the cab fare to Phillimore Place, Kensington?" he thought, searching in his waistcoat pocket. "Half a crown?" He put the coin carefully in the ticket pocket of his overcoat, b.u.t.toned the coat up slowly, took his hat and stick, and drew on a pair of lavender gloves. Just then a new thought seemed to strike him and he glanced down at his hands.
"Lavender gloves for such a deed!" he murmured. For a moment he paused irresolute, even partially unb.u.t.toned them. But then he smiled and shook his head. In some way the gloves would not be wholly inappropriate.
Sergius cast one final glance round the room.
"When I stand here again," he said aloud, "I shall be a criminal--a criminal!"
He repeated the last word, as if trying thoroughly to realise its meaning.
Then he opened the door swiftly and went out on to the staircase.
Just as he was putting a hasty foot upon the first stair, a man out in the street touched his electric bell. Its thin tingling cry made Sergius start and hesitate. In the semi-twilight he waited, his hands deep in his pockets, his silk hat tilted slightly over his eyes. The porter tramped along the pa.s.sage below. The hall door opened, and a deep and strong voice asked, rather anxiously and breathlessly:--
"Is Mr. Blake at home?"
"I rather think he"s gone out, sir."