"For long?"
"We don"t know, sir. He has gone into Kent, on research business, I believe."
Agnes had been for a long time in the professor"s service, and was greatly trusted. The professor had come upon her originally when making investigations into "second sight," a faculty which she claimed to possess. By the way she was also an efficient parlor-maid.
"Kent!" said Malling. "Do you know where he is staying?"
"The address he left is the Tankerton Hotel, Tankerton, near Whitstable-on-Sea, sir."
"Thank you, Agnes," said Malling.
"It is a haunted house somewhere Birchington way the professor is after, I believe, sir."
"Luck favors me!" said Malling to himself, unscientifically, as he walked away from the house.
On the following day it was in a singularly expectant and almost joyously alert frame of mind that he bought a first-cla.s.s ticket for Whitstable-on-Sea, which is the station for Tankerton.
He would involve Stepton in this affair. There was a mystery in it.
Malling was now convinced of that. And his original supposition did not satisfy him. But perhaps Mr. Harding meant to help him. Perhaps Mr.
Harding intended to be explicit. The difficulty there was that he also was walking in darkness, as Malling believed. His telegram had come like a cry out of this darkness.
"Faversham! Faversham!" the fair Kentish porters were calling. Only about twenty minutes now! Would the rector be at the station?
He was. As the train ran in alongside the wooden platform, Mailing caught sight of the towering authoritative figure. Was it his fancy which made him think that it looked slightly bowed, even perhaps a little shrunken?
"Good of you to come!" said the rector in a would-be hearty voice, but also with a genuine accent of pleasure. "All the afternoon I have been afraid of a telegram."
"Why?" asked Malling, as they shook hands.
"Oh, when one is anxious for a thing, one does not always get it. Ha, ha!"
He broke into a covering laugh.
"Here is a porter. You"ve only got this bag. Capital! I have a fly waiting. We go down these steps."
As they descended, Malling remarked:
"By the way, we have a friend staying here. Have you come across him?"
"No, I have seen n.o.body--that is, no acquaintance. Who is it?"
"Stepton."
"The professor down here!" exclaimed Mr. Harding, as if startled.
"At the hotel, I believe. He"s come down to make some investigation."
"I haven"t seen him."
They stepped into the fly, and drove through the long street of Whitstable toward the outlying houses of Tankerton, scattered over gra.s.sy downs above a quiet, brown sea.
"The air is splendid, certainly," observed Malling, drinking it in almost like a gourmet savoring a wonderful wine.
"It must do me good. Don"t you think so?"
The question sounded anxious to Malling"s ears.
"It ought to do every one good, I should think."
"Here is Minors."
The fly stopped before a delightfully gay little red doll"s house--so Malling thought of it--standing in a garden surrounded by a wooden fence, with the downs undulating about it. Not far off, but behind it, was the sea. And the rector, pointing to a red building in the distance, on the left and much nearer to the beach, said:
"That is the hotel where the professor must be staying, if he is here."
"I"ll go over presently and ask about him."
"Oh," said Mr. Harding. "Bring in the bag, please, Jennings. The room on the right, at the top of the stairs."
Malling had believed in London that Mr. Harding"s telegram to him was a cry out of darkness. That first evening in the cheerful doll"s house he knew his belief was well founded. When they sat at dinner, like two monsters, Malling thought, who had somehow managed to insert themselves into a doll"s dining-room, it was obvious that the rector was ill at ease. Again and again he seemed to be on the verge of some remark, perhaps of some outburst of speech, and to check himself only when the words were almost visibly trembling on his lips. In his eyes Malling saw plainly his longing for utterance, his hesitation; reserve and a desire to liberate his soul, the one fighting against the other. And at moments the whole man seemed to be wrapped in weakness like a garment, the soul and the body of him. Then, as a light may dwindle till it seems certain to go out, all that was Marcus Harding seemed to Malling to dwindle. The large body, the powerful head and face, meant little, almost nothing, because the spirit was surely fading. But these moments pa.s.sed.
Then it was as if the light flared suddenly up again.
When dinner was over, Mr. Harding asked Malling if he would like to take a stroll.
"The sea air will help us to sleep," he said.
"I should like nothing better," said Malling. "Haven"t you been sleeping well lately?"
"Very badly. We had better take our coats."
They put the coats on, and went out, making their way to the broad, gra.s.sy walk raised above the shingle of the beach. The tide was far down, and the oozing flats were uncovered. So still, so waveless was the brown water that at this hour it was impossible to perceive where it met the brown land. In the distance, on the right, shone the lights of Herne Bay, with its pier stretching far out into the shallows. Away to the left was the lonely island of Sheppey, a dull shadow beyond the harbor, where the oyster-boats lay at rest. There were very few people about: some fisher-lads solemnly or jocosely escorting their girls, who giggled faintly as they pa.s.sed Mr. Harding and Malling; two or three shopkeepers from Whitstable taking the air; a boatman or two vaguely hovering, with blue eyes turned from habit to the offing.
The two men paced slowly up and down. And again Malling was aware of words trembling upon the rector"s lips--words which he could not yet resolve frankly to utter. Whether it was the influence of the faintly sighing sea, of the almost sharply pure air, of the distant lights gleaming patiently, or whether an influence came out from the man beside him and moved him, Malling did not know; but he resolved to do a thing quite contrary to his usual practice. He resolved to try to force a thing on, instead of waiting till it came to him naturally. He became impatient, he who was generally a patient seeker.
"You remember our former conversations with regard to Henry Chichester?"
he said abruptly, changing the subject of their discourse.
"Chichester? Yes--yes. What of him?"
"I wish to tell you that I think you are right, that I think there is an extraordinary, even an amazing, change in Chichester."
"There is, indeed," said Mr. Harding. "And--and it will increase."
He spoke with a sort of despairing conviction.
"What makes you think so?"
"It must. It cannot be otherwise--unless--"