"A great reserve has grown up between us. I could never try to break through it."
"You say a great reserve. But does he never criticize you in words? Does he never express an adverse opinion upon what you say or do?"
"Scarcely ever--after it is said or done. But sometimes--"
"Yes?"
"Sometimes--often I think--he tries to prevent me from saying or doing something. Often he checks me with a look when I am in the midst of some speech. It is intolerable. Why do I bear it? But I have to bear it.
Sometimes I exert myself against him. Why, that first day I met you--you must have noticed it--he tried to prevent me from walking home with you."
"I did notice it."
"Then I resisted him, and he had to yield. But even when he yields in some slight matter it makes no difference in our relations. He is always there, at the window, watching me."
"What do you say?"
Malling"s exclamation was sharp.
"That sermon of his!" said the rector. "That fearful sermon! Ever since I heard it I have felt as if I were the double within that house, as if Chichester were the man regarding my life in hiding. Why you--you yourself put my feeling into words! You suggested to Chichester and my wife that if the man had stayed, had spied upon him who was within the room, the hypocrite--"
He broke off. He got up from his seat.
"Let us walk," he said. "I cannot sit here. The air--the lights--let us--"
Almost as if blindly he went forth from the shelter, followed by Malling.
"It"s better here," he said. "Better here! Mr. Malling, forgive me, but just then a hideous knowledge seemed really to catch me by the throat. Chichester is turning my wife against me. There is a terrible change in her. She is beginning to observe me through Chichester"s eyes.
Till quite recently she worshiped me. She noticed the alteration in me, of course,--every one did,--but she hated Chichester for his att.i.tude toward me. Till quite lately she hated him. Now she no longer hates him; for she begins to think he is right. At first I think she believed the excuse I put forward for my strange transformation."
"Do you mean your nervous affection?"
"Yes."
"Just tell me, have you any trouble of that kind, or did you merely invent it as an excuse for any failure you made from time to time?"
"I used it insincerely as an excuse. But I really do suffer from time to time physically. But physical suffering is nothing. Why should we waste a thought on such nonsense?"
"In such a strange case as this I believe everything should be taken carefully into consideration," observed Malling in his most prosaic voice.
The rector"s attention seemed to be suddenly fixed and powerfully concentrated. The feverish excitement he had been displaying gave place to a calmer, more natural mood.
"Tell me," he said, "do you think your knowledge can help me? I am aware that you have made many strange investigations. Is there anything to be done for me, anything that will restore me to my former powers? Will you credit me when I declare to you that it was only by making a terrible effort that I was able to get away from Chichester"s companionship and to come down here? If I had not said that I meant to do so while you were in the room, I doubt if I should ever have had the courage. There is something inexplicable that seems to bind me to Chichester. Sometimes there have been moments when I have thought that he longed to be far away from me. And it has seemed to me that he, too, would find escape difficult, if not impossible."
"You wish very much that Chichester should resign his curacy and go entirely out of your life?" asked Malling.
"Wish!" cried Mr. Harding, almost fiercely. "Oh, the unutterable relief to me if he were to go! Even down here, away from him for a day or two, I sometimes feel released. And yet--" he paused in his walk--"I shall have to go back--I know it--sooner than I meant to, very soon."
He spoke with profound conviction.
"Chichester will mean me to go back, and I shall not be able to stay."
"And yet you say it has occurred to you that possibly Chichester may be as anxious as yourself to break away from the strange condition of things you have described to me."
"Have you," exclaimed Mr. Harding--"have you some reason to believe Chichester has ever contemplated departure?"
Malling moved slowly on, and the rector was forced to accompany him.
"It has occurred to me," he said, evading the point, "that possibly Henry Chichester might be induced to go out of your life."
"Never by me! I should never have the strength to attempt compulsion with Chichester."
"Some one else might tackle him."
"Who?" cried out Mr. Harding.
"Some man with authority."
"Do you mean ecclesiastical authority?"
"Oh, dear, no! I was thinking of a man like, say, Professor Stepton."
As Malling spoke, a curious figure seemed almost to dawn upon them, sidewise, becoming visible gently in the darkness; a short man, with hanging arms, a head poked forward, as if in sharp inquiry, and rather shambling legs, round which hung loosely a pair of very baggy, light trousers.
"And here is the professor!" said Malling, stopping short.
IX
That night when, very late, Mr. Harding and Malling returned to the red doll"s house and let themselves into it with a latch-key, they found lying upon the table in the little hall a brown envelop.
"A telegram!" said the rector.
He took it into his hand and read the name on the envelop.
"It"s for me. Malling, do you know whom this telegram is from?"
"How can I, or you, for that matter?"
"It is from Henry Chichester, and it is to recall me to London."
"It may be so."
"It is so. Open it for me."
Malling took the telegram from him and tore it open, while he sat heavily down by the table.