"Thank you. But, are you fairy or automaton?"
"Do not laugh," she exclaimed with sudden pa.s.sion. "You know I would say that I have no part in the world of men and women. Not through me shall the ancient dread seize a new life. A little time, now, then the doors will close upon me as the sea closed over Franchina. I will not take with me the memory of a wrong done to you. I shall never come to this house after tonight. If you would give me a happiness, promise me you will leave, too."
I had known we should come to this point. After a moment, I spoke as quietly as I could:
"Tell me your name."
She had not expected that question. I think she might have withheld the answer, given time to reflect. But as it was, she replied docilely as a bidden child:
"Desire Mich.e.l.l."
The name fell quaintly on both hearing and fancy, with a rustle of early New England tradition. Desire! I repeated it inwardly with satisfaction before I answered her.
"Thank you. Now, I, Roger Locke, do promise you, Desire Mich.e.l.l, that I will not leave this house until these matters are plainer to my understanding, whether you go or stay. But if you go and come no more, then I surely shall stay until I find a way to trace you or until the Thing kills me."
"No!"
"Yes."
There was a pause. Then, to my utter dismay, I heard her sobbing through the dark.
"Why do you tempt me?" she reproached. "Is it not hard enough, my duty?
For me it is such pleasure to be here--to leave for a while the loneliness and chill of my narrow place! But you, so rich in all things, free and happy--how should it matter to you if a voice in the dark speaks or is silent? Let me go."
Wonder and exulting sense of power filled me.
"I can keep you, then?" I asked.
"I am--so weak."
"Desire Mich.e.l.l, I am as alone as you can be, in my real life. I have gone apart from much that occupies men and women; gaining and losing in different ways. One of the gains is freedom to dispose of myself without grief or loss to anyone, except the perfunctory regret of friends. Will you believe there is no risk that I would not take for a few hours with you? Even with your voice in the dark? Come to me as you can, let us take what time we may, and the chances be mine."
"But that is folly! You do not know. To protect you I must go."
"I refuse the protection. Stay! If there is sorrow in knowing you, I accept it. I understand nothing. I only beg you not to turn me back to the commonplace emptiness of life before I found you. Indeed, I will not be sent away."
"If I yield, you will reproach me some day."
"Never."
"It could only be like this--that we should speak a few times before the gates close upon me."
"What gates?"
"I cannot tell you."
"Very well," I took what the moment would grant me. "That is a bargain.
Yet, what safety lies in secrecy between us? If we are to help each other, as I hope, would not plain openness be best? You will tell me no more about yourself? Very well. Tell me something more about the enemy in the dark whom I am to meet. You have hinted that It has a special motive for fixing hate upon me beyond mere malignance toward mankind.
What is that motive?"
"Ask me not," she faintly refused me.
"I do ask you. My ignorance of everything concerned is a heavy drawback in this combat. Arm me with a little understanding. What moves It against me?"
The pause following was filled with a sense of difficulty and recoil, her struggle against some terrible reluctance. So painful was that effort, somehow clearly communicated to me, that I was about to devour my curiosity and withdraw the question when her whisper just reached my hearing:
"Jealousy!"
"Jealousy? Of what? For whom?"
"For--me."
The monstrous implication sank slowly into my understanding; then brought me erect, gripping the edge of the table lest I forget restraint and move toward her.
"By what right?" I cried. "By what claim? Desire Mich.e.l.l, what has the Horror to do with you?"
The vehemence and heat of my cry struck a shock through the hushed room distinct as the shattering of crystal. There was no answer, no movement; no rebuke of my movement. I was alone. With that confession she had fled.
My cry had been louder than I knew. Presently I heard a door open. Steps sounded along the hall from the rooms on the opposite side of the house.
Someone knocked hesitatingly.
"Are you all right, Mr. Locke?" Vere"s voice came through the panels.
I crossed to the door and opened it. He stood at the threshold, an electric torch in his hand.
"We thought you called," he apologized. "I thought maybe you were sick, or wanted something; and no light showed around your door."
I found the wall switch and turned on the lamps. As on the last occasion, she had switched the lights off there, beyond my reach unless I broke my promise not to move about the room while she remained my guest.
"Come in," I invited him. "Much obliged to you and Phillida for looking me up! I had been working late and dropped asleep in my chair, with a nightmare as the result."
It was pleasant to have his normal presence, prosaic in bathrobe and pajamas, in my cheerfully lighted room. His dark eyes glanced toward the music-scrawled papers scattered about, then returned to meet my eyes smilingly.
"We heard some of that work," he admitted. "Phil and I--well, I guess we were guilty of sitting on the stairs to hear you play it over. I never listened to a tune that took hold of me, kind of, like that one. We"d certainly prize hearing all of it together, sometime, if you didn"t mind."
The warmth of achievement flowed again in me. I crossed to the piano to a.s.semble the finished sheets, answering him with one of those expressions of thanks artists use to cloak modestly their sleek inward vanity. I was really grateful for this first criticism that soothed me back to the reality of my own world.
Across the top of the uppermost sheet of music, in small, square script quaint as the pomander, was written a quotation strange to me:
"We walk upon the shadows of hills across a level thrown, and pant like climbers."
I did not know that I had read the words aloud until Vere answered them.
"So we do! I guess there is more panting over shadows and less real mountain-climbing done by us humans than most folks would believe. Most roads turn off to easy ways before we reach the hills we make such a fuss about. Who wrote that, Mr. Locke?"
"I don"t know," I replied vaguely, intent upon Desire Mich.e.l.l"s meaning in leaving this to me.
He nodded, and turned leisurely to go.