No sound penetrated to the silent waiting-room.
The two men there spoke little. They had talked what they had to say.
Sam O"Neill looked at his watch; it was twenty-five minutes to six. And, a moment later, Director Pond came up the steps, entered and said:
"Bloom will be here at six o"clock."
They spoke briefly of this. The friends of the neighborhood were to be admitted; it was agreed that this should be arranged for to-morrow morning. Pond then said:
"Is Miss Heth in there?"
Mr. Dayne said that she was. And Sam O"Neill, who had not known who the visitor was, first looked startled and then lapsed off into heavy musings....
The Director sat down on a chair by the door. His strong face looked tired.
"Won"t you, a little later," he said to Mr. Dayne, "go down and say a few words to the people outside? They"d appreciate it."
The parson, biting his crisp mustache, said that he would.
Pond sat absently eyeing the pile of men"s clothes beside him; and after a time he asked what they were there for. Mr. Dayne seemed less and less disposed for conversation. So it was Sam who told, in a somewhat halting fashion, of the coming of the crows....
Pond, whom no one could have taken for a sentimentalist, made no comment whatever. Presently he felt Mr. Dayne"s eye upon him.
"Well, would it work out, do you think?"
The Director shook his head slightly, disclaiming authority. But after a time he said:
"Not as long as men"ll try it only once every two thousand years."
The parson"s eyes dreamed off.
"He believed in miracles. And so they were always happening to him....
Oh, it"s all so simple when you stop to think."
Then there was silence and the creeping twilight. Sam O"Neill stood picking at a splotch on the ancient plaster, with strong, yellow-gloved hands. Mr. Dayne walked about, his arms crossed behind him. Upon Pond there came a sort of restlessness.
He said abruptly: "How long" has Miss Heth been here?"
"Oh--a--little while," said the parson, rousing.... "Long enough, no doubt."
The dark-eyed Director was standing. The two men exchanged a look; they seemed to feel each other. Here was a matter with which the Labor Commissioner had nothing to do.
"Well, then," said Pond, with a little intake of breath, "I"ll go in."
The Director shut the door into the hall, took his hat from the chair.
He crossed the bare waiting-room, and turned the k.n.o.b of the frequented door into the office.
This door he opened, gently, just far enough to let himself in; he closed it at once behind him. Nevertheless, by the chance of their position, the other two saw, through the darkness of the room beyond, what was not meant for their eyes.
A simple scene, in all truth; none commoner in the world; it really did not matter who saw. Yet the two men in the waiting-room, beholding, turned away, and Sam O"Neill bit a groan through in the middle.
He had never understood his friend, but he had loved him in his way. Old memories twitched; his poise wavered. He lacked the parson"s inner supports. He paced about for some time, making little noises in his throat. And then he tried his voice on a question.
"Did you ever hear him speak of John the Baptist?"
Mr. Dayne halted, and looked.
And Sam O"Neill, with some difficulty and in his own way, told of V.V."s creed about the Huns. Of how he had maintained that they needed awakening, nothing else, and were always ready and waiting for it, no matter how little they themselves knew that. And, finally, how he had said one day--in a phrase that had been brought flashing back over the months--that if a man but called to such as these in the right voice, he could not hide himself where they would not come to him on their knees....
Mr. Dayne had stood listening with a half-mystical look, a man groping for elusive truths. Now his fine composure seemed to cloud for a moment; but it shone out again, fair and strong. And presently, as he paced, he was heard humming again his strange paradoxical song, which he, a parson, seemed to lean upon, as a wounded man leans on his friend.
Her spirit returned to her body from the far countries, not without some pain of juncture. But there was no strangeness now in being in this room; none in finding Mr. Pond at her side, his saddened gaze upon her.
Happen what might, nothing any more would ever seem strange....
"Won"t you come with me now?"
She stood, whispering: "Come with you?"
And Pond"s strong heart turned a little when he saw her eyes, so circled, so dark with tears that were to come.
"Your cousins are waiting, aren"t they?... And don"t you think your father might need you?"
A little spasm distorted the lovely face, unveiled now.
She inclined her head. Pond walked away toward the door; stood there silently, drawing a finger over faded panels. Behind him was the absence of all sound: the wordlessness of partings that were final for this world....
She had seen in his great dignity the man who had given to the House of Heth the last full measure of his confidence. And it was as his little friend had said. He was beautiful with the best of all his looks; the look he had worn yesterday in the library, as he went to meet her poor father.
They had slain him, and yet he trusted.
No design of hers had led her alone beside this resting-place: that was chance, or it was G.o.d. But now it seemed that otherwise it would henceforward not have been bearable. For with this first near touch of death, there had come, strangely hand in hand, her first vision of the Internal. The look of this spirit was not toward time, and over the body of this death there had descended the robe of a more abundant Life.
So she turned quickly and came away....
She was outside now. The door was shut behind. And she was walking with Mr. Pond down the corridor, which was so long, echoing so emptily. She became aware that her knees were trembling. And Corinne"s fear now was hers.
She desired to be at once where no one could see her. But at the head of the grand stairway, in the desolating loneliness, Mr. Pond stopped walking. And then he held a hand of hers between two of his; pressed it hard, released it.
He was speaking in a voice that seemed vaguely unlike his own.
"It"s hard for you--for your father--for all of us down here. His life was needed ... wonderfully, for such a boy. And yet.... How could a man wish it better with himself? He wouldn"t, that I"m sure of.... Gave away his life every day, and at the end flung it all out at once, to save a factory negro. Don"t you know that if he"d lived a thousand years, he could never have put one touch to that?"
Cally said unsteadily: "I know that"s true...."
She wished to go on; but the Director was speaking again, hurriedly:
"And you mustn"t think that a blow on the head can bring it all to an end. If I know anything, his story will be often told. People that you and I will never know, will know of this, and it will help them--when their pinch comes. There"s no measuring the value of a great example.
When it strikes, you can feel the whole line lift...."