Chapter III: The Soul of Kate Walters

It is more than two years since I wrote down any incident of my life. Two years ago I seemed to myself a stranger. To-day an intimacy has sprung up between myself and that observant, detached something within me--that little extra spirit which looks on at me, and yet is, somehow, me. I am at home with my own power. I am accustomed to my strength of personality. From my fever I rose like some giant. Long ago my world recognised the obedience it owed me. Long ago, by many signs, in many ways, it taught me the paramount quality of the emanation from my soul that is called my influence. Yet sometimes, even now, I seem to stare at myself aghast, to turn cold when I am alone with myself. I am seized with terrible fancies. I think of the voice of the burn. I think of that childish Autumn ceremony upon its bank among the mists and the flying leaves. I think of the grey youth who spoke with me in the twilight, and my soul is full of questions. I muse upon the Wandering Jew, upon Faust, upon Van Der Decken, upon the monstrous figures that are legends, yet sometimes realities to men. And then--and this is ghastly--I say to myself, can it be that I, too, shall become a legend? Can it be that my name will be whispered by the pale lips of good men long after I am dead? For, is there not a whirl of white faces attending my progress as the whirl of dead leaves attends the Autumn? Do I not hear a faint symphony of despairing cries like a dreadful music about my life? Is not my power upon men malign? Boys with their hopes shattered, men with their faiths broken, women with their love turned to gall--do they not crowd about my chariot wheels? Or is it my vain fancy that they do? Here and there from the sea of these beings one rises like a drowned creature whom the ocean will not hide, stark, stiff, corpse-like. Doctor Wedderburn was the first. Kate Walters is the second--Kate Walters.

* * * * *

When my convalescence was well advanced she left Carlounie and went back to Edinburgh. Some months afterwards I heard casually that she was working in an hospital there. But a year and a half went by before I saw this girl again. Her fresh, pure, ministering face had nearly faded from my memory. Yet, she had attended intimately upon my marvellous transformation from my death of weakness to the life of strength. She had lifted me in her girl's arms when I was nothing. Yes, I had been in her arms then. How strange, how close are the commonest relations between the invalid and his nurse! When I chanced to meet Kate again I had no thought of this. I had forgotten. I came to Edinburgh on some business connected with a mine discovered on my estate, which seemed likely to make a great fortune for me, and is already on the way to accomplishing this first duty of a mine. My business done, I stayed on at my hotel in Princes Street amusing myself, for I had a multitude of friends in Edinburgh. One of these friends was a medical student attached to the hospital there, and he chanced to invite me to go with him through the wards one day. In one of the wards I encountered Kate Walters, fresh, clear, calm as in the old Carlounie days of my illness. She did not know me till I recalled myself to her recollection; then she looked into my face with the frankest astonishment. My superb physique amazed her, although she had attended upon its beginnings. I asked after her life in the interval since our last meeting; and she told me, with a delightful blush, that her period of nursing was nearly concluded, as she was engaged to be married to one Hugh Fraser, a handsome, rich, and--strange thing this!--most steadfast youth, who lived in England in the south, and who loved her tenderly. I congratulated her, and was on the point of moving away down the ward with my friend when my eyes were caught again by Kate's blushing cheeks and eyes alight with the fiery shames and joys of love. How beautiful is the human face when the torches of the heart are kindled thus. How beautiful! I paused, and, before I went, invited Kate to tea one afternoon at my hotel. She accepted the invitation. Why not? In our meeting the old chain of sympathy between patient and nurse seemed forged anew. We felt that we were indeed friends. As we left the ward, my student chum chaffed me--I let his words go by heedlessly. I was not in love with Kate, but I was half in love with her love for Hugh Fraser. It had such pretty features. She came to tea and told me all about him; and when she talked of him she was so fascinating that I was loath to let her go. It was a sweet evening, and, as Kate had not to be back at the hospital early, I suggested that we should go for a stroll on Carlton Hill, and talk a little more about Hugh Fraser. The bribe tempted her. I saw that. And she agreed after a moment's hesitation.

There is certainly an influence that lives only out of doors and can never enter a house, or exercise itself within four walls. There is a wandering spirit in the air of evening, a soul that walks with gathering shadows, speaks in the distant hum of a city, and gazes through its twinkling lights. _There is a grey traveller who journeys in the twilight._ (What am I saying? To-day, as I write, I am full of fancies.) I felt that, so soon as Kate and I were away from the hotel, out under the sky and amid the mysteries of Edinburgh, we were changed. In a flash our intimacy advanced, the sympathy already existing between us deepened. Leaving the streets, we mounted the flight of steps that leads to the hill, and joined the few couples who were walking, almost like gods on some Olympus, above the world. They were all obviously lovers. I pointed this fact out to Kate, saying, "Hugh Fraser should be here, not I."

She smiled, but scarcely, I thought, with much regret. For the moment it seemed that a confidant satisfied her; and this pleased me. I drew her arm within mine.

"We must not alarm the lovers," I said. "We must appear to be as they are, or we shall carry a fiery sword into their Eden."

"You seem to understand us very well," she answered with a smile. And she left her arm in mine.

The mention of "us" chilled me. It seemed to set me outside a magic circle within which she, Hugh Fraser, these people sauntering near us, like amorous ghosts in the dimness, moved. I pressed her arm ever so gently.

"Tell me how lovers feel at such a time as this," I whispered, looking into her eyes.

* * * * *

From Carlton Hill at night one sees a heaving ocean of yellow lights, gleaming like phosphorescence on ebon waves. Towards Arthur's Seat, towards the Castle, they rise; by Holyrood, by the old town, they fall. That night I could fancy that this sea of light spoke to me, murmured in my ear, urging me to prosecute my will, ruthlessly stirring a strange and, perhaps, evanescent romance in my heart. I know that when I parted from Kate that night I bent and kissed her. I know that she looked up at me startled, even terrified, yet found no voice to rebuke me. I know that I did not leave Edinburgh, as I had originally intended, upon the morrow. And I know this best of all--that I had no ill-intent in staying. I was caught in a net of impulse despite my own desire. I was held fast. There are--I believe it unalterably now--influences in life that are the very Tsars of the empires of men's souls. They must be obeyed. Possibly--is it so I wonder?--they only mount upon their thrones when they are urgently invoked by men who, as it were, say, "Come and rule over us!" But once that invocation has been made, once it has been responded to, there is never again free will for him who has rashly called upon the power he does not understand, and bowed before the tyrant whose face he has not seen. I tremble now, as I write; I tremble as does the bond slave. Yet I neither speak with, nor hear, nor have sight of, my master. Unless, indeed--but I will not give way to any madness of the brain. No, no; I do not hear, I do not see, although I am conscious of, my Tsar, whose unemancipated serf I am.

I need not tell all the story of my soul's impression that was stamped upon the soul of Kate Walters. Perhaps it is old. Certainly it is sad. I stamped deceit upon the nature which had not known it, knowledge of evil where only purity had been, satiety upon temperance. And, worst of all, I expelled from this girl's heart love for a good man who loved her, and planted, in its stead, passion for a--must I say a bad, or may I not cry, a driven man? And all this time Hugh Fraser knew nothing of his sorrow, growing up swiftly to meet him like a giant. Even now, while I write these words, he knows nothing of it. As I had carelessly taken possession of the mind, the very nature of Dr Wedderburn, so now I took possession of the very nature of Kate Walters. My immense strength, my abounding physical glory drew her--who had known me a puny invalid--irresistibly. I won the doctor by my mind; this girl, in the main, I think, by my body. And when at length I tired of her slightly, the woman, the gentle woman, sprang up a tigress. I had said one night that, since I was obliged to go to London, we must part for a while. I had added that it was well Hugh Fraser lived in complete ignorance of his betrayal.

"Why?" Kate suddenly cried out.

"Because--because it is best so. He and you--some day."

I paused. She understood my meaning. Instantly the tigress had sprung upon me. The scene that followed was eloquent. I learned what lives and moves in the very depths of a nature, stirred by the inexhaustible greed of passion, twisted by passion's fulfilment, the ardent touched by the inert. But upon that hurricane has followed an immense and very strange calm. Kate is almost cold to me, though very sweet. She has acquiesced in my departure for town. She has come to one mind with me on the subject of Hugh Fraser. More, she has even written a letter to him asking him to come to her, pressing forward their marriage, and I am to be the bearer of it to him. This is only a woman's whim. She insists that I must see once the man who is to be her husband.

So, after all, the tragedy of Dr Wedderburn is not to be repeated. I--I shall not hear, stealing along the steep and windy streets of Edinburgh, any--any strange footsteps.

* * * * *

What is the awful fate that pursues me? A year ago I left Edinburgh carrying with me the letter which I understood to contain the request of Kate Walters to her lover, Hugh Fraser, to hasten on their marriage. As the train roared southwards, I congratulated myself on my clever management of a woman. I had, it is true, stepped in between Kate and the calm happiness she had been anticipating when I first met her in the hospital ward. But now I had withdrawn. And, I told myself, in time. All would be well. This girl would marry the boy who loved her. She would deceive him. He would never know that the girl he married was not the girl he originally loved. He would never perceive that a human being had intervened between her and purity, truth, honour. In this letter--I touched it with my fingers, congratulating myself--Hugh Fraser would read the summons to the future he desired, the future with Kate Walters. His soul would rush to meet hers, and surely, after a little while, hers would cease to hold back. She would really once more be as she had been. I forgot that no human soul can ever retreat from knowledge to ignorance.

Hugh Fraser's rooms in London were in Piccadilly. Directly I arrived in town I wrote him a note, saying that I was from Edinburgh with a message from Kate Walters for him. I explained that she had nursed me through a severe illness, and hoped I might have the pleasure of making his acquaintance. In reply, I received a most friendly note, begging me to call at an hour on the evening of the following day.

That evening I drove in a hansom from the Grand Hotel to Piccadilly, taking Kate's note with me. I was conscious of a certain excitement, and also of a certain moral exultation. Ridiculously enough, I felt as if I were about to perform a sort of fine, almost paternal act, blessing these children with genuine, as opposed to stage, emotion. Yes; I glowed with a consciousness of personal merit. How incredible human beings are! Arrived at Hugh Fraser's rooms, I was at once shown in. How vividly I remember that first interview of ours, the exact condition of the room, Hugh's attitude of lively anticipation, the precise way in which he held his cigarette, the grim, short bark of the fox-terrier that sprang up from a sofa when I came in. Hugh was almost twenty-four years old, rather tall, slim, with intense, large, dark eyes--full of shining cheerfulness just then--very short, curling black hair, and fine, straight features. His expression was boyish; so were his movements. As soon as he saw me, he sprang forward and gave me an enthusiastic welcome--for the sake of Kate, I knew. He led me to the fire and made me sit down. I at once handed him my credentials, Kate's letter. His face flushed with pleasure, and his fingers twitched with the desire to tear it open, but he refrained politely, and began to talk--about her, I confess. I understood in three minutes how deeply he was in love with her. I told him all about her that might please him, and hinted at the contents of the letter.

"What!" he exclaimed joyously. "She wants to hasten on our marriage at last. And she's kept me off--but you know what girls are! She couldn't leave the hospital immediately. She swore it. There were a thousand reasons for delay. But now--by Jove!"

His eyes were suddenly radiant, and he clutched hold of my hand like a schoolboy.

"You are a good chap to bring me such a letter," he cried.

"Read it," I said, again filled with moral self-satisfaction, vain, paltry egoist that I was.

"No, no--presently."

But I insisted; and at length he complied, enchanted to yield to my importunity. He opened the letter, and, as he broke the seal, his face was like morning. Never shall I forget the change that grew in it as he read. When he had finished his face was like starless night. He looked old, haggard, black, shrunken. I watched him with a sensation that something had gone wrong with my sight. Surely radiance was fully before me and my tricked vision saw it as despair. Raising his blank, bleak eyes from the letter, Hugh stared towards me and opened his lips. But no sound came from them. He frowned, as if in fury at his own dumbness. Then at last, with a sharp shake of his head sideways, he said in a low and dry voice:

"You know what is in this letter, you say?"

"I--I thought so," I answered, growing cold and filled with anxiety.

"Well, read it, will you?"

I took the paper from his hand and read:--

"DEAR HUGH,--Make the man who brings you this letter marry me.
If you don't, I will kill myself; for I am ruined. KATE."

I looked up at Hugh Fraser over the letter which my hand still mechanically held near my eyes. I wonder how long the silence through which we stared lasted.

* * * * *

A month later I was married to Kate Walters!