Chapter XIV

Matters now went on charmingly. All existence seemed to take a richer colouring, and there was something, Paul said, which, in Professor Tyndall's words, 'gave fulness and tone to it, but which he could neither analyse nor comprehend.' But at last a change came. One morning, whilst Virginia was arranging Paul's moustaches, she was frightened almost into a fit by a sudden apparition at the window. It was a hideous hairy figure, perfectly naked but for a band of silver which it wore about its neck. For a moment it did nothing but grin and stare; then, uttering a discordant scream, it flung into Virginia's lap a filthy piece of carrion, and in an instant it had bounded away with an almost miraculous activity.

Virginia shrieked with disgust and terror, and clung to Paul's knees for protection. He, however, in some strange way, seemed unmoved and preoccupied. All at once, to her intense surprise, she saw his face light up with an expression of triumphant eagerness. 'The missing link!' he exclaimed, 'the missing link at last! Thank God.--I beg pardon for my unspeakable blasphemy--I mean, thank circumstances over which I have no control. I must this instant go out and hunt for it. Give me some provisions in a knapsack, for I will not come back till I have caught it.'

This was a fearful blow to Virginia. She fell at Paul's feet weeping, and besought him in piteous accents that he would not thus abandon her.

'I must,' said the Professor solemnly, 'for I am going in pursuit of Truth. To arrive at Truth is man's perfect and most rapturous happiness. You must surely know that, even if I have forgotten to tell it to you. To pursue truth--holy truth for holy truth's sake--is a more solemn pleasure than even frizzling your hair.'

'Oh,' cried. Virginia, hysterically, 'I don't care two straws for truth. What on earth is the good of it?'

'It is its own end,' said the Professor. 'It is its own exceeding great reward. I must be off at once in search of it. Good-bye for the present. Seek truth on your own account, and be unspeakably happy also, because you know that I am seeking it.'

The Professor remained away for three days. For the first two of them Virginia was inconsolable. She wandered about mournfully with her head dejected. She very often sighed; she very often uttered the name of Paul. At last she surprised herself by exclaiming aloud to the irresponsive solitude, 'Oh, Paul, until you were gone, I never knew how passionately I loved you.' No sooner were these words out of her mouth than she stood still, horror-stricken. 'Alas!' she cried, 'and have I really come to this? I am in a state of deadly sin, and there is no priest here to confess to! Alone, alone I must conquer my forbidden love as I may. But, ah me, what a guilty thing I am!'

As she uttered these words, her eyes fell on a tin box of the Professor's, marked 'Private,' which he always kept carefully locked, and which had before now excited her curiosity. Suddenly she became conscious of a new impulse. 'I will pursue truth!' she exclaimed. 'I will break that box open, and I will see what is inside it. Ah!' she added, as with the aid of the poker she at last wrenched off the padlock. 'Paul may be right, after all. There is more interest in the pursuit of truth than I thought there was.'

The box was full of papers, letters, and diaries, the greater part of which were marked 'Strictly private.' Seeing this, Virginia's appetite for truth became keener than ever. She instantly began her researches. The more she read, the more eager she became; and the more private appeared the nature of the documents, the more insatiable did her thirst for truth grow. To her extreme surprise, she gathered that the Professor had begun life as a clergyman. There were several photographs of him in his surplice; and a number of devout prayers, apparently composed by himself for his own personal use. This discovery was the result of her labours.

'Certainly,' she said, 'it is one of extreme significance. If Paul was a priest once, he must be a priest now. Orders are indelible--at least in the Church of England I know they are.'