Chapter SIX: I

In the morning there arrived a letter from Clare. He guessed it from the postmark, and was glad that she had the tact to type the address on the envelope. When he tore it open he saw that the letter was also typewritten, and signed merely "C. H.", so that he was able to read it at the breakfast-table without any fears of Helen guessing. It was a curious sensation, that of reading a letter from Clare with Helen so near to him, and so unsuspecting.

It ran:--

"DEAR KENNETH SPEED--As I told you last night I feel thoroughly disgusted with myself--I knew I should. I'm very sorry I acted as I did, though of course everything I said was true. If you take my advice you'll take Helen right away and never come near Millstead any more. Begin life with her afresh, and don't expect it to be too easy. As for me--you'd better forget if you can. We mustn't ever see each other again, and I think we had better not write, either. I really mean that and I hope you won't send me any awfully pathetic reply as it will only make things more awkward than they are. There was a time when you thought I was hard-hearted; you must try and think so again, because I really don't want to have anything more to do with you. It sounds brutal, but it isn't, really. You have still time to make your life a success, and the only way to do it in the present circumstances is to keep away from my evil influence. So good-bye and good luck. Yours--C.H."--"P.S. If you ever do return to Millstead you won't find me there."

He was so furious that he tore the letter up and flung it into the fire.

"What is it?" enquired Helen.

He forced himself to reply: "Oh, only a tradesman's letter."

She answered, with vague sympathy: "Everybody's being perfectly horrid, aren't they?"

"Oh, I don't care," he replied, shrugging his shoulders and eating vigorously. "I don't care a damn for the lot of them."

She looked at him in thoughtful silence.

Towards the end of the meal he had begun to wonder if it had been Clare's object to put him in just that mood of fierce aggressiveness and truculence. He wished he had not thrown the letter into the fire. He would like to have re-read it, and to have studied the phrasing with a view to more accurate interpretation.

That was about seven-thirty in the morning. The bells were just beginning to ring in the dormitories and the floors above to creak with the beginnings of movement. It was a dull morning in early March, cold, but not freezing; the sky was full of mist and clouds, and very likely it would rain later. As he looked out of the window, for what might be the last time in his life, he realised that he was leaving Millstead without a pang. It astonished him a little. There was nothing in the place that he still cared for. All his dreams were in ruins, all his hopes shattered, all his enthusiasms burned away; he could look out upon Millstead, that had once contained them all, without love and without malice. It was nothing to him now; a mere box of bricks teeming with strangers. Even the terror of it had vanished; it stirred him to no emotion at all. He could leave it as casually as he could a railway station at which he had stopped _en route_.

And when he tried, just by way of experiment, to resuscitate for a moment some of the feelings he had once had, he was conscious only of immense mental strain, for something inside him that was sterile and that ached intolerably. He remembered how, on the moonlight nights of his first term, his eyes would fill with tears as he saw the great window-lit blocks of Milner's and Lavery's rising into the pale night. He remembered it without passion and without understanding. He was so different now from what he had been then. He was older now; he was tired; his emotions had been wrung dry; some of him was a little withered.

An hour later he left Millstead quite undramatically by the 9.5. The taxi came to the door of Lavery's at ten minutes to nine, while the school was in morning chapel; as he rode away and out of the main gates he could hear, faintly above the purr of the motor, the drone of two hundred voices making the responses in the psalms. It did not bring to his heart a single pang or to his eye a single tear. Helen sat beside him and she, too, was unmoved; but she had never cared for Millstead. She was telling him about Seacliffe.

As the taxi bounded into the station yard she said: "Oh, Kenneth, did you leave anything for Burton?"

"No," he answered, curtly.

"You ought to have done," she said.

That ended their conversation till they were in the train.

As he looked out of the window at the dull, bleak fen country he wondered how he could ever have thought it beautiful. Mile after mile of bare, grey-green fields, ditches of tangled reeds, forlorn villages, trees that stood solitary in the midst of great plains. He saw every now and then the long, flat road along which he had cycled many times to Pangbourne. And in a little while Pangbourne itself came into view, with its huge dominating cathedral round which he had been wont formerly to conduct little enthusiastic parties of Millsteadians; Pangbourne had seemed to him so pretty and sunlit in those days, but now all was dull and dreary, and the mist was creeping up in swathes from the fenlands. Pangbourne station...

Again he wished that he had not burnt Clare's letter.

At noon he was at Seacliffe, booking accommodation at the Beach Hotel.

II

"Heaven knows what we are going to do with ourselves here," he remarked to Helen during lunch.

"You've got to rest," replied Helen.

He went on to a melancholy mastication of bread. "So far as I can see, we're the only visitors in the entire hotel."

"Well, Kenneth, March is hardly the season, is it?"

"Then why did we come here? I'd much rather have gone to town, where there's always something happening. But a seaside-place in winter!--is there anything in the world more depressing?"

"There's nobody in the world more depressing than you are yourself," she answered tartly. "It isn't my fault we've come here in March. It isn't my fault we've come here at all. And what good would London have done for you? It's rest you want, and you'll get it here."

"Heavens, yes--I'll get it all right."

After a silence he smiled and said: "I'm sorry, Helen, for being such a wet blanket. And you're quite right, it isn't your fault--not any of it. What can we do this afternoon?"

"We can have a walk along the cliffs," she answered.

He nodded and took up a week-old copy of the _Seacliffe Gazette_. "That's what we'll do," he said, beginning to read.

So that afternoon they had a walk along the cliffs.

In fact there was really nothing at all to do in Seacliffe during the winter season except to take a walk along the cliffs. Everything wore an air of depression--the dingy rain-sodden refreshment kiosks, the shuttered bandstand, the rusting tram rails on the promenade, along which no trams had run since the preceding October, the melancholy pier pavilion, forlornly decorated with the tattered advertisements of last season's festivities. Nothing remained of the town's social amenities but the cindered walk along the cliff edges, and this, except for patches of mud and an absence of strollers, was much the same as usual. Speed and Helen walked vigorously, as people do on the first day of their holidays--grimly determined to extract every atom of nourishment out of the much-advertised air. They climbed the slope of the Beach hill, past the gaunt five-storied basemented boarding-houses, past the yachting club-house, past the marine gardens, past the rows of glass shelters, and then on to the winding cinder-path that rose steeply to the edge of the cliffs. Meanwhile the mist turned to rain and the sea and the sky merged together into one vast grey blur without a horizon.

Then they went back to the Beach Hotel for tea.

Then they read the magazines until dinner-time, and after dinner, more magazines until bedtime.

The next day came the same routine again; walk along the cliffs in the morning; walk along the cliffs in the afternoon; tea; magazines; dinner; magazines; bed. Speed discovered in the hotel a bookcase entirely filled with cheap novels that had been left behind by previous visitors. He read some of them until their small print gave him a headache. Helen revelled in them. In the mornings, by way of a variant from the cliff walk, they took to sitting on the windless side of the municipal shelters, absorbed in the novels. It was melancholy, and yet Speed felt with some satisfaction that he was undoubtedly resting, and that, on the whole, he was enduring it better than he had expected.

III

Then slowly there grew in him again the thought of Clare. It was as if, as soon as he gained strength at all, that strength should bring with it turmoil and desire, so that the only peace that he could ever hope for was the joyless peace of exhaustion. The sharp sea-salt winds that brought him health and vigour brought him also passion, passion that racked and tortured him into weakness again.

He wished a thousand times that he had not burned Clare's letter. He felt sure that somewhere in it there must have been a touch of verbal ambiguity or subtlety that would have given him some message of hope; he could not believe that she had sent him merely a letter of dismissal. In one sense, he was glad that he had burned the letter, for the impossibility of recovering it made it easier for him to suppose whatever he wished about it. And whatever he wished was really only one wish in the world, a wish of one word: Clare. He wanted her, her company, her voice, her movements around him, the sight of her, her quaint perplexing soul that so fitted in with his own, her baffling mysterious understandings of him that nobody else had ever had at all. He wanted her as a sick man longs for health; as if he had a divine right to her, and as if the withholding of her from him gave him a surging grudge against the world.

One dreary interval between tea at the hotel and dinner he wrote to her. He wrote in a mood in which he cared not if his writing angered her or not; her silence, if she did not reply, would be his answer. And if she did not reply, he vowed solemnly to himself that he would never write to her again, that he would put her out of his life and spend his energies in forgetting her.

He wrote:--

"DEAR CLARE--I destroyed your letter, and I can't quite remember whether it forbade me to reply or not. Anyhow, that's only my excuse for it. I'm having a dreadfully dull time at Seacliffe--we're the only visitors at the hotel and, so far as I can see, the only visitors in Seacliffe at all. I'm not exactly enjoying it, but I daresay it's doing me good. Thanks ever so much for your advice--I mean to profit by it--most of it, at any rate. But mayn't I write to you--even if you don't write to me? I do want to, especially now. May I!--Yours, KENNETH SPEED."

No answer to that. For nearly a week he scanned the rack in the entrance-hall, hoping to see his own name typewritten on an envelope, for he guessed that even if she did reply she would take that precaution. But in vain his hurried and anxious returns from the cliff-walks; no letter was there. And at last, tortured to despair, he wrote again.

"DEAR CLARE--You haven't answered my letter. I did think you would, and now I'm a prey to all sorts of awful and, no doubt, quite ridiculous fears. And I'm going to ask you again, half-believing that you didn't receive my last letter--may I write to you? May I write to you whenever I want? I can't have your company, I know--surely you haven't the heart to deny me the friendship I can get by writing to you? You needn't answer: I promise I will never ask for an answer. I don't care if the letters I write offend you or not; there is only one case in which I should like you to be good enough to reply to me and tell me not to write again. And that is if you were beginning to forget me--if letters from me were beginning to be a bore to you. _Please_, therefore, let me write.--Yours, KENNETH SPEED."

To that there came a reply by return of post:

"MY DEAR KENNETH SPEED,--I think correspondence between us is both unwise and unnecessary, but I don't see how I can prevent you from writing if you wish to. And you need not fear that I shall forget you.--CLARE."

He replied, immediately, and with his soul tingling with the renewal of happiness:

"DEAR CLARE,--Thank God you can't stop me from writing, and thank God you know you can't. I don't feel unhappy now that I can write to you, now that I know you will read what I write. I feel so unreticent where you are concerned--I want you to _understand_, and I don't really care, when you have understood, whether you condemn or not. This is going (perhaps) to be a longish letter; I'm alone in the lounge of this entirely God-forsaken hotel--Helen is putting on a frock for dinner, and I've got a quarter-of-an-hour for you.

"This is what I've found out since I've come to Seacliffe. I've found out the true position of you and me. You've sunk far deeper into my soul than I have ever guessed, and I don't honestly know how on earth I'm to get rid of you! For the last ten days I've been fighting hard to drive you away, but I'm afraid I've been defeated. You're there still, securely entrenched as ever, and you simply won't budge. The only times I don't think of you are the times when I'm too utterly tired out to think of anything or anybody. Worse still, the stronger I get the more I want you. Why can't I stop it? You yourself said during our memorable interview after the 'rag' that it wasn't a bit of good trying to stop loving somebody. So _you_ know, as well as me--am I to conclude that, you Hound of Heaven?

"But you can't get rid of me, I hope, any more than I can of you. You may go to the uttermost ends of the earth, but it won't matter. I shall still have you, I shall always bore you--in fact, I've got you now, haven't I? Don't we belong to each other in spite of ourselves?

"I tell you, I've tried to drive you out of my mind. And I really think I might succeed better if I didn't try. Therefore, I shan't try any more. How can you deliberately try to forget anybody? The mere deliberation of the effort rivets them more and more eternally on your memory!

"Helen and I are getting on moderately well. We don't quarrel. We exchange remarks about the weather, and we discuss trashy novels which we both have read, and we take long and uninteresting walks along the cliffs and admire the same views, over and over again. Helen thinks the rest must be doing me a lot of good. Oh my dear, dear Clare, am I wicked because I sit down here and write to you these pleading, treacherous letters, while my wife dresses herself upstairs without a thought that I am so engaged? Am I really full of sin? I know if I put my case before ninety-nine out of a hundred men and women what answer I should receive. But are you the hundredth? I don't care if you are or not; if this is wickedness, I clasp it as dearly as if it were not. I just can't help it. I lie awake at nights trying to think nice, husbandly things about Helen, and just when I think I've got really interested in her I find it's you I've really been thinking about and not Helen at all.

"There must be some wonderful and curious bond between us, some sort of invisible elastic. It wouldn't ever break, no matter how far apart we went, but when it's stretched it hurts, hurts us both, I hope, equally. Is it really courage to go on hurting ourselves like this? What is the good of it? Supposing--I only say supposing--supposing we let go, let the elastic slacken, followed our heart's desire, what then? Who would suffer? Helen, I suppose. Poor Helen!--I mustn't let her suffer like that, must I?

"It wasn't real love that I ever had for her; it was just mere physical infatuation. And now that's gone, all that's left is just dreadful pity--oh, pity that will not let me go! And yet what good is pity--the sort of pity that I have for her?

"Ever since I first knew you, you have been creeping into my heart ever so slowly and steadily, and I, because I never guessed what was happening, have yielded myself to you utterly. In fact, I am a man possessed by a devil--a good little devil--yet--"

He looked round and saw Helen standing by the side of him. He had not heard her approach. She might have been there some while, he reflected. Had she been looking over his shoulder? Did she know to whom was the letter he was writing?

He started, and instinctively covered as much of the writing as he could with the sleeve of his jacket.

"I didn't know you still wrote to Clare," she said, quietly.

"Who said I did?" he parried, with instant truculence.

"You're writing to her now."

"How do you know?"

"Never mind how I know. Answer me: you are, aren't you?"

"I refuse to answer such a question. Surely I haven't to tell you of every letter I write. If you've been spying over my shoulder it's your own fault. How would you like me to read all the letters you write?"

"I wouldn't mind in the least, Kenneth, if I thought you didn't trust me."

"Well, I do trust you, you see, and even if I didn't I shouldn't attempt such an unheard--of liberty. And if you can't trust me without censoring my correspondence, I'm afraid you'll have to go on mistrusting me."

"I don't want to censor your correspondence. I only want you to answer me a straight question: is that a letter to Clare that you're writing?"

"It's a most improper question, and I refuse to answer it."

"Very well.... I think it's time for dinner; hadn't you better finish the letter afterwards? Unless of course, it's very important."

During dinner she said: "I don't feel like staying in from now until bedtime. You'll want to finish your letter, of course, so I think, if you don't mind, I'll go to the local kinema."

"You can't go alone, can you?"

"There's nobody can very easily stop me, is there? You don't want to come with me, I suppose?"

"I'm afraid I don't care for kinemas much? Isn't there a theatre somewhere?"

"No. Only a kinema. I looked in the _Seacliffe Gazette_. In the summer there are Pierrots on the sands, of course."

"So you want to go alone to the kinema?"

"Yes."

"All right. But I'll meet you when it's over. Half-past ten, I suppose?"

"Probably about then. You don't mind me leaving you for a few hours, do you?"

"Oh, not at all. I hope you have a good time. I'm sure I can quite understand you being bored with Seacliffe. It's the deadest hole I've ever struck."

"But it's doing you good, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, I daresay it is in _that_ way."

She added, after a pause: "When you get back to the lounge you'll wonder where you put your half-written letter."

"What do you mean?" He suddenly felt in his inside coat-pocket. "Why--where is it? I thought I put it in my pocket. Who's got it? Have _you_?"

"Yes. You thought you put it in your pocket, I know. But you didn't. You left it on the writing table and I picked it up when you weren't looking."

"Then you _have_ got it?"

"Yes, I have got it."

He went red with rage. "Helen, I don't want to make a scene in front of the servants, but I insist on you giving up to me that letter. You've absolutely no right to it, and I demand that you give it me immediately."

"You shall have it after I've read it."

"Good God, Helen, don't play the fool with me! I want it now, this minute! Understand, I mean it! I want it now!"

"And I shan't give it to you."

He suddenly looked round the room. There was nobody there; the waitress was away; the two of them were quite alone. He rose out of his chair and with a second cautious glance round him went over to her and seized her by the neck with one hand while with the other he felt in her corsage for the letter. He knew that was where she would have put it. The very surprise of his movement made it successful. In another moment he had the letter in his hand. He stood above her, grim and angry, flaunting the letter high above her head. She made an upward spring for his hand, and he, startled by her quick retaliation, crumpled the letter into a heap and flung it into the fire at the side of the room. Then they both stared at each other in silence.

"So it's come to that," she said, her face very white. She placed her hand to her breast and said: "By the way, you've hurt me."

He replied: "I'm sorry if I hurt you. I didn't intend to. I simply wanted to get the letter, that's all."

"All right," she answered. "I'll excuse you for hurting me."

Then the waitress entered with the sweet and their conversation was abruptly interrupted.

After dinner he went back into the lounge and took up an illustrated paper. Somehow, he did not feel inclined to try to rewrite the letter to Clare. And in any case, he could not have remembered more than bits of it; it would have to be a fresh letter if he wrote at all.

Helen came downstairs to him with hat and coat on ready for outdoors.

"Good-bye," she said, "I'm going."

He said: "Hadn't I better take you down to the place? I don't mind a bit of a walk, you know."

She answered: "Oh, no, don't bother. It's not far. You get on with your letter-writing."

Then she paused almost at the door of the lounge, and said, coming back to him suddenly: "Kiss me before I go, Kenneth."

He kissed her. Then she smiled and went out.

An hour later he started another letter to Clare.

"MY DEAR, _dear_ CLARE,--I'm so pleased it has not all come to an end! ... All those hours we spent together, all the work we have shared, all our joy and laughter and sympathy together--it could not have counted for nothing, could it? We dare not have put an end to it; we should fear being haunted all our lives. We ..."

Then the tired feeling came on him, and he no longer wanted to write, not even to Clare. He put the hardly-begun letter in his pocket--carefully, this time--and took up the illustrated paper again. He half wished he had gone with Helen to the kinema.... A quarter to ten.... It would soon be time for him to stroll out and meet her.

IV

Walking along the promenade to the beach kinema he solemnly reviewed his life. He saw kaleidoscopically his childhood days at Beachings Over, then the interludes at Harrow and Cambridge, and then the sudden tremendous plunge--Millstead! It seemed to him that ever since that glowering April afternoon when he had first stepped into Ervine's dark study, events had been shaping themselves relentlessly to his ruin. He could see himself as a mere automaton, moved upon by the calm accurate fingers of fate. His meeting with Helen, his love of her and hers for him, their marriage, their slow infinitely wearisome estrangement--all seemed as if it had been planned with sinister deliberation. Only one section of his life had been dominated by his own free will, and that was the part of it that had to do with Clare. He pondered over the subtle differentiation, and decided at last that it was invalid, and that fate had operated at least as much with Clare as with Helen. And yet, for all that, the distinction remained in his mind. His life with Helen seemed to press him down, to cramp him in a narrow groove, to deprive him of all self-determination; it was only when he came to Clare that he was free again and could do as he liked. Surely it was he himself, and not fate, that drew him joyously to Clare.

The mist that had hovered over Seacliffe all day was now magically lifted, and out of a clear sky there shone a moon with the slightest of yellow haloes encircling it. The promenade was nearly deserted, and in all the tall cliff of boarding-houses along the Marine Parade there was hardly a window with a light in it. The solitary redness of the lamp on the end of the pier sent a soft shimmer over the intervening water; the sea, at almost high tide, was quite calm. Hardly a murmur of the waves reached his ears as he strolled briskly along, but that was because they were right up against the stone wall of the promenade and had no beach of pebbles to be noisy with. He leaned over the railings and saw the water immediately beneath him, silvered in moonlight. Seacliffe was beautiful now.... Then he looked ahead and saw the garish illuminations of the solitary picture-palace that Seacliffe possessed, and he wondered how Helen or anybody could prefer a kinema entertainment to the glory of the night outside. And yet, he reflected, the glory of the night was a subjective business; it required a certain mood; whereas the kinema created its own mood, asking and requiring nothing. Poor Helen!

Why should pity for her have overwhelmed him suddenly at that moment? He did not love her, not the least fraction; yet he would have died for her if such had need to be. If she were in danger he would not stay to think; he would risk life or limb for her sake without a premonitory thought. He almost longed for the opportunity to sacrifice himself for her in some such way. He felt he owed it to her. But there was one sacrifice that was _too_ hard--he could not live with her in contentment, giving up Clare. He knew he couldn't. He saw quite clearly in the future the day when he would leave Helen and go to Clare. Not fate this time, but the hungering desire of his heart, that would not let him rest.

And yet, was not this same desire fate itself, his own fate, leading him on and further to some inevitable end? Only that he did not fear it. He opened wide his arms, welcoming it, longing for and therefore unconscious of its domination.

He stood in front of the gilded dinginess of the picture-place, pondering on his destiny, when there came up to him a shabby little man in a long tattered overcoat, who asked him for a light. Speed, who was so anxious not to be a snob that he usually gave to strangers the impression of being one, proffered a box of matches and smiled. But for the life of him he could not think of anything to say. He felt he ought to say something, lest the other fellow might think him surly; he racked his brain for some appropriate remark and eventually said: "Nice night." The other lit the stump of a cigarette contemplatively and replied: "Yes. Nice night.... Thanks.... Waiting for somebody?"

"Yes," replied Speed, rather curtly. He had no desire to continue the conversation, still less to discuss his own affairs.

"Rotten hole, Seacliffe, in winter," resumed the stranger, showing no sign of moving on.

"Yes," agreed Speed.

"Nothing to do--nowhere to go--absolutely the deadest place on God's earth. I live here and I know. Every night I take a stroll about this time and to-night's bin the first night this year I've ever seen anything happen at all."

"Indeed?"

The stranger ignored the obvious boredness of Speed's voice, and continued: "Yes. That's the truth. But it happened all right to-night. Quite exciting, in fact."

He looked at Speed to see if his interest was in any way aroused. Such being not yet so he remarked again: "Yes, quite exciting." He paused and added:

"Bit gruesome perhaps--to some folks."

Speed said, forcing himself to be interested:

"Why, what was it?"

And the other, triumphant that he had secured an attentive audience at last, replied: "Body found. Pulled up off the breakwater.... Drowned, of course."

Even now Speed was only casually interested.

"Really? And who was it?"

"Don't know the name.... A woman's body."

"Nobody identified her yet?"

"Not yet. They say she's not a Seacliffe woman.... See _there_!" He pointed back along the promenade towards a spot where, not half an hour ago, Speed had leaned over the railings to see the moonlight on the sea. "Can you see the crowd standing about? That's where they dragged her in. Only about ten minutes ago as I was passin'. Very high tide, you know, washes all sorts of things up.... I didn't stay long--bit too gruesome for me."

"Yes," agreed Speed. "And for me too.... By the way d'you happen to know when this picture house shuts up?"

"About half-past ten, mostly."

"Thanks."

"Well--I'll be gettin' along.... Much obliged for the light.... Good-night...."

"Good-night," said Speed.

A few minutes later the crowd began to tumble out of the kinema. He stood in the darkness against a blank wall, where he could see without being seen. He wondered whether he had not better take Helen home through the town instead of along the promenade. It was a longer way, of course, but it would avoid the unpleasant affair that the stranger had mentioned to him. He neither wished to see himself nor wished Helen to see anything of the sort.

Curious that she was so late? The kinema must be almost empty now; the stream of people had stopped. He saw the manager going to the box-office to lock up. "Have they all come out?" he asked, emerging into the rays of the electric lights. "Yes, everybody," answered the other. He even glanced at Speed suspiciously, as if he wondered why he should be waiting for somebody who obviously hadn't been to the kinema at all.

Well.... Speed stood in a sheltered alcove and lit a cigarette. He had better get back to the Beach Hotel, anyway. Perhaps Helen hadn't gone to the picture-show after all. Or, perhaps, she had come out before the end and they had missed each other. Perhaps anything.... Anything! ...

Then suddenly the awful thought occurred to him. At first it was fantastic; he walked along, sampling it in a horrified fashion, yet refusing to be in the least perturbed by it. Then it gained ground upon him, made him hasten his steps, throw away his cigarette, and finally run madly along the echoing promenade to the curious little silent crowd that had gathered there, about half-way to the pier entrance. He scampered along the smooth asphalt just like a boisterous youngster, yet in his eyes was wild brain-maddening fear.

V

Ten minutes later he knew. They pointed to a gap in the railings close by, made some while before by a lorry that had run out of control along the Marine Parade. The Urban District Council ought to have repaired the railings immediately after the accident, and he (somebody in the crowd) would not be surprised if the coroner censured the Council pretty severely at the inquest. The gap was a positive death-trap for anybody walking along at night and not looking carefully ahead. And _he_ (somebody else in the crowd) suggested the possibility of making the Seacliffe Urban District Council pay heavy damages.... Of course, it was an accident.... There was a bad bruise on the head: that was where she must have struck the stones as she fell.... And in one of the pockets was a torn kinema ticket; clearly she had been on her way home from the Beach kinema.... Once again, it was the Council's fault for not promptly repairing the dangerous gap in the railings.

They led him back to the Beach Hotel and gave him brandy. He kept saying: "Now please go--I'm quite all right.... There's really nothing that anybody can do for me.... Please go now...."

When at last he was alone in the cheerless hotel bedroom he sat down on the side of the bed and cried. Not for sorrow or pity or terror, but merely to relieve some fearful strain of emotion that was in him. Helen dead! He could hardly force himself to believe it, but when he did he felt sorry, achingly sorry, because there had been so many bonds between them, so many bonds that only death could have snapped. He saw her now, poor little woman, as he had never seen her before; the love in her still living, and all that had made them unhappy together vanished away. He loved her, those minutes in the empty, cheerless bedroom, more calmly than he had ever loved her when she had been near to him. And--strange miracle!--she had given him peace at last. Pity for her no longer overwhelmed him with its sickly torture; he was calm, calm with sorrow, but calm.

VI

Then, slowly, grimly, as to some fixed and inevitable thing, his torture returned. He tried to persuade himself that the worst was over, that tragedy had spent its terrible utmost; but even the sad calm of desperation was nowhere to be found. He paced up and down the bedroom long and wearisomely; shortly after midnight the solitary gas-jet faltered and flickered and finally abandoned itself with a forlorn pop. "_Curse_ the place!" he muttered, acutely nervous in the sudden gloom; then for some moments he meditated a sarcastic protest to the hotel-proprietress in the morning. "I am aware," he would begin, tartly, "that the attractions of Seacliffe in the evenings are not such as would often tempt the visitor to keep up until the small hours; but don't you think that is an argument _against_ rather than _for_ turning off the gas-supply at midnight?" Rather ponderous, though; probably the woman wouldn't know what he meant. He might write a letter to the _Seacliffe Gazette_ about it, anyway. "Oh, _damn_ them!" he exclaimed, with sudden fervour, as he searched for the candle on the dressing-table. Unfortunately he possessed no matches, and the candlestick, when at last his groping had discovered it, contained none, either. It was so infernally dark and silent; everybody in the place was in bed except himself. He pictured the maids, sleeping cosily in the top attics, or perhaps chattering together in whispers about clothes or their love-affairs or Seacliffe gossip or--why, of course!--about _him_. They would surely be talking about him. Such a tit-bit of gossip! Everyone in Seacliffe would be full of the tragedy of the young fellow whose wife, less than a year married, had fallen accidentally into the sea off the promenade! He, not she, would be the figure of high tragedy in their minds, and on the morrow they would all stare at him morbidly, curiously.... Good God in Heaven! Could he endure it? ... Lightly the moonlight filtered through the Venetian blinds on to the garish linoleum pattern; and when the blinds were stirred by the breeze the light skipped along the floor like moving swords; he could not endure that, anyway. He went to the windows and drew up the blinds, one after the other. They would hear that, he reflected, if they were awake; they would know he was not asleep.

Then he remembered her as he had seen her less than a twelvemonth before; standing knee-deep in the grasses by the river-bank at Parminters. Everywhere that he had loved her was so clear now in his mind, and everywhere else was so unreal and dim. He heard the tinkle of the Head's piano and saw her puzzling intently over some easy Chopin mazurka, her golden hair flame-like in the sunlight of the afternoon. He saw the paths and fields of Millstead, all radiant where she and he had been, and the moonlight lapping the pavilion steps, where, first of all, he had touched her lips with his. And then--only with an effort could he picture this--he saw the grim room downstairs, where she lay all wet and bedraggled, those cheeks that he had kissed ice-cold and salt with the sea. The moon, emerging fully from behind a mist, plunged him suddenly in white light; at that moment it seemed to him that he was living in some ugly nightmare, and that shortly he would wake from it and find all the tragedy untrue. Helen was alive and well: he could only have imagined her dead. And downstairs, in that sitting-room--it had been no more than a dream, fearful and--thank God--false. Helen was away, somewhere, perfectly well and happy--_somewhere_. And downstairs, in that sitting-room ... Anyhow, he would go down and see, to convince himself. He unlocked the bedroom door and tiptoed out on to the landing. He saw the moon's rays caught phosphorescently on a fish in a glass case. Down the two flights of stairs he descended with caution, and then, at the foot, strove to recollect which was the room. He saw two doors, with something written on them. One was the bar-parlour, he thought, where the worthies of Seacliffe congregated nightly. He turned the handle and saw the glistening brass of the beer-engines. Then the other door, might be? He tried the handle, but the door was locked. Somehow this infuriated him. "They lock the doors and turn off the gas!" he cried, vehemently, uniting his complaints. Then suddenly he caught sight of another door in the wall opposite, a door on which there was no writing at all. He had an instant conviction that this must be _the_ door. He strode to it, menacingly, took hold of its handle in a firm grasp, and pushed. Locked again! This time he could not endure the fury that raged within him. "Good God!" he cried, shouting at the top of his voice, "I'll burst every door in the place in!" He beat on the panels with his fists, shouting and screaming the whole while....

Ten minutes later the hotel-porter and the bar man, clad in trousers and shirt only, were holding his arms on either side, and the proprietress, swathed in a pink dressing-gown, was standing a little way off, staring at him curiously. And he was complaining to her about the turning off of the gas at midnight. "One really has a right to expect something more generous from the best hotel in Seacliffe," he was saying, with an argumentative mildness that surprised himself. "It is not as though this were a sixpenny doss-house. It is an A.A. listed hotel, and I consider it absolutely scandalous that ..."

VII

Strangely, when he was back again and alone in his own bedroom, he felt different. His gas-jet was burning again, evidently as a result of his protest; the victory gave him a curious, childish pleasure. Nor did his burdens weigh so heavily on him; indeed, he felt even peaceful enough to try to sleep. He undressed and got into bed.

And then, slowly, secretly, dreadfully, he discovered that he was thinking about Clare! It frightened him--this way she crept into his thoughts as pain comes after the numbness of a blow. He knew he ought not to think of her. He ought to put her out of his mind, at any rate, for the present. Helen dead this little while, and already Clare in his thoughts! The realisation appalled him, terrified him by affording him a glimpse into the depths of his own dark soul. And yet--_he could not help it_. Was he to be blamed for the thoughts that he could not drive out of his mind? He prayed urgently and passionately for sleep, that he might rid himself of the lurking, lurking image of her. But even in sleep he feared he might dream of her.

Oh, Clare, Clare, would she ever come to him now, now that he was alone and Helen was dead? God, the awfulness of the question! Yet he could not put it away from him; he could but deceive himself, might be, into thinking he was not asking it. He wanted Clare. Not more than ever--only as much as he had always wanted her.

He wondered solemnly if the stuff in him were rotten; if he were proven vile and debased because he wanted her; if he were cancelling his soul by thinking of her so soon. And yet--God help him; even if all that were so, _he could not help it_. If he were to be damned eternally for thinking about Clare, then let him be damned eternally. Actions he might control, but never the strains and cravings of his own mind. If he were wrong, therefore, let him be wrong.

He wondered whether, when he fell asleep, he would dream about Helen or about Clare. And yet, when at last his very tiredness made him close his eyes, he dreamed of neither of them, but slept in perfect calm, as a child that has been forgiven.

In the morning they brought his breakfast up to him in bed, and with it a letter and a telegram. The chambermaid asked him dubiously if he were feeling better and he replied: "Oh yes, much better, thanks." Only vaguely could he remember what had taken place during the night.

When the girl had gone and he had glanced at the handwriting on the envelope, he had a sudden paralysing shock, for it was Helen's!

The postmark was: "Seacliffe, 10.10 p.m."

He tore open the envelope with slow and awful dread, and took out a single sheet of Beach Hotel notepaper. Scribbled on it in pencil was just:

"DEAR KENNETH" ("Dear" underlined),--Good-bye, darling. I can't bear you not to be happy. Forget me and don't worry. They will think it has been an accident, and you mustn't tell them anything else. Leave Millstead and take Clare away. Be happy with her.--Yours, HELEN."--

"P.S.--There's one thing I'm sorry for. On the last night before we left Millstead I said something about Clare and Pritchard. Darling, it was a lie--I made it up because I couldn't bear you to love Clare so much. I don't mind now. Forgive me."

A moment later he was opening the telegram and reading: "Shall arrive Seacliffe Station one fifteen meet me Clare."

It had been despatched from Millstead at nine-five that morning, evidently as soon as the post office opened.

He ate no breakfast. It was a quarter past eleven and the sun was streaming in through the window--the first spring day of the year. He re-read the letter.

Strange that until then the thought that the catastrophe could have been anything at all but accidental had never even remotely occurred to him! Now it came as a terrible revelation, hardly to be believed, even with proof; a revelation of that utmost misery that had driven her to the sea. He had known that she was not happy, but he had never guessed that she might be miserable to death.

And what escape was there now from his own overwhelming guilt? She had killed herself because he had not made her happy. Or else because she had not been able to make him happy. Whichever it was, he was fearfully to blame. She had killed herself to make room for that other woman who had taken all the joy out of her life.

And at one-fifteen that other woman would arrive in Seacliffe.

In the darkest depths of his remorse he vowed that he would not meet her, see her, or hold any communication with her ever again, so long as his life lasted. He would hate her eternally, for Helen's sake. He would dedicate his life to the annihilation of her in his mind. Why was she coming? Did she know? How _could_ she know? He raved at her mentally, trying to involve her in some share of his own deep treachery, for even the companionship of guilt was at least companionship. The two of them--Clare and himself--had murdered Helen. The two of them--together. _Together_. There was black magic in the intimacy that that word implied--magic in the guilty secret that was between them, in the passionate iniquity that was alluring even in its baseness!

He dressed hurriedly, and with his mind in a ferment, forgot his breakfast till it was cold and then found it too unpalatable to eat. As he descended the stairs and came into the hotel lobby he remarked to the proprietress: "Oh, by the way, I must apologise for making a row last night. Fact is, my nerves, you know.... Rather upset...."

"Quite all right, Mr. Speed. I'm sure we all understand and sympathise with you. If there's any way we can help you, you know.... Shall you be in to lunch?"

"Lunch? Oh yes--er--I mean, no. No, I don't think I shall--not to-day. You see there are--er--arrangements to make--er--arrangements, you know ..."

He smiled, and with carefully simulated nonchalance, commenced to light a cigarette! When he got outside the hotel he decided that it was absolutely the wrong thing to have done. He flung the cigarette into the gutter. What was the matter with him? Something,--something that made him, out of very fear, do ridiculous and inappropriate things. The same instinct, no doubt, that always made him talk loudly when he was nervous. And then he remembered that April morning of the year before, when he had first of all entered the Headmaster's study at Millstead; for then, through nervousness, he had spoken loudly, almost aggressively, to disguise his embarrassment. What a curious creature he was, and how curious people must think him.

He strolled round the town, bought a morning paper at the news agent's, and pretended to be interested in the contents. Over him like a sultry shadow lay the disagreeable paraphernalia of the immediate future: doctors, coroner, inquest, lawyers, interviews with Doctor and Mrs. Ervine, and so on. It had all to be gone through, but for the present he would try to forget it. The turmoil of his own mind, that battle which was being waged within his inmost self, that strife which no coroner would guess, those secrets which no inquest would or could elicit; these were the things of greater import. In the High Street, leading up from the Pierhead, he saw half a dozen stalwart navvies swinging sledge-hammers into the concrete road-bed. He stopped, ostensibly to wait for a tram, but really to watch them. He envied them, passionately; envied their strength and animal simplicity; envied above all their lack of education and ignorance of themselves, their happy blindness along the path of life. He wished he could forget such things as Art and Culture and Education, and could become as they, or as he imagined them to be. Their lives were brimful of _real_ things, things to be held and touched--hammers and levers and slabs of concrete. With all their crude joy and all their pain, simple and physical, their souls grew strong and stark. He envied them with a passion that made him desist at last from the sight of them, because it hurt.

The town-hall clock began the hour of noon, and that reminded him of Clare, and of the overwhelming fact that she was at that moment in the train hastening to Seacliffe. Was he thinking of her again? He went into a café and ordered in desperation a pot of China tea and some bread and butter, as if the mere routine of a meal would rid his mind of her. For desire was with him still, nor could he stave it off. Nothing that he could ever discover, however ugly or terrible, could stop the craving of him for Clare. The things that they had begun together, he and she, had no ending in this world. And suddenly all sense of free-will left him, and he felt himself propelled at a mighty rate towards her, wherever she might be; fate, surely, guiding him to her, but this time, a fate that was urging him from within, not pressing him from without. And he knew, secretly, whatever indignant protests he might make to himself about it, that when the 1:15 train entered Seacliffe station he would be waiting there on the platform for her. The thing was inevitable, like death.

But inevitability did not spare him torment. And at last his remorse insisted upon a compromise. He would meet Clare, he decided, but when he had met her, he would proceed to torture her, subtly, shrewdly--seeking vengeance for the tragedy that she had brought to his life, and the spell that she had cast upon his soul. He would be the Grand Inquisitor.

He was very white and haggard when the time came. He had reached the station as early as one o'clock, and for a quarter of an hour had lounged about the deserted platforms. Meanwhile the sun shone gloriously, and the train as it ran into the station caught the sunlight on its windows. The sight of the long line of coaches, curving into the station like a flaming sword into its scabbard, gave him a mighty heart-rending thrill. Yes, yes--he would torture her.... His eyes glinted with diabolical exhilaration, and a touch of hectic colour crept into his wan cheeks. He watched her alight from a third-class compartment near the rear of the train. Then he lost her momentarily amidst the emptying crowd. He walked briskly against the stream of the throng, with a heart that beat fast with unutterable expectations.

But how he loved her as he saw her coming towards him!--though he tried with all his might to kindle hate in his heart. She smiled and held out her tiny hand. He took it with a limpness that was to begin his torture of her. She was to notice that limpness.

"How is Helen?" was her first remark.

Amidst the bustle of the luggage round the guard's van he replied quietly: "Helen? Oh, she's all right. I didn't tell her you were coming."

"You were wise," she answered.

A faint thrill of anticipation crept over him; this diabolical game was interesting, fascinating, in its way; and would lead her very securely into a number of traps. And why, he thought, did she think it was wise of him not to have told Helen?

In the station-yard she suddenly stopped to consult a time-table hoarding.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm looking for the next train back to Millstead."

"Not the _next_, surely?"

"Why not? What do you think I've come for?"

"I don't know in the least. What _have_ you come for?"

She looked at him appealingly. He saw, with keen and instant relish, that she had already noticed something of hostility in his attitude towards her. The torture had begun. For the first time, she was subject to his power and not he to hers.

"I've come for a few minutes' conversation," she answered, quietly. "And the next train back is at 3:18."

"You mean to travel by that?"

"Yes."

"Then we needn't stay in the station till then, need we? Let's walk somewhere. We've two whole hours--time enough to get right out of the town and back again. I hate conversations in railway-stations."

But his chief reason was a desire to secure the right scenic background for his torture of her.

"All right," she answered, and looked at him again appealingly. The tears almost welled into his own eyes because of the deep sadness that was in hers. How quick she was to feel his harshness!--he thought. How marvellously sensitive was that little soul of hers to the subtlest gradations of his own mood! What fiendish torture he could put her to, by no more, might be, than the merest upraising of an eyebrow, the faintest change of the voice, the slightest tightening of the lips! She was of mercury, like himself; responsive to every touch of the emotional atmosphere. And was not that the reason why she understood him with such wonderful instinctive intimacy,--was not that the reason why the two of them, out of the whole world, would have sought each other like twin magnets?

He led her, in silence, through the litter of mean streets near the station, and thence, beyond the edge of the town, towards the meadows that sloped to the sea. So far it had been a perfect day, but now the sun was half-quenching itself in a fringe of mist that lay along the horizon; and with the change there came a sudden pink light that lit both their faces and shone behind them on the tawdry newness of the town, giving it for once a touch of pitiful loveliness. He took her into a rolling meadow that tapered down into a coppice, and as they reached the trees the last shaft of sunlight died from the sky. Then they plunged into the grey depths, with all the freshly-budded leaves brushing against their faces, and the very earth, so it seemed, murmuring at their approach. Already there was the hint of rain in the air.

"It's a long way to come for a few minutes' conversation," he began.

She answered, ignoring his remark: "I had a letter from Helen this morning."

"_What_!" he exclaimed in sharp fear. He went suddenly white.

"A letter," she went on, broodingly. "Would you like to see it?"

He stared at her and replied: "I would rather hear from you what it was about."

He saw her brown eyes looking up curiously into his, and he had the instant feeling that she would cry if he persisted in his torture of her. The silence of that walk from the station had unnerved her, had made her frightened of him. That was what he had intended. And she did not know yet--did not know what he knew. Poor girl--what a blow was in waiting for her! But he must not let it fall for a little while.

She bit her lip and said: "Very well. It was about you. She was unhappy about you. Dreadfully unhappy. She said she was going to leave you. She also said--that she was going to leave you--to--to me."

Her voice trembled on that final word.

"Well?"

She recovered herself to continue with more energy: "And I've come here to tell you this--that if she does leave you, I shan't have you. That's all."

"You are making large assumptions."

"I know. And I don't mind your sarcasm, though I don't think any more of you for using it.... I repeat what I said--if Helen leaves you or if you leave Helen, I shall have nothing more to do with you."

"It is certainly kind of you to warn me in time."

"You've never given Helen a fair trial. I know you and she are ill-matched. I know you oughtn't to have married her at all, but that doesn't matter--you've done it, and you've got to be fair to her. And if you think that because I've confessed that I love you I'm in your power for you to be cruel to, you're mistaken!" Her voice rose passionately.

He stared at her, admiring the warm flush that came into her cheeks, and all the time pitying her, loving her, agonisingly!

"Understand," she went on, "You've got to look after Helen--you've got to take care of her--watch her--do you know what I mean?"

"No. What do you mean?"

"I mean you must try to make her happy. She's sick and miserable, and, somehow, you must cure her. I came here to see you because I thought I could persuade you to be kind to her. I thought if you loved me at all, you might do it for my sake. Remember I love Helen as well as you. Do you still think I'm hard-hearted and cold? If you knew what goes on inside me, the racking, raging longing--the-- No, no--what's the good of talking of that to you? You either understand or else you don't, and if you don't, no words of mine will make you.... But I warn you again, you must cure Helen of her unhappiness. Otherwise, she might try to cure herself--in any way, drastic or not, that occurred to her. Do you know now what I mean?"

"I'm afraid I don't, even yet."

"Well"--her voice became harder--"it's this, if you want plain speaking. Watch her in case she kills herself. She's thinking of it."

He went ashen pale again and said quietly, after a long pause: "How do you know that?"

"Her letter."

"She mentioned it?"

"Yes."

"And that's what you've come to warn me about?"

"Yes. And to persuade you, if I could----"

"Why did you decide that a personal visit was necessary?"

"I shouldn't have cared to tell you all this by letter. And besides, a letter wouldn't have been nearly as quick, would it? You see I only received her letter this morning. After all, the matter's urgent enough. One can easily be too late."

He said, with eyes fixed steadily upon her: "Clare, you _are_ too late. She drowned herself last night."

He expected she would cry or break down or do something dramatic that he could at any rate endure. But instead of that, she stared vacantly into the fast-deepening gloom of the coppice, stared infinitely, terribly, without movement or sound. Horror tore nakedly through her eyes like pain, though not a muscle of her face stirred from that fearful, statuesque immobility. Moments passed. Far over the intervening spaces came the faint chiming of the half-hour on the town-hall clock, and fainter still, but ominous-sounding, the swirl of the waves on the distant beach as the wind rose and freshened.

He could not bear that silence and that stillness of hers. It seemed as though it would be eternal. And suddenly he saw that she was really suffering, excruciatingly; and he could not bear it, because he loved her. And then all his plans for torturing her, all his desires for vengeance, all his schemes to make her suffer as he had suffered, all the hate of her that he had manufactured in his heart--all was suddenly gone, like worthless dust scoured by the gale. He perceived that they were one in suffering as in guilt--fate's pathetic flotsam, aching to cling together even in the last despairing drift.

He cried, agonisingly: "Clare! Clare! Oh, for God's sake, don't stare at me like that, Clare! Oh, my darling, my dear darling, I'm sorry--sorry--I'm dead with sorrow! Clare--Clare--be kind to me, Clare--kinder than I have been to you or to Helen! ..."

VIII

She said, quietly: "I must get back in time for my train."

"No, no--not yet. Don't go. Don't leave me."

"I must."

"No--no----"

"You know I must. Don't you?"

He became calmer. It was as if she had willed him to become calmer, as if some of the calmness of her was passing over to him. "Clare," he said, eagerly, "Do you think I'm _bad_--am I--_rotten-souled_--because of what's happened? Am I _damned_, do you think?"

She answered softly: "No. You're not. And you mustn't think you are. Don't I love you? Would I love you if you were rotten? Would you love me if _I_ was?"

He replied, gritting his teeth: "I would love you if you were filth itself."

"Ah, would you?" she answered, with wistful pathos in her voice. "But I'm not like that. I love you for what I know you are, for what I know you could be!"

"Could be? Could have been! But Clare, Clare--who's to blame?"

"So many things happen dreadfully in this world and nobody knows who's to blame."

"But not this, Clare. _We're_ to blame."

"We can be to blame without being--all that you said."

"Can we? Can we? There's another thing. If Helen had--had lived--she would have had a baby in a few months' time...."

He paused, waiting for her reply, but none came. She went very pale. At last she said, with strange unrestfulness: "What can I say? What _is_ there to say? ... Oh, don't let us go mad through thinking of it! We _have_ been wrong, but have we been as wrong as that? Hasn't there been fate in it? Fate can do the awfullest things.... My dear, dear man, we should go mad if we took all that load of guilt on ourselves! It is too heavy for repentance.... Oh, you're not _bad_, not inwardly. And neither am I. We've been instruments--puppets----"

"It's good to think so. But is it true?"

"Before God, I think it is.... Think of it all right from the beginning.... Right from the night you met us both at Millstead.... It's easy to blame fate for what we've done, but isn't it just as easy to blame ourselves for the workings of fate?"

She added, uneasily: "I _must_ go back. My train. Don't forget the time."

"Can't you wait for the next?"

"_Dear_, you _know_ I mustn't. How could I stay? Fate's finished with us now. We've free-will.... Didn't I tell you we weren't _bad_? All that's why I can't stay."

They began to walk back to the railway-station. A mist-like rain was beginning to fall, and everything was swathed in grey dampness. They talked together like two age-long friends, partners in distress and suffering; he told her, carefully and undramatically, the story of the night before.

She said to him, from the carriage-window just before the 3:18 steamed out: "I shan't see you again for ever such a long while. I wish--I wish I could stay with you and help you. But I can't.... You know why I can't, don't you?"

"Yes, I know why. We must be brave alone. We must learn, if we can, to call ourselves good again."

"Yes.... Yes.... We must start life anew. No more mistakes. And you must grow back again to what you used to be.... The next few months will be terrible--maddening--for both of us. But _I_ can bear them. Do you think _you_ can--without me? If I thought you couldn't"--her voice took on a sudden wild passion--"if I thought you would break down under the strain, if I thought the fight would crush and kill you, I would stay with you from this moment, and never, never leave you alone! I would--I would--if I thought there was no other way!"

He said, calmly and earnestly: "I can fight it, Clare. I shall not break down. Trust me. And then--some day----"

She interrupted him hurriedly. "I am going abroad very soon. I don't know for how long, but for a long while, certainly. And while I am away I shall not write to you, and you must not write to me, either. Then, when I come back ..."

He looked up into her eyes and smiled.

The guard was blowing his whistle.

"Be brave these next few months," she said again.

"I will," he answered. He added: "I shall go home."

"What? Home, Home to the millionaire soap-boiler?" (A touch of the old half-mocking Clare.)

"Yes. It's my home. They've always been very good to me."

"Of course they have. I'm glad you've realised it."

Then the train began to move. "Good-bye!" she said, holding out her hand.

"Good-bye!" he cried, taking it and clasping it quickly as he walked along the platform with the train. "See you again," he added, almost in a whisper.

She gave him such a smile, with tears streaming down her cheeks, as he would never, never forget.

When he went out again into the station-yard the fine rain was falling mercilessly. He felt miserable, sick with a new as well as an old misery, but stirred by a hope that would never let him go.

Back then to the Beach Hotel, vowing and determining for the future, facing in anticipation the ordeals of the dark days ahead, summoning up courage and fortitude, bracing himself for terror and conflict and desire.... And with it all hoping, hoping ... hoping everlastingly.

THE END