Chapter XII

She woke on Friday morning to a vivid and indestructible certainty of escape.

But there had been a condition attached to her deliverance; and it was borne in on her that instead of waiting for the Power to force its terms on her, she would do well to be beforehand with it. Friday was Rodney’s day, and this time she knew that he would come. His coming, of course, was nothing, but he had told her plainly that he would not go. She must, therefore, wire to him not to come.

In order to do this she had to get up early and walk about a mile to the nearest village. She took the shortest way, which was by the Farm bridge, and up the slanting path to the far end of the wood. She knew vaguely that once, as she turned the corner of the wood, there had been horrors, and that the divine beauty of green pastures and still waters had appeared to her as a valley of the shadow of evil, but she had no more memory of what she had seen than of a foul dream, three nights dead. She went at first uplifted in the joy of her deliverance, drawing into her the light and fragrance of the young morning. Then she remembered Harding Powell. She had noticed as she passed the Farm-house that the blinds were drawn again in all the windows. That was because Harding and Milly were gone. She thought of Harding, of Milly, with an immense tenderness and compassion, but also with lucidity, with sanity. They had gone—yesterday—and she had not seen them. That could not be helped. She had done all that was possible. She could not have seen them as long as the least taint of Harding’s malady remained with her. And how could she have faced Milly after having broken her word to her?

Not that she regretted even that, the breaking of her word, so sane was she. She could conceive that, if it had not been for Rodney Lanyon, she might have had the courage to have gone on. She might have considered that she was bound to save Harding, even at the price of her own sanity, since there _was_ her word to Milly. But it might be questioned whether by holding on to him she would have kept it, whether she really could have saved him that way. She was no more than a vehicle, a crystal vessel for the inscrutable and secret Power, and in destroying her utterly, Harding would have destroyed himself. You could not transmit the Power through a broken crystal—why, not even through one that had a flaw.

There had been a flaw somewhere; so much was certain. And as she searched now for the flaw, with her luminous sanity, she found it in her fear. She knew, she had always known, the danger of taking fear, and the thought of fear with her into that world where to think was to will, and to will was to create. But for the rest, she had tried to make herself clear as crystal. And what could she do more than give up Rodney?

As she set her face towards the village, she was sustained by a sacred ardour, a sacrificial exaltation. But as she turned homewards across the solitary fields, she realized the sadness, the desolation of the thing she had accomplished. He would not come. Her message would reach him two hours before the starting of the train he always came by.

Across the village she saw her white house shining, and the windows of his room (her study, which was always his room when he came); its lattices were flung open as if it welcomed him.

Something had happened there.

Her maid was standing by the garden gate, looking for her. As she approached, the girl came over the field to meet her. She had an air of warning her, of preparing her for something.

It was Mrs. Powell, the maid said. She had come again. She was in there, waiting for Miss Agatha. She wouldn’t go away; she had gone straight in. She was in an awful state. The maid thought it was something to do with Mr. Powell.

They had not gone, then.

“If I were you, miss,” the maid was saying, “I wouldn’t see her.”

“Of course I shall see her.”

She went at once into the room where Rodney might have been, where Milly was. Milly rose from the corner where she sat averted.

“Agatha,” she said, “I had to come.”

Agatha kissed the white, suppliant face that Milly lifted. “I thought,” she said, “you’d gone—yesterday.”

“We couldn’t go. He—he’s ill again.”

“Ill?”

“Yes. Didn’t you see the blinds down as you passed?”

“I thought it was because you’d gone.”

“It’s because that _thing’s_ come back again.”

“When did it come, Milly?”

“It’s been coming for three days.”

Agatha drew in her breath with a pang. It was just three days since she began to let him go.

Milly went on. “And now he won’t come out of the house. He says he’s being hunted. He’s afraid of being seen, being found. He’s in there—in that room. He made me lock him in.”

They stared at each other and at the horror that their faces took and gave back each to each.

“Oh, Aggy—” Milly cried it out in her anguish.

“You _will_ help him?”

“I can’t.” Agatha heard her voice go dry in her throat.

“You _can’t_?”

Agatha shook her head.

“You mean you haven’t, then?”

“I haven’t. I couldn’t.”

“But you told me—you told me you were giving yourself up to it. You said that was why you couldn’t see us.”

“It _was_ why. Do sit down, Milly.”

They sat down, still staring at each other. Agatha faced the window, so that the light ravaged her.

Milly went on. “That was why I left you alone. I thought you were going on. You said you wouldn’t let him go; you promised me you’d keep on—”

“I did keep on, till—”

But Milly had only paused to hold down a sob. Her voice broke out again, clear, harsh, accusing.

“What were you doing all that time?”

“Of course,” said Agatha, “you’re bound to think I let you down.”

“What am I to think?”

“Milly—I asked you not to think it was me.”

“Of course I knew it was the Power, not you. But you had hold of it. You did something. Something that other people can’t do. You did it for one night, and that night he was well. You kept on for six weeks, and he was well all that time. You leave off for three days—I know when you left off—and he’s ill again. And then you tell me it isn’t you. It _is_ you; and if it’s you, you can’t give him up. You can’t stand by, Aggy, and refuse to help him. You know what it was. How can you bear to let him suffer? How can you?”

“I can, because I must.”

“And why must you?”

Milly raised her head more in defiance than in supplication.

“Because—I told you—I might give out. Well—I _have_ given out.”

“You told me the Power can’t give out—that you’ve only got to hold on to it—that it’s no effort. I’m only asking you, Aggy, to hold on.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking you only to do what you have done, to give five minutes in the day to him. You said it was enough. Only five minutes. It isn’t much to ask.”

Agatha sighed.

“What difference could it make to you—five minutes?”

“You don’t understand,” said Agatha.

“I do. I don’t ask you to see him, or to bother with him; only to go on as you were doing.”

“You don’t understand. It isn’t possible to explain it. I can’t go on.”

“I see. You’re tired, Aggy. Well—not now, not to-day. But later, when you’re rested, won’t you?”

“Oh, Milly, dear Milly, if I could—”

“You can. You will. I know you will—”

“No. You must understand it. Never again. Never again.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

There was a long silence. At last Milly’s voice crept through, strained and thin, feebly argumentative, the voice of a thing defeated and yet unconvinced.

“I don’t understand you, Agatha. You say it isn’t you; you say you’re only a connecting link; that you do nothing; that the Power that does it is inexhaustible; that there’s nothing it can’t do, nothing it won’t do for us, and yet you go and cut yourself off from it—deliberately, from the thing you believe to be divine.”

“I haven’t cut myself off from it.”

“You’ve cut Harding off,” said Milly. “If you refuse to hold him.”

“That wouldn’t cut him off—from It. But, Milly, holding him was bad; it wasn’t safe.”

“It saved him.”

“All the same, Milly, it wasn’t safe. The thing itself isn’t.”

“The Power? The divine thing?”

“Yes. It’s divine and it’s—it’s terrible. It does terrible things to us.”

“How could it? If it’s divine, wouldn’t it be compassionate? Do you suppose it’s less compassionate than—_you_ are? Why, Agatha, when it’s goodness and purity itself—?”

“Goodness and purity are terrible. We don’t understand it. It’s got its own laws. What you call prayer’s all right—it would be safe, I mean—I suppose it might get answered anyway, however we fell short. But _this_—this is different. It’s the highest, Milly; and if you rush in and make for the highest, can’t you see, oh, can’t you _see_ how it might break you? Can’t you see what it requires of _you_? Absolute purity. I told you, Milly. You have to be crystal to it—crystal without a flaw.”

“And—if there were a flaw?”

“The whole thing, don’t you see, would break down; it would be no good. In fact, it would be awfully dangerous.”

“To whom?”

“To you—to them, the people you’re helping. You make a connection; you smash down all the walls so that you—you get through to each other; and supposing there was something wrong with _you_, and it doesn’t work any longer (the Power, I mean), don’t you see you might do harm where you were trying to help?”

“But—Agatha—there was nothing wrong with you.”

“How do I know? Can anybody be sure there’s nothing wrong with them?”

“You think,” said Milly, “there was a flaw somewhere?”

“There must have been—somewhere—”

“What was it? Can’t you find out? Can’t you think? Think.”

“Sometimes—I’ve thought it may have been my fear.”

“Fear?”

“Yes, it’s the worst thing. Don’t you remember, I told you not to be afraid?”

“But, Agatha, you were _not_ afraid.”

“I was—afterwards. I got frightened.”

“_You_? And you told _me_ not to be afraid,” said Milly.

“I had to tell you.”

“And I wasn’t afraid—afterwards. I believed in you. He believed in you.”

“You shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t. That was just it.”

“That was it? I suppose you’ll say next it was I who frightened you?”

As they faced each other there, Agatha, with the terrible, the almost supernatural lucidity she had, saw what was making Milly say that. Milly had been frightened; she felt that she had probably communicated her fright; she knew that was dangerous, and she knew that if it had done harm to Harding, she, and not Agatha, would be responsible. And because she couldn’t face her responsibility, she was trying to fasten upon Agatha some other fault than fear.

“No, Milly, I don’t say you frightened me; it was my own fear.”

“What was there for _you_ to be afraid of?”

Agatha was silent. That was what she must never tell her, not even to make her understand. She did not know what Milly was trying to think of her; Milly might think what she liked; but she should never know what her terror had been and her danger.

Agatha’s silence helped Milly.

“Nothing,” she said, “will make me believe it was your fear that did it. That would never have made you give Harding up. Besides, you were not afraid at first, though you may have been afterwards.”

“Afterwards?”

It was her own word, but it had as yet no significance for her.

“After—whatever it was you gave him up for. You gave him up for something.”

“I did not. I never gave him up until I was afraid.”

“You gave It up. You wouldn’t have done that if there had not been something. Something that stood between.”

“If,” said Agatha, “you could only tell me what it was.”

“I can’t tell you. I don’t know what came to you. I only know that if I’d had a gift like that, I would not have given it up for anything. I wouldn’t have let anything come between. I’d have kept myself—”

“I did keep myself—for it. I couldn’t keep myself entirely for Harding; there were other things, other people. I couldn’t give them up for Harding or for anybody.”

“Are you quite sure you kept yourself what you were, Aggy?”

“What _was_ I?”

“My dear—you were absolutely pure. You said _that_ was the condition.”

“Yes. And, don’t you see, who _is_ absolutely? If you thought I was, you didn’t know me.”

As she spoke she heard the sharp click of the latch as the garden gate fell to; she had her back to the window so that she saw nothing, but she heard footsteps that she knew, resolute and energetic footsteps that hurried to their end. She felt the red blood surge into her face, and saw that Milly’s face was white with another passion, and that Milly’s eyes were fixed on the figure of the man who came up the garden path. And without looking at her Milly answered:

“I don’t know now; but I think I see, my dear——” In Milly’s pause the door-bell rang violently. Milly rose and let her have it. “What the flaw in the crystal was.”