CHAPTER III.
Thurso's recovery, though he had had no relapse of any kind, and no hintof a second attack, had been slow, and it was more than three weeks fromthe time of his collapse when he and Maud were sitting together on thedeck of the _Celtic_, Westward-bound, watching the shores of Irelandfade into blurred outlines of grey, as they were fused with the horizon.They had embarked the day before at Liverpool, and though they had beenat sea only twenty-four hours, there was already some semblance ofcolour beginning to come back to his face. But if Maud had met him nowafter a year's absence, she felt that she would scarcely have known whohe was. Those months of indulgence in the drug had altered the wholecharacter of his face: it was not of the same man. It had made him lookstrangely wan and old, too. The heavy dint of crows' feet was planted onthe outer corners of his eyes, and the lids were slack, baggy, andpendulous. His eyes had changed; they looked stale and dead, but it washis mouth, perhaps, that had deteriorated most: all power and force weregone from it; it drooped feebly and weakly at its corners, and the lowerlip hung flabby and loose. It was the mouth of a man ruined byself-indulgence. His hair, too, had become very thin, and streaks ofgrey had appeared in it. And all this was but the shadow of the realwreck within.
Sometimes, when during these last three weeks she had seen him thus, shehad felt her courage and hope for the future dwindle almost to thevanishing-point. It was not only his body which had so aged and fallenaway: it was his soul that had grown decrepit. He had fits of blackdespair and depression, when he could bear to see nobody, not even her,and would lock himself up in his room, giving orders that his meals wereto be left outside, and that under no circumstances was he to bedisturbed. Then, when he emerged from one of these, remorse--but no morethan a maudlin, querulous remorse--for the wreck he had made overtookhim, and he would ask her to sit with him while he unloaded himself oftons of a washy despair. Half a dozen times he had said that he wouldnot go to America at all. What could a week or two of sea air do for aman in his case? Yet there was no decision or determination in theserefusals; next moment he would be talking of the books he would takewith him. Then the pendulum would swing further, and that about whichalone he seemed to have retained any force would come into his mind:namely, his bitterness against Catherine, his belief--almost strongenough to be called conviction--that it was she who was morallyresponsible for his wreck. It was that, indeed, that was the real causeof his having consented to leave England. The day before they sailed hehad a fit of the darkest despair, and had altogether refused to think ofgoing. But as that drew off, his own desire was to get away from hiswife, to leave her neighbourhood, to be geographically widely separatedfrom her. She was in England, therefore any place was more tolerable tohim. And just before they left the house he had asked to see her, forthe first time in all these weeks, to say:
"You are responsible for all this."
It was all black enough, and there had been at present but one smoky rayof comfort. He had not taken laudanum again, nor, as far as could beascertained, had he tried to procure any. But Sir James cautioned Maudagainst thinking that this ray was the promise of a coming dawn.
"He is still extremely weak," he had said, "and it will not be till hisstrength really begins to come back that he will crave for the drug. Atpresent he is not strong enough to want anything at all keenly."
Sir James had come down with the brother and sister to Liverpool, to seehis safe bestowal on board, for even now he was not allowed to walkupstairs, and their cabin was on the top deck. In ten minutes theshore-going passengers would have to leave the ship, but the doctor hadstill a few words more to say. Thurso had not yet been told what theulterior object of his going to America was, for it was thought that ifhe knew that he might refuse to stir.
"There is a psychological moment for telling him that," he said to Maud,"which has not yet arrived. But it will arrive, I think, and I feel nodoubt that you will recognise it when it does. At present your brothershows no desire for anything, neither for the drug--at least, he hastaken us all in if he has--nor for the return to health. He does noteven, I think, want to die; he does not want anything. But as he beginsto get back his strength he will begin to desire also. He will want thedrug; he will want to get well. That is the moment for telling him."
Three days later Maud and he were seated again in the sheltered nookbehind the smoking-room on the top deck where they had sat two daysbefore watching the fading of the Irish shores. There was a brightwinter's sun overhead and a tumbling sea around them, for all yesterdaythere had been half a gale from the west, which had stirred the hoarygiants of the Atlantic. But the enormous ship was but little consciousof them, and glided without inconvenient movement across this wonderfulgrey sea, that broke into dazzling white against her burrowing bows.Something of the pale, crystalline blue above was reflected in the greatjoyous hills and valleys of water that rose and fell round them, and thegreyness of the wintry waters was shot with delicate azure and aqueousgreen, as if, though it was yet barely mid-winter, there was the promiseof spring in the air, and a hint of the summer days when these hills andvalleys should be level, a shining desert of astounding blue. Abovetheir heads the wind thrummed and whistled in the rigging, and theclean, unbreathed odour of the sea was salt and bracing. In spite of thesun, however, it was chilly to the unprotected, and both Thurso, lyingon his long deck-chair, and Maud, seated beside him, wore thickfur-coats, and were tucked in with rugs. They had sat some little timein silence, for speech easily tired him still, and then he turned toher.
"I feel better," he said, "and it is so long since I felt better."
"Oh yes, dear, you are much better," she said. "You have been picking upevery day on the sea. Wasn't it a good plan?"
"But there is a difference between being better and feeling better," hesaid, "and the second means the most to the man who is ill. Now, Isuppose we shall have to talk things out some time, so why not now? I dofeel better. I feel as if I could nearly wish to be well again."
Maud felt that the moment of which Sir James had spoken to her, when itwould be right to tell Thurso of the real object of their voyage, wasvery near, but not quite arrived yet. He would give her a betteropportunity for what she had to say than that, and she wanted the verybest possible.
"But I daresay I am beginning to wish that too late," he said. "How badhave I been exactly? How bad am I?"
"Do you mean your heart attack?" she asked.
"No; the other thing. I may tell you that for weeks before the attackitself I felt perfectly incapable of resistance. I could no more resistthan I could resist breathing. Now, what does that mean medically? Whatchance have I?"
"You were as bad as you could be," she said. "In a way, Sir James toldme, that heart attack saved your life. It prevented you wanting thestuff for awhile. It made a break."
"But does Sir James really think that a week or two at sea will cureme?"
"No; but he thinks that it will do your general condition good."
Thurso threw back his head, and drew in a long breath of this cold, pureair. It was extraordinarily invigorating. And at the same moment hesuddenly felt his mouth water at a thought that had come into his mind.He was beginning to want again.
"But he has no idea that it will cure me?" he asked, with a certainsuspicious persistence.
Then Maud knew her time had come.
"No; he never thought it would cure you, and he doesn't profess to beable to cure you himself. But, Thurso, there is another chance, perhaps.He sanctioned our trying it."
"What chance? Some American doctor? I'll go to anybody--doctor, quack,hypnotist--what you please."
"It isn't a quack I want you to go to. I want you to see if a ChristianScience healer cannot do anything for you."
Thurso was silent a moment.
"It has been a plot, then?" he asked, in that dreadful cold tone inwhich he spoke of his wife.
"Yes, dear; but don't speak like that," said Maud. "You speak as if itwas a plot against you instead of a plot for yo
u. I didn't tell you inEngland, because I was afraid you might refuse to come. That is frank,is it not? I have been responsible for it all."
Suspicion and hate were awaking in Thurso's brain. He felt so muchbetter and stronger to-day, and his brain was working again after weeksof torpidity. He told himself he was becoming wonderfully acute andfar-sighted.
"I don't think I quite believe that," he said. "I believe Catherine hada hand in it. Surely it is clear. She wanted to be left alone withVillars."
Maud made a gesture of despair.
"Oh, you are mad," she said. "It isn't you who speak when you saydreadful false things like that: it's the demon that possesses you,Thurso--that horrible drug. It has poisoned your body, and it haspoisoned your soul."
Then, with that bewildering rapidity that she knew and dreaded, his moodchanged again. But the change, though he was still in the darkness ofabysmal despair, was for the better. Anything was better than that vilehate, those incredible suspicions.
"Yes, I am poisoned--I am altogether poisoned," he said quietly.
Maud turned an imploring face to him.
"No, dear, you are not altogether poisoned," she said; "and the fact ofyour saying that you are shows there is some little sound piece left. Ifyou were altogether poisoned, you wouldn't know it; there would benothing left to tell you that you were poisoned. But there is: you feelregret still. I saw it in your eyes just now, and though it cuts me tothe heart, I love and rejoice to see it there. It is just your regret,your desire to do better, which is the precious soil out of which yoursalvation must spring."
Her voice died on the last words, and she spoke in a whisper barelyaudible.
"Oh, Thurso, if you only knew how I cared!" she said.
For that moment he was touched. He looked at her with pity.
"Poor Maud!" he said.
"Ah! but it is not going to be 'poor Maud!'" she said. "You are going toget the poison out of your soul and body. Oh, Thurso, there are going tobe many happy days yet."
Once again the genial thrill of convalescence, that inflowing tide ofstrength and recovery, broke like a ripple a little further up the longdry beach, and once again desire stirred within him. But by an effort hedetached himself from that, and turned his mind to her and to his ownrescue.
"And do you really believe I _can_ be cured?" he said. "Is an appallingyoung person to come and sit by me and sing doggerel hymns? I readsomething of the sort in a book I found at home the other day. It wasyours, I suppose, or Alice's?"
"Alice's, I expect," said she. "No; we shall have no appalling youngperson sitting by you. You know the healer I want you to go to, and youlike him."
Thurso frowned. He seemed to be able to remember nothing. His memory, hefelt, was there, but all that it contained was locked up, and he couldnot find the key.
"That--that fellow in Scotland?" he asked.
Then for a moment he got a glimpse, a flash, vivid but brief, connectedwith him.
"I met him in the village street one day," he said, "in Achnaleesh, andhe made me feel better. I had an awful headache at the time. I say, thatis something gained, you know, because I never have headaches now. Whatwas his name, by the way?"
"Mr. Cochrane," said the girl.
"Of course, yes. And he dined one night, and played hokey-pokey amongthe typhoid patients. So he and I are going to sing hymns, are we?"
But Maud did not smile now. Thurso was himself in a way that he had notbeen for weeks. There might only be a minute or two of this, for hismood changed so quickly: it was as if he was not strong enough to remainsteady in one attitude for more than a few seconds. And since any momentmight see him back again in the hells of despair and hate, she wanted tomake the most of this first forward outlook which he had shown. Thecreeper--his will--was in her hand for a second. She must make somebeginning at training it up.
"Ah, Thurso, that is right," she said; "look forward, and make an effortto realise where you stand to-day. Sir James says he is helpless; hesays you have no will left which he can touch or strengthen. That may beso medically, but I am sure it is there still, and you are going to getGod--not any mortal physician--to lay His hand on you. Try to believe,if only for a moment, that all power is His, and that He is all love,all health, all life; that evil and illness and everything of that kindcannot exist in His presence. Don't hang back; don't reserve any partof yourself, for you can help or hinder your cure. We have beenhindering it, so I believe, by trusting to the power of man to cure you,because we have kept on wondering if man can cure you. But about Godthere is no doubt whatever. It is quite beyond question."
For one moment, as she spoke, he sat straight up in his chair, lookingsuddenly awake and revivified. But with that revivification there camefar more strongly than before the revivification of desire of anotherkind. All day a certain power and vitality, born of the huge sea, thegolden sun, and the singing breezes, had been throbbing back into him;but, as must always happen, until the will is set and centred on thehigher and Immortal Mind, and does not, as through some sieve, strainoff all that is of mortal and corruptible thought, this returning tideof vitality made more real and more coveted that on which his mind andhis degraded desire had dwelt all these months. And this time it tookmore definite shape.
How clever he had been, too, about it! He almost giggled aloud to thinkof it. Little did they suppose that a couple of days before he leftEngland he had got one of the footmen--not his valet, who had probablybeen warned--to go out with the prescription he had forged, just beforehis attack, and get a bottle of his drug. He had not wanted it, but hefelt the time might come when he should, and there it lay, the bottle ofdark-blue glass, with its red poison label, in the private despatch-boxin his cabin, of which he alone had the key. But he had determined thatthat should be his last supply, and having got it, he again threw awaythe prescription. How wise, too, to have brought that one bottle, forto-day he was beginning to want it again; and though he wanted also toget well, to break this infernal chain that was wound so closely abouthim, yet that which had been the only real desire of his life for allthese months pounced, tiger-like, to-day on the little morsel of addedstrength that had been thrown within reach. The higher side of him,feebler and all but paralysed, had no chance to reach that morsel beforethe other seized it.
Cunning began to return, too. There was something to scheme and planabout again. Already he thought over the coming hours of the day andtheir usual occupations, so as to devise when he should be able withsafety from detection to satisfy this growing desire. And even as heturned his mind to this, the desire itself swelled, nightmare-like. Itmust be soon, it must almost be now. Just a taste was all he wanted--aquarter-dose to satisfy himself that opium still existed, that there wassomething worth living for, worth getting better for--that warm thrilland vibration spreading from the head down through his neck, andinvading every limb with its quivering, serene harmonies! Or ... shouldhe tantalise himself, let himself get thirstier for it, before indulgingin it? He wanted it dreadfully, but he was capable of keener want thanthis, and the more he wanted it, the more ecstatic was the quenching ofthat infernal thirst. Even the want of it was pleasurable, when he knewthat he could satisfy that want when he chose. He felt sure, too, thatin moderation it could do him no harm. One had to break with a habit ofthis kind by degrees. And then he remembered when he had last said thatto himself--the day on which Catherine and Maud had thrown his bottleaway down at Bray. That had been an unwise thing to do; they had defiedhim, and he had resented that. Very likely he would not have taken thedrug at all that day had they not unwarrantably tried to put it out ofhis power to do so. You could drive some people: others had to be led.
And all this seemed such logical, reasonable stuff to his poor brain!
But now he had been without it for three weeks, and he had not evendesired it. That was an immense gain; it showed any sensible man that hehad made great steps towards the breaking himself of the habit and theextinction of the desire. But he wanted it now. That instinctiveswal
lowing movement of the throat and tongue had begun, and that was thesignal he always waited for. But he must still be cunning. He must makesome reasonable pretext for going to his cabin, and prevent thepossibility of suspicion conveying itself to Maud. That, however, wasnot difficult. It was as easy as lying--just as easy, in fact. There wasno difference at all between them. But it was as well to do the thinghandsomely, and he looked at her, at her big violet eyes, just moistwith tears, at her mouth just trembling a little with the emotion thathad inspired her words, and spoke without hesitation or bungling.
"Yes, I believe that," he said. "I am going to God direct, as you say.I am not a Christian Scientist, but I do believe in the omnipotent powerof God, and that nothing evil can exist in His presence. You are quiteright, too. I should probably have refused to leave England if I hadknown why I was being brought here. But I thank you, dear, for bringingme."
He paused a moment, wondering, as a bystander who knew his heart mightwonder, at the profanity and wickedness of what he was saying, since allthe time he attached no meaning to these solemn things, and wanted onlyto kill any possible suspicions in her mind which might lead to hisbeing interrupted when he went to his cabin to get at the despatch-box.It really was terrible, deplorable, that he should have to be so deep ahypocrite, but nothing mattered compared to the accomplishment of hiscraving. But he had said dreadful things, and a quarter of a dose, suchas he had planned to take, would not be enough to banish them from hismind ... it was no good taking opium at all if anything scratched andwhined at the closed door of conscience. Half a dose, surely, would nothurt him--a liberal half of those very liberal doses which he hadprescribed for himself. But he had better say a few words more yet.Incomplete lying was a tactical error of which he must not be guilty.
"Sir James is a very clever doctor, no doubt," he said, "but hecertainly made a mistake when he thought my will-power to resist wasdead, or something to that effect. I am glad he said that, and I am gladyou told me, because that sort of opinion acts as a tonic--an irritant,shall we call it? I will show him if my will-power is dead!"
Then an extraordinarily ingenious perversion occurred to him.
"Did Sir James really suppose I should consent to go to sea for a weekwithout opium, if I did not mean to be cured in spite of him?" heasked.
Thurso almost laughed over the irony of this; he was gettingsupernaturally cunning. Yet he detected a possible error in those lastwords; he had protested a little too much. But that was easilyrectified.
"I don't quite mean 'in spite of him,'" he said, "because that makes itappear as if I thought that, having given me up, he did not wish me toget well. But, my goodness, how his prescription of sea air is actingalready! I was a flabby log, if you imagine such a thing, when Istarted, and now am I not totally different? And yet I am impatient toget to America to begin the treatment. My recovery, if I am to recover,is in other hands--the best, the only ones. With all the power of willthat is in me I elect to leave myself there. And if that is not to be, Iwant you to know that, though it was too late, I was willing."
Again he wondered at his wickedness, but without regretting it. Hehugged it to him, feeling that the mere prospect of opium had soquickened his intelligence, his power of planning. And nothing else wasof any importance compared to the one necessity that he must get to hiscabin without any further delay, and leave Maud unsuspicious, and givingthanks in her fool's heart. He only wanted to dream dreams and seevisions; he wanted to see the sky, as he had seen it one evening up atAchnaleesh, covered with blue acanthus-leaves, with the dewdrops ofstars upon them, and the big sun a golden centre of the blue flower. Nordid Maud's words shake his desire, solemn though they were. They justwent by him, like a light summer breeze wandering by some square-builthouse.
"Oh, thank God, thank God, dear Thurso!" she said. "You will get well, Iknow it, if you feel like that. And now let us dismiss altogether allthat lies in the past. It was not you who have done these things: it wasan evil possession. But that is driven out now; your words assure me ofit."
* * * * *
Bells for times of refreshment were very frequent on this ship, and Maudwas thoroughly pleased with their frequency, for she had, when at sea,that huge sense of bodily health that requires much to eat and manyhours for sleep. The desire for sleep was shared by Thurso, and when,just as she finished speaking, the bell for tea tinkled up and down thedecks, she went down to the saloon, and he to his cabin, with theexpressed intention of reposing till dinner, and not pledging himself toappear even then unless he felt inclined. This desire for sleep, SirJames had said, was one that he should gratify to the full; and whenthey parted in the vestibule, that led in one direction to his cabin,and downstairs to the saloon in another, it was a possible good nightthat Maud wished him. His valet would bring his dinner to his cabin ifhe decided not to move again that evening.
Till that afternoon, when at length Thurso had shown that his will wasnot dead yet, that his face was still set forwards and upwards, thatsomething of spring, of the power to resist, was in him yet, Maud hadnot known how near despair she had been, nor how forlorn did she in herinmost self feel that this hope was for which she was bringing him overthe sea. Slender and dim as it had been, she had just still clung to it;but now that Thurso responded to it too, and acknowledged its validity,it suddenly became firm and strong. He was willing, eager (he who hadfelt eagerness for only one thing for so many months), to put himselfinto the hands of Infinite, Omnipotent Love, which would work for himthe miracle which the utmost skill of finite and mortal treatmentdespaired of accomplishing. In that great upspringing of hope andcourage which had come to her that afternoon at Thurso's words theconfined walls of the dining-saloon could not hold her long; herinstinct urged her to be up on deck again with the huge sea and the hugesky to be her only companions, so as to let her soul go forth, withoutthe distraction of near objects and the proximity of other human beings,that seemed to impede and clog the immortal sense, into the limitlesspresence of Divine Love. All this autumn she had been realising slowlyand haltingly--for when evil and ruin were so close about her it washard not to believe in the reality of them--that only one power, that ofGod, had any true existence, and that all else was false. But now thatrealisation was being poured into her like a flood, the dawn was growingdazzlingly bright, for already the miracle had begun, and hope and thewill-power had begun to spring from what the doctors had declared wassoil utterly barren, incapable of bearing fruit.
The top deck was quite empty when she came up again, the sun had alreadyset, and in the darkening skies the stars had begun to blossom likeflowers of gold, and she walked forward to the bows of the ship in orderto be quite alone. The very rush of air round her, as the great shiphissed forward into the west, where light still lingered, seemed to hertypical of what was happening spiritually to her. All round her lay thetossed darkness and evanescent foam of these unquiet seas, but just asthis mighty ship went smoothly and evenly through them, so through thewaves and fretful tumults of human trouble her soul went tranquillytowards the brightness in the west. She had doubted before, and oftenand often she had vainly striven to realise what her inmost soulbelieved, but she had tossed and been buffeted instead of going ontranquilly without fear. Though she had believed, her unbelief stillwailed. But now the wailing was hushed.
"Yes, it is so; it cannot be otherwise," she said to herself. "There canbe nothing but the real, the infinite."
She stayed there long between the sea and the stars, and at the endwalked back along the decks that were beginning to shimmer with dew,unconscious of all else in the wonder and glory of the truth that rainedlike the filtering starlight round her. Thurso, she expected, wasasleep, and she paused outside his cabin window for a moment, as iflinking him into the golden chain of her thoughts. And so few feet awayhe was indeed lying on his berth, not asleep, but very vividly awake, inthe full blaze of his hell-paradise.
He looked no longer on the bare white walls of his cabin, for though itw
as dark a heaven of blue acanthus-leaves covered them, and the starsshone like dewdrops there, and the sun was the golden heart of themarvellous blue flower. No quarter-dose, nor half-dose, had sufficed toenable his brain to paint there that celestial imagery, but it was therenow blazing in unearthly glory. One thing only troubled him, and thatnot very much, for it was only like a very distant echo and no authenticvoice; he wished vaguely that it had not been necessary to say so muchto Maud in order to purchase security. He could not remember exactlywhat his words had been, but they had had a sort of gravity andseriousness about them. That was necessary, however; she might not havethoroughly trusted him otherwise. But the memory of them just detractedfrom the bliss of his vision; they came between him and it like a littlefilm of grey.
* * * * *
As a rule he slept very well, especially after he had taken the drug.But to-night, when, soon after he had eaten the dinner which his valetbrought him, he undressed and went to bed, he felt very wide-awake--notstaringly so, but thoroughly so. It was now about eleven, and since theeffects of the opium usually wore off after five or six hours, leavinghim, as the vividness of its sensation began to fade, very drowsy andlanguid, he could not account for his inability to sleep. Then hisdisquiet began to take more definite form; he felt as if Maud was in thecabin looking at him with that bright face of joy which she had turnedon him at the end of their interview on deck. Gradually this convictionbecame so vivid that he spoke to her, calling her by name. There was noanswer, and he fumbled for the electric switch, and turned on his lightin order to convince himself that she was not there.
He put the light out, and lay down again, but no sooner had he closedhis eyes and tried to compose himself to sleep than the same certaintyof her presence, definite and conclusive as actual ocular vision, againvisited him. She was close to him, and as if actual words had beenspoken by her in bodily presence, he knew what filled her brain, whatshe wanted. It was all about him; she was saying to him again and again:"You are not only feeling better and stronger, but you are better. Godis making you better. You are in His presence now, and no evil, drug, orsuspicion, or hate can exist there." And together with this came therevivified memory of his own words to her--words which were utterlyfalse, and which he had spoken to make his own private proceedingssecure. Now he remembered what he had said; he had used the strongestand most solemn phrases that he could think of in order that he might goto his cabin without fear of interruption, and--do what he had done.
This great travelling hotel of a ship had grown quite quiet during thislast hour or two. When he went to bed there had been the sound of musicstill going on in the saloon, and to that there had succeeded the voicesand steps of those going to their cabins; but now there was no sound,except the external hiss and gurgle of the divided waters, and thelittle chucklings and tappings which at sea are never silent. But in thedarkness and quiet he was more than ever conscious of Maud's presence,and of what was going on in her brain, and he began to wonder whetherthis was not some drug-born hallucination. Whatever it was, itsvividness still grew, so also did the memory of what he had said to her,till he could all but hear himself saying those blasphemous thingsagain. Often and often he had said dreadful and intolerable things toCatherine, but never, so far as he knew, had he been quite so mean aliar as he had been this afternoon to Maud. He had lied sacredly to-dayin order to secure uninterruption for the enjoyment of that which hehad renounced. Now in the darkness and quietude his words came back tohim. And all the time Maud was here; her whole soul was filled withthankfulness to hear him speak these despicable falsehoods.
This lying here became intolerable; he was growing more acutely awakeevery moment, and every moment grew more aware of the reality of Maud'spresence. Was it some warning, did some occult sense whisper to him thatshe was in imminent danger of some kind, and that, as at the hour ofdeath, her soul sought his so vehemently that it produced this confirmedbelief in her actual presence? And next moment he had jumped out of bed,and put on a few hasty clothes, in order to go to her cabin and see thatshe was all right. Yet at the door he hesitated, feeling he could notface her. He would betray himself, his eyes would betray him, so that hecould not meet hers; or his mouth would betray him, so that he couldgive but stuttered answers, and she would guess what he had been doing.But anxiety for her overmastered this, and he went and tapped at herdoor.
She answered at once, and he went in. Though it was so late, she wasstill fully dressed, and seated on a chair by her berth, her faceradiant with happiness.
"Not in bed yet?" he said.
"No; I was too happy to go to bed."
Then, as she looked at him, she paused.
"What is the matter, Thurso?" she said. "What have you come to me for?"
He could not meet her eye, just as he had feared, but looked away.
"I couldn't sleep," he said. "I kept thinking you were in the room. Icame to see if you were all right."
She gave a long sigh, and shook her head.
"Oh, Thurso, you've been taking laudanum again," she said. "But, anyhow,anyhow, you came to tell me, did you not?"
He looked back fiercely at her, knowing that he was going to stammer,and furious at himself.
"I--I haven't," he said. "Wh--what do you mean? I----" And then hisvoice failed him; his lips stuttered, trying to say something, but nosound came. She seemed not to have heard his denial.
"No wonder you thought I was in your cabin," she said. "All my soul wasthere. Oh, Thurso, don't despair, there's a good fellow!"
Then something seemed to break within him. He could not go on tellinglies to her. Perhaps it was because he was tired, and could not summonup the energy to protest; perhaps it was that for very shame he couldnot. It was simpler, too, to tell the truth. He cared so little.
"No, it is hopeless," he said. "I am tired of trying and failing. Assoon as my strength came back to me a little to-day the craving cameback. I brought a bottle of the stuff with me. Oh yes, I told you Ihadn't; I lied--I lied gorgeously; you never suspected it. All the timewe were talking this afternoon I wanted only one thing--to get away tomy cabin. I didn't care what I said to you in order to secure that. NowI suppose you'll want me to give up the rest of the stuff. Well, Ican't. I don't want anything in the world except it. And it's no useyour thinking that I can ever get better. I have given up all hope. Youhad better do the same."
For one moment Maud felt that he spoke the truth, that he was beyondpower of recall. But the next her whole soul and strength was up inarms, fighting, denying that thought, passionately reversing it. Therewas nothing in the world that could be compared with the reality ofInfinite Love; she had known that so well to-day, and already she wasletting error obscure it. Vehemently, vigorously, she fought thaterror, and then suddenly she wondered what she had been fighting. Forthere was nothing there; her blows were rained upon emptiness. It was asif she had dreamed she was fighting. And she spoke to Thurso as shemight have spoken to a child who was afraid of the dark, while in herhands she carried the Great Light.
"You silly boy!" she said. "What can you mean by such nonsense? How canI give you up? How is it possible for me to give up one whom I love? Youcan't give up love. You are frightened, you know, and there's nothing inthe world to frighten you. You said this afternoon things that made meunutterably happy, and now you come and tell me they were lies, that youdidn't mean them. I'm sorry you didn't mean them, but they weren't lies.They were all perfectly true."
That sombre smouldering of despair in his eyes faded.
"Do you mean you can possibly ever trust me again?" he asked. Then headded quickly: "But I can't give you the bottle--I can't."
Maud almost laughed.
"Well, if you can't, you can't," she said. "And now I'm going to see youback to your cabin, and you are going to bed. You've had a dreadfulevening, dear, over these nightmare errors. I am so sorry. And if youfeel I am in the room with you again, you mustn't be frightened or thinkthere is anything wrong. I can't help
being with you."
He said nothing to this, and they went down the creaking white passageto his cabin in silence.
"And you've had dinner?" she asked. "You won't be hungry before morning?It's only a little after one, you know. I could get you something."
"No; nothing, thanks," he said.
He stood irresolute in the middle of his cabin, and Maud watched himwith shining eyes, knowing and telling herself that she knew that herdesire was going to be given her. Then he took a bunch of keys from hispocket, detached one, and flung it on the ground.
"That's the key," he said. "You will find the bottle in my despatch-box.You may take it if you like."
But Maud made no movement to pick up the key.
"My dear Thurso," she said, "where are your manners? That really is notthe proper way to give me a key."
"I won't give it you in any other way," he said.
She longed so to pick it up herself that she could scarcely restrainherself from doing it, but she longed also that, strengthened by thisfirst effort, he should make another, give her the key voluntarily. Butwhat if he picked it up himself, and refused to give it her? No; thatcould not happen.
"Then, I'm afraid it must stop where it is," she said. "Good night."
He turned with a frown to her.
"Oh, Maud, you fool!" he said. "Why don't you take it while I can justmanage to allow you to?"
"Because you must give it me like a pretty gentleman, of course," shesaid.
Ah! how pleasant and human were the dealings of love! Half an hour agotragedy, sordid, bitter, and heart-breaking, had been hers, and now notonly was comedy here, but sheer farce, mirthful and ridiculous,productive of childish laughter. Thurso laughed, too, as he bent downand picked up the key.
"You are an obstinate woman," he said.
"I know. Thank you, darling. Oh, Thurso, how much better it is than thetime I threw the bottle away without your knowing! Now you give it me."
She unlocked the despatch-box.
"Thurso, what a big bottle!" she said; "and half empty. How greedy!"
But the sight of it kindled his desire again, and it flamed up.
"Ah! give it me back!" he cried. "I can't let you have it. I told you Icouldn't."
Maud did not feel bound to demonstrate over this, and she simply ran outof the cabin with the bottle. She made not half a dozen steps of itacross the deck, and before ten seconds were over a large, half-emptybottle of laudanum was sinking forlornly into the abysmal depths of theAtlantic Ocean.
"That's the end of you," she observed viciously.
* * * * *
But in spite of this piece of gained ground, she knew well that theremust be many uphill battles to fight before recovery could be assured.Cochrane had told her that in the letter she had received from him justbefore she left England. He had answered at once to her cable, merelysaying that "he would cure Thurso," and had written fully afterwards.The letter ended thus:
"I know that you believe in the Infinite and Omnipotent Mind, which isthe sole and only cause and origin of all the world; and though you arenot a member of our Church at present, yet, since you believe the Gospelon which every cure that Christian Science has ever made is based, begintreating him at once yourself. Combat in your mind every sign of errorthat you see in him, and never allow yourself to be discouraged, becauseto be discouraged means that for the moment you doubt. Of course, goodmust triumph, but when error is so firmly rooted in a man it wants somepulling up. It won't come away as a mere shallow-rooted weed will. Youmay have to face apparent failure again and again, but it is a comfortto know that one is on the winning side."
The days that followed amply illustrated the truth of this, and manywere the hours in which Maud was tempted to despair. Every evil, erringmood that had made up Thurso's record for the last six months wascondensed into the few days of that voyage. Sometimes his will wouldflicker in a little dim flame, so that she knew it was not quitequenched; but the flame was so feeble, and so dense was the blacknessthat surrounded it. One day he secretly went to the ship's doctor,taking with him the prescription that was so familiar, which he hadhimself written out and signed with Sir James Sanderson's name, askinghim to have it made up.
The doctor looked at it. It was all in order.
"Certainly, Lord Thurso," he said. "I will have it sent to your cabin.It is rather a strong solution, you know. You must be careful not toexceed the dose."
Thurso almost smiled at this.
"Oh, I am very careful," he said. "I suffer from terrible neuralgicheadaches. Thank you very much."
He left the surgery, his heart beating with exhilarated anticipation,when suddenly the doctor, who was looking at the prescription again,gave a little whistle, and then called him. Thurso had hardly left theroom, and came back at once.
"Lord Thurso," he said, "this is rather odd. Sir James Sanderson is noton board, for I saw him leave the ship at Liverpool. Yet theprescription is written on the ship's paper."
Thurso made a furious gesture of impatience.
"Oh, for God's sake give it me!" he said. "I shall go mad without it. Itwas Sir James's prescription. I--I copied it out. I have taken it manytimes."
Then a sudden thought struck him, and he could have screamed at his ownstupidity in not having thought of it a second sooner.
"I don't know what I am saying," he said. "I didn't copy it out at all.Sir James wrote it for me before he left the ship."
The doctor looked at him in silence. It was sufficiently plain to himwhat the case was.
"I am very sorry," he said, "but it is quite impossible for me to giveyou this. I will with pleasure give you a bromide mixture or phenacetinif your head is bad. Of course, the matter shall go no farther."
Thurso merely walked away. There was nothing more to be said. And thensuddenly the little flicker of will and of outraged self-respect shot upagain, and he saw how mean it all was. He, Thurso, had not only forgedthis, but his forgery had been detected: that was bitter. He must notdo this kind of thing. This powerlessness against his desire wasintolerable, degrading; his pride rebelled against the hideous strengthof his weakness.
He leaned against the bulwarks of the ship, looking at the hissingwreaths of foam that bubbled forty feet below, in despair at himself;yet, since for the moment he was ashamed, since he wished he was notsuch a despicable fellow, the despair was not total. Yet would it not bebetter if he ceased to struggle, ceased to be at all? One moment ofbravery, one leap into those huge grey monsters of waves that weremaking even this leviathan of the seas rock and roll, and it would beall over. But even at the moment of thinking this he knew he had not thecourage to do it. No moral quality seemed to be left to him. They hadall been eaten up and transformed into one hideous desire, even as acancer turns the wholesome blood and living tissues of the body intoits own putrefying growth. And what if that doctor told somebody? He hadsaid that it should go no further, but there was small blame to him ifhe could not resist so savoury a bit of scandal. "The Earl of Thursoforges Sir James Sanderson's name in order to get laudanum, to which heis a slave!" That would make an alluring headline, if tastefullyarranged, for some New York paper.
* * * * *
Or, again, he would rail at Maud, laying tongue to any bitter falsehoodhe could invent, telling her, for instance, that she had stolen hisbottle of laudanum, and that he was tortured with neuralgia. Or, whichhurt her more, he would tell her the truth, and say that he had triedforgery on the ship's doctor, and had been caught, asking her how sheliked to have a forger for a brother. Or, hardest of all, he would sitfor hours in idle despair, so deep, so abandoned, that it was all shecould do not to despair also. She knew it was all error. It was theunreal, the mortal part of him that suffered, but it was very hard tocling to the truth of what she believed, and not let these seas sweepher away.
But after this not very brilliant attempt to get laudanum from theship's doctor, Thurso made no further efforts in that d
irection, and nowand then there were little rifts in those clouds and storms that were sodark and grey above him. More than once, when for an hour, perhaps, hehad sat and been voluble with bitter things in order to wound her, hewould cease suddenly and sit in despairing, sorry silence.
"I'm an utter, utter brute!" he would say; "but try to cling to yourbelief that it isn't me."
Then she would look at him with lips that quivered and eyes that werebrimming with unshed tears.
"Oh, Thurso, I know that," she said. "And if I forget it now and then,and feel hurt and wounded, thinking that it is you who have been sayingbitter things to me, I know it is not so really."
Throughout the voyage his bodily health and strength were steadily,though slowly, on the mend. He put on a little flesh; there was a littlemore brightness in his eye and more clearness of skin than when he leftEngland, and this, too, seemed to her a visible sign of the truth ofwhat she believed. With all her heart, too, she set herself to reverseand forget the warning that Sir James had given her, that as hisstrength began to return so the strength of his craving would grow also.It had, indeed, seemed that this was true on that first evening when hehad taken the drug again--or, at least, he had felt and said that it wasso--but she set herself to fight that. With heart lifted high in faithand hope, she denied it, affirming that, his health being a good thing,it could not let itself give aid and be a slave to an evil thing, forthus evil would be mastering good--a thing unthinkable. No; the strengththat was coming back to him, slowly indeed, represented the effortsagainst, and the repulses of, that deadly habit which had become sointimate a guest of his soul. Into the house of his soul he had admittedit, a hideous, dwarfish shape, but of terrible strength, blear-eyed, andwith trembling hands, clothed in the shroud and cerements of sensuality.But now he was pushing it away again, dragging it out of the home of hisspirit. It was hard work--none knew that better than she--for the thingclung as tenaciously as a limpet; but failure was impossible, and wellshe knew that, when at last they got it to the door of his soul, and gotthat door open so that the sunshine of Infinite Love poured in, withwhat cry of joyful amazement would he see that the dreadful figure thatin the dark seemed so real was nothing, had no existence apart from hisbelief in it. It was cheating him all the time. It was only in thetwilight of his soul that what was a shadow seemed to be real.
Now and then, too, the real Thurso--the kindly, courteous gentleman whohad been to her so well-loved a brother--came back, and he and Maudwould talk about old days before ever this shadow blackened his path.And then in the serene light of memory, which often lends a vividness tothat which is remembered that it did not have in life, they would liveover again some windy, notable day on the hill when Thurso shot threestags, or some memorable morning by the river when Maud killed foursalmon before lunch.
"Oh, Thurso, and I should have killed the fifth, do you remember? but Ilet the line get round that rock in the Roaring Pool, and he broke me."
"By gad! yes," he said. "And you very nearly cried. Lord, what good daysthey were! I was awfully happy all that summer. Funny--I had hideousneuralgia, and it spoiled my pleasure a good deal, but it didn't spoilmy happiness. What do you make of that?"
"Why, nothing can spoil one's happiness," she said, "if one thinksright. All happiness----"
But he got up suddenly.
"I get the heartache to think of it all," he said.
She rose, too, laying her hand on his shoulder.
"Ah, Thurso, it will come back," she said--"it will come back and bebetter than it ever was."
He looked at her with a sudden face of gloom.
"And you?" he asked. "And Catherine? How can she forget? It is absurd tosay that things can be the same as before. Not God can put the clockback and say it is yesterday."
"No, dear; but the sun will rise on a to-morrow that will be ever sobright. Joy comes in the morning."
The bitter mood was coming over him again.
"Ah! a phrase," he said.
"Yes; but a true one," she answered.
* * * * *
But these hours were short and rare, and it was but seldom that he wasable to think even regretfully or longingly of the past. For the mostpart he was suspicious and bitter, full only of the one deadly desireand the longing for its gratification. Yet as the days went by, and theremainder of their voyage began to be reckoned by the smaller scale ofhours, his despair and dispiritedness were sensibly lessened. Maudnoticed that, but when--as sometimes he did--he spoke hopefully of thenew cure that was going to be tried, his voice rang as false as acracked bell, and she knew that it was not to the treatment and hope ofsalvation that he looked forward, but to the escape from this prison ofa ship, where his desire was denied him, to the freedom of land, of thetowns, where there were chemists, drug-stores. It was that really, soshe felt, that animated him.
Yet with his returning strength his craving did not seem to growproportionately. At times she thought there was some check on it,unanticipated by Sir James. He wanted the drug: his brain, she made nodoubt, was often full of the schemes that could be effected on shore.But no madness and raving of desire had appeared, and already they werewithin Sandy Hook, steaming slowly up to the relentless city.
* * * * *
Thurso and she were standing on the top deck together when they werearriving, on a morning of crystalline brightness. The land was whitewith snow, but the air was windless, and she felt that even the townwhich has the credit or discredit of possessing the vilest climate yetdiscovered in the world had its beautiful days. Higher and higher, asthey drew near, rose the abominable, many-storied buildings, and fromthe pale blue of the winter sky they passed into the region of greysmoke which overhung the town. From the lonely and splendid places ofthe untenanted seas they slid into more populous waters. Stately linerswere leaving for Eastern ports, and from the beautiful desert of theocean they passed into the jostling waterways, full of broad-beamedferry-steamers, and the hootings of innumerable syrens. Yet, somehow,her heart welcomed it all. She felt the stimulus of keen air and theintense throbbing activity which the town exhaled, that atmosphere ofcontinuous, unremitting effort which makes all other places seem dronishand lazy.
But it did not strike Thurso thus.
"It is damnable! it is hell!" he said.
Maud scarcely attended to him.
"Oh, I rather like it," she said.
The huge bulk of their ship, helpless in these narrow waters as somespent whale, sidled up to her berth, towed, as if by microscopicalharpooners' boats, by two or three tiny, bustling tugs; and on the quayMaud saw a figure she knew, tall and serene and smiling, with nogreatcoat on in spite of the chilliness of the morning, and for thatmoment she forgot Thurso and his troubles, and her heart leaped lightlyto him across the narrowing space of water that separated them.
That was unconscious, unpremeditated, and on the moment consciousthought came back, and she thought, not of herself and him, but only ofhim and Thurso. He was there, the man who had flicked across the oceanthe message that he "would cure him." And she turned to her brother.
"Look! there is Mr. Cochrane," she said, "and he sees us. How kind ofhim to have come down to meet the ship."
* * * * *
It was yet a long time before they were berthed, and the landing-bridgesput in place, and Maud did not know how his heart, too, had leaped whenhe saw them standing on the deck. To him, also, had come, as to her,that first unpremeditated leap, when it was to her that he leaped. Thenwith his conscious self he saw her brother, him whom he longed to savefrom mortal error.
But the flame of human love, in spite of himself, had been the first toblaze.
Then they met, all three.