CHAPTER XX

LIKE A TRAPPED ANIMAL

Macheson in those days felt himself rapidly growing older. An immeasurable gap seemed to lie between him and the eager young apostle who had plunged so light-heartedly into the stress of life. All that wonderful enthusiasm, that undaunted courage with which he had faced coldness and ridicule in the earlier days of his self-chosen vocation seemed to have left him. Some way, somehow, he seemed to have suffered shipwreck! There was poison in his system! Fight against it as he might--and he did fight--there were moments when memory turned the life which he had taken up so solemnly into the maddest, most fantastic fairy story. At such times his blood ran riot, the sweetness of a strange, unknown world seemed to be calling to him across the forbidden borders.

Inaction wearied him horribly--and, after all, it was inaction which Holderness had recommended as the best means of re-establishing himself in a saner and more normal att.i.tude towards life!

"Look round a bit, old chap," he advised, "and think. Don't do anything in a hurry. You're young, shockingly young for any effective work. You can't teach before you understand. Life isn't such a sink of iniquity as you young prigs at Oxford professed to find it. See the best of it and the worst. You'll be able to put your finger on the weak spots quick enough."

But the process of looking around wearied Macheson excessively--or was it something else which had crept into his blood to his immense unsettlement? There were several philanthropic schemes started by himself and his college friends in full swing now, in or about London.

To each of them he paid some attention, studying its workings, listening to the enthusiastic outpourings of his quondam friends and doing his best to catch at least some spark of their interest. But it was all very unsatisfactory. Deep down in his heart he felt the insistent craving for some fiercer excitement, some mode of life which should make larger and deeper demands upon his emotional temperament. A heroic war would have appealed to him instantly--for that, he realized with a sigh, he was born many centuries too late. For weeks he wandered about London in a highly unsatisfied condition. Then one afternoon, in the waning of a misty October day, he came face to face with Wilhelmina in Bond Street.

She was stepping into her motor brougham when she saw him. He had no opportunity for escape, even if he had desired it. Her tired lips were suddenly curved into a most bewildering smile. She withdrew her hand from her m.u.f.f and offered it to him--for the first time.

"So you are still in London, Mr. Macheson," she said. "I am very glad to see you."

The words were unlike her, the tone was such as he had never heard her use. Do what he could, he could not help the answering light which sprang into his own eyes.

"I am still in London," he said. "I thought you were to go to Marienbad?"

"I left it until it was too late," she answered. "Walk a little way with me," she added abruptly. "I should like to talk to you."

"If I may," he answered simply.

She dismissed the brougham, and they moved on.

"I am sorry," she began, "that I was rude to you when you brought that girl to me. You did exactly what was nice and kind, and I was hateful.

Please forgive me."

"Of course," he answered simply. "I felt sure that when you thought it over you would understand."

"You are not going back--to Thorpe?" she asked.

"Not at present, at any rate," he answered.

She looked up at him with a faint smile.

"You can have the barn," she said.

His eyes answered her smile, but his tone was grave.

"I have given that up--for a little time, at any rate," he said. "I mean that particular sort of work."

"My villagers must content themselves with Mr. Vardon, then," she remarked.

He nodded.

"Perhaps," he said, "ours was a mistaken enterprise. I am not sure. But at any rate, so far as Thorpe is concerned, I have abandoned it for the present."

She was walking close to his side, so close that the hand which raised her skirt as they crossed the street touched his, and her soft breath as she leaned over and spoke fell upon his cheek.

"Why?"

He felt the insidious meaning of her whispered monosyllable, he felt her eyes striving to make him look at her. His cheeks were flushed, but he looked steadily ahead.

"There were several reasons," he said.

"Do tell me," she begged; "I am curious."

"For one," he said steadily, "I did an unjust thing at Thorpe. I sheltered a criminal and helped him to escape."

"So it was you who did that," she remarked. "You mean, of course, the man who killed Mr. Hurd?"

"Yes!" he answered. "I showed him where to hide. He either got clean away, or he is lying at the bottom of the slate quarry. In either case, I am responsible for him."

"Well," she said, "he is not at the bottom of the slate quarry. I can at least a.s.sure you of that. I have had the place dragged, and every foot of it gone over by experienced men from Nottingham."

"Really," he said, surprised. "Well, I am glad of it."

She sighed.

"I want you, if you can," she said, "to describe the man to me. It is not altogether curiosity. I have a reason for wishing to know what he was like."

"He was in such a state of panic," Macheson said doubtfully, "that I am afraid I have only an imperfect impression of him. He was not very tall, he had a round face, cheeks that were generally, I should think, rather high-coloured, brown eyes and dark hair, almost black. He wore a thick gold ring on the finger of one hand, and although he spoke good English, I got the idea somehow that he was either a foreigner or had lived abroad. He was in a terrible state of fear, and from what I could gather, I should say that he struck old Mr. Hurd in a scuffle, and not with any deliberate intention of hurting him."

She nodded.

"I have heard all that I want to," she declared.

They walked on in silence for several minutes. Then she turned to him with a shrug of the shoulders.

"The subject," she declared, "is dismissed. I did not ask you to walk with me to discuss such unpleasant things. I should like to know about yourself."

He sighed.

"About myself," he answered, "there is nothing to tell. There isn't in the whole of London a more unsatisfactory person."

She laughed softly.

"Such delightful humility," she murmured, "especially amongst the young, is too touching. Nevertheless, go on. It amuses me to hear."

The note of imperiousness in her tone was pleasantly reminiscent. It was the first reminder he had received of the great lady of Thorpe.

"Well," he said, "what do you want to know?"

"Everything," she answered. "I am possessed by a most unholy curiosity.

Your relatives for instance, and where you were born."

He shook his head.