Part 4 (1/2)

They say it's one part of the brain working a shade ahead of the rest.

I don't believe that. I do not believe my brain is working at all.

It's spinning around. For days I've been living in the Fourth Dimension--something like that. It changes the values to have a new universe whirl up around one. New heavens and a new earth--that's it.

I have given up trying to a.n.a.lyze it. Even if I didn't want to tell you I couldn't help it. I'm beyond that now, and--helpless. I never dreamed of its being like this. I never thought much about it, except vaguely, as anybody does, and here it's come and s.n.a.t.c.hed away the world.

I don't know how this is going to get itself said. But I can't stop it. That frightens me, rather; I've been used to ordering myself about or, at least, to feeling that I could. But that seems to be over. I don't pretend that I didn't foresee it, or rather that I didn't recognize it right at the beginning. What I did was to put off reckoning with it.

I see that I'm going to say things wrong. You have got to overlook that; I can't help it. I told you my brain wasn't working. For days I've been in a maze. Then your letter came, late this afternoon, and that settled it. Do you know what you said? Do you? You said: ”If you were a real man, I wouldn't have exploded like this.” A real man--what do you _think_ I am? That's what I want to know. You'll find out I'm real enough before you and I are done. Do you suppose that I have been reading your letters all these weeks--those letters in which you said yourself you put your soul--as though they were stock quotations? Did you think you were a numbered ”case,” that I was keeping notes about you in that neat filing-cabinet down in the office?

Well, it hasn't been exactly that way.

Do you remember that day you were here? How it rained--how dark it was? Why, I've never seen you, really. I'm always trying to imagine your face.

I've got to talk to you--some things can't be written. You won't stop me. Do you suppose you can? You've got to give me a chance to talk--that's only square. No, I don't mean all that. I don't quite know what I'm saying. I mean, you will let me come, won't you? I'll go away again after; you needn't be afraid. That's fair, isn't it?

You see, it's been strange from the start, and so quick. You, in the middle of the storm that day--the things you said--the fearful tangle you were in. And then the letters--the wonderful letters! And we thought we were keeping it all impersonal. You, with your blazing individuality--you, impersonal! I can't imagine your face, but you've stripped the masks and conventions off your soul for me--I've looked at that. I couldn't help it, could I? I couldn't stop. I can't now. I can't look at anything else. There isn't anything else--it fills my world--it's blotted out what used to be reality.

You're hundreds of miles away--what are you doing? Sitting, with your white dress a rosy blur in the lamplight, reading, thinking, afraid--frightened at the doctors--shrinking at the thought of that d.a.m.ned, pawing beast? We'll drop that last--this isn't the time for that--not yet. Miles away you are--and yet you're here--the real you that you've sent me in the letters. Always you are here. I listen to your voice--I've got that--your voice, singing through my days--here in the silence and the firelight, outside in the night under the stars, always, everywhere, I hear you--calling me.

You see, my head's gone. Don't think though, that I don't know the risk this is. But there isn't any other way. Those four weeks you didn't write, when I thought you had gone under--that was when I began to see how it was with me. Since then I've gone on, living on your letters, until now I can't imagine living without them--and more. And yet I know this may be the end. That's the risk. But I can't go on like that any more. It's everything now, or nothing. I want to know what you are going to do about it. What are you thinking--what must you think--what will you say to me when I see you in your still garden of miracles? I've got to know. If you meant it--you said I was the centre of your world--it can't be true that you meant that. I the centre of your great, clean, wind-swept world of hill-tops and of visions? I, who haven't got the decent strength to hold my tongue, and keep my hands. But you did say that--you did! When I come, will you say it to me again, out loud, that? I can't imagine it--such a thing couldn't happen to me. But if you shouldn't--if you should tell me not to come--no, I can't face that. Where is the solution? I see perfectly that you can't care--why should you?--I see also that you must be made to. That's just it. I know what I must have and that I can never have it. No, that isn't so. I know that I shall come and take you away from what you fear and hate, out of the world we both know is not real, into reality. I shall tell you why I want you, why you must come. You will listen and you will answer. You will say why it's madness and insanity. I shall have to hear all your obvious reasons, but I shall know that you know they are lies--Do you think--do you dream, that they can stand between me and you? You can't stop me.

Because I have seen your soul--you said so--you've held it out, in your two hands, for me to look at. You can't keep me away from you. I know how you'll fight against it. You won't win--don't count on it.

This isn't insolence--it's the thing that's got me. I can't help it.

A man is that way. I don't half know what I've said; I don't dare read it. You have got to make it out yourself, somehow.

You've asked me questions. You're troubled, frightened--I know, it's--h.e.l.l. Do you think I can sit here any longer and let you go through that alone? I've been over the whole thing--I've done nothing else, and out of the maze of it all I'm forced to come to this. It's the old way and the only one--the answer to it all. What can you do with your life--your life that is going to be, that is now, all glorious with loveliness and light? Give it away--that's it--give it to me, and then we two will set it to music and send it singing through the world. The old way. You to come home to when the day is done--your face, your hands, your eyes----

You'll have to overlook this. It's mad to go on. It's mad anyway. If you knew how I've lied to myself, how I've struggled and fought and twisted to keep this back from you! And here it is, confused and grotesque and contradictory and wrong. If I could look at you and say it, I could get it right. If I could look at you--if I could see you.

Give me a chance. Then I'll go away again--if you say so. I had to give you warning--it didn't seem square not. And I've bungled it like this! I tell you I can't help it. It's what you've done to me. I tried to spare you this, but I waited too long--now it's almighty.

Give me my man's chance--Oh I know I'm not worth it--who is?

Afterwards--

G. McB.

_October 10th_.

Telegram received by the Reverend Geoffrey McBirney, St. Andrews Parish House, Warchester:

You must not come. Leaving Forest Gate. Sailing for Germany Sat.u.r.day.

Letter.

AUGUST FIRST.

The son of the under-gardener was a steady ten-year-old three hundred and sixty-four days of the year, and his Scottish blood commended him to Robert Halarkenden and inspired a confidence not justified on the three hundred and sixty-fifth day.

”Angus,” said Halarkenden, regarding the boy with a blue glance like a blow, ”the young mistress wishes this letter posted to catch the noon train. The master has sent for me and I canna take it. You will”--the bony hand fished in the deep pocket and brought out a nickel--”you will hurry with this letter and post it immediately.” ”Yes, sir,” said Angus, and Robert Halarkenden turned to go to the master of the great house, ill in his great room, with no doubt about the United States mails. While Angus, being in the power of the three hundred and sixty-fifth day, trotted demurely into the meshes of Fate.