The Collaborators | Page 8

taken the bit between my
teeth, I know. But--this story seems to me no fiction; it is a piece of life,
as real to me as those stars I see through the window-pane are real to
me--as my own emotions are real to me. Jack, this book has seized me.
Believe me, if it is written as I wish, it will make an impression upon
the world that will be great. The mind of the world is given to me like a

sheet of blank paper. I will write upon it with my heart's blood.
But"--and here his manner became strangely impressive, and his
sombre, heavy eyes gazed deeply into the eyes of his
friend--"remember this! You will finish this book. I feel that; I know it.
I cannot tell you why. But so it is ordained. Let me write as far as I can,
Jack, and let me write as I will. But do not let us quarrel. The book is
ours, not mine. And--don't--don't take away your friendship from me."
The last words were said with an outburst of emotion that was almost
feminine in intensity. Henley felt deeply moved, for, as a rule,
Andrew's manner was not specially affectionate, or even agreeable.
"It is all right, old fellow," he said, in the embarrassed English manner
which often covers so much that might with advantage be occasionally
revealed. "Go on in your own way. I believe you are a genius, and I am
only trying to clip the wings that may carry you through the skies. Go
on in your own way, and consult me only when you feel inclined."
Andrew took his hand and pressed it in silence.

III.
It was some three weeks after this that one afternoon Trenchard laid
down his pen at the conclusion of a chapter, and, getting up, thrust his
hands into his pockets and walked to the window.
The look-out was rather dreary. A gray sky leaned over the great,
barrack-like church that gives an ecclesiastical flavour to Smith's
Square. A few dirty sparrows fluttered above the gray
pavement--feverish, unresting birds, Trenchard named them silently, as
he watched their meaningless activity, their jerky, ostentatious
deportment, with lacklustre, yet excited, eyes. How gray everything
looked, tame, colourless, indifferent! The light was beginning to fade
stealthily out of things. The gray church was gradually becoming
shadowy. The flying forms of the hurrying sparrows disappeared in the
weary abysses of the air and sky. The sitting-room in Smith's Square

was nearly dark now. Henley had gone out to a matinée at one of the
theatres, so Trenchard was alone. He struck a match presently, lit a
candle, carried it over to his writing-table, and began to examine the
littered sheets he had just been writing. The book was nearing its end.
The tragedy was narrowing to a point. Trenchard read the last
paragraph which he had written:
"He hardly knew that he lived, except during those many hours when,
plunged in dreams, he allowed, nay, forced, life to leave him for awhile.
He had sunk to depths below even those which Olive had reached. And
the thought that she was ever so little above him haunted him like a
spectre impelling him to some mysterious deed. When he was not
dreaming, he was dwelling upon this idea which had taken his soul
captive. It seemed to be shaping itself towards an act. Thought was the
ante-room through which he passed to the hall where Fate was sitting,
ready to give him audience. He traversed this ante-room, which seemed
lined with fantastic and terrible pictures, at first with lagging footfalls.
But at length he laid his hand upon the door that divided him from
Fate."
*****
And when he had read the final words he gathered the loose sheets
together with his long, thin fingers, and placed them one on the top of
the other in a neat pile. He put them into a drawer which contained
other unfinished manuscripts, shut the drawer, locked it, and carried the
key to Henley's room. There he scribbled some words on a bit of
notepaper, wrapped the key in it, and inclosed it in an envelope on
which he wrote Henley's name. Then he put on his overcoat, descended
the narrow stairs, and opened the front-door. The landlady heard him,
and screamed from the basement to know if he would be in to dinner.
"I shall not be in at all to-night," he answered, in a hard, dry voice that
travelled along the dingy passage with a penetrating distinctness. The
landlady murmured to the slatternly maidservant an ejaculatory diatribe
on the dissipatedness of young literary gentlemen as the door banged.
Trenchard disappeared in the gathering darkness, and soon left Smith's
Square behind him.

It chanced that day that, in the