The Country of the Blind | Page 7

overcast, the sky red-rimmed with the lingering
sunset of midsummer. They sat at the open window, trying to fancy the
air was fresher there. The trees and shrubs of the garden stood stiff and
dark; beyond in the roadway a gas-lamp burnt, bright orange against
the hazy blue of the evening. Farther were the three lights of the
railway signal against the lowering sky. The man and woman spoke to
one another in low tones.
"He does not suspect?" said the man, a little nervously.
"Not he," she said peevishly, as though that too irritated her. "He thinks
of nothing but the works and the prices of fuel. He has no imagination,
no poetry."
"None of these men of iron have," he said sententiously. "They have no
hearts."
"He has not," she said. She turned her discontented face towards the

window. The distant sound of a roaring and rushing drew nearer and
grew in volume; the house quivered; one heard the metallic rattle of the
tender. As the train passed, there was a glare of light above the cutting
and a driving tumult of smoke; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight black oblongs--eight trucks--passed across the dim grey of the
embankment, and were suddenly extinguished one by one in the throat
of the tunnel, which, with the last, seemed to swallow down train,
smoke, and sound in one abrupt gulp.
"This country was all fresh and beautiful once," he said; "and now--it is
Gehenna. Down that way--nothing but pot-banks and chimneys
belching fire and dust into the face of heaven...But what does it matter?
An end comes, an end to all this cruelty...To-morrow." He spoke the
last word in a whisper.
"To-morrow," she said, speaking in a whisper too, and still staring out
of the window.
"Dear!" he said, putting his hand on hers.
She turned with a start, and their eyes searched one another's. Hers
softened to his gaze. "My dear one!" she said, and then: "It seems so
strange--that you should have come into my life like this--to open--"
She paused.
"To open?" he said.
"All this wonderful world"--she hesitated, and spoke still more softly--
"this world of love to me."
Then suddenly the door clicked and closed. They turned their heads,
and he started violently back. In the shadow of the room stood a great
shadowy figure-silent. They saw the face dimly in the half-light, with
unexpressive dark patches under the pent-house brows. Every muscle
in Raut's body suddenly became tense. When could the door have
opened? What had he heard? Had he heard all? What had he seen? A
tumult of questions.

The new-comer's voice came at last, after a pause that seemed
interminable. "Well?" he said.
"I was afraid I had missed you, Horrocks," said the man at the window,
gripping the window-ledge with his hand. His voice was unsteady.
The clumsy figure of Horrocks came forward out of the shadow. He
made no answer to Raut's remark. For a moment he stood above them.
The woman's heart was cold within her. "I told Mr. Raut it was just
possible you might come back," she said in a voice that never quivered.
Horrocks, still silent, sat down abruptly in the chair by her little
work-table. His big hands were clenched; one saw now the fire of his
eyes under the shadow of his brows. He was trying to get his breath.
His eyes went from the woman he had trusted to the friend he had
trusted, and then back to the woman.
By this time and for the moment all three half understood one another.
Yet none dared say a word to ease the pent-up things that choked them.
It was the husband's voice that broke the silence at last.
"You wanted to see me?" he said to Raut.
Raut started as he spoke. "I came to see you," he said, resolved to lie to
the last.
"Yes," said Horrocks.
"You promised," said Raut, "to show me some fine effects of
moonlight and smoke."
"I promised to show you some fine effects of moonlight and smoke,"
repeated Horrocks in a colourless voice.
"And I thought I might catch you to-night before you went down to the
works," proceeded Raut, "and come with you."

There was another pause. Did the man mean to take the thing coolly?
Did he, after all, know? How long had he been in the room? Yet even at
the moment when they heard the door, their attitudes ... Horrocks
glanced at the profile of the woman, shadowy pallid in the half-light.
Then he glanced at Raut, and seemed to recover himself suddenly. "Of
course," he said, "I promised to show you the works under their proper
dramatic conditions. It's odd how I could have forgotten."
"If I am troubling you--" began Raut.