The Return | Page 6

into its shrill, passionless song. Lawford
moved heavy eyes from one object to another--bird--sun-gilded
stone--those two small earth-worn faces--his hands--a stirring in the
grass as of some creature labouring to climb up. It was useless to sit
here any longer. He must go back now. Fancies were all very well for a
change, but must be only occasional guests in a world devoted to
reality. He leaned his hand on the dark grey wood, and closed his eyes.
The lids presently unsealed a little, momentarily revealing astonished,
aggrieved pupils, and softly, slowly they again descended....
The flaming rose that had swiftly surged from the west into the zenith,
dyeing all the churchyard grass a wild and vivid green, and the
stooping stones above it a pure faint purple, waned softly back like a
falling fountain into its basin. In a few minutes, only a faint orange

burned in the west, dimly illuminating with its band of light the
huddled figure on his low wood seat, his right hand still pressed against
a faintly beating heart. Dusk gathered; the first white stars appeared;
out of the shadowy fields a nightjar purred. But there was only the
silence of the falling dew among the graves. Down here, under the
ink-black cypresses, the blades of the grass were stooping with cold
drops; and darkness lay like the hem of an enormous cloak, whose
jewels above the breast of its wearer might be in the unfathomable
clearness the glittering constellations....
In his small cage of darkness Lawford shuddered and raised a furtive
head. He stood up and peered eagerly and strangely from side to side.
He stayed quite still, listening as raptly as some wandering night-beast
to the indiscriminate stir and echoings of the darkness. He cocked his
head above his shoulder and listened again, then turned upon the
soundless grass towards the hill. He felt not the faintest astonishment or
strangeness in his solitude here; only a little chilled, and physically
uneasy; and yet in this vast darkness a faint spiritual exaltation seemed
to hover.
He hastened up the narrow path, walking with knees a little bent, like
an old labourer who has lived a life of stooping, and came out into the
dry and dusty lane. One moment his instinct hesitated as to which turn
to take--only a moment; he was soon walking swiftly, almost trotting,
downhill with this vivid exaltation in the huge dark night in his heart,
and Sheila merely a little angry Titianesque cloud on a scarcely
perceptible horizon. He had no notion of the time; the golden hands of
his watch were indiscernible in the gloom. But presently, as he passed
by, he pressed his face close to the cold glass of a little shop-window,
and pierced that out by an old Swiss cuckoo-clock. He would if he
hurried just be home before dinner.
He broke into a slow, steady trot, gaining speed as he ran on, vaguely
elated to find how well his breath was serving him. An odd smile
darkened his face at remembrance of the thoughts he had been thinking.
There could be little amiss with the heart of a man who could shamble
along like this, taking even pleasure, an increasing pleasure in this long,

wolf-like stride. He turned round occasionally to look into the face of
some fellow-wayfarer whom he had overtaken, for he felt not only this
unusual animation, this peculiar zest, but that, like a boy on some secret
errand, he had slightly disguised his very presence, was going masked,
as it were. Even his clothes seemed to have connived at this queer
illusion. No tailor had for these ten years allowed him so much latitude.
He cautiously at last opened his garden gate and with soundless agility
mounted the six stone steps, his latch-key ready in his gloveless hand,
and softly let himself into the house.
Sheila was out, it seemed, for the maid had forgotten to light the lamp.
Without pausing to take off his greatcoat, he hung up his hat, ran
nimbly upstairs, and knocked with a light knuckle on his bedroom door.
It was closed, but no answer came. He opened it, shut it, locked it, and
sat down on the bedside for a moment, in the darkness, so that he could
scarcely hear any other sound, as he sat erect and still, like some night
animal, wary of danger, attentively alert. Then he rose from the bed,
threw off his coat, which was clammy with dew, and lit a candle on the
dressing-table.
Its narrow flame lengthened, drooped, brightened, gleamed clearly. He
glanced around him, unusually contented--at the ruddiness of the low
fire, the brass bedstead, the warm red curtains, the soft silveriness here
and there. It seemed as if a heavy and dull dream had withdrawn out