The Soul of Nicholas Snyders | Page 4

fire. When he opened his
eyes, it was to meet the grey dawn. He felt cold, stiff, hungry, and
decidedly cross. Why had not Christina woke him up and given him his
supper. Did she think he had intended to pass the night on a wooden
chair? The girl was an idiot. He would go upstairs and tell her through
the door just what he thought of her.
His way upstairs led through the kitchen. To his astonishment, there sat
Christina, asleep before the burnt-out grate.

"Upon my word," muttered Nicholas to himself, "people in this house
don't seem to know what beds are for!"
But it was not Christina, so Nicholas told himself. Christina had the
look of a frightened rabbit: it had always irritated him. This girl, even
in her sleep, wore an impertinent expression--a delightfully impertinent
expression. Besides, this girl was pretty--marvellously pretty. Indeed,
so pretty a girl Nicholas had never seen in all his life before. Why had
the girls, when Nicholas was young, been so entirely different! A
sudden bitterness seized Nicholas: it was as though he had just learnt
that long ago, without knowing it, he had been robbed.
The child must be cold. Nicholas fetched his fur-lined cloak and
wrapped it about her.
There was something else he ought to do. The idea came to him while
drawing the cloak around her shoulders, very gently, not to disturb
her--something he wanted to do, if only he could think what it was. The
girl's lips were parted. She appeared to be speaking to him, asking him
to do this thing--or telling him not to do it. Nicholas could not be sure
which. Half a dozen times he turned away, and half a dozen times stole
back to where she sat sleeping with that delightfully impertinent
expression on her face, her lips parted. But what she wanted, or what it
was he wanted, Nicholas could not think.
Perhaps Christina would know. Perhaps Christina would know who she
was and how she got there. Nicholas climbed the stairs, swearing at
them for creaking.
Christina's door was open. No one was in the room; the bed had not
been slept upon. Nicholas descended the creaking stairs.
The girl was still asleep. Could it be Christina herself? Nicholas
examined the delicious features one by one. Never before, so far as he
could recollect, had he seen the girl; yet around her neck--Nicholas had
not noticed it before--lay Christina's locket, rising and falling as she
breathed. Nicholas knew it well; the one thing belonging to her mother
Christina had insisted on keeping. The one thing about which she had

ever defied him. She would never have parted with that locket. It must
be Christina herself. But what had happened to her? Or to himself.
Remembrance rushed in upon him. The odd pedlar! The scene with Jan!
But surely all that had been a dream? Yet there upon the littered desk
still stood the pedlar's silver flask, together with the twin stained
glasses.
Nicholas tried to think, but his brain was in a whirl. A ray of sunshine
streaming through the window fell across the dusty room. Nicholas had
never seen the sun, that he could recollect. Involuntarily he stretched
his hands towards it, felt a pang of grief when it vanished, leaving only
the grey light. He drew the rusty bolts, flung open the great door. A
strange world lay before him, a new world of lights and shadows, that
wooed him with their beauty--a world of low, soft voices that called to
him. There came to him again that bitter sense of having been robbed.
"I could have been so happy all these years," murmured old Nicholas to
himself. "It is just the little town I could have loved--so quaint, so quiet,
so homelike. I might have had friends, old cronies, children of my own
maybe--"
A vision of the sleeping Christina flashed before his eyes. She had
come to him a child, feeling only gratitude towards him. Had he had
eyes with which to see her, all things might have been different.
Was it too late? He is not so old--not so very old. New life is in his
veins. She still loves Jan, but that was the Jan of yesterday. In the
future, Jan's every word and deed will be prompted by the evil soul that
was once the soul of Nicholas Snyders--that Nicholas Snyders
remembers well. Can any woman love that, let the case be as handsome
as you will?
Ought he, as an honest man, to keep the soul he had won from Jan by
what might be called a trick? Yes, it had been a fair bargain, and Jan
had taken his price. Besides, it was not as if Jan had fashioned his own
soul;