The Survivor | Page 7

watching very soon this strange travelling companion of hers. The trousers above his clumsy boots were frayed and muddy, his black clothes were shiny and antiquated in cut--these, and his oddly-arranged white tie, somehow suggested the cleric. But when she reached his face her eyes lingered there. It puzzled and in a sense attracted her. His features were cleanly cut and prominent, his complexion was naturally pale, but wind and sun had combined to stain his cheeks with a slight healthy tan. His eyes were deep-set, keen and bright, the eyes of a visionary perhaps, but afire now with the instant excitement of living. A strange face for a man of his apparently humble origin. Whence had he come, and where was he going? The vision of his face as he had leaped into the carriage floated again before her eyes. Surely behind him were evil things, before him--what? She took up her novel again, but laid it down almost immediately. "You are going" she asked, "to London?"
"To London," he repeated dreamily. "Yes."
"But your luggage--was that left behind?"
He smiled.
"I have no luggage," he said. "You are going up for the day only?" she hazarded.
He shook his head. There was a note of triumph almost in his tone.
"I am going for good," he said. "If wishes count for anything I shall never set foot within this county again."
There was a story, she felt sure, connected with this strange fellow-passenger of hers. She watched him thoughtfully. A human document such as this was worth many novels. It was not the first time that he had excited her interest.
"London" she said, "is a wonderful place for young men."
He turned a rapt face towards her. The fire seemed leaping out of his eyes.
"Others have found it so," he said. "I go to prove their words."
"You are a stranger there, then?"
"I have never been further south than this in my life," he replied. "I know only the London of De Quincey and Lamb-London with the halo of romance around it."
She sighed gently.
"You will find it all so different," she said. "You will be bitterly disappointed."
He set his lips firmly together.
"I have no fear," he said. "I shall find it possible to live there, at any rate. If I stayed where I was, I must have gone mad."
"You are going to friends?" she asked.
He laughed softly.
"I have not a friend in the world," he said. "In London I do not know a soul. What matter? There is life to be lived there, prizes to be won. There is room for every one."
She half closed her eyes, watching him keenly all the time with an interest which was certainly not diminished.
"London is a wonderful city," she said, "but she is not always kind to the stranger. You have spoken of De Quincey who wove fairy fancies about her, and Lamb, who was an affectionate stay-at-home, a born dweller in cities. They were dreamers both, these men. What about Chatterton?"
"An unhappy exception," he said. "If only he had lived a few months longer his sorrows would have been over."
"To-day," she said, "there are many Chattertons who must die before the world will listen to them. Are you going to take your place amongst them?"
He smiled confidently.
"Not I," he answered. "I shall work with my hands if men will have none of my brains. Indeed," he continued, turning towards her with a swift, transfiguring smile, "I am not a village prodigy going to London with a pocketful of manuscripts. Don't think that of me. I am going to London because I have been stifled and choked--I want room to breathe, to see men and women who live. Oh, you don't know the sort of place I have come from--the brain poison of it, the hideous sameness and narrowness of it all."
"Tell me a little," she said, "and why at last you made up your mind to leave. It is not so long, you know, since I saw you in somewhat different guise."
A quick shiver seemed to pass through him; underneath his tanned skin he was paler, and the blood in his veins was cold. His eyes, fixed upon the flying landscape, were set in a fixed, unseeing stare--surely the fields were peopled with evil memories, and faces in the trees were mocking him. So he remained for several moments as though in the grip of a nightmare, and the lady watched him. There was a little tragedy, then, behind.
"There was a man once," he said, "who drew a line through his life, and said to himself that everything behind it concerned some other person--not him. So with me. Such memories as I have, I shall strangle. To-day I commence a new life."
She sighed.
"One's past" she said, "is not always so easily to be disposed of. There are ghosts which